y them by
force."

"And it may be the same with us," laughed the young man. "Who knows how
much I am already in debt for these two acres of land?"

"And the roads of the Legions are overgrown with grass and brushwood."

"And the troops receive no wages."

"But they pay themselves by plundering the burghers, whom they should
defend."

"And the walls of Juvavum are falling, the moats are dry, the sluices
destroyed; the rich people go away, there only remain poor wretches
like ourselves, who cannot leave."

"I wonder that the money-lender has not long ago moved with his great
gold-bag over the Alps."

"I would not go, uncle, if I could; and why, indeed, could I not? My
art, my trade will be honoured everywhere, so long as the Romans dwell
in stone, not wooden houses, like the Germans. But I am firmly fixed to
this soil. Many, many generations have my fathers dwelt here; they say
since the founding of the colony by the Emperor Hadrian. They have
cleared the forests, drained the marshes, made roads, raised fords,
laid out house and garden, grafted the rich fruits on the wild apple
and pear-trees; the climate itself has become milder. I know Italy, I
have bought marble in Venetia, but I would rather live here on the old
inheritance of my fathers."

"But if the barbarians come, wilt thou then also?"----

"Stay! I have my own thoughts about that. For us unimportant people it
is better under the barbarians than"----

"Say not, than under the Emperor. Thou art a Roman!"

The stout Crispus said this very gravely, but the other laughed; the
good uncle but little resembled a Roman hero. His neighbours declared
that he modelled his statues of Bacchus from his own figure.

"Half-blood! My mother was a Noric Celt. Induciomara! That does not
sound much of the Quirinal."

"And we do not stand under the Emperor, but under his hangman servants,
Exchequer officials, and under the murderous fist of the Moorish and
Isaurian troops. If I must serve barbarians, I prefer the Germans."

"But they are heathen."

"In part. A hundred and fifty years ago so were we all. My grandfather
sacrificed secretly to Jupiter. And there are also Christians among
them."

"Arians! heretics! worse than heathen, says the Holy Church."

"A few decades past our emperors were also heretics. And the Germans
ask no one what he believes; but how heavily did our fathers suffer, if
their faith did not exactly agree with that of the ruling emperor!"