Imaginary Conversatio7i. 3 Merciful gods ! may not Rome be what Carthage is ? may not those who love her devotedly, those who will look on her with fondness and affection after life, see her in such condition as to wish she were so ? POLYBIUS. One of the heaviest groans over fallen Carthage burst from the breast of Scipio : who would believe this tale ? SCIPIO. Men like my Polybius : others must never hear it. POLYBIUS. You have not ridden forth, Emilianus, to survey the ruins. SCIPIO. No, Polybius : since I removed my tent, to avoid the heat from the conflagration, I never have ridden nor walked nor looked toward them. At this elevation, and three miles off, the temperature of the season is altered. I do not believe, as those about me would have persuaded me, that the gods were visible in the clouds ; that thrones of ebony and gold were scattered in all directions ; that broken chariots, and flaming steeds, and brazen bridges, had cast their fragments upon the earth ; that eagles and lions, dolphins and tridents, and other emblems of power and empire, were visible at one moment, and at the next had vanished ; that purple and scarlet over- spread the mansions of the gods ; that their voices were heard at first confusedly and discordantly ; and that the apparition closed with their high festivals. I could not keep my eyes on the heavens : a crash of arch or of theatre or of tower, a column of flame rising higher than they were, or a universal cry, as if none until then had perished, drew them thither- ward. Such were the dismal sights and sounds, a fresh city seemed to have been taken every hour, for seventeen days. This is the eighteenth since the smoke arose from the level roofs and from the lofty temples, and thousands died, and tens of thousands ran in search of death. Calamity moves me ; heroism moves me more. That a nation whose avarice we have so often reprehended, should have cast into the furnace gold and silver, from the insuffi^
