's downfall,

'Twas not the defeat of a man! No! The power and the glory

Of Rome were brought low; represented in him was the honor

Of sturdy Republican Rome. So, abandoned and wretched,

The city has purchased dishonor: has purchased herself!

Despoiled by herself, no avenger to wipe out the stigma

Twin maelstroms of debt and of usury suck down the commons.

No home with clear title, no citizen free from a mortgage,

But as some slow wasting disease all unheralded fastens

Its hold on the vitals, destroying the vigor of manhood,

So, fear of the evils impending, impels them to madness.

Despair turns to violence, luxury's ravages needs must

Repaired be by bloodshed, for indigence safely can venture.

Can art or sane reason rouse wallowing Rome from the offal

And break the voluptuous slumber in which she is sunken?

Or must it be fury and war and the blood-lust of daggers?"

CHAPTER THE ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTIETH.

"Three chieftains did fortune bring forth, whom the fury of battles

Destroyed; and interred, each one under a mountain of weapons;

The Parthian has Crassus, Pompeius the Great by the waters

Of Egypt lies. Julius, ungrateful Rome stained with his life blood.

And earth has divided their ashes, unable to suffer

The weight of so many tombs. These are the wages of glory!

There lies between Naples and Great Puteoli, a chasm

Deep cloven, and Cocytus churns there his current; the vapor

In fury escapes from the gorge with that lethal spray laden.

No green in the aututun is there, no grass gladdens the meadow,

The supple twigs never resound with the twittering singing

Of birds in the Springtime. But chaos, volcanic black boulders

Of pumice lie Happy within their drear setting of cypress.

Amidst these infernal surroundings the ruler of Hades

Uplifted his head by the funeral flames silhouetted

And sprinkled with white from the ashes of corpses; and challenged

Winged Fortune in words such as these: 'Oh thou fickle controller

Of things upon earth and in heaven, security's foeman,

Oh Chance! Oh thou lover eternally faithful to change, and

Possession's betrayer, dost own thyself crushed by the power

Of Rome? Canst not raise up the tottering mass to its downfall

Its s