Paulus's natural courage and enterprising temper had carried him thus far; but his design of accosting and directly addressing Augustus Cæsar now seemed, when he had more speedily found an opportunity of doing so than he could have dared to hope, a strange and difficult undertaking. How he should procure access to the emperor had been the problem with him and his family heretofore; but now, when the access was already achieved, and when he had only to speak—now when his voice was sure to reach the ears of the emperor himself—he knew not what to say or how to begin. He had thought of splendid topics, of deductions which he would draw, certain arguments which he would urge—a matter very plain and easy: in fine, a statement simple, brief, and conclusive; but all this had vanished from his mind. There before him, holding back the folds of his toga with one white hand, upon the back of which more than seventy years had brought out a tracery of blue varicose veins—a modern doctor would call them—with the other hand, which was gloved, and grasping the fellow glove, laid upon the arm of the knight already mentioned, stood the person who, under forms, the republican semblance of which he carefully preserved, exercised throughout the whole civilized and nearly the whole known world, over at least two if not three hundred million souls, a power as uncontrolled and as absolute for all practical purposes as any which, before him or after him, ever fell to man's lot; enthusiastically guarded and religiously obeyed by legions before whom mankind trembled, and whose superiors as soldiers had not been seen then and have not been seen since; the perpetual tribune of the people, the prince, senator, perpetual consul, the supreme judge, the arbiter of life and death, the umpire in the greatest concerns between foreign disputants travelling from the ends of the earth to plead before him; the dispenser of prefectures, provinces, proconsulates, tetrarchies, and kingdoms; treated by kings as those kings were themselves treated by the high functionaries whom they had appointed or confirmed, and could in an instant dismiss; the unprincipled, cruel, wicked, but moderate-tempered, cold-humored, cautious, graceful-mannered, elegant-minded, worldly-wise, and politic prince, who paid assiduous court to all the givers and destroyers of reputation—I mean, to the men of letters. There he stood, as we have described him, holding his toga with one hand and leaning upon Mamurra's arm with the other; and Paulus stood before him, and Paulus knew not what to say; hardly, indeed—so quickly the sense of bashfulness, confusion, depression had gained upon him—hardly how to look.
"If you have heard," observed Tiberius at length, "pray stand aside."
Paulus, who, while Tiberius was speaking, had looked at him, now glanced again toward the emperor, and still hesitated, made a shuffling bow, and stood partly aside.
"What is it you wish to say?" asked Augustus, in a somewhat feeble voice, not at all ungraciously.
"I wish," said Paulus, becoming very pale, "to say, my sovereign, that my father's property in this very neighborhood was taken away after the battle of Philippi and given to strangers, and to beg of your justice and clemency to give back that property or an equivalent to me, who am my dead father's only son."
"But," said Augustus smiling, "half the land in Italy changed hands about the time you mention. Your father fought for Brutus, I suppose?"
"My father fought for you, my lord," said Paulus.
"Singular!" exclaimed Augustus; "but this is not a court of justice—the courts are open to you."
At this moment Sejanus and one whom Paulus presumed to be in Rome, Cneius Piso, attended by a slave, appeared from a cross street. The slave approached quickly, holding a pigeon; and having caught the eye of Augustus, who beckoned to him, he handed the bird to the emperor.
Paulus withdrew a little, but lingered near the group. Augustus, disengaging a piece of thin paper from the pigeon's neck, said,