“Now the mire is coming too near me,” Dion angrily responded, “and I might really stick fast, as I was warned; for I do not envy the ready presence of mind of any person whose tongue would not falter when the basest slander scattered its venom over him.  You all know, fellow-citizens, through how many generations the Didymus family has lived to the honour of this city, doing praiseworthy work in yonder house.  You know that the good old man who dwells there was one of the teachers of the royal children.”

“And yet,” cried Philostratus, “only the day before yesterday he walked arm in arm in the Paneum garden with Arius, the tutor of Octavianus, our own and our Queen’s most hated foe.  In my presence, and before I know not how many others, Didymus distinguished this Arius as his most beloved pupil.”

“To give you that title,” retorted Dion, “would certainly fill any teacher with shame and anger, no matter how far you had surpassed him in wisdom and knowledge.  Nay, had you been committed to the care of the herring dealers, instead of the rhetoricians, every honest man among them would disown you, for they sell only good wares for good money, while you give the poorest in exchange for glittering gold.  This time you trample under foot the fair name of an honourable man.  But I will not suffer it; and you hear, fellow-citizens, I now challenge this Syrian to prove that Didymus ever betrayed his native land, or I will brand him in your presence a base slanderer, an infamous, venal destroyer of character!”

“An insult from such lips is easily borne,” replied Philostratus in a tone of scornful superiority; but there was a pause ere he again turned to the listening throng, and with all the warmth he could throw into his voice continued:  “What do I desire, then, fellow-citizens?  What is the sole object of my words?  I stand here with clean hands, impelled solely by the impulse of my heart, to plead for the Queen.  In order to secure the only suitable site for the statues to be erected to Cleopatra’s honour and fame, I enter into judgment with her foes, expose myself to the insult with which boastful insolence is permitted to vent its wrath upon me.  But I am not dismayed, though, in pursuing this course, I am acting against the law of Nature; for the infamous man against whom I raise my voice was my teacher, too, and ere he turned from the path of right and virtue—­under influences which I will not mention here—­he numbered me also, in the presence of many witnesses, among his best pupils.  I was certainly one of the most grateful—­I chose his granddaughter—­the truth must be spoken—­for my wife.  The possession—­”

“Possession!” interrupted Dion in a loud, excited tone.  “The corpse cast ashore by the waves might as well boast possession of the sea!”

The dim torchlight was sufficient to reveal Philostratus’s pallor to the bystanders.  For a moment the orator seemed to lose his self-control, but he quickly recovered himself, and shouted:  “Fellow-citizens, dear friends!  I was about to make you witnesses of the misery which a woman, whose wickedness is even greater than her beauty, brought upon an inexperienced—­”