A dreamy languor spread over his nobly chiselled features An expression of pain but rarely passed over them, and Caesar's whole appearance reminded the painter of the fine Ephesian gladiator hallistos as he lay on the sand, severely wounded after his last fight, awaiting the death-stroke.

He would have liked to hasten home and fetch his materials to paint the likeness of the misjudged man, and to show it to the scoffers.
He stood silent, absorbed in studying the quiet face so finely formed by Nature and so pathetic to look at.

No thoroughly depraved miscreant could look like that.

Yet it was like a peaceful sea: when the hurricane should break loose, what a boiling whirl of gray, hissing, tossing, foaming waves would disfigure the peaceful, smooth, glittering surface! And suddenly the emperor's features began to show signs of animation.
His eye, but now so dull, shone more brightly, and he cried out, as if the long silence had scarcely broken the thread of his ideas, but in a still husky voice: "I should like to get up and go with you, but I am still too weak.

Do you go now, my friend, and bring me back fresh news." Alexander then begged him to consider how dangerous every excitement would be for him; yet Caracalla exclaimed, eagerly: "It will strengthen me and dome good! Everything that surrounds me is so hollow, so insipid, so contemptible--what I hear is so small.