'Romans! Roman citizens!' cried Macer; 'are these your laws and this your judge?—'
'Away with him, I say!' cried the prefect; and the officers of the palace hurried him out of the hall.
As he went, a voice from the crowd shouted,
'Roman citizens, Macer, are long since dead. 'Tis a vain appeal.'
'I believe you,' replied Macer; 'tyrant and slave stand now for all who once bore the proud name of Roman.'
This violence and injustice on the part of Varus must be traced—for though capricious, and imperious, this is not his character—to the language of Macer in the shop of Publius, and to his apprehension lest the same references to his origin, which he would willingly have forgotten, should be made, and perhaps more offensively still, in the presence of the people. Probus, on the former occasion, lamented deeply that Macer should have been tempted to rehearse in the way he did some of the circumstances of the prefect's history, as its only end could be to needlessly irritate the man of power, and raise up a bitterer enemy than we might otherwise have found in him.
Upon leaving the tribunal, I was curious to watch still further the movements of the Christian. The crowd about him increased rather than diminished, as he left the building and passed into the street. At but a little distance from the hall of the prefect, stands the Temple of Peace, with its broad and lofty flights of steps. When Macer had reached it he paused, and looked round upon the motley crowd that had gathered about him.
'Go up! go up!' cried several voices. 'We will hear thee.'
'There is no prefect here,' cried another.
Macer needed no urging, but quickly strode up the steps, till he stood between the central columns of the temple and his audience had disposed themselves below him in every direction, when he turned and gazed upon the assembled people, who had now—by the addition of such as passed along, and who had no more urgent business than to attend to that of any others whom they might chance to meet,—grown to a multitude. After looking upon them for a space, as if studying their characters, and how he could best adapt his discourse to their occasions, he suddenly and abruptly broke out—