glaring criminality and shocking barbarity of your fiendish conduct, which has made your streets and shrines run red with blood and resound with cries of murder. Among you the laws of Rome have been consigned to oblivion, the fear of righteous judgement has been trampled under foot, and for the Crown you have assuredly neither respect nor awe. Among you the innocent blood of exactly sixty Christian brethren has been spilt, and he who has the more murders to his credit has enjoyed various honours and been appointed to the chief post in your assembly. See now, let us come to the chief point. If you mention your Hercules, we shall straightway restore it to you; we have quarries at hand, and there is no lack of stone; there are in addition various kinds of marble and a sufficient supply of craftsmen. Moreover, your god will be chiseled, smoothed off and ornamented: we shall even add red ochre to paint the blush with which your holy prayers may be uttered. For if you say the Hercules is your own, we shall contribute a penny each and buy a god for you from your own craftsman. Restore then the souls that your ferocious hand has destroyed, and as we give back your Hercules, so do you restore these many souls.

Since we parted from each other in body, I have1