The South could ill afford to lose such a battle, here and now. Not long can she hold out in her unnatural struggle against destiny. The tide of a progressive civilization will roll over her, though for a time it must needs be crimsoned with the blood of martyrs. AENONE: A TALE OF SLAVE LIFE IN ROME. CHAPTER I. When, in the second year of Titus Vespasian, the Roman general Sergius Vanno returned from his armed expedition in the East, and asked for public honors, there were some in the senate who made objection. It was not fitting, they argued, that formal tokens of national commendation should be too readily bestowed. It had not been so in the time of their fathers. Long years of noble, self-sacrificing zeal and arduous service, crowned with conquests of supreme importance, had then been the only acknowledged title to the prize. It was scarcely proper that the same distinctions which had hitherto been awarded for the acquisition of the most valuable provinces should be granted for the annexation of a mere strip of worthless territory upon the extreme borders of the empire--wild, rugged, and inhospitable, and inhabited by nomadic tribes, who could only be brought under a nominal authority, and who would never prove otherwise than turbulent and unprofitable subjects. Nor was it a matter to be mentioned with especial laudation that Sergius Vanno had succeeded in repressing, with overwhelming force, a revolt in a few of the AEgean islands. If exploits such as these were to be so liberally recompensed, what honors could there be left to bestow upon deeds of acknowledged brilliancy and importance?