Pertinax, the governor of Rome, had merely hinted at Olympian desire, whereat some rich Antiochenes, long privileged, had been ejected with scant ceremony from a small marble pavilion on an islet, formed by a branch of the River Ladon that had been guided twenty years ago by Hadrian’s engineers in curves of exquisitely studied beauty.  From between Corinthian columns was a view of nearly all the temple precincts and of the lawns where revelers would presently forget restraint.  The first night of the Daphne season usually was the wildest night of all the year, but they began demurely, and for the present there was the restraint of expectation.

Because there was yet snow on mountain-tops and the balmy air would carry a suggestion of a chill at sunset, there were cunningly wrought charcoal braziers set near the gilded couches, grouped around a semicircular low table so as to give each guest an unobstructed view from the pavilion.  Pertinax—­neither guest nor host, but a god, as it were, who had arrived and permitted the city of Antioch to ennoble itself by paying his expenses—­stretched his long length on the middle couch, with Galen the physician on his right hand, Sextus on his left.  Beyond Galen lay Tarquinius Divius and Sulpicius Glabrio, friends of Pertinax; and on Sextus’ left was Norbanus, and beyond him Marcus Fabius a young tribune on Pertinax’ staff.  There was only one couch unoccupied.

Galen was an older man than Pertinax, who was already graying at the temples.  Galen had the wrinkled, smiling, shrewd face of an old philosopher who understood the trick of making himself socially prominent in order to pursue his calling unimpeded by the bitter jealousies of rivals.  He understood all about charlatanry, mocked it in all its disguises and knew how to defeat it with sarcastic wit.  He wore none of the distinguishing insignia that practising physicians usually favored; the studied plainness of his attire was a notable contrast to the costly magnificence of Pertinax, whose double-purple-bordered and fringed toga, beautifully woven linen and jeweled ornaments seemed chosen to combine suggestions of the many public offices he had succeeded to.

He was a tall, lean, handsome veteran with naturally curly fair hair and a beard that, had it been dark, would have made him look like an Assyrian.  There was a world of humor in his eyes, and an expression on his weathered face of wonder at the ways of men—­an almost comical confession of his own inferiority of birth, combined with matter-of-fact ability to do whatever called for strength, endurance and mere ordinary common sense.

“You are almost ashamed of your own good fortune,” Galen told him.  “You wear all that jewelry, and swagger like the youngest tribune, to conceal your diffidence.  Being honest, you are naturally frugal; but you are ashamed of your own honesty, so you imitate the court’s extravagance and made up for it with little meannesses that comfort your sense of extremes.  The truth is, Pertinax, you are a man with a boy’s enthusiasms, a boy with a man’s experience.”