ntides, I
have many friends in the Palace. I have carefully kept out of it myself
and Orontides has acquiesced, for I told him I had good reason to avoid
going in there, as you well know I have. If Marcia had seen me she would
have recognized me and I should not have lived many hours, for she,
believing you dead, would regard me as, of all men, the most likely to see
through the utilization of Ducconius Furfur as a dummy Emperor to free
Commodus for masquerading as Palus. She would want me out of the way as
the only man in Rome who had known Furfur in Sabinum. Therefore I kept
away from the Palace.

"But my good friends among the valets and chamberlains and secretaries,
and even higher officials have not only kept me posted as to the most
interesting happenings, intrigues and rumors, but one or two close to the
Emperor have regularly communicated to me many details of Palace gossip."

Daily, since the death of Murmex, Agathemer had been informed of long,
heated and ever longer and more violent discussions between Commodus and
Marcia, often, with Eclectus also present and participating, for he had
been acting towards Commodus more as an equal toward a crony than as Head
Chamberlain of the Palace towards his master. Laetus, too had also
participated, sometimes in place of Eclectus, sometimes along with him,
for he also had been comporting himself more as a chum of Commodus than as
Prefect of the Praetorium towards his Emperor.

The substance of the discussions had been always the same. Commodus, at
once after the death of Murmex, announced his intention of turning his
Imperial duties and dignities over to Ducconius Furfur and of going to the
Choragium, there and thenceforward to live and to die as Palus the
Gladiator. He declared that as Emperor he never had an hour free from
anxiety, always in dread of assassination by poison or otherwise, whereas,
as a gladiator among gladiators, he felt perfectly safe and carefree,
beloved and watched over by all his companions and certain to win all his
fights.

"As Emperor," he said, "I'll not live a year; as Palus I'll most likely
die of old age, forty years or more from now. Furfur and I are so alike
that no one can tell us apart, so no one will ever suspect that the man
acting as Emperor is not the same man who has filled that place ever since
Father died."

Marcia had talked to him of his duty and he had rejoined that he had
always known that he was unfit to be the Emperor,