aith except
such as she herself wishes. I have urged him to use his power to
constrain her, but he loves liberty himself too dearly, he says, to put
force upon another.'

'That is right and noble,' I said; 'it is what I should have looked for
from Mucapor.'

'In good sooth, Nicomachus, I believe you still take me but for what I
was in Palmyra. Who am I?'

'From a princess you have become an Empress, Empress of Rome, that I
fully understand, and I trust never to be wanting in the demeanor that
best becomes a subject; but you are still Livia, the daughter of
Zenobia, and to her I feel I can never fear to speak with sincerity.'

'How omnipotent, Nicomachus, are simplicity and truth! They subdue me
when I most would not. They have conquered me in Aurelia and now in you.
Well, well, Aurelia then must take the full weight of her uncle's wrath,
which is not light.'

At this moment Aurelian himself entered, accompanied by Fronto. Livia,
at the same time, arose and withdrew, not caring, I thought, to meet the
eyes of that basilisk, who, with the cunning of a priest, she saw to be
usurping a power over Aurelian which belonged of right to her. I was
about also to withdraw, but the Emperor constraining me, as he often
does, I remained, although holding the priest in still greater
abhorrence, I believe, than Livia herself.

'While you have been absent from the city, Fronto,' said Aurelian, 'I
have revolved the subjects upon which we last conversed, and no longer
doubt where lie, for me, both duty, and the truest glory. The judgment
of the colleges, lately rendered, agrees both with yours and mine. So
that the very finger of the god we worship points the way.'

'I am glad,' replied Fronto, 'for myself, for you, for Rome, and for the
world, that truth possesses and is to sway you. It will be a great day
for Rome, greater than when your triumphal array swept through the
streets with the world at your chariot-wheels, when the enemy that had
so long waged successful war within the very gates, shall lie dead as
the multitudes of Palmyra.'

'It will, Fronto. But first I have this to say, and, by the gods, I
believe it true, that it is the corruptions of our own religion and its
ministers, that is the offence that smells to heaven, quite as much as
the presumptuous novelties of this of Judea. I perceive you neither
assent to this nor like it. But it is true, I am persuaded, as the gods
themselves. I have long thought so; and, whil