eturning traveller.

Sometimes all gazed toward the mouth of the harbour, where the expected
ship must soon pass the recently completed masterpiece of Sostratus, the
towering lighthouse, still shining in its marble purity.

Soon many Alexandrians also crowded the large platform in front of the
Temple of Poseidon, and the very wide marble staircase leading from it
to the landing place.

Beneath the bronze statues of the Dioscuri, at the right and left of the
topmost step, had also gathered the magnificent figures of the Phebi and
the younger men from the wrestling school of Timagetes, with garlands on
their curling locks, as well as many younger artists and pupils of the
older masters.

The statues of the gods and goddesses of the sea and their lofty
pedestals, standing at the sides of the staircase, cast upon the marble
steps, gleaming in the radiance of the morning sun, narrow shadows,
which attracted the male and female chorus singers, who, also wearing
beautiful garlands, had come to greet the expected arrival with solemn
chants.

Several actors were just coming from rehearsal in the theatre of
Dionysus, east of the Temple of Poseidon, of which, like all the stages
in the city, Proclus was chief manager.

A pretty dancing girl, who hung on the arm of the youngest, extended her
hand with a graceful gesture toward the staircase, and asked:

"Whom can they be expecting there? Probably some huge new animal for the
Museum which has been caught somewhere for the King, for yonder stiff
wearer of a laurel crown, who throws his head back as though he would
like to eat the Olympians and take the King for a luncheon into the
bargain, is Straton, the denier of the gods, and the little man with the
bullethead is the grammarian Zoilus."

"Of course," replied her companion. "But there, too, is Apollodorus, the
alabarch of the Jews, and the heavy money-bag Archias--"

"Why look at them!" cried the younger mime. "It's far better worth
while to stretch your neck for those farther in front. They are genuine
friends of the Muses--the poets Theocritus and Zenodotus."

"The great Athene, Apollo, and all his nine Pierides, have sent their
envoys," said the older actor pathetically, "for there, too, are
the sculptors Euphranor and Chares, and the godlike builder of the
lighthouse, Sostratus in person."

"A handsome man," cried the girl flute-player, "but vain, I tell you,
vain--"

"Self-conscious, you ought to say," corrected