er in vain to
calm herself and remember her rank and her dignity as a woman. But
Balbilla pushed her vehemently aside, and when the news was brought that
Nile had yielded up his prey she rushed on foot to see the body, with the
rest of the crowd.

Her name was in every mouth, everyone knew that she was the Empress'
friend, and so she was willingly and promptly obeyed when she commanded
the bearers who carried the bier on which the recovered body lay to set
it down and to lift up the sheet which shrouded it. Pale and trembling,
she went up to it and gazed down at the drowned man; but only for a
moment could she endure the sight. She turned away with a shudder, and
desired the bearers to go on. When the funeral procession had disappeared
and she could no longer hear the shrill wailing of the Egyptian women,
and no longer see them streaking their breast, head, and hair with damp
earth and flinging up their arms wildly in the air, she turned to her
companion and said calmly: "Now, Claudia, let us go home."

In the evening at supper she appeared dressed in black, like Sabina and
all the rest of the suite, but she was calm and ready with an answer to
every observation.

Pontius had travelled with them from Thebes to Besa, and she had spared
him nothing that could punish him for his long absence, and had
mercilessly compelled him to listen to all her verses on Antinous.

He meanwhile had been perfectly cool about it, and had criticised her
poems exactly as if they had referred not to a man of flesh and blood but
to some statue or god. This epigram he would praise, the next he would
disparage, a third condemn. Her confession that she had been in the habit
of complimenting Antinous with flowers and fruit he heard with a shrug of
the shoulders, saying pleasantly: "Give him as many presents as you will;
I know that you expect no gifts from your divinity in return for your
sacrifices."

His words had surprised and delighted her. Pontius always understood her,
and did not deserve that she should wound him. So she let him gaze into
her soul, and told him how much she loved Antinous so long as he was
absent. Then she laughed and confessed that she was perfectly indifferent
to him as soon as they were together.

When, after the Bithynian's death, she lost all self-control he simply
let her alone, and begged Claudia to do the same.

The same day that the body was found it was burnt on a pile of precious
wood. Hadrian had refused