United States or Japan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


A heathen mob, headed by the priestesses of the Mater et Virgo Caelestis, the object of the ecstatic worship afterwards transferred to the mother of Christ, had two or three years before besieged the proconsul of Africa in his own house because he refused to order a general massacre of the Christians.

The Celtic officers delivered their general the solemn choice of the whole nation over to the energy of their country for such punishment as might be thought fit. Mounted on his steed and in full armour the king of the Arverni appeared before the Roman proconsul and rode round his tribunal; then he surrendered his horse and arms, and sat down in silence on the steps at Caesar's feet .

"In consequence of Messire de la Foret's as I must term it most unchristian decision," said the cardinal, "it is not impossible, Messire the Proconsul, that I may head the next assault upon your territory " Demetrios laughed. He said: "I dare to promise your Eminence that reception you would most enjoy." "I had hoped for as much," the cardinal returned; and he too laughed.

Seeing you talk, quoth Pantagruel, of dark, difficult, hard, and knotty debates, I will tell you of one controverted before Cneius Dolabella, proconsul in Asia. The case was this. A wife in Smyrna had of her first husband a child named Abece. He dying, she, after the expiring of a year and day, married again, and to her second husband bore a boy called Effege.

Thus that city lost her liberties; which by her behaviour during the Mithridatic war, she had purchased; having in it sustained a siege; and as much by her own bravery, as by the aid of Lucullus, repulsed the king, But Fonteius Capito, who had as Proconsul governed Asia, was acquitted, upon proof that the crimes brought against him by Vibius Serenus were forged: and yet the forgery drew no penalty upon Serenus: nay, the public hate rendered him the more secure: for, every accuser, the more eager and incessant he was, the more sacred and inviolable he became: the sorry and impotent were surrendered to chastisement.

The death of Hypatia is indeed a blot in Christian annals, but she fell the victim of an infuriated multitude; and how often had the Proconsul and the Emperor beheld, unmoved, the arena wet with the blood of Christian virgins, and the earth blackened with their ashes!

The reciprocal offer was pressed and rejected at least three times, and, whilst the obstinate modesty of either party was resolved to receive a master from the hands of the other, eight months insensibly elapsed; an amazing period of tranquil anarchy, during which the Roman world remained without a sovereign, without a usurper, and without a sedition. * The generals and magistrates appointed by Aurelian continued to execute their ordinary functions; and it is observed, that a proconsul of Asia was the only considerable person removed from his office in the whole course of the interregnum.

They allowed him on occasion of the proposals of Trebonius to push matters once more to a hand-to-hand conflict in the Forum, and to submit to the senate a proposal that the proconsul Caesar should be given over to the Usipetes and Tencteri on account of his perfidious conduct toward those barbarians.

The only demur arose with Pertinax himself: he had been leader of the troops in Britain, then superintendent of the police in Rome, thirdly proconsul in Africa, and finally consul and governor of Rome. In these great official stations he stood near enough to the throne to observe the dangers with which it was surrounded; and it is asserted that he declined the offered dignity.

And then one day, when the proconsul had been absent some six weeks, Ahasuerus fetched Dame Melicent into the Court of Stars. Demetrios lay upon the divan supported by many pillows, as though he had not ever stirred since that first day when an unfettered Melicent, who was a princess then, exulted in her youth and comeliness.