ny
form of self-torment, and made one think of the muzzle of some young
hound or roe, such as human beings invariably like to stroke--a
physiognomy, in effect, with all the goodliness of animalism of the
finer sort, though still wholly animal. The charm was that of the
blond head, the unshrinking gaze, the warm tints: neither more nor less
than one may see every English summer, in youth, manly enough, and with
the stuff which makes brave soldiers, in spite of the natural kinship
it seems to have with playthings and gay flowers. But innate in Lucius
Verus there was that more than womanly fondness for fond things, which
had made the atmosphere of the old city of Antioch, heavy with
centuries of voluptuousness, a poison to him: he had come to love his
delicacies best out of season, and would have gilded the very flowers.
But with a wonderful power of self-obliteration, the elder brother at
the capital had directed his procedure successfully, and allowed him,
become now also the husband of his daughter Lucilla, the credit of a
"Conquest," though Verus had certainly not returned a conqueror over
himself. He had returned, as we know, with the plague in his company,
along with many another strange creature of his folly; and when the
people saw him publicly feeding his favourite horse Fleet with almonds
and sweet grapes, wearing the animal's image in gold, and [196] finally
building it a tomb, they felt, with some un-sentimental misgiving, that
he might revive the manners of Nero.--What if, in the chances of war,
he should survive the protecting genius of that elder brother?

He was all himself to-day: and it was with much wistful curiosity that
Marius regarded him. For Lucius Verus was, indeed, but the highly
expressive type of a class,--the true son of his father, adopted by
Hadrian. Lucius Verus the elder, also, had had the like strange
capacity for misusing the adornments of life, with a masterly grace; as
if such misusing were, in truth, the quite adequate occupation of an
intelligence, powerful, but distorted by cynical philosophy or some
disappointment of the heart. It was almost a sort of genius, of which
there had been instances in the imperial purple: it was to ascend the
throne, a few years later, in the person of one, now a hopeful little
lad at home in the palace; and it had its following, of course, among
the wealthy youth at Rome, who concentrated no inconsiderable force of
shrewdness and tact upon minute de