“He’d be a reformer, that Philip,” continued Jucundus, “and put down an enormity. Well, they call it an enormity; let it be an enormity. He’d put it down; but why? there’s the point; why? It’s no secret at all,” and his voice grew angry, “that that hoary-headed Atheist Fabian was at the bottom of it; Fabian, the Christian. I hate reforms.”

“Well, we had long wished to do it,” answered Cornelius, “but could not manage it. Alexander attempted it near twenty years ago. It’s what philosophers have always aimed at.”

“The gods consume philosophers and the Christians together!” said Jucundus devoutly. “There’s little to choose between them, except that the Christians are the filthier animal of the two. But both are ruining the most glorious political structure that the world ever saw. I am not over-fond of Alexander either.”

“Thank you in the name of philosophy,” said the Greek.

“And thank you in the name of the Christians,” chimed in Juba.

“That’s good!” cried Jucundus; “the first word that hopeful youth has spoken since he came in, and he takes on him to call himself a Christian.”

“I’ve a right to do so, if I choose,” said Juba; “I’ve a right to be a Christian.”

“Right! O yes, right! ha, ha!” answered Jucundus, “right! Jove help the lad! by all manner of means. Of course, you have a right to go in malam rem in whatever way you please.”

“I am my own master,” said Juba; “my father was a Christian. I suppose it depends on myself to follow him or not, according to my fancy, and as long as I think fit.”

“Fancy! think fit!” answered Jucundus, “you pompous little mule! Yes, go and be a Christian, my dear child, as your doting father went. Go, like him, to the priest of their mysteries; be spit on, stripped, dipped; feed on little boys’ marrow and brains; worship the ass; and learn all the foul magic of the sect. And then be delated and taken up, and torn to shreds on the rack, or thrown to the lions and so go to Tartarus, if Tartarus there be, in the way you think fit. You’ll harm none but yourself, my boy. I don’t fear such as you, but the deeper heads.”

Juba stood up with a look of offended dignity, and, as on former occasions, tossed the head which had been by implication disparaged. “I despise you,” he said.

“Well, but you are hard on the Christians,” said Aristo. “I have heard them maintain that their superstition, if adopted, would be the salvation of Rome. They maintain that the old religion is gone or going out; that something new is wanted to keep the empire together; and that their worship is just fitted to the times.”