Isidorus reluctantly accompanied Calphurnius to the tribunal of the Prefect; and there, partly through intimidation, partly through cajolery, he gave such information as to his expedition to Ravenna and Milan as the Prefect chose to ask. This was tortured, by that unscrupulous officer, into an accusation against the Empress Valeria of conspiracy with the Chancellor, Adauctus, and others of the Christian sect, against the worship of the gods of Rome, and so, constructively, of treason against the State. This indictment accusatio, as it was technically called was duly formulated, and attested under the seal of the Prefect’s Court. Naso, the Prefect, and Furca, the priest, found a congenial task in submitting the document to the Emperor Galerius, and asking his authority to proceed against the accused. They visited the palace at an hour when it had been arranged that the Emperor’s evil genius, the cruel Fausta, should be with him, to exert her malign influence in procuring the downfall of the object of her malice the Empress Valeria and the destruction of the Christian sect. “The insulted gods appeal to your Divine Majesty for protection, and for the punishment of the atheists who despise their worship and defy their power,” began the high-priest of Cybele, seeking to work upon the superstition of the Illyrian herdsman, raised to the Imperial purple.

“Well, my worthy friend,” replied the Emperor in a bantering tone, “what is the matter now. Has any one been poaching on your preserves?”

“This is not a matter of private concern, Your Majesty,” remarked the Prefect gravely. “It touches the welfare of the State and the stability of your throne.”

“Yes, and your personal and domestic honour, too,” whispered Fausta in his ear.

“It must be something pretty comprehensive to do all that. Come, out with it at once,” laughed the Emperor.

Thus adjured, Furca began to recount the insults offered to the gods by the Christians, and, especially, that the Empress no longer attended their public festivals.

“Oh yes, I understand,” said the Emperor, with a yawn, “your craft is in danger. The offerings at your altars are falling off; and we all know where they went. The gods are all alike to me; I believe in none of them.”

“But they are necessary, to keep the mob in subjection,” said Naso. “Some are amused with their pageants, and others are awed by menaces of their wrath.”

“Yes, I grant you, they are of some use for that; and that is all they are good for,” replied this ancient Agnostic.

“But the Christians are traitors to the State,” continued the Prefect; “rank sedition-mongers. They are secretly sworn to serve another Lord than the Caesars, and they are ceaselessly striving to undermine your Imperial Majesty’s authority.”

“You do well,” continued the cruel Galerius, a fire of deadly hate burning in his eyes, “to exterminate that accursed vermin, wherever found. Burn, crucify, torture, as you will.”

“And the estates of the rebels, they escheat to the temples of the insulted gods?” asked the priest, with hungry eyes.

“Nay, to the State, I think,” laughed the Emperor. “Is it not so, good Naso?”

“Half to the State and half to the delator, or accuser,” answered that worthy, learned in the law of pillage.

“Let not the wolves fall out about the prey,” said the Emperor, with a sneer; “only make sure work.”

“Be so good then, Your Majesty, as to affix your seal to these decrees of death. With such high officers as Adauctus and Aurelius my authority as Prefect is not sufficient.”

“And the Empress Valeria; she, too, as traitor to your person and crown, is included in the decree,” insinuated, in a wheedling tone, the crafty priest.

“Base hound,” roared the Emperor, laying his hand upon his sword; “breathe but the name of the Empress again, and I will pluck thy vile tongue from thy throat.”

“Nay, Your Majesty,” said the crafty Fausta, while the abject priest cowered like a whipped cur; “’tis but his excess of zeal for Your Majesty’s honour, which I fear the Empress betrays.”

“Madam,” said Galerius, sternly, “I am the guardian of my own honour. What the Christians are, I neither know nor care. What the Empress is, I know the noblest soul that breathes in Rome. Who wags his tongue against her shall be given to the crows and kites. Dixi Fiat I have spoken so let it be,” and his terrible frown, as he stalked from the room, showed that he meant what he said.

The three conspirators, for a moment, stared at each other in consternation. Then the wily Fausta faltered out, “Said I not, he would defy both gods and men? We must do by stealth what we cannot do by force. Juba must ply her most secret and most deadly arts. I have certain subtle spells myself; and if mortal hate can give them power, I will make her beauty waste away like a fading flower, and her strength wane like a dying lamp.”

“’Tis a dangerous game,” replied Naso. “Be wary how you play it. As for me, armed with this edict, I will strike at mine ancient foe, for whom I long have nursed a bitter spite. Curse him! I am tired of hearing him called Adauctus the Just. He held me to such a strict account that I had to make a full return of all the fines and mulcts paid in, without taking the toll which is my right.” And he departed to gratify his double passion of revenge and greed.

It may seem strange that such a truculent monster as Galerius, of whom, in his later days, his Christian subjects were wont to say that “he never supped without human blood Nec unquam sine cruore humano coenabat," should be so under the spell of his Christian wife. But the statement is corroborated by the records of history, and by the philosophy of the human mind. There is a power in moral goodness that can awe the rudest natures, a winsome spell that can subdue the hardest hearts. It was the story of Una and the Lion, of Beauty and the Beast over again; and one of the severest trials for a Christian wife in those days of the struggle between Christianity and Paganism for the mastery of the world, was that of being allied to a pagan husband. Tertullian, in the third century, thus describes the difficulties which a Christian woman married to an idolater must encounter in her religious life:

“At the time for worship the husband will appoint the use of the bath; when a fast is to be observed he will invite company to a feast When she would bestow alms, both safe and cellar are closed against her. What heathen will suffer his wife to attend the nightly meetings of the Church, the slandered Supper of the Lord, to visit the sick even in the poorest hovels, to kiss the martyrs’ chains in prison, to rise in the night for prayer, to show hospitality to stranger brethren?"

In time of persecution, or in the case of persons of such exalted rank as that of Valeria, the difficulty of adorning a Christian life, amid their pagan surroundings, was all the greater. Yet not a word of scandal has been breathed upon the character of the wife of the arch persecutor of the Christians; and even the sneering pen of Gibbon has only words of commendation for the Christian Empress who herself under subsequent persecution, remained steadfast even unto death.

The beauty and dignity of Christian wedlock in an age of persecution and strife are nobly expressed by Tertullian in the following passage, addressed to his own wife: “How can I paint the happiness,” he exclaims, “of a marriage which the Church ratines, the Sacrament confirms, the benediction seals, angels announce, and our heavenly Father declares valid! What a union of two believers one hope, one vow, one discipline, one worship! They are brother and sister, two fellow-servants, one spirit and one flesh. They pray together, fast together, exhort and support one another. They go together to the house of God, and to the table of the Lord. They share each other’s trials, persecutions, and joys. Neither avoids, nor hides anything from the other. They delight to visit the sick, succour the needy, and daily to lay their offerings before the altar without scruple, and without constraint. They do not need to keep the sign of the cross hidden, nor to express secretly their Christian joy, nor to receive by stealth the eucharist. They join in psalms and hymns, and strive who best can praise God. Christ rejoices at the sight, and sends His peace upon them. Where two are in His name He also is; and where He is, there evil cannot come.”