He glanced at the scrawled characters, and it occurred to him that he had intended to change the word dwarf in one line to Caesar, and to keep the third and most trenchant epigram from the emperor.

The fourth and last was very innocent, and he had meant to read it last, to mollify him.

So he did not wish to show the tablets.

But, as he was about to take them back, Caracalla snatched them from his hand and read with some difficulty: "Fraternal love was once esteemed A virtue even in the great, And Philadelphos then was deemed A name to grace a potentate.
But now the dwarf upon the throne, By murder of his mother's son, As Misadelphos must be known." "Indeed!" murmured Caesar, with a pale face, and then he went on in a low, sullen tone: "Always the same story--my brother, and my small stature.

In this town they follow the example of the barbarians, it would seem, who choose the tallest and broadest of their race to be king.