piercing the soil, as those descents became
steeper, and the main line of the Apennines, [202] now visible, gave a
higher accent to the scene, he espied over the plateau, almost like one
of those broken hills, cutting the horizon towards the sea, the old
brown villa itself, rich in memories of one after another of the family
of the Antonines. As he approached it, such reminiscences crowded upon
him, above all of the life there of the aged Antoninus Pius, in its
wonderful mansuetude and calm. Death had overtaken him here at the
precise moment when the tribune of the watch had received from his lips
the word Aequanimitas! as the watchword of the night. To see their
emperor living there like one of his simplest subjects, his hands red
at vintage-time with the juice of the grapes, hunting, teaching his
children, starting betimes, with all who cared to join him, for long
days of antiquarian research in the country around:--this, and the like
of this, had seemed to mean the peace of mankind.

Upon that had come--like a stain! it seemed to Marius just then--the
more intimate life of Faustina, the life of Faustina at home. Surely,
that marvellous but malign beauty must still haunt those rooms, like an
unquiet, dead goddess, who might have perhaps, after all, something
reassuring to tell surviving mortals about her ambiguous self. When,
two years since, the news had reached Rome that those eyes, always so
persistently turned to vanity, had suddenly closed for ever, a strong
desire to pray had come [203] over Marius, as he followed in fancy on
its wild way the soul of one he had spoken with now and again, and
whose presence in it for a time the world of art could so ill have
spared. Certainly, the honours freely accorded to embalm her memory
were poetic enough--the rich temple left among those wild villagers at
the spot, now it was hoped sacred for ever, where she had breathed her
last; the golden image, in her old place at the amphitheatre; the altar
at which the newly married might make their sacrifice; above all, the
great foundation for orphan girls, to be called after her name.

The latter, precisely, was the cause why Marius failed in fact to see
Aurelius again, and make the chivalrous effort at enlightenment he had
proposed to himself. Entering the villa, he learned from an usher, at
the door of the long gallery, famous still for its grand prospect in
the memory of many a visitor, and then leading to the imperial
a