"He is absent and I represent him," said Domitian.
"Then," answered Marcus, "I appeal to Vespasian Cæsar, to whom I will tell all. I am a Roman noble of no mean rank, and I have a right to be tried by Cæsar, not by a packed court, whose president has a grudge against me for private matters."
"Insolent!" shouted Domitian. "Your appeal shall be laid before Cæsar, as it must--that is, if he will hear it. Tell us now, where is that woman whom you bought in the Forum, for we desire her testimony?"
"Prince, I do not know," answered Marcus. "It is true that she came to my house, but then and there I gave her freedom and she departed from it with her nurse, nor can I tell whither she went."
"I thought that you were only a coward, but it seems that you are a liar as well," sneered Domitian. Then he consulted with the officers and added, "We judge the case to be proved against you, and for having disgraced the Roman arms, when, rather than be taken prisoner, many a meaner man died by his own hand, you are worthy of whatever punishment it pleases Cæsar to inflict. Meanwhile, till his pleasure is known, I command that you shall be confined in the private rooms of the military prison near the Temple of Mars, and that if you attempt to escape thence you shall be put to death. You have liberty to draw up your case in writing, that it may be transmitted to Cæsar, my father, together with a transcript of the evidence against you."
"Now," replied Marcus bitterly, "I am tempted to do what you say I should have done before, die by my own hand, rather than endure such shameful words and this indignity. But that my honour will not suffer. When Cæsar has heard my case and when Titus, my general, also gives his verdict against me, I will die, but not before. You, Prince, and you, Captains, who have never drawn sword outside the streets of Rome, you call me coward, me, who have served with honour through five campaigns, who, from my youth till now have been in arms, and this upon the evidence of a renegade Jew who, for years, has been my private enemy, and of a soldier whom I scourged as a thief. Look now upon this breast and say if it is that of a coward!" and rending his robes asunder, Marcus exposed his bosom, scarred with four white wounds. "Call my comrades, those with whom I have fought in Gaul, in Sicily, in Egypt and in Judæa, and ask them if Marcus is a coward? Ask that Jew even, to whom I gave his life, whether Marcus is a coward?"