“The Heat Wave” (1929) — The Public Domain Review

Feron (now Ferronius) wakes in Ancient Rome. The sun is hot here too. “Its burning rays even penetrated the purple splendor of the gold-fringed awnings over the seventy thousand perspiring people who sat or sprawled on the marble benches, gasping with heat and excitement, their dripping bodies swaying with the motion of the contests below.” The city is in the midst of a three-month drought, the Tiber running low and oily. What are the people to do but enjoy the bread and circus of the Colosseum? Ferronius sits beside the emperor and silently rehashes his scheme. Days earlier, he had bribed Marcellus, the director of bloodsports, to smuggle his slender, Christian lover, Vedia, out of prison. But he has been double-crossed. The gloating Marcellus, “thick lips hanging moist and red”, signals for Vedia to be led into the pit. She’s torn to pieces by three lions before his eyes. Hot-headed Ferronius strangles Marcellus to death in revenge.