Before Cleopatra had time to answer this question another trumpet-blast was heard, and she exclaimed:  “That is Philometor, come to fetch us to the banquet.  I will ere long give the Roman the opportunity of defending himself, though—­in spite of your accusations—­I trust him entirely.  This morning I asked him solemnly whether it was true that he was in love with his friend’s charming Hebe, and he denied it in his firm and manly way, and his replies were admirable and worthy of the noblest mind, when I ventured to doubt his sincerity.  He takes truth more seriously than you do.  He regards it not only as beautiful and right to be truthful, he says, but as prudent too; for lies can only procure us a small short-lived advantage, as transitory as the mists of night which vanish as soon as the sun appears, while truth is like the sunlight itself, which as often as it is dimmed by clouds reappears again and again.  And, he says, what makes a liar so particularly contemptible in his eyes is, that to attain his end, he must be constantly declaring and repeating the horror he has of those who are and do the very same thing as he himself.  The ruler of a state cannot always be truthful, and I often have failed in truth; but my intercourse with Publius has aroused much that is good in me, and which had been slumbering with closed eyes; and if this man should prove to be the same as all the rest of you, then I will follow your road, Euergetes, and laugh at virtue and truth, and set the busts of Aristippus and Strato on the pedestals where those of Zeno and Antisthenes now stand.”

“You mean to have the busts of the philosophers moved again?” asked King Philometor, who, as he entered the tent, had heard the queen’s last words.  “And Aristippus is to have the place of honor?  I have no objection—­though he teaches that man must subjugate matter and not become subject to it.—­["Mihi res, non me rebus subjungere."]—­This indeed is easier to say than to do, and there is no man to whom it is more impossible than to a king who has to keep on good terms with Greeks and Egyptians, as we have, and with Rome as well.  And besides all this to avoid quarrelling with a jealous brother, who shares our kingdom!  If men could only know how much they would have to do as kings only in reading and writing, they would take care never to struggle for a crown!  Up to this last half hour I have been examining and deciding applications and petitions.  Have you got through yours, Euergetes?  Even more had accumulated for you than for us.”

“All were settled in an hour,” replied the other promptly.  “My eye is quicker than the mouth of your reader, and my decisions commonly consist of three words while you dictate long treatises to your scribes.  So I had done when you had scarcely begun, and yet I could tell you at once, if it were not too tedious a matter, every single case that has come before me for months, and explain it in all its details.”