st the Christians, and every art was resorted to by the priests of
the temples, and those who were as bigoted and savage as themselves
among the people, to fan to a devouring flame the little fire that
began to be kindled. The voice from the temple, however some might with
Fronto himself doubt whether it were not from Heaven, was for the most
part ascribed to the Christians, although they could give no explanation
of the manner in which it had been produced. But, as in the case of
Aurelian himself, this was forgotten in the horror occasioned by the
more dreadful language of the omens, which, in such black and
threatening array, no one remembered ever to have been witnessed before.
None thought or talked of anything else. It was the universal theme.

This may be seen in a conversation which I had with a rustic, whom I
overtook as I rode toward Rome, seated on his mule, burdened on either
side and behind with the multifarious produce of his farm. The fellow,
as I drew near to him, seeming of a less churlish disposition than most
of those whom one meets upon the road, who will scarcely return a
friendly salute, I feared not to accost him. After giving him the
customary good wishes, I remarked upon the excellence of the vegetables
which he had in his panniers.

'Yes,' he said, 'these lettuces are good, but not what they would have
been but for the winds we have had from the mountains. It has sadly
nipped them. I hear the Queen pines away just as my plants do. I live at
Norentum. I know you, sir, though you cannot know me. You pass by my
door on your way to the city. My children often call me from my work to
look up, for there goes the secretary of the good Queen on his great
horse. There's no such horse as that on the road. Ha, ha, my baskets
reach but to your knee! Well, there are differences in animals and in
men too. So the gods will it. One rides upon a horse with golden bits,
another upon a mule with none at all. Still I say, let the gods be
praised.'

'The gods themselves could hardly help such differences,' I said, 'if
they made one man of more natural strength, or more natural
understanding than another. In that case one would get more than
another. And surely you would not have men all run in one mould--all
five feet high, all weighing so much, all with one face, and one form,
one heart, and one head! The world were then dull enough.'

'You say true,' he replied; 'that is very good. If we were all alike,
there