'Piso, I bear with you, and shall; but there is no other in Rome who might say so much.' 'Nay, nay, Aurelian, there I believe you better than you make yourself. To him who is already the victim of the axe or the beasts do you never deny the liberty of the tongue,--such as it then is.' 'Upon Piso, and he the husband of Julia, I can inflict no evil, nor permit it done.' 'I would take shelter, Aurelian, neither behind my own name, my father's, nor my wife's. I am a Christian--and such fate as may befall the rest, I would share. Yet not willingly, for life and happiness are dear to me as to you--and they are dear to all these innocent multitudes whom you do now, in the exercise of despotic power, doom to a sudden and abhorred death. Bethink yourself, Aurelian, before it be too late--' 'I have bethought myself of it all,' he replied--'and were the suffering ten times more, and the blood to be poured out a thousand times more, I would draw back not one step. The die has been cast; it has come up as it is, and so must be the game. I listen to no appeal.' 'Not from me,' I replied; 'but surely you will not deny a hearing to what these people may say in their own defence. That were neither just nor merciful; nor were it like Aurelian. There is much which by their proper organs they might say to place before you their faith in the light of truth. You have heard what you have received concerning it, chiefly from the lips of Fronto; and can he know what he has never learned? or tell it unperverted by prejudices black as night?'