is sister.

Titianus received his visitor, lying down, and yet his demeanor revealed
the self-possessed dignity of a high-born Roman, and the calm of a Stoic
philosopher. He listened unmoved to the courtier, who, after the usual
formal greetings, took upon himself to overwhelm the older man with the
bitterest accusations and reproaches. People allowed themselves to
take strange liberties with Caesar in this town, Theocritus burst out;
insolent jests passed from lip to lip. An epigram against his sacred
person had found its way into the Serapeum, his present residence--an
insult worthy of any punishment, even of death and crucifixion.

When the prefect, with evident annoyance, but still quite calmly,
desired to know what this extraordinary insult might be, Theocritus
showed that even in his high position he had preserved the accurate
memory of the mime, and, half angry, but yet anxious to give full effect
to the lines by voice and gesture, he explained that "some wretch had
fastened a rope to one of the doors of the sanctuary, and had written
below it the blasphemous words:

'Hail! For so welcome a guest never came to the sovereign of Hades.
Who ever peopled his realm, Caesar, more freely than thou?
Laurels refuse to grow green in the darksome abode of Serapis;
Take, then, this rope for a gift, never more richly deserved.'"

"It is disgraceful!" exclaimed the prefect.

"Your indignation is well founded. But the biting tongue of the
frivolous mixed races dwelling in this city is well known. They have
tried it on me; and if, in this instance, any one is to blame, it is not
I, the imprisoned prefect, but the chief and captain of the night-watch,
whose business it is to guard Caesar's residence more strictly."

At this Theocritus was furious, and poured out a flood of words,
expatiating on the duties of a prefect as Caesar's representative in
the provinces. "His eye must be as omniscient as that of the all-seeing
Deity. The better he knew the uproarious rabble over whom he ruled,
the more evidently was it his duty to watch over Caesar's person as
anxiously as a mother over her child, as a miser over his treasure."

The high-sounding words flowed with dramatic emphasis, the sentimental
speaker adding to their impressiveness by the action of his hands, till
it was more than the invalid could bear. With a pinched smile, he raised
himself with difficulty, and interrupted Theocritus with the impatient
exclamatio