at the instigation of the emperor, when he became desirous of getting rid of her, for the sake of Sabina, her maid-servant Pythias alone refused, for court-favour, to deny or even conceal the truth, and under the severest tortures still asserted the perfect purity of her mistress; rendering to an oppressed woman the greatest and noblest service which can be rendered to those who cannot be delivered from death; for posterity accepts the evidence of this solitary witness, and rejects the whole opposite testimony which terror and bribery were able to procure against Octavia.

Nay, the sentiment of heroic endurance which sustains women under the most terrible sufferings so much more than it does men, is not confined to those who have been trained to

fortitude by a life of virtue. Anne Boleyn and Mary Queen of Scots died as calmly as did Lady Jane Grey or Marie Antoinette; and ancient history records that Leaina, a courtezan of Athens, engaged in the famous

* Dion, "Hist." lib. LXII, p. 707.

conspiracy of Harmodius and Aristogiton endured with courage and joy the most exquisite tortures, rather than reveal what she knew of the plot.

JULIAN THE APOSTATE.

WE may become familiarly acquainted with Julian the Apostate from various sources, but particularly from the admirable narrative of his officer, Ammianus Marcellinus. He was of middle stature; mediocris statura is the expression of Ammianus, his friend, and I must adhere to it. Julian, it may be remarked, has been called a little man, and the people of Antioch ridiculed him as a short man (homo brevis). Ammianus also tells us, that when all Constantinople turned out to see the new emperor, the hero of so many victories, the people were surprised at his

youth, and his small person (adultum juvenem, exiguo corpore).*

All this, however, is, I think, quite consistent with the belief, which I do not doubt is the true one, that Julian was just as Ammianus says, of middle stature. The satirical humour of the Antiochians would not stick closely to dry facts; and the mob of Constantinople would expect their heroic sovereign to be a man of gigantic stature, as all ideal warriors are in popular belief.

The hair on Julian's head was soft, as if he had carefully combed it; his beard was shaggy, ending in a point. As in his mind, Julian, in some respects, bore a likeness, though with a marked inferiority in point of intellect, to the most illustrious of the emperors, so in his face there were two features in which he resembled Cæsar. He had, like Cæsar, the beautiful bright eyes which expressed every emotion of the mind; like Cæsar also, his mouth was rather large. His eyebrows were fine; his lower lip fell down a

* Ammianus Marcellinus, lib. xxII, c. 2, sec. 5.

little. He had a very straight neck, somewhat bent; and large and broad shoulders. From his head, says the historian, to the very tips of his nails, there was a proportion in all his parts; and he excelled in strength and swiftness.*

I ought to add, that in the view of St. Gregory Nazianzen, Julian's shoulders were continually in motion, his eyes wild and wandering, his walk irregular, his head always moving this way or that way.

One of the coins of Julian represents him without a beard, as he was at the period when he outwardly professed Christianity. In the coins on which he has the imperial title of Augustus," he has the rough, shaggy beard attributed to him. On his head is a fillet, sometimes highly ornamented, apparently formed of strings of beads. Ammianus gives an amusing account of his coronation, when the soldiers raised him on their shields, and saluted him as emperor.

He was beseeched to assume the diadem;

* Ammianus, lib. xxv, c. 4, sec. 22.