Lucilius’s information that Cleopatra had consented to make advances to Antony had seemed like the rising of the sun after a long period of darkness.  In his eyes, not only his master, but everything else, must yield to the power of the Queen.  He had heard Antony at Tarsus inveigh against “the Egyptian serpent,” protesting that he would make her pay so dearly for her questionable conduct towards himself and the cause of Caesar that the treasure-houses on the Nile should be like an empty wine-skin; yet, a few hours after, body and soul had been in her toils.  So it had continued till the battle of Actium.  Now there was nothing more to lose; but what might not Cleopatra bestow upon his master?  He thought of the delightful years during which his face had grown so round, and every day fresh pleasures and spectacles, such as the world would never again witness, had satiated eye and ear, palate and nostril,—­nay, even curiosity.  If they could be repeated, even in a simpler form, so much the better.  His main—­nay, almost his sole-desire was to release his lord from this wretched solitude, this horrible misanthropy, so ill suited to his nature.

Cleopatra had kept him waiting two hours, but he would willingly have loitered in the anteroom thrice as long if she only determined to follow his counsel.  It was worth considering, and Eros did not hesitate to give it.  No one could foresee how Antony would greet Cleopatra herself, so he proposed that she should send Charmian—­not alone, but with her clever hunch-backed maid, to whom the Imperator himself had given the name “Aisopion.”  He liked Charmian, and could never see the dusky maid without jesting with her.  If his master could once be induced to show a cheerful face to others besides himself, Eros, and perceived how much better it was to laugh than to lapse into sullen reverie and anger, much would be gained, and Charmian would do the rest, if she brought a loving message from her royal mistress.

Hitherto Cleopatra had not interrupted him; but when she expressed the opinion that a slave’s nimble tongue would have little power to change the deep despondency of a man overwhelmed by the most terrible disaster, Eros waved his short, broad hand, saying: 

“I trust your Majesty will pardon the frankness of a man so humble in degree, but those in high station often permit us to see what they hide from one another.  Only the loftiest and the lowliest, the gods and the slaves, behold the great without disguise.  May my ears be cropped if the Imperator’s melancholy and misanthropy are so intense!  All this is a disguise which pleases him.  You know how, in better days, he enjoyed appearing as Dionysus, and with what wanton gaiety he played the part of the god.  Now he is hiding his real, cheerful face behind the mask of unsocial melancholy, because he thinks the former does not suit this time of misfortune.  True, he often says things which make your skin creep, and frequently broods mournfully over his own thoughts.