It was a brilliant company—gay youths all, who could tell the new stories and loved to sit late with their wine. As they waited for dinner many tempting dishes were passed among them. There were oysters, mussels, spondyli, fieldfares with asparagus, roe-ribs, sea-nettles, and purple shellfish. When they came to their couches, the dinner-table was covered with rare and costly things. On platters of silver and gold one might have seen tunny fishes from Chalcedon, murcenas from the Straits of Gades, peacocks from Samos, grouse from Phrygia, cranes from Melos. Slaves were kept busy bringing boar's head and sow's udder and roasted fowls, and fish pasties, and boiled teals. Other slaves kept the goblets full of old wine. Soon the banquet had become a revel of song and laughter. Suddenly Antipater raised a calix high above his head.
"My noble friends," he shouted, "I bid you drink with me to Arria, sister of Appius, and fairest daughter of Rome—"
Vergilius had quickly risen to his feet. "Son of Herod," said he, with dignity, "I am in your palace and have tasted of your meat, and am therefore sacred. You make your wine bitter when you mingle it with the name of one so pure. Good women were better forgotten at a midnight revel."
A moment of silence followed.
"My intention was pure as she," Antipater answered, craftily. "Be not so jealous, my noble friend. I esteem her as the best and loveliest of women."
"Nay, not the loveliest," said the young Manius, an assessor in Judea. "I sing the praise of Salome, sister of our noble prince. Of all the forms in flesh and marble none compare with this beautiful daughter of the great king."
"May fairest women be for the best men," said Antipater, drinking his wine.
In a dim light along the farther side of the dining-hall was a row of figures, some draped, some nude, and all having the look of old marble. Two lay in voluptuous attitudes, one sat on a bank of flowers, and others stood upon pedestals.
There were all the varying forms of Venus represented in living flesh. None, save Antipater and the slaves around him, knew that under each bosom was a fearful and palpitating heart. They were beautiful slave-girls captured on the frontiers of Judea. In spite of aching sinew and muscle, they had to stand like stone to escape the observation of evil eyes. There was a cruelty behind that stony stillness of the maidens, equal, it would seem, to the worst in Hades.
Slaves kept the wine foaming in every goblet, and fought and danced and wrestled for the pleasing of that merry company, and the hours wore away. Suddenly the sound of a lyre hushed the revels. All heard the voice of a maiden singing, and turned to see whence it came. A sweet voice it was, trembling in tones that told of ancient wrong, in words full of a new hope. Had life and song come to one of those white marbles yonder? Voice and word touched the heart of Vergilius—he knew not why; and this in part is the chant that stopped the revels of Antipater: