Monogram of Christ, found in the Catacombs.
“Where your heart should tell you that it had found peace.”
CHAPTER VI.
DELIBERATIONS.
For this purpose the emperor, though impatient to begin his work of blood, had yielded to the opinion of his counsellors, that the edict should be kept concealed till it could be published simultaneously in every province, and government, of the West. The thundercloud, fraught with vengeance, would thus hang for a time, in painful mystery, over its intended victims, and then burst suddenly upon them, discharging upon their heads its mingled elements, and its “fire, hail, snow, ice, and boisterous blast.”
It was in the month of November, that Maximian Herculeus convoked the meeting in which his plans had finally to be adjusted. To it were summoned the leading officers of his court, and of the state. The principal one, the prefect of the city, had brought with him his son, Corvinus, whom he had proposed to be captain of a body of armed pursuivants, picked out for their savageness and hatred of Christians; who should hunt them out, or down, with unrelenting assiduity. The chief prefects or governors of Sicily, Italy, Spain, and Gaul, were present, to receive their orders. In addition to these, several learned men, philosophers, and orators, among whom was our old acquaintance Calpurnius, had been invited; and many priests, who had come from different parts, to petition for heavier persecution, were commanded to attend.
Maximian Herculeus holding his horse by the bridle and protected by a shield bearing a she-wolf. From a bronze medal in the collection of France.
The usual residence of the emperors, as we have seen, was the Palatine. There was, however, another much esteemed by them, which Maximian Herculeus in particular preferred. During the reign of Nero, the wealthy senator, Plautius Lateranus, was charged with conspiracy, and of course punished with death. His immense property was seized by the emperor, and part of this was his house, described by Juvenal, and other writers, as of unusual size and magnificence. It was beautifully situated on the Cœlian hill, and on the southern verge of the city; so that from it was a view unequalled even in the vicinity of Rome. Stretching across the wavy campagna, here bestrided by colossal aqueducts, crossed by lines of roads, with their fringes of marble tombs, and bespangled all over with glittering villas, set like gems in the dark green enamel of laurel and cypress, the eye reached, at evening, the purple slope of hills on which, as on a couch, lay stretched luxuriously Alba and Tusculum, with “their daughters,” according to oriental phrase,
