“Your thoughtlessness, this time, has very nearly cost your life, a life dear to many, and which you ought to save for a nobler end.  We cannot attempt to keep you here; we should thereby only injure ourselves without benefitting you.  This noble Spartan must now take your place as head and representative of the Greek nation at the Egyptian court, must endeavor to protect us against the encroachment of the priests, and to retain for us the royal favor.  I take your hand, Aristomachus, and will not let it go till you have promised that you will protect, to the utmost of your power, every Greek, however humble, (as Phanes did before you), from the insolence of the Egyptians, and will sooner resign your office than allow the smallest wrong done to a Hellene to go unpunished.  We are but a few thousands among millions of enemies, but through courage we are great, and unity must keep us strong.  Hitherto the Greeks in Egypt have lived like brothers; each has been ready to offer himself for the good of all, and all for each, and it is just this unity that has made us, and must keep us, powerful.

“Oh! could we but bestow this precious gift on our mother-country and her colonies! would the tribes of our native land but forget their Dorian, Ionian or AEolian descent, and, contenting themselves with the one name of Hellenes, live as the children of one family, as the sheep of one flock,—­then indeed we should be strong against the whole world, and Hellas would be recognized by all nations as the Queen of the Earth!”

[This longing desire for unity was by no means foreign to the Greeks, though we seldom hear it expressed.  Aristotle, for example, says VII. 7.:  “Were the Hellenes united into one state, they could command all the barbarous nations.”]

A fire glowed in the eyes of the grey-haired woman as she uttered these words; and the Spartan, grasping her hand impetuously and stamping on the floor with his wooden leg, cried:  “By Zeus, I will not let a hair of their heads be hurt; but thou, Rhodopis, thou art worthy to have been born a Spartan woman.”

“Or an Athenian,” cried Phanes.

“An Ionian,” said the Milesians, and the sculptor:  “A daughter of the Samian Geomori—­”

“But I am more, far more, than all these,” cried the enthusiastic woman.  “I am a Hellene!”

The whole company, even to the Jew and the Syrian, were carried away by the intense feeling of the moment; the Sybarite alone remained unmoved, and, with his mouth so full as to render the words almost unintelligible, said: 

“You deserve to be a Sybarite too, Rhodopis, for your roast beef is the best I have tasted since I left Italy, and your Anthylla wine’ relishes almost as well as Vesuvian or Chian!”

Every one laughed, except the Spartan, who darted a look of indignation and contempt at the epicure.

In this moment a deep voice, hitherto unknown to us, shouted suddenly through the window, “A glad greeting to you, my friends!”