ng
mortals? These three mornings have I rode him to see if in this manner
he could be destroyed, but thou seest how it issues; I should destroy
myself before him. But what, I say, is the news? How does the lady
Julia? and the Queen?'

Replying first to these last inquiries, I then said that there was
little news I believed in the city. The only thing, perhaps, that could
be treated as news, was the general uneasiness of the Christians.

'Ah! They are uneasy? By the gods, not wholly without reason. Were it
not for them I had now been, not here chafing my horse and myself on a
hippodrome, but tearing up instead the hard sands of the Syrian deserts.
They weigh upon me like a nightmare! They are a visible curse of the
gods upon the state--but, being seen, it can be removed. I reckon not
you among this tribe, Piso, when I speak of them. What purpose is
imputed?'

'Rumor varies. No distinct purpose is named, but rather a general one of
abridging some of their liberties--suppressing their worship, and
silencing their priests.'

'Goes it no further?'

'Not with many; for the people are still willing to believe that
Aurelian will inflict no needless suffering. They see you great in war,
severe in the chastisement of the enemies of the state, and just in the
punishment inflicted upon domestic rebels; and they conceive that in
regard to this simple people you will not go beyond the rigor I have
just named.'

'Truly they give me credit,' replied Aurelian, 'for what I scarcely
deserve. But an Emperor can never hear the truth. Piso! they will find
themselves deceived. One or the other must fall--Helenism or
Christianity! I knew not, till my late return from the East, the ravages
made by this modern superstition, not only throughout Rome, but the
world. In this direction I have for many years been blind. I have had
eyes only for the distant enemies of my country, and the glories of the
battle-field. But now, upon resting here a space in the heart of the
empire, I find that heart eaten out and gone; the religion of ancient
Rome, which was its very life, decaying, and almost dead, through the
rank growth of this overshadowing poison-tree that has shot up at its
side. It must be cut up by the roots--the branches hewn away--the leaves
stripped and scattered to the winds--nay, the very least fibre that
lurks below the surface with life in it, must be wrenched out and
consumed. We must do thus by the Christians and their faith, or t