CHAPTER 12.
THE PASSAGE OF THE WALL.
'A fair night this, Balbus! All moonlight and no mist! I was posted last evening at the Ostian Gate, and was half choked by the fog.' 'If you were posted last night at the Ostian Gate, you were better placed than you are now.

The ramparts here are as lonely as a ruin in the provinces.

Nothing behind us but the back of the Pincian Mount; nothing before us but the empty suburbs; nothing at each side of us but brick and stone; nothing at our posts but ourselves.

May I be crucified like St.Peter, if I believe that there is another place on the whole round of the walls possessed of such solitary dulness as this!' 'You are a man to find something to complain of, if you were lodged in one of the palaces yonder.

The place is solitary enough, it is true; but whether it is dull or not depends on ourselves, its most honourable occupants.