ion of the building in the Hippodrome, the decorations in the
streets, and the preparations for entertaining the Roman visitors
absorbed sums so large that they seemed extravagant even to the prefect
Titianus, who was accustomed to see his fellow-officials in Rome
squander millions.

As the Emperor's viceroy it behoved him to give his assent to all that
was planned to feast his sovereign's eye and ear. On the whole, he left
the citizens of the great town free to act as they would; but he had,
more than once, to exert a decided opposition to their overdoing the
thing; for though the Emperor might be able to endure a vast amount of
pleasure, what the Alexandrians originally proposed to provide for
him to see and hear would have exhausted the most indefatigable human
energy.

That which gave the greatest trouble, not merely to him, but also to the
masters of the revels chosen by the municipality, were the never-dormant
hostility between the heathen and the Jewish sections of the
inhabitants, and the processions, since no division chose to come last,
nor would any number be satisfied to be only the third or the fourth.

It was from a meeting, where his determined intervention had at last
brought all these preliminaries to a decision beyond appeal, that
Titianus proceeded to the Caesareum to pay the Empress the visit which
she expected of him daily. He was glad to have come to some conclusion,
at any rate provisionally, with regard to these matters, for six
days had slipped away since the works had been begun in the palace of
Lochias, and Hadrian's arrival was nearing rapidly.

He found Sabina, as usual, on her divan, but on this occasion the
Empress was sitting upright on her cushions. She seemed quite to have
got over the fatigues of the sea-voyage, and in token that she felt
better she had applied more red to her cheeks and lips than three days
ago, and because she was to receive a visit from the sculptors, Papias
and Aristeas, she had had her hair arranged as it was worn in the
statue of Venus Victrix, with whose attributes she had, five years
previously--though not, it is true, without some resistance--been
represented in marble. When a copy of this statue had been erected in
Alexandria, an evil tongue had made a speech which was often repeated
among the citizens.

"This Aphrodite is triumphant to be sure, for all who see her make haste
to fly; she should be called Cypris the scatterer."

Titianus was still under