, a heretic, an atheist, a heathen, and an Arian.
This I did immediately on his return, and before he gave those flagrant
proofs of his inhumanity which afterwards sufficiently verified all I
had said.

"Luckily I died on the same day when a great number of those forces
which Justinian had sent against the Thracian Bosphorus, and who had
executed such unheard-of cruelties there, perished. As every one
of these was cast into the bottomless pit, Minos was so tired with
condemnation, that he proclaimed that all present who had not been
concerned in that bloody expedition might, if they pleased, return to
the other world. I took him at his word, and, presently turning about,
began my journey."

CHAPTER XV

Julian passes into the character of a fiddler.

"Rome was now the seat of my nativity. My mother was an African, a woman
of no great beauty, but a favorite, I suppose from her piety, of
pope Gregory II. Who was my father I know not, but I believe no very
considerable man; for after the death of that pope, who was, out of his
religion, a very good friend of my mother, we fell into great distress,
and were at length reduced to walk the streets of Rome; nor had either
of us any other support but a fiddle, on which I played with pretty
tolerable skill; for, as my genius turned naturally to music, so I had
been in my youth very early instructed at the expense of the good pope.
This afforded us but a very poor livelihood: for, though I had often
a numerous crowd of hearers, few ever thought themselves obliged to
contribute the smallest pittance to the poor starving wretch who had
given them pleasure. Nay, some of the graver sort, after an hour's
attention to my music, have gone away shaking their heads, and crying it
was a shame such vagabonds were suffered to stay in the city.

"To say the truth, I am confident the fiddle would not have kept us
alive had we entirely depended on the generosity of my hearers. My
mother therefore was forced to use her own industry; and while I was
soothing the ears of the crowd, she applied to their pockets, and that
generally with such good success that we now began to enjoy a very
comfortable subsistence; and indeed, had we had the least prudence or
forecast, might have soon acquired enough to enable us to quit this
dangerous and dishonorable way of life: but I know not what is the
reason that money got with labor and safety is constantly preserved,
while the produce of danger