be eaten, and animals can be used: but man! I know little that he is good
for, but to bury, and so fatten the soil. Emperors, as being highest,
should be best, and yet, what are they? Whether they have been fools or
madmen, the Tiber has still run blood, and the air been poisoned by the
rotting carcasses of their victims. Claudius was a good man, I grant; but
the gods, I believe, envied us our felicity, and so took him.'

'I trust,' said I, 'that the present auspices will not deceive us, and
that the happiness begun under that almost divine ruler, will be
completed under him whom he designated as most worthy of the sceptre of
the world, and whose reign--certainly we may say it--has commenced so
prosperously. I think better of man than you do, and I cannot but believe
that there will yet rise up among us those who shall feel what power,
almost of a god, is lodged in the will of a Roman emperor, and will use it
like a god to bless, not curse mankind. Why may not Nature repeat the
virtuous Antonines! Her power is not spent. For myself, I have faith that
Aurelian will restore not so much the greatness, as the peace and
happiness of the empire.'

'So have not I,' cried the master of the ship: 'is he not sprung from the
loins of a peasant? Has not the camp been his home? Was not a shield his
cradle? Such power as his will craze him. Born to it, and the chance were
better. Mark a sailor's word: he will sooner play the part of Maximin,
than that of Antonine or Severus, or of our late good Claudius. When he
feels easy in the saddle, we shall see what he will do. So far, the blood
of barbarians, slain in battle, has satisfied him: when once in Rome, that
of citizens will be sweeter. But may the gods befriend us!'

At this point of our discourse, we were interrupted by loud vociferations
from the forward part of the vessel, where I had long observed a crowd of