angeful lustre
of her tearful eyes, the aristocratic grace of the noble figure, the
exquisite symmetry of the hands and feet, the weakness of the prostrate
sufferer, strangely blended with truly 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 loo