sad, fearful, and beset with curiosity.
"If there be no gods," they were wont to ask, "have we any hope and
responsibility?" They studied the philosophers Plato, Aristotle, Zeno,
Epicurus, and were unsatisfied.

The nations were at peace, but not the souls of men. A universal and
mighty war of the spirit was near at hand. The skirmishers were
busy--patrician and plebeian, master and slave, oppressor and
oppressed. Soon all were to see the line of battle, the immortal
captains, the children of darkness, the children of light, the
beginning of a great revolution.

Rome was like a weary child whose toys are gods and men, and who, being
weary of them, has yet a curiosity in their destruction.

CHAPTER 2

Those days it was near twelve o'clock by the great dial of history.
One day, about mid-afternoon, the old capital lay glowing in the
sunlight. Its hills were white with marble and green with gardens, and
traced and spotted and flecked with gold; its thoroughfares were bright
with color--white, purple, yellow, scarlet--like a field of roses and
amarantus.

The fashionable day had begun; knight and lady were now making and
receiving visits.

Five litters and some forty slaves, who bore and followed them, were
waiting in the court of the palace of the Lady Lucia. Beyond the walls
of white marble a noble company was gathered that summer day. There
were the hostess and her daughter; three young noblemen, the purple
stripes on each angusticlave telling of knightly rank; a Jewish prince
in purple and gold; an old philosopher, and a poet who had been reading
love lines. It was the age of pagan chivalry, and one might imperil
his future with poor wit or a faulty epigram. Those older men had long
held the floor, and their hostess, seeking to rally the young knights,
challenged their skill in courtly compliment.

"O men, who have forgotten the love of women these days, look at her!"

So spoke the Lady Lucia--she that was widow of the Praefect Publius,
who fell with half his cohort in the desert wars.

She had risen from a chair of ebony enriched by cunning Etruscan
art--four mounted knights charging across its heavy back in armor of
wrought gold. She stopped, facing the company, between two columns of
white marble beautifully sculptured. Upon each a vine rose, limberly
and with soft leaves in the stone, from base to capital. Her daughter
stood in the midst of a group of maids who were dressing her hair.