The Gods of the Roman World—Leaven of Christianity—Measures of the Emperors Against the Christians—Nine General Persecutions—Mad Extremes of Heliogabalus—Rescue of the Bodies of the Apostles—Tragic History of the Appian Way—The Joys of Solitude—How Marion Crawford Became the Master of San Niccola—A Solitude of Relaxation and Quiet—A Secluded Garden on the River in Rome—The Contrasts of Life and the Happiness in Hoping—An Artist’s Festival—How a Roman Emperor Looked. Few things in the records of the past are stranger than the variations of attitude of the Roman Emperors (barring some hæmatomaniacs like Nero) towards Christianity during the first three or four centuries of our era, quite apart from the moral attributes of the Emperors themselves. One feels, through the edicts, the bored irritation of the rulers at having to trouble themselves at all about a few low-born individuals led away, as was believed, by a crazy illusion about another world, a life after this one, which they promised to all who would renounce the real pleasures—those considered as such by the great ones of the day and their followers—pride and power, riches, ambition, the lust of the eyes, and the lust of the flesh. “Surely,” one seems to hear authority exclaim, “human nature may be trusted to fight for its own, against such fanatics! We have had our Stoics and their disciples, and no one had to legislate against them. All they claimed was the right to despise ease and pleasure, and to find their reward in the admiration or notoriety that they gained in the process. Their very uncomfortable doctrines were never the cause of great social upheavals! What is behind this new teaching that men should be so excited about it?”