Hadrian went into the vacant room, lay down on a couch that stood by the wall, and urged the slaves who were busied in removing the dishes and vessels used by his predecessors, and which were swarming with flies.  As soon as he was alone he listened to the conversation which was being carried on between Favorinus, Florus, and their Greek guests.  He knew the two first very well, and not a word of what they were saying escaped his keen ear.

Favorinus was praising the Alexandrians in a loud voice, but in flowing and elegantly-accented Greek.  He was a native of Arelas—­[Arles]—­in Gaul, but no Hellene of them all could pour forth a purer flow of the language of Demosthenes than he.  The self-reliant, keen, and vivacious natives of the African metropolis were far more to his taste than the Athenians; these dwelt only in, and for, the past; the Alexandrians rejoiced in the present.  Here an independent spirit still survived, while on the shores of the Ilissus there were none but servile souls who made a merchandise of learning, as the Alexandrians did of the products of Africa and the treasures of India.  Once when he had fallen into disgrace with Hadrian, the Athenians had thrown down his statue, and the favor or disfavor of the powerful weighed with him more than intellectual greatness, valuable labors, and true merit.

Florus agreed with Favorinus on the whole, and declared that Rome must be freed from the intellectual influence of Athens; but Favorinus did not admit this; he opined that it was very difficult for any one who had left youth behind him, to learn anything new, thus referring, with light irony, to the famous work in which Florus had attempted to divide the history of Rome into four periods, corresponding to the ages of man, but had left out old age, and had treated only of childhood, youth, and manhood.  Favorinus reproached him with overestimating the versatility of the Roman genius, like his friend Fronto, and underrating the Hellenic intellect.

Florus answered the Gaulish orator in a deep voice, and with such a grand flow of words, that the listening Emperor would have enjoyed expressing his approbation, and could not help considering the question as to how many cups of wine his usually placid fellow-countryman might have taken since breakfast to be so excited.  When Floras tried to prove that under Hadrian’s rule Rome had risen to the highest stage of its manhood, his friend, Demetrius, of Alexandria, interrupted him, and begged him to tell him something about the Emperor’s person.  Florus willingly acceded to this request, and sketched a brilliant picture of the administrative talent, the learning, and the capability of the Emperor.

“There is only one thing,” he cried eagerly, “that I cannot approve of; he is too little at Rome, which is now the core and centre of the world.  He must need see every thing for himself, and he is always wandering restlessly through the provinces.  I should not care to change with him!”