After the manner of Salammbô much of the book consists in descriptions of the sanguinary brutalities of the age; so much so, in fact, that one comes to feel at last that the obvious bias of the author towards sentimentality is mitigated by more interesting proclivities.
Walter Pater in his portrayal of Cornelius has shown us how wearisome imaginary young Romans can be when they are distinguished for goodness and nice feeling and in her concluding chapter Mrs Mitchison fairly lets herself go in describing the felicitous domesticity of the Titus ménage. For certain readers the value of The Conquered may be fairly gauged by the following quotation:
"He had come in late one day, after being out since daybreak, and found his wife cutting long branches of oleander from the tall bushes where the evening sun still rested. Under an arbutus tree by the edge of the stream his two children were playing with their nurse and maid: he heard their high little voices across the lawn and smiled. Aemilia came to him with her arms full of branches. 'Where have you been today?' . . . 'I went over and had dinner with Lerrys. . . . I found Coisha in the kitchen making some of those delicious little cakes of hers; you never give me anything half so good!'
"She laughed 'You know you only like them because they're Gallic; if I made them and said they were Greek you'd think nothing of them! I suppose the baby's beginning to walk now?'"
