arse, a vulgar people; and their vulgarities of soul in
full evidence here. And Aurelius himself seemed to have undergone the
world's coinage, and fallen to the level of his reward, in a mediocrity
no longer golden.

Yet if, as he passed by, almost filling the quaint old circular chariot
with his magnificent golden-flowered attire, he presented himself to
Marius, chiefly as one who had made the great mistake; to the multitude
he came as a more than magnanimous conqueror. That he had "forgiven"
the innocent wife and children of the dashing and almost successful
rebel Avidius Cassius, now no more, was a recent circumstance still in
memory. As the children went past--not among those who, ere the
emperor ascended the steps of the Capitol, would be detached from the
great progress for execution, happy rather, and radiant, as adopted
members of the imperial family--the crowd actually enjoyed an
exhibition of the moral order, such as might become perhaps the
fashion. And it was in consideration of some possible touch of a
heroism herein that might really have cost him something, that Marius
resolved to seek the emperor once more, [201] with an appeal for
common-sense, for reason and justice.

He had set out at last to revisit his old home; and knowing that
Aurelius was then in retreat at a favourite villa, which lay almost on
his way thither, determined there to present himself. Although the
great plain was dying steadily, a new race of wild birds establishing
itself there, as he knew enough of their habits to understand, and the
idle contadino, with his never-ending ditty of decay and death,
replacing the lusty Roman labourer, never had that poetic region
between Rome and the sea more deeply impressed him than on this sunless
day of early autumn, under which all that fell within the immense
horizon was presented in one uniform tone of a clear, penitential blue.
Stimulating to the fancy as was that range of low hills to the
northwards, already troubled with the upbreaking of the Apennines, yet
a want of quiet in their outline, the record of wild fracture there, of
sudden upheaval and depression, marked them as but the ruins of nature;
while at every little descent and ascent of the road might be noted
traces of the abandoned work of man. From time to time, the way was
still redolent of the floral relics of summer, daphne and
myrtle-blossom, sheltered in the little hollows and ravines. At last,
amid rocks here and there