the arts, and all the trades;—such was the motley crowd that now roared around them while yet they were outside the gates. Now the road was lined on each side with tombs, among which they passed the enormous round tower of Cæcilia Metella, a sepulchre, like the Egyptian pyramids, built for eternity. From this spot there extended a long line of tombs, containing the noblest dead of Rome. Our party went on and drew nearer. They passed the Grotto of Egeria, with a grove around it, which was hired out to the Jews. They passed the place on which tradition says that Hannibal stood and hurled his dart over the walls, and came near to the Porta Capena, where one of the aqueducts ran right over the top of the gate.

What thoughts were these which so absorbed the mind of the great apostle, that he seemed to notice nothing around him? Was it the magnitude and splendour of the capital; or rather the vast power of that heathenism with which he was making

war?

What that society was into which he was carrying the gospel of the Saviour, he knew well; and we, too, may know, if we regard the pictures which are presented to us by men who wrote not many years after this reign of Nero. There is the greatest of Roman historians, and the mightiest of satirists. Each has left his record. Were that record single, we might think it exaggerated; but each is supported by the other. Were Juvenal only before us, we might think his statements the extravagance of a poet or a satirist; but all that Juvenal affirms is supported and strengthened by the terrible calmness of Tacitus; in whom there is no trace of passion, but the impartial description of hideous reigns, drawn up by one whose own heart that age had filled with bitterness.

What, then, is the picture which we find in these pages?

The simple virtues of the old republic had long since passed away. Freedom had taken her eternal flight. The people were debased, and looked on in silence at the perpetration of

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enormous crimes. After Nero's dealings with his mother, he could still be emperor. The name of religion was applied to a system corrupt to the inmost centre. No one believed in it who had any pretence to intelligence. Public honour and justice were almost unknown; and conquered provinces were only regarded as victims of oppression. Private virtues had almost vanished; and honour and truth and mercy were little more than empty sounds. Decency itself had departed; and vices which cannot be named in our day were freely practised, unchecked by public opinion. It was a society where vice had penetrated to the heart of almost every household. That was the most familiar thought which was the most impure. Honour had fled from men, chastity from women, innocence from children.

And what contrasts appeared in that society to their eyes! They saw one emperor cutting away a mountain to build an imperial palace; and another summoning a council of state to decide about the cooking of a fish. They saw the name and fame and glory of the old republican heroes all forgotten by their degenerate descendants, who now prided themselves in nothing so much as their skill in detecting at a single taste the native bed of an oyster or sea-urchin. Effeminate nobles wore light or heavy finger-rings to accord with the varying temperature of the summer and winter seasons, and yet could order a score of slaves to be crucified as an after-dinner pastime. This was the time when blood-thirsty myriads were watching the death-agonies of gladiators whose vengeful kindred were raging all along the borders of the empire; when Roman soldiers abroad were beating back the Dacians, or marching against the Druids, in the Isle of Mona, while Boadicea led on the tribes to the vengeance of Camulodune; and when Roman citizens at home were scrambling for their daily dole of victuals at the doors of the great; when he was most fortunate who was most vicious; and they obtained wealth and honour who, by (183)

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forging wills, had defrauded the widow and the orphan; when a fierce populace, fresh from the amphitheatre, and a nobility polluted by vices without a name, and an emperor stained with the guilt of a mother's murder; gazing mockingly upon the death-agonies of martyrs who died in flames, clothed in the tunica molesta; when, for year after year, and generation after generation, all these evils grew worse, till, in the fearful words of Tacitus, "They would have lost memory also with their voice, if it had been possible as well to forget as to keep silent." It may be urged, however, that there was much virtue in spite of all this vice. True, there was virtue, and that too of a high order. There are names which glow with a lustre all the

brighter for the darkness that is around them. They irradiate the gloom of Tacitus' histories; and make us exult in seeing how hard it is for corruption to extinguish the manly or the noble sentiment. Pætus Thrasea, Aurulenus Rusticus, Helvidius Priscus would adorn any age. Lucan alone might have ennobled this. Seneca's life may have been doubtful; but who can remain unmoved at the spectacle of his death? Afterward Tacitus and Pliny sustained their virtuous friendship, and found others like themselves-kindred spirits-who made life not endurable, but delightful. In that age and in the subsequent one there were good and high-hearted men; for did not the "good emperors" succeed the "bad emperors?" Trajan would have adorned the noblest age of the world. Marcus Aurelius stands among the first of those who have ruled. In addition to these great characters of history, there were no doubt many men, of an obscure order, who passed through life in an obscure way, and yet were honest and high-minded citizens. There were, no doubt, many like Juvenal's Umbricius, who deplored the vice around them, and believed with him that Rome was no place for honest men; but tried to be honest in their way. There must have been many of these, of whom Umbricius is only a type; too plain-spoken to succeed in a

generation of flatterers, and too high-minded to stoop to that baseness by which alone advancement could be obtained.

Moreover, Rome was not the world. Beside the capital, there was the country. There, as Umbricius says, might be found simplicity, virtue, and honesty. Among the simple, the high-minded, and the frugal rustics, the vice of the city was unknown. In the rural districts, without doubt, the great masses of men continued as they had ever been-neither better nor

worse.

Let us allow all this-that there was this exceptional morality in the city, and this rural simplicity in the country. What remains ?

Simply this that after all, Rome was the head, the heart, and the brain of the world. It guided. It led the way. What availed all else when this was incurably disorganized? Its virtuous characters found themselves in a hopeless minority. They could do nothing against the downward pressure all around them. They struggled, they died; and other generations arose in which the state of things was worse. The whole head was sick, the whole heart faint. The life of the state, as it centred round its heart, drew corruption from it which passed through every fibre. Society was going to decay, and one thing alone could save the world.

That remedy was now brought by the man whom we have described.

But now our party have passed under the dripping archway of the Porta Capena; and the centurion conveys to his destined abode the Jew who had appealed unto Cæsar.

II.

The Young Athenian.

PON the slopes of the Apennines, in the vicinity of
Tibur, stood the villa of Lucius Sulpicius Labeo.
From the front there was an extensive prospect,

which commanded the wide Campania and the distant capital. The villa was of modest proportions, in comparison with many others near it, yet of most elegant style. The front was decorated with a broad portico, before which was a terrace covered with flowers and shrubbery; the walks were bordered with box-wood, which in places was cut into the forms of animals and vases. The public road was about a quarter of a mile away; and a broad avenue of plane-trees connected it with the house, winding in such a way as to afford a gentle descent, and where it joined the road there was a neat porter's house. Behind the villa were out-houses and barns; on the right was an extensive kitchen-garden; on the left an orchard and vineyard, surrounding the steward's house.

Other villas dotted the slopes of the mountains far and near. The most conspicuous among these was the one immediately adjoining, a most magnificent establishment, which far exceeded that of Labeo in extent and splendour. This was the villa of Pedanius Secundus, at this time prefect of the city. From the terrace of Labeo the greater part of this estate could be seen; but the eye rested most upon a sickening spectacle at