uly royal majesty,
or the thought that love for her had found earth's greatest and loftiest
men with indissoluble fetters, which lent this fragile woman, who
had long since passed the boundaries of youth, so powerful a spell of
attraction?

At any rate, however certain of himself he might be, he must guard his
feelings. He understood how to bridle passion far better than the uncle
who was so greatly his superior.

Yet it was of the utmost importance to keep her alive, and therefore to
maintain her belief in his admiration. He wished to show the world and
the Great Queen of the East, who had just boasted of conquering, like
death, even the most mighty, its own supremacy as man and victor. But
he must also be gentle, in order not to endanger the object for which
he wanted her. She must accompany him to Rome. She and her children
promised to render his triumph the most brilliant and memorable one
which any conqueror had ever displayed to the senate and the people.
In a light tone which, however, revealed the emotion of his soul, he
answered: "My illustrious uncle was known as a friend of fair women. His
stern life was crowned with flowers by many hands, and he acknowledged
these favours verbally and perhaps--as he did to you in all these
letters--with the reed. His genius was greater, at any rate more
many-sided and mobile, than mine. He succeeded, too, in pursuing
different objects at the same time with equal devotion. I am wholly
absorbed in the cares of state, of government, and war. I feel grateful
when I can permit our poets to adorn my leisure for a brief space.
Overburdened with toil, I have no time to yield myself captive, as my
uncle did in these very rooms, to the most charming of women. If I could
follow my own will, you would be the first from whom I would seek the
gifts of Eros. But it may not be! We Romans learn to curb even the most
ardent wishes when duty and morality command. There is no city in the
world where half so many gods are worshipped as here; and what strange
deities are numbered among them! It needs a special effort of the
intellect to understand them. But the simple duties of the domestic
hearth!--they are too prosaic for you Alexandrians, who imbibe
philosophy with your mothers' milk. What marvel, if I looked for them
in vain? True, they would find little satisfaction--our household gods I
mean--here, where the rigid demands of Hymen are mute before the ardent
pleadings of Eros. Marriage is