Accompanied by Portia and Julia, I was within the palace of the Emperor early enough to enjoy the company of Aurelian and Livia before the rest of the world was there. We were carried to the more private apartments of the Empress, where it is her custom to receive those whose friendship she values most highly. They are in that part of the palace which has undergone no alterations since it was the residence of the great historian, but shines in all the lustre of a taste and an art that adorned a more accomplished age than our own. Especially, it seems to me, in the graceful disposition of the interiors of their palaces, and the combined richness and appropriateness of the art lavished upon them, did the genius of the days of Hadrian and Vespasian surpass the present. Not that I defend all that that genius adopted and immortalized. It was not seldom licentious and gross in its conceptions, however unrivalled in the art and science by which they were made to glow upon the walls, or actually speak and move in marble or brass. In the favorite apartment of Livia, into which we were now admitted, perfect in its forms and proportions, the walls and ceilings are covered with the story of Leda, wrought with an effect of drawing and color, of which the present times afford no example. The well-known Greek, Polymnestes, was the artist. And this room in all its embellishments is chaste and cold compared with others, whose subjects were furnished to the painter by the profligate master himself.
The room of Leda, as it is termed, is—but how beautiful it is I cannot tell. Words paint poorly to the eye. Believe it not less beautiful, nor less exquisitely adorned with all that woman loves most, hangings, carpets and couches, than any in the palace of Gracchus or Zenobia. It was here we found Aurelian and Livia, and his niece Aurelia. The Emperor, habited in silken robes richly wrought with gold, the inseparable sword at his side, from which, at the expense of whatever incongruity, he never parts—advanced to the door to receive us, saying,
'I am happy that the mildness of this autumn day permits this pleasure, to see the mother of the Pisos beneath my roof. It is rare nowadays that Rome sees her abroad.'
'Save to the palace of Aurelian,' replied my mother, I now, as is well known, never move beyond the precincts of my own dwelling. Since the captivity and death of your former companion in arms, my great husband, Cneius Piso, the widow's hearth has been my hall of state, these widow's weeds my only robes. But it must be more than private grief, and more than the storms of autumn or of winter, that would keep me back when it is Aurelian who bids to the feast.'
'We owe you many thanks,' replied the Emperor. 'Would that the loyalty of the parents were inherited by the children;' casting towards me, as he saluted me at the same time, a look which seemed to say that he was partly serious, if partly in jest. After mutual inquiries and salutations, we were soon seated upon couches beneath a blaze of light which, from the centre of the apartment, darted its brightness, as it had been the sun itself, to every part of the room.
'It is no light sorrow to a mother's heart,' said Portia, 'to know that her two sons, and her only sons, are, one the open enemy of his country, the other—what shall I term you, Lucius?—an innovator upon her ancient institutions; and while he believes and calls himself—sincerely, I doubt not—the friend of his country, is in truth, as every good Roman would say—not an enemy, my son, I cannot use that word, but as it were—an unconscious injurer. Would that the conqueror of the world had power to conquer this boy's will!'
'Aurelian, my mother,' I replied, 'did he possess the power, would hesitate to use it in such a cause. But it is easy to see that it would demand infinitely more power to change one honest mind than to subdue even the world by the sword.'
Aurelian for a brief moment looked as if he had received a personal affront.
'How say you,' said he, 'demands it more power to change one mind than conquer a world? Methinks it might be done with something less. My soldiers often maintain with violence a certain opinion; but I find it not difficult to cause them to let it go, and take mine in its place. The arguments I use never fail.'
'That may be,' I replied, 'in matters of little moment. Even in these however, is it not plain, Aurelian, that you cause them not to let go their opinion, but merely to suppress it, or affect to change it? Your power may compel them either to silence, or to an assertion of the very contrary of what they but just before had declared as their belief, but it cannot alter their minds. That is to be done by reason only, not by force.'