There, crowning the seven hills stood
the imperial city adorned with porches, theatres, baths, aqueducts, and
palaces. Satan pointed out the different objects of interest in splendid
Rome, the Capitol, Mt. Palatine, crowned by the imperial palace, and the
great gates, through which issued or entered a continuous stream of
praetors, proconsuls, lictors, legions, embassies, on all the roads which
led through the far-stretching empire, even to those of the Asian kings,
and remote Britain. All the glory of the world, he argued, lay in Parthia
and Rome, and Rome was greater. He who ruled her was indeed ruler of the
world, and yet its present emperor was old, weak, lascivious, without
heir, and lived at Capreae, his public cares entrusted to his favorite.
How easily could the Son of God force from him the power and lift the yoke
from his people!
But the splendor of the scene allured neither the eye nor the mind of the
Son. The gluttonies, the gorgeous feasts, the hollow compliments and lies
of the people did not attract him. His mission, he told his Tempter, was
not yet to free that people, once just and frugal, now debased by their
insatiable ambition. When the time came for him to sit on David's throne,
this with all other kingdoms of the earth would be shattered while his
kingdom would be eternal.
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