then Varus
and I had our sport; working up the beasts, by our torments, to an
unnatural height of madness ere they were let loose, and then rushing to
the gratings, as the doors were thrown open, to see the fury with which
they would spring upon their defenceless victims too, and tear them
piecemeal. The Romans required such servants--and we were they. They
require them now, and you may find any number of such about the
theatres. But if there must be such there, why should they be taken
thence and put upon the judgment-seat? save, for the reason, that they
may have been thoroughly purged, as it were, by fire--which Varus has
not been. What with him was necessary and forced when young, is now
chosen and voluntary. Vice is now his by election. Now, I ask, why has
the life of Varus been such? and why, being such, is he here? Because
you are so! Yes, because you are all like him! It is you, Roman
citizens, who rear the theatres, the circuses, and the thousand temples
of vice, which crowd the streets of Rome,--'

'No, no! it is the emperors.'

'But who make the emperors? You Romans of these times, are a race of
cowards and slaves, and it is therefore that tyrants rule over you. Were
you freemen, with the souls of freemen in you, do you think you would
bear as you do--and love and glory in the yoke--this rule of such
creatures as Varus, and others whom it were not hard to name? I know
what you are--for I have been one of you. I have not been, nor am I now,
hermit, as you may think, being a Christian. A Christian is a man of the
world--a man of action and of suffering--not of rest and sleep. I have
ever been abroad among men, both before I was a Christian and since; and
I know what you are. You are of the same stamp as Varus! nay, start not,
nor threaten with your eyes,--I fear you not. If you are not so, why, I
say, is Varus there? You know that I speak the truth. The people of Rome
are corrupt as their rulers! How should it be much otherwise? You are
fed by the largesses of the Emperor, you have your two loaves a day and
your pork, and you need not and so do not work. You have no employment
but idleness, and idleness is not so much a vice itself as the prolific
mother of all vices. When I was one of you, it was so; and so it is now.
My father's labor was nothing; he was kept by the state. The Emperor was
not more a man of pleasure than he, nor the princes, than I and Varus.
Was that a school of virtue? When I left the serv