Antinous, who was very hungry and tired, made a melancholy face at these words of his master, and Hadrian perceiving it, added with a smile: 

“But youth needs something more to live upon than bread and wine.  You pointed out to me just now the residence of the palace-steward.  Might we not find there a morsel of meat or cheese, or something of the kind?”

“Hardly,” replied Pontius.  “For the man stuffs his fat stomach and his eight children with bread and porridge.  But an attempt will at any rate be worth making.”

“Then send to him; but conduct us at once to the hall where the Muses have preserved some bread and wine for me and these good fellows, though they do not always provide them for their disciples.”

Pontius at once conducted the Emperor into the hall.  On the way thither, Hadrian asked: 

“Is the steward so miserably paid that he is forced to content himself with such meagre fare?”

“He has a residence rent free, and two hundred drachmae a month.”

“That is not so very little.  What is the man’s name, and of what kith and kin is he?”

“He is called Keraunus, and is of ancient Macedonian descent.  His ancestors from time immemorial have held the office he now fills, and he even supposes himself to be related to the extinct royal dynasty through the mistress of some one of the Lagides.  Keraunus sits in the town council and never stirs out in the streets without his slave, who is one of the sort which the merchants in the slave market throw into the bargain with the buyer.  He is as fat as a stuffed pig, dresses like a senator, loves antiquities and curiosities, for which he will let himself be cheated of his last coin, and bears his poverty with more of pride than of dignity; and still he is an honorable man, and can be made useful, if he is taken on the right side.”

“Altogether a queer fellow.  And you say he is fat, is he jolly?”

“As far from it as possible.”

“Ah, people who are fat and cross are my aversion.  What is this by way of an erection?”

“Behind that screen works Papias’ best scholar.  His name is Pollux, and he is the son of the couple who keep the gate-house.  You will be pleased with him.”

“Call him here,” said the Emperor.

But before the architect could comply with his desire the sculptor’s head had appeared above the screen.  The young man had heard the approaching voices and steps; he greeted the prefect respectfully from his elevated position, and after satisfying his curiosity was about to spring down from the stool on which he had climbed when Pontius called to him that Claudius Venator, the architect from Rome, wished to make his acquaintance.

“That is very kind in him, and still more kind in you,” Pollux answered from above, “since it is only from you that he can know that I exist beneath the moon, and use the hammer and chisel.  Allow me to descend from my four-legged cothurnus, for at present you are forced to look up to me, and from all I have heard of your talents from Pontius, nothing can be more absolutely the reverse of what it ought to be.”