’But Roman freedom and Roman manners were going to the dogs when Horace wrote.’

’But Christ was about to be born, and men were already being made fit by wider intelligence for Christ’s teaching.  And as for freedom, has not freedom grown, almost every year, from that to this?’

’In Rome they were worshipping just such men as this Melmotte.  Do you remember the man who sat upon the seats of the knights and scoured the Via Sacra with his toga, though he had been scourged from pillar to post for his villainies?  I always think of that man when I hear Melmotte’s name mentioned.  Hoc, hoc tribuno militum!  Is this the man to be Conservative member for Westminster?’

‘Do you know of the scourges, as a fact?’

‘I think...