es of the necessary structure of the state were constantly
in want of more funds than could be supplied to them. I knew that this
want of supplies crippled our commanders along the Euphrates, the Danube,
the Rhine and the Wall, as well as far up the Nile and in the Euxine and
made possible the insolence of the Ethiopians and Caledonians as well as
the greater insolence of the Parthians, Goths and Germans.

Yet, when conditions so urgently called for greater expenditures along our
frontiers and for close economy at home, I beheld our Prince stinting his
commanders and their heroic legions and lavishing upon his own pleasure
and the gratification of his amazing vanity sums which would have enabled
our eagles not only to defy all assailants of our frontiers but to humble
and subdue every threatening foe, even to penetrate and subjugate Nubia,
Parthia and inner Germany. I sickened at the thought of our shame along
the frontiers as at the thought of the energies of thousands upon
thousands of hard-muscled, bold-hearted young men wasted on capturing
beasts and the like energies of thousands upon thousands of hardy peasants
who ought to have been busy at productive labor on farms or in forests or
mines, wasted on caring for and transporting swarms of beasts for Commodus
to kill.

Those thoughts were depressing. I could not banish them.

The next day the mood persisted. I had nothing to do, did not feel like
doing anything in particular and yet felt restless. The weather was
perfect. I set off afoot for a place not far from my cottage, not far
enough to be called a long walk, where a big gray crag or small cliff like
an inland promontory, a spur of a forested mountain, towered up from the
southeastern side of the Flaminian Highway. At that point the road was the
boundary of the Imperial estate; the crag lay outside it, and, at that
part of its foot which projected farthest, was not a hundred yards from
the highway. The mountain rose a thousand feet or more from the meadows
along the road. The crag was full three hundred feet high. It was
perfectly possible to toil up the steep wooded slope of the mountain and
walk out on either of two bush-covered shelves which ran round the crag.
From the lower of these, where it belted the front of the vertical cliff,
there was a fine view down upon the highway and along it both ways; from
the upper more of the highway could be seen; from the very top of the
crag, which was bare except for t