"Who can be that Emperor," he asked his friend, "on the car of victory, with the winged lightning in his hand, like a Jupiter Tonans?" "That is Marcus Aurelius," said Julius, and would have walked on. "Oh, stay a while! And who are those four prisoners in chains, with the long waving hair, who drag the car?" "They are Germanic Kings." "But of what family?" asked Totila. "Look there, an inscription--'_Gothi extincti!_'--the Goths annihilated!" and, laughing loudly, the young Goth struck the marble column with the palm of his hand, and walked quickly through the gate. "A lie in marble!" he cried, looking back. "That Emperor never thought that one day a Gothic Count in Neapolis would give his boast the lie!" "Yes, nations are like the changing leaves upon the tree," said Julius thoughtfully. "Who will govern this land after you?" Totila stood still. "AFTER US?" he asked in astonishment. "What! You do not think that your Goths will endure for ever amongst the nations?" "I don't know that," said Totila, walking on. "My friend, Babylonians and Persians, Greeks and Macedonians, and, as it seems, we Romans also, had their appointed time. They flourished, ripened, and decayed. Will it be otherwise with the Goths?" "I do not know," answered Totila uneasily. "I never thought about it. It has never occurred to me that a time might come when my nation----" He hesitated, as if it were a sin even to express the thought. "How can one imagine such a thing? I think as little about it as I do about--death!" "That is like you, my Totila." "And it is like you, Julius, to tease yourself and others with such dreams." "Dreams! You forget that for me and for my nation it has already become a reality. You forget that I am a Roman. I cannot deceive myself like most men; it is all over with us. The sceptre has gone from us to you. It was not without much painful thought that I learned to forget that you, my bosom friend, are a barbarian, the enemy of my country." "But it is not so, by the light of the sun!" interrupted Totila eagerly. "Do I find this harsh thought in you too? Look around you! When, tell me, when has Italy ever flourished more than under our protection? Scarcely in the time of Augustus! You teach us science and art; we give you peace and protection. Can one imagine a finer correlation? Harmony amongst Romans and Goths may create an entirely new era, more splendid than has ever existed." "Harmony! But it does not exist. You are to us a strange people, divided from us by speech and faith, by race and customs, and by centuries of hatred. Once we robbed you of your freedom; now you have robbed us of ours. Between us yawns a wide abyss." "You reject my favourite idea." "It is a dream!" "No, it is truth. I feel it, and perhaps the time will come when I can prove it. I would build all the fabric of my life upon it." "Then were it built upon a noble delusion. No bridge between Romans and barbarians!"