Antony—"Oh! yes, tell me about the City of the Popes."

Apollonius—"——A drunken man accosted us who sang with a sweet voice. It was an epithalamium of Nero; and he had the power of causing the death of anyone who heard him with indifference. He carried on his back in a box a string taken from the cithara of the Emperor. I shrugged my shoulders. He threw mud in our faces. Then I unfastened my girdle and placed it in his hands."

Damis—"In this instance you were quite wrong!"

Apollonius—"The Emperor, during the night, made me call at his residence. He played at ossicles with Sporus, leaning with his left arm on a table of agate. He turned round, and, knitting his fair brows: 'Why are you not afraid of me?' he asked. 'Because the God who made you terrible has made me intrepid,' I replied."

Antony, to himself—"Something unaccountable fills me with fear."

Silence.

Damis resumes, in a shrill voice—"All Asia, moreover, could tell you ..."

Antony, starting up—"I am sick. Leave me!"

Damis—"Listen now. At Ephesus, he witnessed the death of Domitian, who was at Rome."

Antony making an effort to laugh—"Is this possible?"