text:  And what a wild insurrection of crimes and vices! What a challenge to hate and disdain in the minds in which the tradition of the antique virtues the old _mores_ those edifiers of the sublime Republic had yet life! Rome under Nero and Domitian! Pedants have presumed to question the sincerity of his indignation and have more than hinted that his power of picturing those enormous profligacies was inspired by the pleasure of a depraved imagination