ing do the judges so weary themselves,
and exhaust their powers of persuasion, as to induce the Christians who
are brought before them to renounce their faith. So desirous are they
of this, that they have caused, in many instances, those who were no
Christians to be presented at their tribunals, who have then, after
being threatened with torture and death, renounced a faith which they
never professed. Once and again has this farce been acted before the
Roman people. Their real triumphs of this sort have as yet been very
few; and the sensation which they produced was swallowed up and lost in
the glory--in the eyes even of the strangers who are in Rome--which has
crowned us in the steadfast courage with which our people have remained
quietly in their homes, throughout all this dreadful preparation, and
then, when the hour of trial drew nigh, and they were placed at the bar
of the judge, and were accused of their religion, confessed the charge,
boasted of it, and then took their way to the prison, from which, they
well knew, death only would deliver them.

* * * * *

That, Fausta, which we have long feared and looked for, has come to
pass, and Probus, our more than friend, our benefactor, and almost our
parent, is, by the Emperor, condemned to death; not, as from the words
of Varus it might be supposed, to the same torments as those to which
Macer was made subject; but to be thrown to the beasts in the Flavian, a
death more merciful than that, but yet full of horror. How is it that,
in the Roman, mercy seems dead, and the human nature, which he received
from the gods, changed to that of the most savage beast!

Livia has been with us; and here, with us, would she now gladly remain.
It is impossible, she says, for us to conceive the height of the frenzy
to which Aurelian is now wrought up against the Christians. In his
impatience, he can scarce restrain himself from setting his Legions in
the neighboring camp at once to the work of slaughter. But he is,
strange as it may seem, in this held back and calmed by the more
bloody-minded, but yet more politic, Fronto. Fronto would have the work
thoroughly accomplished; and that it may be so, he adheres to a certain
system of order and apparent moderation, from which Aurelian would
willingly break away and at once flood the streets of Rome in a new
deluge of blood. Livia is now miserable and sad, as she was, but a few
months ago, gay and happy. At th