of
the same infatuation which had nerved him to the defence of the
assaulted temple, and encouraged him to attempt his ill-planned
restoration of Paganism, had preserved him through sufferings under
which stronger and younger men would have sunk for ever; had prompted
his determination to escape from his slavery, and had now brought him
to Rome--old, forsaken, and feeble as he was--to risk new perils and
suffer new afflictions for the cause to which, body and soul, he had
ruthlessly devoted himself for ever.

Urged, therefore, by his miserable delusion, he had now entered a city
where even his name was unknown, faithful to his frantic project of
opposing himself, as a helpless, solitary man, against the people and
government of an Empire. During his term of slavery, regardless of his
advanced years, he had arranged a series of projects, the gradual
execution of which would have demanded the advantages of a long and
vigorous life. He no more desired, as in his former attempt at
Alexandria, to precipitate at all hazards the success of his designs.
He was now prepared to watch, wait, plot, and contrive for years on
years; he was resigned to be contented with the poorest and slowest
advancement--to be encouraged by the smallest prospect of ultimate
triumph. Acting under this determination, he started his project by
devoting all that remained of his enfeebled energies to cautiously
informing himself, by every means in his power, of the private,
political, and religious sentiments of all men of influence in Rome.
Wherever there was a popular assemblage, he attended it to gather the
scandalous gossip of the day; wherever there was a chance of
overhearing a private conversation, he contrived to listen to it
unobserved. About the doors of taverns and the haunts of discharged
servants he lurked noiseless as a shadow, attentive alike to the
careless revelations of intoxication or the scurrility of malignant
slaves. Day after day passed on, and still saw him devoted to his
occupation (which, servile as it was in itself, was to his eyes
ennobled by its lofty end), until at the expiration of some months he
found himself in possession of a vague and inaccurate fund of
information, which he stored up as a priceless treasure in his mind.
He next discovered the name and abode of every nobleman in Rome
suspected even of the most careless attachment to the ancient form of
worship. He attended Christian churches, mastered the intric