Laetus, too had also
participated, sometimes in place of Eclectus, sometimes along with him,
for he also had been comporting himself more as a chum of Commodus than as
Prefect of the Praetorium towards his Emperor.
The substance of the discussions had been always the same. Commodus, at
once after the death of Murmex, announced his intention of turning his
Imperial duties and dignities over to Ducconius Furfur and of going to the
Choragium, there and thenceforward to live and to die as Palus the
Gladiator. He declared that as Emperor he never had an hour free from
anxiety, always in dread of assassination by poison or otherwise, whereas,
as a gladiator among gladiators, he felt perfectly safe and carefree,
beloved and watched over by all his companions and certain to win all his
fights.
"As Emperor," he said, "I'll not live a year; as Palus I'll most likely
die of old age, forty years or more from now. Furfur and I are so alike
that no one can tell us apart, so no one will ever suspect that the man
acting as Emperor is not the same man who has filled that place ever since
Father died."
Marcia had talked to him of his duty and he had rejoined that he had
always known that he was unfit to be the Emperor, had feared his
responsibilities, had undertaken them unwillingly, had mostly bungled
them, and the world would be far better off with anybody else as Emperor,
that everybody knew it and that he was despised by the whole Senate and
nobility and for that reason more unhappy although he was unhappy enough
so anyhow, without the covert jeers of the magistrates; whereas he was the
best gladiator ever and all gladiators and experts acknowledged and
acclaimed him peerless; as a gladiator he would be happy and enjoy life up
to whatever end came to him, preferably an unexpected accidental sudden
death such as had befallen Murmex.
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