“Vercingetorix being still at liberty, and unwounded, might have escaped; but hoping, for the sake of their previous friendship, to obtain forgiveness from Cæsar, he went out to him without notice of his coming. And while the Roman general was seated on the tribunal, he appeared suddenly, so as to alarm some persons, for he was tall of stature, and made a gallant appearance in his armour. All around being hushed, he said nothing, but fell on his knee, stretching out his hand in gesture of supplication. All others were struck with compassion, both by the recollection of his former high state, and by the exceeding piteousness of the spectacle before them. But Cæsar made that from which he chiefly expected to derive safety, the heaviest charge against him; for, dwelling on the return for his friendship, he made the injury appear the heavier. And therefore he pitied him not in that conjuncture, but for the present cast him into bonds, reserving him until his triumph, after which he slew him.”[101] But Rome, which had so often insulted the majesty of fallen royalty, endured in the person of one of her emperors a greater degradation than any which she had inflicted. When the emperor Valerian was taken prisoner by Sapor, king of Persia, his life was spared, but spared that his age might waste in the most humiliating slavery; and when the haughty monarch mounted his horse, he used the prostrate body of his royal captive for a footstool. That, said the haughty Sapor, was a real triumph; not painting imaginary processions upon walls, as the Romans did. To gratify the victor’s pride still more, he was compelled to wear the imperial purple and decorations, and in this attire, laden with chains, he followed in the train of Sapor, and exhibited to the whole Persian empire a striking picture of the fallen pride of Rome. This system of insult extended even beyond the grave: his skin is related to have been dyed scarlet, and stuffed, and then placed in a temple as an enduring monument of the shame of Rome. The Christian writers, who alone relate all the particulars of Valerian’s humiliation,[102] see in it the just vengeance of God for his persecution of our faith: the reason, probably, that Gibbon seems inclined to consider the story as a pious fiction. If so, however, it soon obtained currency, for the Emperor Constantine, who flourished not much more than half a century after the event, alludes to it in a letter to the king of Persia: “All these emperors (the persecutors of Christianity) have been destroyed by such a dreadful and avenging end, that since their times all mankind doth usually wish their calamities may fall as a curse and punishment upon those who shall study to imitate them. One of which persons I judge him to have been (him, I mean, whom divine vengeance like a thunderbolt drove out of our regions, and conveyed unto your country) who by his own disgrace and ignominy erected that trophy so much boasted of among you.”[103]