no
virtue could withstand. Every altar, Juvenal said, had its Clodius, and
even in Clodius' absence there were always those breaths of Sapphic
song that blew through Mitylene.

It is just that absence of a quality which we regard as an added grace;
one, parenthetically, which dowered the world with a new conception of
beauty that makes it difficult to picture Rome. Modern ink has acquired
Nero's blush; it comes very readily, yet, however sensitive a writer
may be, once Roman history is before him, he may violate it if he
choose; he may even give it a child, but never can he make it
immaculate. He may skip, indeed, if he wish; and it is because he has
skipped so often that one fancies that Augustus was all right. The rain
of fire which fell on the cities that mirrored their towers in the
Bitter Sea, might just as well have fallen on him, on Vergil, too, on
Caligula, Claud, Nero, Otho, Vitellius, Titus, Domitian, and
particularly on Trajan.

As lieutenant in the latter's triumphant promenade, was a nephew,
AElius Hadrianus, a young man for whom Trajan's wife is rumored to have
had more than a platonic affection, and who in younger days was
numbered among Trajan's mignons. During the progress of that promenade
Trajan fell ill. The command of the troops was left to Hadrian, and
Trajan started for Rome. On the way he died. In what manner is not
known; his wife, however, was with him, and it was in her hand that a
letter went to the senate stating that Trajan had adopted Hadrian as
his heir. Trajan had done nothing of the sort. The idea had indeed
occurred to him, but long since it had been abandoned. He had even
formally selected someone else, but his wife was with him, and her
lover commanded the troops. The lustre of the purple, always dazzling,
had fascinated Hadrian's eyes. Did he steal it? One may conjecture, yet
never know. In any event it was his, and he folded it very
magnificently about him. Still young, a trifle over thirty, handsome,
unusually accomplished, grand seigneur to his finger-tips, endowed with
a manner which is rumored to have been one of great charm, possessed of
the amplest appreciation of the elegancies of life, he had precisely
the figure which purple adorns. But, though the lustre had fascinated,
he too knew its spell; and presently he started off on a journey about
the world, which lasted fifteen years, and which, when ended, left the
world the richer for his passing, decorated with the monumen