peacefully, as they go and return, with the crowds that throng
the more gorgeous temple of the idolaters. Side by side, undisturbed and
free, do the Pagans and Christians, Greeks, Jews, and Egyptians, now
observe the rites, and offer the worship, of their varying faiths. This
happiness we owe to the wise and merciful laws of the great Constantine.
So was it, long since, in Palmyra, under the benevolent rule of Zenobia.
May the time never come, when Christians shall do otherwise than now;
when, remembering the wrongs they have received, they shall retaliate
torture and death upon the blind adherents of the ancient superstition!

These letters of Piso to Fausta the daughter of Gracchus, now follow.

LETTER I.

FROM PISO TO FAUSTA.

I am not surprised, Fausta, that you complain of my silence. It were
strange indeed if you did not. But as for most of our misdeeds we have
excuses ready at hand, so have I for this. First of all, I was not
ignorant, that, however I might fail you, from your other greater friend
you would experience no such neglect; but on the contrary would be
supplied with sufficient fulness and regularity, with all that could be
worth knowing, concerning either our public or private affairs. For her
sake, too, I was not unwilling, that at first the burden of this
correspondence, if I may so term it, should rest where it has, since it
has afforded, I am persuaded, a pleasure, and provided an occupation
that could have been found nowhere else. Just as a flood of tears brings
relief to a bosom laboring under a heavy sorrow, so has this pouring out
of herself to you in frequent letters, served to withdraw the mind of
the Queen from recollections, which, dwelt upon as they were at first,
would soon have ended that life in which all ours seem bound up.

Then again, if you accept the validity of this excuse, I have another,
which, as a woman, you will at once allow the force of. You will not
deem it a better one than the other, but doubtless as good. It is this:
that for a long time I have been engaged in taking possession of my new
dwelling upon the Coelian, not far from that of Portia. Of this you
may have heard, in the letters which have reached you; but that will not
prevent me from describing to you, with more exactness than any other
can have done it, the home of your old and fast friend, Lucius Manlius
Piso; for I think it adds greatly to the pleasure with which we think of
an absent friend, to