"Be careful! _His_ knife is more powerful: it is the sword; and behind him stand the wild Mauritanian cavalry, and the Isaurian hirelings, whom we must pay with precious gold to protect us from the barbarians." "But who defends us from the defenders? The Emperor in distant Ravenna? He rejoices if the Germans do not cross the Alps; he troubles himself no more about this land, which has been so long Roman." "Except in extortionate taxes, to squeeze out our last blood-drops." "Bah! The State taxes! It is many years since they were collected. No Imperial functionary ventures now over the mountains. I stand indeed here on Imperial soil. But what is the name of the man who is now Emperor, and to whom this bit of land belongs, of which he has never heard? Every two years another Emperor is made known to us--but only through the coinage." "And that becomes ever worse." "It _cannot_ get worse; that is a comfort." "A friend tells me that the taxes get more and more intolerable in Mediolanum, where there are still bailiffs and soldiers to levy them by force." "And it may be the same with us," laughed the young man. "Who knows how much I am already in debt for these two acres of land?" "And the roads of the Legions are overgrown with grass and brushwood." "And the troops receive no wages." "But they pay themselves by plundering the burghers, whom they should defend." "And the walls of Juvavum are falling, the moats are dry, the sluices destroyed; the rich people go away, there only remain poor wretches like ourselves, who cannot leave." "I wonder that the money-lender has not long ago moved with his great gold-bag over the Alps." "I would not go, uncle, if I could; and why, indeed, could I not? My art, my trade will be honoured everywhere, so long as the Romans dwell in stone, not wooden houses, like the Germans. But I am firmly fixed to this soil. Many, many generations have my fathers dwelt here; they say since the founding of the colony by the Emperor Hadrian. They have cleared the forests, drained the marshes, made roads, raised fords, laid out house and garden, grafted the rich fruits on the wild apple and pear-trees; the climate itself has become milder. I know Italy, I have bought marble in Venetia, but I would rather live here on the old inheritance of my fathers." "But if the barbarians come, wilt thou then also?"---- "Stay! I have my own thoughts about that. For us unimportant people it is better under the barbarians than"---- "Say not, than under the Emperor. Thou art a Roman!" The stout Crispus said this very gravely, but the other laughed; the good uncle but little resembled a Roman hero. His neighbours declared that he modelled his statues of Bacchus from his own figure. "Half-blood! My mother was a Noric Celt. Induciomara! That does not sound much of the Quirinal."