'Avaunt thee, then, for a fool and a slave, as thou art!'
'Nay now, master Solon, thy own wisdom forsakes thee. Philosophers, they say, are ever possessors of themselves, though for the rest they be beggars.'
'Beggar! sayest thou? Avaunt! I say, or Papias shall teach thee'—and he would have launched the roll at the head of Milo, but that, with quick instincts, he shot from the apartment, and left the pedagogue to do his own bidding.
So, Fausta, you see that Solon is still the irritable old man he was, and Milo the fool he was. Think not me worse than either, for hoping so to entertain you. I know that in your solitude and grief, even such pictures may be welcome.
When I related to Julia the scene and the conversation at the shop of Publius, she listened not without agitation, and expresses her fears lest such extravagances, repeated and become common, should inflame the minds both of the people and their rulers against the Christians. Though I agree with her in lamenting the excess of zeal displayed by many of the Christians, and their needless assaults upon the characters and faith of their opposers, I cannot apprehend serious consequences from them, because the instances of it are so few and rare, and are palpable exceptions to the general character which I believe the whole city would unite in ascribing to this people. Their mildness and pacific temper are perhaps the very traits by which they are most distinguished, with which they are indeed continually reproached. Yet individual acts are often the remote causes of vast universal evil—of bloodshed, war, and revolution. Macer alone is enough to set on fire a city, a continent, a world.
I rejoice, I cannot tell you how sincerely, in all your progress. I do not doubt in the ultimate return of the city to its former populousness and wealth, at least. Aurelian has done well for you at last. His disbursements for the Temple of the Sun alone are vast, and must be more than equal to its perfect restoration. Yet his overthrown column you will scarce be tempted to rebuild. Forget not to assure Gracchus and Calpurnius of my affection. Farewell.
LETTER III.
FROM PISO TO FAUSTA.
You are right, Fausta, in your unfavorable judgment of the Roman populace. The Romans are not a people one would select to whom to propose a religion like this of Christianity. All causes seem to combine to injure and corrupt them. They are too rich. The wealth of subject kingdoms and provinces finds its way to Rome; and not only in the form of tribute to the treasury of the empire, but in that of the private fortunes amassed by such as have held offices in them for a few years, and who then return to the capital to dissipate in extravagance and luxuries, unknown to other parts of the world, the riches wrung by violence, injustice, and avarice from the wretched inhabitants whom fortune had delivered into their power. Yes, the wealth of Rome is accumulated in such masses, not through the channels of industry or commerce; it arrives in bales and ship-loads, drained from foreign lands by the hand of extortion. The palaces are not to be numbered, built and adorned in a manner surpassing those of the monarchs of other nations, which are the private residences of those, or of the descendants of those who for a few years have presided over some distant province, but in that brief time, Verres-like, have used their opportunities so well as to return home oppressed with a wealth which life proves not long enough to spend, notwithstanding the aid of dissolute and spendthrift sons. Here have we a single source of evil equal to the ruin of any people. The morals of no community could be protected against such odds. It is a mountain torrent tearing its way through the fields of the husbandman, whose trees and plants possess no strength of branch or root to resist the inundation.