and comprehend.'

'So has it ever been presented to me,' added the Emperor. 'I have
conceived it to be but some new form of Plato's dreams, neither more
clear in itself, nor promising to be of more use to mankind. So, if I
err not, the learned Porphyrius has stated it.'

'A good fact,' here interposed Julia, 'is worth more in this argument
than the learning of the most learned. Is it not sufficient proof,
Aurelian, that Christianity is somewhat sufficiently plain and easy,
that women are able to receive it so readily? Take me as an unanswerable
argument on the side of Piso.'

'The women of Palmyra,' replied the Emperor, 'as I have good reason to
know, are more than the men of other climes. She who reads Plato and the
last essays of Plotinus, of a morning, seated idly beneath the shadow of
some spreading beech, just as a Roman girl would the last child's story
of Spurius about father Tiber and the Milvian Bridge, is not to be
received in this question as but a woman, with a woman's powers of
judgment. When the women of Rome receive their faith as easily as you
do, then may it be held as an argument for its simplicity. But let us
now break off the thread of this discourse, too severe for the occasion,
and mingle with our other friends, who by this must be arrived.'

So, with these words, we left the apartment where we had been sitting,
the Emperor having upon one side Portia, and on the other Livia, and
moved toward the great central rooms of the palace, where guests are
entertained, and the imperial banquets held.

The company was not numerous; it was rather remarkable for its
selectness. Among others not less distinguished, there were the
venerable Tacitus, the consul Capitolinus, Marcellinus the senator, the
prefect Varus, the priest Fronto, the generals Probus and Mucapor, and a
few others of the military favorites of Aurelian.

Of the conversation at supper, I remember little or nothing, only that
it was free and light, each seeming to enjoy himself and the companion
who reclined next to him. Aurelian, with a condescending grace, which no
one knows how better to assume than he, urged the wine upon his friends,
as they appeared occasionally to forget it, offering frequently some new
and unheard of kind, brought from Asia, Greece, or Africa, and which he
would exalt to the skies for its flavor. More than once did he, as he is
wont to do in his sportive mood, deceive us; for, calling upon us to
fill our goblets wi