It will be here
sufficient to observe, that the influence of the same infatuation which
had nerved him to the defence of the assaulted temple, and encouraged
him to attempt his ill-planned restoration of Paganism, had preserved
him through sufferings under which stronger and younger men would have
sunk for ever; had prompted his determination to escape from his
slavery, and had now brought him to Rome--old, forsaken, and feeble as
he was--to risk new perils and suffer new afflictions for the cause to
which, body and soul, he had ruthlessly devoted himself for ever.
Urged, therefore, by his miserable delusion, he had now entered a city
where even his name was unknown, faithful to his frantic project of
opposing himself, as a helpless, solitary man, against the people and
government of an Empire. During his term of slavery, regardless of his
advanced years, he had arranged a series of projects, the gradual
execution of which would have demanded the advantages of a long and
vigorous life. He no more desired, as in his former attempt at
Alexandria, to precipitate at all hazards the success of his designs.
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