snowy turban and her bright-coloured dress strikingly contrasted with her jet complexion and homely features. Yet, as the personal attendant of the young empress

rridor to the triclinium, or banquet chamber. It was a family party, rather than a state banquet, but neither Greeks nor Romans practised a profuse hospitality nor held large social

ng on his left arm. On ivory chairs facing the open side of the square sat the Empress Prisca (a majestic-looking matron of somewhat grave aspect), Valeria

e livers of capons steeped in milk; next oysters brought alive from the distant shores of Great Britain, and, reversing our order, fish in great variety-one of the most beautiful of these was the purple mullet-served with high-seasoned condiments and sauces. Of solid meats the favourite dish was a

d, that the ambiguity of the expression excused the act, they also, apparently to the great relief of the emperor, poured out a libation and sipped a small quantity of the wine. The emperor then drank to the health of his wife and daughter, wishing the latter many returns of the auspicious day they had met to

, who gave their attention chiefly to the enjoyment of the good fare set before them. Another sinister-looking fellow, with a disagreeable cast in one eye and a nervous habit of clenching his hand as if grasping his sword, was Quintus Naso, the prefect of the city. He had been a successful soldier, or rather butcher, in the Pannonian wars, and was promoted to his bad eminence of office on account of his truculent severity. Of very different character, however, was a young man of noble family, Adauctus by name, who was present in his official character as Tr

he emperor to the prefect, as a splendid roast p

from the rostra of the Forum, like that mad wretch at Nicomedia; but he was taken in the act. He expiates to-night his crime, so soon as I shall have w

peror with a sneer, for, like all tyrants, he d

e from the dead. Heard ever any man such utter folly as that! Whereas I have satisfied myself, from a study of the official records, that he was only a Jewish thaumaturge and conjuror, who used to work p

mans took care to prevent such a trick as that by p

; "but if they did, the dastards were either overpowered, or th

a story about a whole maniple of soldiers. You and I know too well,

dentity of name of one of these with the god Janus, that they merely borrowed the story from the Roman mythology. This execrable superstition, they say, was brought to Rome by two brothers named Paulus and Simon Magus. They both expiated their crimes, one in the Mammertine Prison, the other without the Ostian Gate. They sa

ith you in that,

ror; "I am glad to know that so brav

old about the Christians are calumnies that no ca

many enemies at court," replied Diocletian; "but we will soon

ivine Majesty," replied that worthy, with a m

n they die their souls shall live in some blander clime, and breathe some more ethereal air. 'Tis this

of the Elysian fields and the asphodel meadows where the spirits of heroe

or the cultured classes, to which your Imperial Highness belongs. Even the priests themselves do not believe in the existence of the gods at whose

ophers-the thoughtful Pliny, the profound Tacitus, the sage Seneca, and even the eloquent Cicero whom you have quoted-

aso, to whom ethical themes were by no means familiar or welcome. My creed is emb

manes, et subt

nisi qui nondum ?

fe is short; let us make the most of it. I'd like to press its nectar into a single draught and have done with it for ever. As the easy-going Horace says, 'The same thing happens to us

rse. At the signal the ladies rose and retired. Adauctus also made his official duties an excuse for

e-have agitated the world from the very dawn of philosophy. Did space permit, we might cite the theories of Lucretius as a strange anticipation of the development hypot

TNO

said to have fed his lampreys with the bodies of his slave

tical a critic as Gibbon, and his epitaph has been fo

ng school rival this pagan sophist in elimin

were gravely related to the present writer, on the scene

g, or the nether world anything, not even boy

most beautiful of the ode

nos in

impositu