down, you see. I know about Romulus and
Remus."

"Then you know more than anybody else knows. That's a myth. Look here.
Let us begin at the beginning. Do you know this personage?"

"Julius Caesar? Yes. I have read about him."

"Did you ever read Plutarch's Lives? They used to be my delight when I
was a little girl. I was very fond of Julius Caesar then. I know better
now. But I am glad to see him."

"Why, wasn't he a great man?"

"Very. So the world says. I have come to perceive, Rupert, that that
don't mean much."

"Why not? I thought the world was apt to be right."

"In some things. No doubt this man _might_ have been a very great man;
he had power; but what good did he do to the world? He just worked for
himself. I tell you what the Bible says, Rupert; 'The things which are
highly esteemed among men, are abomination in the sight of God.' Look,
and you will see it is so."

"If you go by _that_---- Who is this next man? Augustus. He was the
first Roman emperor, wasn't he?"

"And all around here are ranged his successors. What a set they were!
and they look like it."

"How do you know they are likenesses?"

"Know from coins. Do you know, almost all these men, the emperors, died
a violent death? Murdered, or else they killed themselves. That speaks,
don't it, for the beauty and beneficence of their reigns, and the
loveliness of their characters?"

"I don't know them very well. Some of them were good men, weren't they?"

"See here, Nos. 11 and 12. Here are Caligula and Claudius. Caligula was
murdered. Then Claudius was poisoned by his wife Agrippina; there she
is, No. 14. She was killed by her son Nero; and Nero killed himself;
and No. 13, there is another wife of Claudius whom he killed before he
married Agrippina; and here, No. 17, was a wife of Nero whom he killed
by a kick. And that is the way, my dear Rupert, they went on. Don't you
wish you had belonged to the Imperial family? There's greatness for
you!"

"But there were some really great ones, weren't there? Which are they?"

"Well, let us see. Come on. Here is Trajan. He was not a brute; he was
a philosopher and a sceptic. He was quite a distinguished man in the
arts of war and peace. But he ordered that the profession of
Christianity should be punished with death. He legalised all succeeding
persecutions, by his calm enactments. Do you think he was a great man
in the sight of God?"

"Were the Christians persecuted in his reign?"

"Certainl