f up, he went on with offended dignity:

"I know what the end has been of so many who have aroused your wrath, and
yet I have courage enough to tell you to your face, that to injustice,
the outcome of distrust, you add the most senseless insult. Or do you
really think that a just man--for so you have called me more than
once--would outrage the manes of the beloved woman who bore him to please
the mother of another man, even though she be Caesar's? What I swear to
by the head of my mother, friend and foe alike must believe; and he who
does not, must hold me to be the vilest wretch on earth; my presence can
only be an offense to him. So I beg you to allow me to return to Rome."

The words were manly and spoken firmly, and they pleased Caracalla; for
the joy of believing in the philosopher's statement outweighed every
other feeling. And since he regarded Philostratus as the incarnation of
goodness--though he had lost faith in that--his threat of leaving
disturbed him greatly. He laid his hand on his brave adviser's arm, and
assured him that he was only too happy to believe a thing so incredible.

Any witness of the scene would have supposed this ruthless fatricide,
this tyrant--whose intercourse with the visions of a crazed and unbridled
fancy made him capable of any folly, and who loved to assume the aspect
of a cruel misanthrope--to be a docile disciple, who cared for nothing
but to recover the favor and forgiveness of his master. And Philostratus,
knowing this man, and the human heart, did not make it too easy for him
to achieve his end. When he at last gave up his purpose of returning to
Rome, and had more fully explained to Caesar how and where he had met
Melissa, and what he had heard about her brother the painter, he lifted
the wrapper from Korinna's portrait, placed it in a good light, and
pointed out to Caracalla the particular beauties of the purely Greek
features.

It was with sincere enthusiasm that he expatiated on the skill with which
the artist had reproduced in color the noble lines which Caracalla so
much admired in the sculpture of the great Greek masters; how warm and
tender the flesh was; how radiant the light of those glorious eyes; how
living the waving hair, as though it still breathed of the scented oil!
And when Philostratus explained that though Alexander had no doubt spoken
some rash and treasonable words, he could not in any case be the author
of the insulting verses which had been found at th