Once I snatched the pencil out of the hand of the freedman as he was writing the sentences, 'The horse neighs, the pig grunts, the goat bleats, the cow lows, the sheep baas.' 'He, himself,' I added, 'croaks like a hoarse jay.' "That I should share the government with this miserable, faint-hearted, poisonous nobody could never be,--this enemy, who, when I said 'Yes,' cried 'No!' Who frustrated all my measures,--it was impossible! It would have caused the destruction of the state, as certainly as it was the unfairest and unwisest of the deeds of Severus, to place the younger brother as co-regent with the first-born, the rightful heir to the throne.

I, whom my father had taught to watch for signs, was reminded every hour that this unbearable position must come to an end.
"After the death of Severus, we lived at first close to one another in separate parts of the same palace like two lions in a cage across which a partition has been erected, so that they may not reciprocally mangle each other.
"We used to meet at my mother's.
"That morning my mastiff had bitten Geta's wolfhound and killed him, and they had found a black liver in the beast he had sent for sacrifice.
I had been informed of this.

Destiny was on my side.

This indolent inactivity must be brought to a close.

I myself do not know how I felt as I mounted the steps to my mother's rooms.