an Emperor
the first wife led astray? No! truly there are no more Romans; but
still fewer Roman women. Pleasure, love of ornament, and love of power,
are the three Graces whom they invoke. Have you ever heard that the
priests among these barbarians befool the young girls? or their kings
entice wives from the hearths of their free husbands? I have not. But a
people without gods, without native warriors, without true wives,
without children--such a people can no longer live. A people that has
every reason to tremble before its own slaves, ten times more numerous
than itself! If thou hadst only seen the murderous dark looks with
which the slaves of Zeno, the usurer, threatened their lord and the
slave-master, as they were just now driven in chains through the
street! But I myself? How stands it with me? I have been everywhere,
and held many different offices in Rome, in Ravenna, in Byzantium:
soldier, magistrate, writer--all with success; and yet I found it
all--vain, hollow. I have tried everything, it is all naught. Now,
returned home to the town of my fathers, I find it ruled by a usurer
from Byzantium and a sensualist and brawler from Mauritania; and the
only one who still makes any opposition to this alliance, is not
_thou_, and not _I_; we are only two honourable Romans! no: a Christian
priest, whose fatherland, as he boasts, is not the Roman Empire, but
heaven!--I have had enough of it!--I say it again: a people without
gods, without wives, without mothers, without children--a people whose
battles are fought by levied barbarians--such a people can no longer
live! It must die; and that soon. Come, then, come, ye Alemanni! I
cannot swallow hemlock. I will fall with the clang of the tuba, and
imagine that I am falling under Camillus or Scipio."

Cornelius was wildly excited. Severus seized him by both shoulders:

"Promise me not to seek death until you see the next battle lost, and
that you will be willing to live if we conquer."

Cornelius nodded, sadly smiling, "I think I can boldly promise that.
Thou and thy conquering sword--you will no longer keep back the quickly
approaching ruin."

At this moment a shrill blast from the tuba struck on their ear. The
curtain of the inner bath was torn aside; an armed burgher rushed in
and cried: "Hasten, Severus; now they are coming. German horsemen are
galloping hither out of the western forest on the other side of the
river!"

CHAPTER