A number of the leading citizens of Rome were summoned to a banquet at the palace at a late hour of the night. They were frozen with horror when they found that the entire dining-room--walls, ceiling, and floor--was draped in black, and a miniature tombstone, with his name engraved on it, was placed opposite each guest. As they gazed, a number of nude boys, whose bodies were washed with ink, burst into the room and danced amongst them, and then the dishes of a funeral banquet were served. The guests sat silent and shivering; the Emperor grimly discoursed to them of deaths and executions. When the banquet was over, they were relieved to find themselves dismissed. They found, however, that their litters had been sent away, and they were put into strange vehicles, with strange servants. The gloomy journey ended at their own houses, and they were beginning to breathe, when they were thrown into fresh alarm by the news that a messenger had come from the palace. The messenger to each guest was one of the dancing boys, now cleaned, perfumed, and clothed with flowers, bearing the gold and silver vessels which the guest had used at the banquet. The boys and the dishes were presented to them with the Emperor’s greeting. Unhappily, Domitian did not confine himself to intimidation. The heads of the wealthier nobles fell in quick succession, and, in great secrecy, amid an army of spies, the Empress and a few others came to an understanding. The story of the actual fall of the tyrant has clearly been embroidered with a good deal of unauthentic detail in popular gossip, but even in its most sober version it does not lack romance. The version which Dio assures us he “had heard” is one that the conscientious historian must hesitate to accept. The Emperor, he says, had been informed of the conspiracy, and had drawn up a list of those who were to be executed for taking part in it. He put the list under his pillow, with the sword which he always kept there, and went to sleep. We have previously seen something of the bejewelled boys who used to run with great freedom about the palaces of the Romans of the first century. Domitian, the great censor of other people’s vices, had a number of them, and the legend is that one of them, playing in his bedroom, noticed the parchment under his pillow, and took it out into the palace. Domitia met the boy, and idly glanced at the parchment. She saw her own name at the head of the list of the condemned, and at once summoned the other conspirators. They entered the Emperor’s room, snatched the sword from under his pillow, and despatched him.