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evils do; it is the merriment of hell. What time they burn not, they laugh. But enough. Hold now thy scoffing, Prefect Varus, for, high as thou art, I fear thee not: no! not wert thou twice Aurelian, instead of Varus. I have somewhat for thee. Wilt hear it?'
'With delight, Bubo. Say on.'
'It was thy word just now, 'Rome needs not this doctrine,' was it not?'
'If I said it not, it is a good saying, and I will father it.'
''Rome needs not this doctrine; she is well enough; let her alone!' These were thy words. Need not, Varus, the streets of Rome a cleansing river to purify them? Dost thou think them well enough, till all the fountains have been let loose to purge them? Is Tarquin's sewer a place to dwell in? Could all the waters of Rome sweeten it? The people of Rome are fouler than her highways. The sewers are sweeter than the very worshippers of our temples. Thou knowest somewhat of this. Wast ever present at the rites of Bacchus?--or those of the Cyprian goddess? Nay, blush not yet. Didst ever hear of the gladiator Pollex?--of the woman Cæcina?--of the boy Lælius, and the fair girl Fannia--proffered and sold by the parents, Pollex and Cæcina, to the loose pleasures of Gallienus? Now I give thee leave to blush! Is it nought that the one half of Rome is sunk in a sensuality, a beastly drunkenness and lust, fouler than that of old, which, in Judea, called down the fiery vengeance of the insulted heavens? Thou knowest well, both from early experience and because of thy office, what the purlieus of the theatres are, and places worse than those, and which to name were an offence. But to you they need not be named. Is all this, Varus, well enough? Is this that venerable order thou wouldst not have disturbed? Is that to be charged as impiety and atheism, which aims to change and reform it? Are they conspirators, and rebels, and traitors, whose sole office and labor is to mend these degenerate morals, to heal these corrupting sores, to pour a better life into the rotting car