Like sportive faun in the green meadow's glee?'[76]

[76] Milman, translator.

as old Euripides sings in his 'Bacchae.' Yes, the Hellenes were right
when they put nymphs in the forest and in the deep. Only our blind
practical Latin eyes will not see them. We will forget that we are
Romans; we will build for ourselves some cosey little Phaeacia up in
the Sabine hills beside some lake; and there my Sappho shall also be
my Nausicaa to shine fair as a goddess upon her distressed and
shipwrecked Odysseus."

"Yes," said Cornelia, smiling, "a delightful idyl; but Odysseus would
not stay with Nausicaa."

"I was wrong," replied Drusus, as they walked arm in arm out from the
portico, and down the broad avenue of stately shade trees. "You shall
be the faithful Penelope, who receives back her lord in happiness
after many trials. Your clever Agias can act as Telemachus for us."

"But the suitors whom Odysseus must slay?" asked Cornelia, entering
into the fun.

"Oh, for them," said Drusus, lightly, "we need not search far. Who
other than Ahenobarbus?"

II

Rather late in the afternoon, a few days subsequently, the most noble
Lucius Cornelius Lentulus Crus, consul-designate, and one of the most
prominent politicians of his time and nation, arrived at Praeneste;
having hurried away from Rome to escape for a little while the summer
heats which made the capital anything but a pleasant place for
residence. Drusus's travelling cortege would have seemed small enough
compared with the hedge of outriders, footmen, and body-servants that
surrounded the great man. But notwithstanding his prospective
dignities, and his present importance, Lentulus Crus was hardly an
imposing personality. He was a bald-pated, florid individual, with
rough features, a low, flat forehead, and coarse lips. He was dressed
very fashionably, and was perfumed and beringed to an extent that
would have been derided anywhere save in the most select circles of
Rome. He was stout, and when he alighted from his carriage, he moved
away with a somewhat waddling gait, and lifted up a rasping,
high-pitched voice in unsonorous complaint against a slave who let
fall a parcel of baggage.

Clearly the master of the house had returned, and all the familia and
freedmen bustled about their various tasks with the unusual
promptitude and diligence which is the outcome of a healthy fear of
retribution for slackness. Lentulus went into the atrium, and there
had an angry co