"Mehercule! the fetters gall though they be golden," ejaculated the soldier, lashing his steeds into swifter flight, as if to give vent to his nervous excitement. "I plunge into folly to forget that I am a slave. Lost a hundred thousand sesterces at dice last night. The empire is hurrying to chaos. There are no paths of honour and ambition open to a man. One must crouch like a hound or crawl like a serpent to win advancement in the state. I tell you the degenerate Romans of to-day are an effete and worn out race. The rude Dacians beyond the Tiber possess more of the hardy virtues of the founders of the Republic than the craven creatures who crawl about the feet of the modern Colossi, who bestride the world and are worshipped almost as gods. And unless Rome mends her ways they will be the masters of the Empire yet."
"One would think you were Cato the Censor," laughed the Greek. "For my part, I think the best philosophy is that of my wise countryman, Epicurus—'to take the times as they come, and make the most of them.' But here we are at the Thermæ."
Giving his horses to one of the innumerable grooms belonging to the establishment, Rufus and his friend disappeared under the lofty arched entrance of the stately Baths of Caracalla.
FOOTNOTES:
Video, proboque meliora,
Deterioraque sequor.—Hor.
[CHAPTER XV]
AT THE BATHS.
Nothing can give one a more striking conception of Roman life under the Empire than the size, number, and magnificence of the public baths. Those of Caracalla are a typical example. They covered an area of fifteen hundred by twelve hundred and fifty feet, the surrounding grounds being a mile in circumference. They formed a perfect wilderness of stately halls, and corridors, and chambers, the very mouldering remains of which strike one with astonishment. Of this very structure, the poet Shelley, in the preface of his "Prometheus Unbound," remarks: "This poem was chiefly written upon the mountainous ruins of the Baths of Caracalla, among the flowery glades and thickets of odoriferous blossoming trees, which are extended in ever-widening labyrinths upon its immense platforms, and dizzy arches suspended in the air." Piers of sold masonry soar aloft like towers, on the summit of which good-sized trees are growing. Climbing one of those massive towers, the present writer enjoyed a glorious sunset-view of the mighty maze, of the crumbling ruins which rose like stranded wrecks above the sea of verdure all around, and of the far spreading and desolate Campagna.