iness to me to believe that this tale deserves
to be called a real work of art, and, as such, its first function should
be to charm and elevate the mind. Those who at the same time enrich their
knowledge by its study ought not to detect the fact that they are
learning.

Those who are learned in the history of Alexandria under the Romans may
wonder that I should have made no mention of the Therapeutai on Lake
Mareotis. I had originally meant to devote a chapter to them, but Luca's
recent investigations led me to decide on leaving it unwritten. I have
given years of study to the early youth of Christianity, particularly in
Egypt, and it affords me particular satisfaction to help others to
realize how, in Hadrian's time, the pure teaching of the Saviour, as yet
little sullied by the contributions of human minds, conquered--and could
not fail to conquer--the hearts of men. Side by side with the triumphant
Faith I have set that noble blossom of Greek life and culture--Art which
in later ages, Christianity absorbed in order to dress herself in her
beautiful forms. The statues and bust of Antinous which remain to us of
that epoch, show that the drooping tree was still destined to put forth
new leaves under Hadrian's rule.

The romantic traits which I have attributed to the character of my hero,
who travelled throughout the world, climbing mountains to rejoice in the
splendor of he rising sun, are authentic. One of the most difficult tasks
I have ever set myself was to construct from the abundant but essentially
contradictory accounts of Hadian a human figure in which I could myself
at all believe; still, how gladly I set to work to do so! There was much
to be considered in working out this narrative, but the story itself has
flowed straight from the heart of the writer; I can only hope it may find
its way to that of the reader.

LEIPZIG, November, 1880.

GEORG EBERS.

THE EMPEROR.

CHAPTER I.

The morning twilight had dawned into day, and the sun had risen on the
first of December of the year of our Lord 129, but was still veiled by
milk-white mists which rose from the sea, and it was cold.

Kasius, a mountain of moderate elevation, stands on a tongue of land that
projects from the coast between the south of Palestine and Egypt. It is
washed on the north by the sea which, on this day, is not gleaming, as is
its wont, in translucent ultramarine; its more distant depths slowly
surge i