Vicus Sceleratus, from its first dim foundation in fraternal quarrel
on the morrow of a common deliverance so touching--had not almost
every step in it some gloomy memory of unnatural violence? Romans
did well to fancy the traitress Tarpeia still "green in earth,"
crowned, enthroned, at the roots of the Capitoline rock. If in truth
the religion of Rome was everywhere in it, like that perfume of the
funeral incense still upon the air, so also was the memory of crime
prompted by a hypocritical cruelty, down to the erring, or not
erring, Vesta calmly buried alive there, only eighty years ago, under
Domitian.

It was with a sense of relief that Marius found himself in the
presence of Aurelius, whose gesture of friendly intelligence, as he
entered, raised a smile at the gloomy train of his own thoughts just
then, although since his first visit to the palace a great change had
passed over it. The clear daylight found its way now into empty
rooms. To raise funds for the war, Aurelius, his luxurious brother
being no more, had determined to sell by auction the accumulated
treasures of the imperial household. The works of art, the dainty
furniture, had been removed, and were now "on view" in the Forum, to
be the delight or dismay, for many weeks to come, of the [36] large
public of those who were curious in these things. In such wise had
Aurelius come to the condition of philosophic detachment he had
affected as a boy, hardly persuaded to wear warm clothing, or to
sleep in more luxurious manner than on the bare floor. But, in his
empty house, the man of mind, who had always made so much of the
pleasures of philosophic contemplation, felt freer in thought than
ever. He had been reading, with less self-reproach than usual, in
the Republic of Plato, those passages which describe the life of the
philosopher-kings--like that of hired servants in their own house--