Two days after, this letter was delivered to Pyrrhus by his dusky friend Anukis.

Her inquiry whether he thought it prudent to convey visitors to his guests was answered in the negative, for since Octavianus had been in Asia, the harbour swarmed with the boats of spies, and a single act of imprudence might bring ruin.

Charmian’s letter, too, was even better calculated to curb Dion’s increasing desire to return home than the fisherman’s warning.

True, the beginning contained good news of Barine’s relatives, and then informed Dion that his uncle, the Keeper of the Seal, was fairly revelling in bliss.  His inventive gifts were taxed more than ever.  Every day brought a festival, every night magnificent banquets.  One spectacle, excursion, or hunting party followed another.  In the theatres, the Odeum, the Hippodrome, no more brilliant performances, races, naval battles, gladiatorial struggles, and combats between beasts had been given, even before Actium.  Dion himself had formerly attended the entertainments of those who belonged to the court circle, the society of “Inimitable Livers.”  It had been revived again, but Antony called them the “Comrades of Death.”  This was significant.  Every one knows that the end is drawing near, and imitates the Pharaoh to whom the oracle promised six years of life, and who convicted it of falsehood and made them twelve by carousing during the night also.

The Queen’s meeting with her husband, which she had previously reported, had been magnificent.  “At that time,” she wrote, “we hoped that a more noble life would begin, and Mark Antony, awakened and elevated by his rekindled love, would regain his former heroic power; but we were mistaken; Cleopatra, it is true, toiled unceasingly, but her lover with his enormous bunch of roses gave the signal for the maddest revelry which the imagination of the wildest devotee of pleasure could conceive.  The performances of the Inimitable Livers were far surpassed by those of the “Comrades of Death.”

“Antony is at their head, and he, whose giant frame resists even the most unprecedented demands, succeeds in stupefying himself and forgetting the impending ruin.  When he comes to us after a night of revelry his eyes sparkle as brightly, his deep voice has as clear a ring, as at the beginning of the banquet.  The Queen is his goddess; and who could remain unmoved when the giant bows obediently to the nod of his delicate sovereign, and devises and offers the most unprecedented things to win a smile from her lips?  The changeful, impetuous wooing of youth lies far behind him, but his homage, which the Ephebi of today would perhaps term antiquated, has always seemed to me as if a mountain were bending before a star.  The stranger who sees her in his company believes her a happy woman.  Amid the fabulous radiance of the festal array, when all who surround her admire, worship, and strew flowers in her path, one might believe that the old sunny days had returned; but when we are alone, how rarely I see her smile!  Then she plans for the tomb which, under Gorgias’s direction, is rapidly rising, and considers with him the best method of rendering it an inaccessible place of retreat.