The Chaldean Magician

A cloudless October day, A. D. 299, was drawing to a close; the western sky behind the crest of Mt. Janiculum still glowed with crimson light, but the population in the streets and squares of the world's capital were already moving in a bluish twilight and yellow-red lamps shone, veiled by smoke, from the taverns of the many-gabled Subura. A youth with a white toga thrown over his shoulders, comi...