gnats
and flies which are attracted by all those good things are unendurable,
and the strong smell of food spoils my appetite."

"It is better in the side-rooms," said the host. "In the one kept for you
the company is now preparing to depart. In behind here the sophists
Demetrius and Pancrates are entertaining a few great men from Rome,
rhetoricians or philosophers or something of the kind. Now they are
bringing in the fine lamps and they have been sitting and talking at that
table ever since breakfast. There come the guests out of the side room.
Will you take it?"

"Yes," said Hadrian. "And when a tall young man comes to ask for the
architect Claudius Venato, from Rome, bring him in to me."

"An architect then, and not a sophist or a rhetorician," said mine host,
looking keenly at the Emperor.

"Silenus,--a philosopher!"

"Oh the two vociferous friends there go about even on other days naked
and with ragged cloaks thrown over their lean shoulders. To-day they are
feeding at the expense of rich Josephus."

"Josephus! he must be a Jew and yet he is making a large hole in the
ham."

"There would be more swine in Cyrene if there were no Jews; they are
Greeks like ourselves, and eat everything that is good."

Hadrian went into the vacant room, lay down on a couch that stood by the
wall, and urged the slaves who were busied in removing the dishes and
vessels used by his predecessors, and which were swarming with flies. As
soon as he was alone he listened to the conversation which was being
carried on between Favorinus, Florus, and their Greek guests. He knew the
two first very well, and not a word of what they were saying escaped his
keen ear.

Favorinus was praising the Alexandrians in a loud voice, but in flowing
and elegantly-accented Greek. He was a native of Arelas--[Arles]--in
Gaul, but no Hellene of them all could pour forth a purer flow of the
language of Demosthenes than he. The self-reliant, keen, and vivacious
natives of the African metropolis were far more to his taste than the
Athenians; these dwelt only in, and for, the past; the Alexandrians
rejoiced in the present. Here an independent spirit still survived, while
on the shores of the Ilissus there were none but servile souls who made a
merchandise of learning, as the Alexandrians did of the products of
Africa and the treasures of India. Once when he had fallen into disgrace
with Hadrian, the Athenians had thrown down his statue, and the favor or