'Be not afraid of that, dearest mother; I can warrant you against disappointment. If in that marble you have the form of the outward beauty, here, in this roll, you will find the inward moral beauty of which it is the shrine.' 'Nay, nay, Lucius, I look no farther or deeper. I have seen too much already.' With these words, she arose, and we accompanied her to the portico, where we walked, and sat, and talked of you, and Calpurnius, and Gracchus. Thus you perceive I have told you first of what chiefly interests myself: now let me turn to what at this moment more than everything else fills all heads in Rome--and that is Livia. She is the object of universal attention, the centre of all honor. It is indescribable, the sensation her beauty, and now added to that, her magnificence, have made and still make in Rome. Her imperial bearing would satisfy even you; and the splendor of her state exceeds all that has been known before. This you may be surprised to hear, knowing what the principles of Aurelian have been in such things; how strict he has been himself in a more than republican simplicity, and how severe upon the extravagances and luxuries of others, in the laws he has enacted. You must remember his prohibition of the use of cloth of gold and of silk, among other things--foolish laws to be suddenly promulged among so vain and corrupt a population as this of Rome. They have been the ridicule and scorn of rich and poor alike; of the rich, because they are so easily violated in private, or evaded by the substitution of one article for another; of the poor, because, being slaves in spirit, they take a slave's pride in the trappings and state of their masters; they love not only to feel but to see their superiority. But since the eastern expedition, the reduction of Palmyra, and the introduction from abroad of the vast flood of foreign luxuries which has inundated Rome and Italy itself the principles and the habits of the Emperor have undergone a mighty revolution. Now, the richness and costliness of his dress, the splendor of his equipage, the gorgeousness of his furniture, cannot be made to come up to the height of his extravagant desires. The silk which he once denied to the former Empress for a dress, now, variously embroidered, and of every dye, either hangs in ample folds upon the walls, or canopies the royal bed, or lends its beauty to the cushioned seats which everywhere, in every form of luxurious ease, invite to repose. Gold, too, once prohibited, but now wrought into every kind of cloth, or solid in shape of dish, or vase, or cup, or spread in sheets over the very walls and ceilings of the palace, has rendered the traditions of Nero's house of gold no longer fabulous. The customs of the eastern monarchs have also elevated or perverted the ambition of Aurelian, and one after another are taking place of former usages. He is every day more difficult of access, and surrounds himself, his palaces, and apartments,