Proper implements for forcing
open the gates were now at hand, and already the mob began to dip their
buckets in the Tiber, and pour water wherever any traces of the fire
remained. Soon all obstacles were removed; the soldiers crowded into the
building with spades in their hands, trampled on the black, watery mire
of cinders which covered what had once been the altar of idols, and
throwing out into the street the refuse ashes and the stone images which
had remained unconsumed, dug in what was left, as in a new mine, for the
gold and silver which the fire could not destroy.
The Pagan had lived with his idols, had perished with his idols!--and
now where they were cast away, there he was cast away with them. The
soldiers, as they dug into fragments the black ruins of his altar,
mingled him in fragments with it! The people, as they cast the refuse
thrown out to them into the river, cast what remained of him with what
remained of his gods! And when the temple was deserted, when the
citizens had borne off all the treasure they could collect, when nothing
but a few heaps of dust was left of all that had been burnt, the night-
wind blew away before it the ashes of Ulpius with the ashes of the
deities that Ulpius had served!
CHAPTER 27.
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