or religious, and the aim of centralising all government, still manifested true clemency to the followers of Christ, and a wish to avoid persecuting them. The Middle Ages accorded his memory fresh fame. Pope Gregory the Great considered that the soul of such a good heathen emperor should be saved by the intercession of religion. Trajan was prayed for in Purgatory and redeemed. The doctors of divinity combated such remission of the damnation of a soul, but the saints have accepted the deliverance of Trajan. The Greek church has this phrase in its ritual: "O God, pardon him as Thou hast pardoned Trajan by St. Gregory." Thomas Aquinas, as the Angelical Doctor, has sought to explain how, without heresy, this charitable miracle was accomplished. Dante places Trajan in Paradise. During a long and glorious reign the devotion of the people caused his portrait busts and statues, common-place, with a low forehead, and even lacking heroic or benevolent expression, to be multiplied. At his death these memorials were not destroyed. "More happy than Augustus or

better than Trajan" became a flattering formula of address to powerful sovereigns. Even more majestic is the suggestion that in Wallachia and other Danubian provinces, where this mighty ruler planted the Roman eagle, previously cast down under Domitian, the souvenir of him has lingered with a mythological significance. The thunder is the voice of Trajan, and the Milky Way his high-road in the skies. Legend is here. conquest and apotheosis. In the twelfth century the municipality of Rome took measures to protect the edifices erected by Pliny's master, because of the virtues of an emperor who merited immortality.

Mellow sunshine of all the passing years traces the marvellous story unrolled on Trajan's column in the Eternal City. This monument, once crowned by his statue, holding a gilded ball, comprises his history, pedestal of his power, trophy of his glory, and guardian of his ashes. The bas-reliefs are the recital of an ancient volumen, the memoirs, carved in stone, of his campaigns, more enduring than the writings of Marius Max

imius, Fabius Marcellinus, Aurelius Verus, Statius Valens, or the Greek poems of Caninius Rufus. The homage of a conquered world may be traced, mounting the shaft to the feet of the emperor, Roman soldiers crossing rivers, Dacian ambassadors presenting tribute, the building of camps, and the siege of towns.

Pliny's place was at the base of the column, writing the panegyric of his patron, who sought to occupy himself with the well-being of all classes in his vast domain. The praises of Pliny were couched in the most flowery language, and extol Trajan for affording a spectacle "not destined to soften the soul, but calculated to stimulate courage, to familiarise with noble wounds, and to inspire us with scorn of death." He was in himself rather a conscientious minister than one born to govern.

Pliny enters on the most interesting phase of his career to posterity when he returned from foreign service, and became the country gentleman. He liked to escape from town life to the rural home, in common with his contemporaries,

and mankind in general. He enjoyed a suburban retreat in a pavilion at Tusculum, another on the Tiber, and a property facing the Tyrrhenian Sea, the Laurentine villa described by him, with the air as pure as that of Attica, amidst the thyme of Hymettus, terraces, galleries, and circular chambers, screened from the north by gardens and pine-woods. He sought his native Como, where he had several mansions. The site of the charming spot called Comedy, situated on the brink of the water, and of another abode. on a height known as Tragedy, have become traditional.

Behold our amiable host, "le plus doux des hommes," quitting his house on the Esquiline to linger in the pure air of the Apennines, or push on to Como. No direct train of the day or night express swept him over plain and through tunnelled hillside. He departed from Rome by one of her four roads which traversed the land like arteries, probably the great northern route, the Flaminian Way, which led from Porta Salara by Soracte and the Sabine hills, northeast to An

cona, Rimini, thence known as Via Emilia, to Piacenza, Milan, and Cisalpine Gaul. "All roads

lead to Rome."

Pliny does not seem to have built roads, like the Censor, C. Flaminius, but availed himself of Roman munificence, public and private. The Curator often spent large sums out of private fortunes on repairs. Slaves and convicts laboured to drain off the rain, and trace the route with reference to the nature of the rocky statumen, a lower bed of rough stones being omitted if the rock itself could be carefully levelled to receive rudus and neucleus, on which the lava pavement was bedded. In marshy districts the statumen was replaced by wooden piles, and frequently in valleys a viaduct of masonry was substituted. Ditches (fossa) were dug on either side, and milestones, milliaria, erected. Special rates for repairs were paid. In Rome each house was taxed for the pavement opposite. Julius Cæsar was Curator of the Via Appia, and Cornutius Tertullus of Via Emilia. Ramuli were small cross-roads leading from main thoroughfares,