'Greater than Aurelian! and I must wonder too. A poet may be greater than a general or an emperor, I grant: he is one of the family of the gods; but how a worker in brass or marble can be, passes my poor understanding. It is vain to attempt to raise the mere artist, to the level of the historian or poet.' 'I think that too. I only said he was greater than Aurelian--' 'Than Aurelian,' replied Spurius, 'who has extended the bounds of the empire!' 'But narrowed those of human happiness,' I answered. 'Which is of more consequence, empire or man? But now, man was the great object! I grant you he is, and for that reason a man who, like an artist of genius, adds to the innocent sources of human enjoyment, is greater than the soldier and conqueror, whose business is the annoyance and destruction of life. Aurelian has slain hundreds of thousands. Periander never injured a worm. He dwells in a calm and peaceful world of his own, and his works are designed to infuse the same spirit that fills himself into all who behold them. You must confess the superior power of art, and of the artist, in this very figure. Who thinks of conquest, blood, and death, as he looks upon these flowing outlines, this calm, majestic form--upon that still face? The artist here is the conqueror of the conqueror, and makes him subserve his own purposes; purposes, of a higher nature than the mere soldier ever dreamed of. No one can stand and contemplate this form, without being made a lover of beauty rather than of blood and death; and beauty is peace.' 'It must be impossible,' replied the bitter spirit, 'for one who loves Palmyra better than his native Rome, to see much merit in Aurelian. It is a common saying, Piso is a Palmyrene. The report is current too that Piso is about to turn author, and celebrate that great nation in history.' 'I wish I were worthy to do so,' I answered, 'I might then refute certain statements in another quarter. Yet events have already refuted them.' 'If my book,' replied Spurius, 'be copied a thousand times, the statements shall stand as they are. They are founded upon indisputable evidence and philosophical inferences.' 'But, Spurius, they are every one contradicted by the late events.' 'No matter for that, if they were ever true they must always be true. Reasoning is as strong as fact. I found Palmyra a vulgar, upstart, provincial city; the most distasteful of all spots on earth to a refined mind; such I left it, and such I have shown it to the world.' 'Yet,' I urged, 'if the Palmyrenes in the defence of their country showed themselves a brave, daring, and dangerous foe, as they certainly were magnanimous; if so many facts and events prove this, and all Rome admits it, it will seem like little else than malice for such pages to circulate in your book. Besides, as to a thousand other things I can prove you to have seen amiss.'