joyous cry came echoing back, "He is dead, Maximin is dead!"

I sit in my study, and upon the table before me lies a denarius of
Maximin, as fresh as when the triumvir of the Temple of Juno Moneta sent
it from the mint. Around it are recorded his resounding titles--
Imperator Maximinus, Pontifex Maximus, Tribunitia potestate, and the
rest. In the centre is the impress of a great craggy head, a massive
jaw, a rude fighting face, a contracted forehead. For all the pompous
roll of titles it is a peasant's face, and I see him not as the Emperor
of Rome, but as the great Thracian boor who strode down the hillside on
that far-distant summer day when first the eagles beckoned him to Rome.



THE COMING OF THE HUNS


In the middle of the fourth century the state of the Christian religion
was a scandal and a disgrace. Patient, humble, and long-suffering in
adversity, it had become positive, aggressive, and unreasonable with
success. Paganism was not yet dead, but it was rapidly sinking, finding
its most faithful supporters among the conservative aristocrats of the
best families on the one hand, and among those benighted villagers on
the other who gave their name to the expiring creed. Between these two
extremes the great majority of reasonable men had turned from the
conception of many gods to that of one, and had rejected for ever the
beliefs of their forefathers. But with the vices of polytheism they
had also abandoned its virtues, among which toleration and religious
good humour had been conspicuous. The strenuous earnestness of the
Christians had compelled them to examine and define every point of their