At last his eye fell on Hadrian’s bust of Balbilla.  The hideous caricature at which he had laughed only yesterday, made him angry now, and after gazing at it thoughtfully for a few minutes his blood boiled up furiously, he hastily pulled a lath out of the partition and struck at the monstrosity with such fury that the dry clay flew in pieces, and the fragments were strewed far and wide about the workshop.  The wild noise behind the sculptor’s screen made the Emperor pause in his walk to see what the artist was doing; he looked on at the work of destruction, unobserved by Pollux, and as he looked the blood mounted to his head; he knit his brows in anger, a blue vein in his forehead swelled and stood out, and ominous lines appeared above his brow.  The great master of state-craft could more easily have borne to hear himself condemned as a ruler than to see his work of art despised.  A man who is sure of having done some thing great can smile at blame, but he, who is not confident in himself has reason to dread it, and is easily drawn into hating the critic who utters it.  Hadrian was trembling with fury, he doubled his first as he lifted it in Pollux’s face, and going close up to him asked in a threatening tone: 

“What do you mean by that?”

The sculptor glanced round at the Emperor and answered, raising his stick for another blow: 

“I am demolishing this caricature for it enrages me.”

“Come here,” shouted Hadrian, and clutching the girdle which confined the artist’s chiton, in his strong sinewy hand, he dragged the startled sculptor in front of his Urania wrenched the lath out of his hand, struck the bust of the scarcely-finished statue off the body, exclaiming as he did so, in a voice that mimicked Pollux: 

“I am demolishing this bungler’s work for it enrages me!”

The artist’s arms fell by his side; astonished and infuriated he stared at the destroyer of his handiwork, and cried out: 

“Madman! this is enough.  One blow more and you will feel the weight of my fists.”

Hadrian laughed aloud, a cold hard laugh, flung the lath at Pollux’s feet and said: 

“Judgment against judgment—­it is only fair.”

“Fair?” shrieked Pollux, beside himself.

“Your wretched rubbish, which my squinting apprentice could have done as well as you, and this figure born in a moment of inspiration!  Shame upon you!  Once more, if you touch the Urania again I warn you, you shall learn—­”

“Well, what?”

“That in Alexandria grey hairs are only respected so long as they deserve it.”

Hadrian folded his arms, stepped quite close up to Pollux, and said: 

“Gently, fellow, if you value your life.”

Pollux stepped back before the imposing personage that stood before him, and, as it were scales, fell from his eyes.  The marble statue of the Emperor in the Caesareum represented the sovereign in this same attitude.  The architect, Claudius Venator, was none other than Hadrian.