United States or Ukraine ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
When asked for their reason, they could only say that Callista’s history and death had affected them with constraining force, and that they could not help following her steps. Increasing in boldness, as well as numbers, the Christians cowed both magistrates and mob.
They’ll have to make a few Christians for the occasion, in order to kill them: and I almost think they’re about it,” he added, thoughtfully. “They have to show that they are not surpassed by the rabble. ’Tis a pity Christians are so few, isn’t it, mother?” “Yes, yes,” she said, “but we must crush them, grind them, many or few: and we shall, we shall! Callista’s to come.”
Her friends say that the fright has turned her brain, but that if kindly treated and kept quiet, she will come round, and do all that is required of her. What are we to do?’ ” At last Callista’s friends prevailed. It was decided that the judges should pass over this examination altogether, as if it had been rendered informal by Callista’s conduct.
He might as well stop the passage of the sun, as the movements of mighty Rome, and a rescript would be coming to a certainty in due time from Carthage, and would just say one thing, which would forthwith be passing into the region of fact. He had no one to consult, and to tell the truth, Callista’s fate was more than acquiesced in by the public of Sicca.
While he sat thus at his shop window, which, as it were, framed him for the contemplation of passers-by, on the day of the escape of Agellius, and the day before Callista’s public examination, Aristo rushed in upon him in a state of far more passionate and more reasonable grief.
The spirit of the populace had been already broken; and the continual change of masters, and measures with them, in the imperial government, inflicted a chronic timidity on the magistracy. A handsome church was soon built, to which Callista’s body was brought, and which remained till the time of the Diocletian persecution.
Callista’s mad; Agellius is mad; Juba is mad; and Strabo was mad;—but it was his wife, old Gurta, that drove him mad;—and there, I think, is the beginning of our troubles.——Come in! come in, Cornelius!” he cried, seeing his Roman friend outside, and relapsing for the moment into his lugubrious tone; “Come in, Cornelius, and give us some comfort, if you can. Well, this is like a friend!
Whether his mention of Callista’s name was intended to be for the benefit of her soul, or the ruin of Agellius’s, must be left in the obscurity in which the above narrative presents it to us; so far alone is certain, though it does not seem to throw light on the question, that, on his leaving his uncle’s house in the course of the forenoon, which he did, without being pressed to stay, he was discovered prancing and gesticulating in the neighbourhood of Callista’s prison, so as to excite the attention of the apparitor, or constable, who guarded the entrance, and who, alarmed at his wildness, sent for some of his fellows, and, with their assistance, repelled the intruder, who, thereupon, scudding out at the eastern gate, was soon lost in the passes of the mountain.
After some time it was found that he was at Carthage, and he had been provident enough to take with him some of his best working tools, and some specimens of his own and poor Callista’s skill. Strange to say, Jucundus proved a truer friend to the poor girl than her brother.
To these reasons was added, in Callista’s case, the interest which naturally attached to a woman, young and defenceless. The burning sun of Africa is at the height of its power. The population is prostrated by heat, by scarcity, by pestilence, and by the decimation which their riot brought upon them. They care neither for Christianity, nor for anything else just now.
Word Of The Day