The conversation was interrupted by the entrance of two slaves, a male and female, dressed in short and close garments for the dance. They wore leathern skull-caps for protection of the head in case of falling, because as they danced they flung themselves on their heads and alighted again upon their feet. Another slave played appropriate airs on the flute. After engaging in this dance, in which, after Spartan style, the hands and head and eyes were in motion as well as the feet, a rope was extended across the room. The female dancer ascended, carrying a thyrsus bound with white fillet and ending in a bunch of vine and ivy leaves mixed with berries. Balancing herself with this, she danced in many graceful attitudes, representing satyrs, fauns, bacchanals, and other mythological beings. Then exchanging the thyrsus for a crater of wine and a small drinking-cup, she danced and meantime poured the wine from one vessel into the other, balancing herself by the action, and then descended amid great applause. After the dance the amanuensis of Aurelian declaimed with great spirit the beautiful passage of Homer in which the death of Hector at the hands of Achilles is described. Here some one remarked that Zoilus had not sung or improvised during the evening, and a unanimous call was made on turn, with which, after some hesitation, he complied by singing the following:
The Song of Saturnus.
A hymn to Saturnus, a grateful hymn,
With goblets festooned to the bead-crowned brim,
On his festival we sing:
Who once in the year
Doth freedom and cheer
To slave and to master bring,
Bring,
To slave and to master bring.
He taught unto men how to till the hard soil,
To plant the green grape and to draw the fat oil
Which flows in the olive's heart,
To prune the vine
And to tap the mine,
And every useful art.
He breathed on the earth; and his breath is the spring
Which flowers and fruits on its bosom doth fling,
And sweetens the summer breeze
As it freshly blows
Where the water flows
Through the roots of the leaf-clad trees.
He breathed on the sea; and the ripples came
Like smiles o'er its face, and its amorous frame
Kissed with its cooling lip
The shore in the hours
When the sky sends its showers
For the thirsty earth to sip.
He breathed on the air; and its brow grew white
With rays scarce concealed by the veil of night;
And the sun from its blue looked down
With a smile so bland
As to free the land
From the chill of his winter frown.
He breathed on the springs; and the streams rushed out
From their mother's lap with a mirthful shout:
"Oh! come to the fields," they sang,
"For the parched meads
Need our limpid beads,"
And they laughed as they onward sprang.
Then a hymn to Saturnus, a grateful hymn,
With goblets festooned to the wine-crowned brim,
On his festival we sing:
Who once in the year
Doth freedom and cheer
To slave and to master bring!
"Why, Zoilus, you rival Martial the Spaniard in wooing the virgin Nine," said Bathus. "If the emperor only knew your powers, he would patronize you as well as Juvenal, Quinctilian, and the Jew Josephus."
"The renegade from his race and creed!" said Ephrem, a Jewish slave, in an underbreath to Judith, who sat beside him.
"The golden age of poesy, like that of philosophy, has departed," remarked Zoilus in answer to Bathus. "The emperor has lost his early love of verse-making, and betaken himself to the burning of vestals [Footnote 171] and of Christians.
[Footnote 171: Vestals were burned in the reign of Domitian for violation of their vows.]
"By the way, Bathus, have you heard that Epictetus and the whole host of philosophers have been exiled? They say that Dio Chrysostom is consoling himself in the Getulian desert with a tract of Plato and a speech of Demosthenes. I would advise you strongly to shave your beard and lay aside the philosopher's cloak, or the beard may be cut off with the head attached to it. Genius is at a low ebb nowadays; that is my reason for having ceased to be one."
"Beware, lest you might share a like fate; your tongue wags very freely," observed Aurelian, who overheard the conversation.
"Noble master, this is the feast of free speech. To-morrow I will padlock my lips, and nothing but a golden key will open them." said the slave, glancing knowingly at his master. Then turning to Ephrem the Jew, "Sing us that ode to your native land I heard you repeat the other day, Ephrem."
"It is in Hebrew, and would not be understood."