Verus was inciting the more quiet or slothful of his guests to a freer enjoyment and encouraging the noisiest in their extravagant recklessness to still more unbridled license.  At the same time he bowed to each one who drank to his health, entertained the singer who sat by his side, flung a sparkling jest into one and another silent group, and proved to the learned men who reclined on their couches near to his that whenever it was possible he took an interest in their discussions.  Alexandria, the focus of all the learning of the East and the West, had seen other festivals than this riotous banquet.  Indeed, even here a vein of grave and wise discourse flavored the meal of the circle that belonged to the Museum; but the senseless revelry of Rome had found its way into the houses of the rich, and even the noblest achievements of the human mind had been made, unawares, subservient to mere enjoyment.  A man was a philosopher only that he might be prompt to discuss and always ready to take his share in the talk; and at a banquet a well-told anecdote was more heartily welcome than some profound idea that gave rise to a reflection or provoked a subtle discussion.

What a noise, what a clatter was storming in the hall by the second hour after midnight!  How the lungs of the feasters were choked with overpowering perfumes!  What repulsive exhibitions met the eye!  How shamelessly was all decency trodden under foot!  The poisonous breath of unchecked license had blasted the noble moderation of the vapor of wine which floated round this chaos of riotous topers slowly rose the pale image of Satiety watching for victims on the morrow.

The circle of couches on which lay Florus, Favorinus and their Alexandrian friends stood like an island in the midst of the surging sea of the orgy.  Even here the cup had been bravely passed round, and Florus was beginning to speak somewhat indistinctly, but conversation had hitherto had the upper hand.

Two days before, the Emperor had visited the Museum and had carried on learned discussions with the most prominent of the sages and professors there, in the presence of their assembled disciples.  At last a formal disputation had arisen, and the dialectic keenness and precision with which Hadrian, in the purest Attic Greek, had succeeded in driving his opponents into a corner had excited the greatest admiration.  The Sovereign had quitted the famous institution with a promise to reopen the contest at an early date.  The philosophers, Pancrates and Dionysius and Apollonius, who took no wine at all, were giving a detailed account of the different phases of this remarkable disputation and praising the admirable memory and the ready tongue of the great monarch.

“And you did not even see him at his best,” exclaimed Favorinus, the Gaul, the sophist and rhetorician.  “He has received an unfavorable oracle and the stars seem to confirm the prophecy.  This puts him out of tune.  Between ourselves let me tell you I know a few who are his superiors in dialectic, but in his happiest moments he is irresistible-irresistible.  Since we made up our quarrel he is like a brother to me.  I will defend him against all comers, for, as I say, Hadrian is my brother.”