Excerpt from The Doomed City

Evidently he loved the exercise of walking, since, had it pleased him to do so, he could have ridden, for at a respectable distance there followed, led by a couple of slaves, his two-horsed rheda, a traveling - car of sculptured bronze, provided with a leathern hood and silken awnings, and containing such necessary luggage (aptly named impedimenta by the Romans) as a man of simple tastes would require on a long journey.

Crispus, whose age was perhaps twenty-five years, had a powerful yet graceful figure, eyes of a deep gray, crisp hair of a bronzed hue, and a handsome face, as clear cut as if sculptured from marble, a face whose pure complexion spoke of pure living - a rare virtue in that age - a face whose keen, ardent look gave promise that its owner was one born to achieve distinction, if indeed he had not already achieved it. An antique Roman, ' one would say on seeing him, Since he still adhered to the wearing of the stately toga, which in the first century was fast becoming superseded by the Grecian tunic; moreover, the ring on his finger was not of gold, but of iron, in accordance with ancient usage.

In journeying along he had caught sight, by the wayside, of a stone pillar engraved with letters which told that the said pillar was distant from Rome by the space of one thousand five hundred miles. Thus far, yea, and hundreds of miles farther, did the Roman power extend in this, the twelfth year of the reign of the Emperor Nero. Crispus' stern smile gave the keynote to his character - pride in the Empire founded by his forefathers, determination to maintain that Em pire, though it cost him limb and life.

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