His table-companions, too, had treated Heron with every distinction.  Immediately on his arrival the monarch had desired them to honor him as the father of the future empress.  They had all agreed with him in demanding that Zminis the Egyptian should be punished with death, and had even encouraged him to give the reins to his righteous anger.  He, if any one, was in the habit of being moderate in all things, if only as a good example to his sons; and he had proved in many a Dionysiac feast that the god could not easily overpower him.  The amount of wine he had drunk to-day would generally have had no more effect upon him than water, and yet he had felt now and then as if he were drunken, and the whole festal hall turned round with him.  Even now he would be quite incapable of walking forward in a given straight line.

With the exclamation, “Such is life!—­a few hours ago on the rowing-bench, and fighting with the brander of the galleys for trying to brand me with the slave-mark, and now one of the greatest among the great!” he closed his tale, for a glance through the window showed him that time pressed.

With strange bashfulness he then gazed at a ring upon his right hand, and said hesitatingly that his own modesty made the avowal difficult to him; but the fact was, he was not the same man as when he last left the ladies.  By the grace of the emperor he had been made a praetorian.  Caesar had at first wanted to make him a knight; but he esteemed his Macedonian descent higher than that class, to which too many freed slaves belonged for his taste.  This he had frankly acknowledged, and the emperor must have considered his objections valid, for he immediately spoke a few words to the prefect Macrinus, and then told the others to greet him as senator with the rank of praetorian.

Then indeed he felt as if the seat beneath him were transformed into a wild steed carrying him away, through sea and sky-wherever it pleased.  He had had to hold tightly to the arm of the couch, and only remembered that some one—­who it was he did not know—­had whispered to him to thank Caesar.

“This,” continued the gem-cutter, “restored me so far to myself that I could express my gratitude to your future husband, my child.  I am only the second Egyptian who has entered the senate.  Coeranus was the only one before me.  What favor!  And how can I describe what followed?  All the distinguished members of the senate and the past consuls offered me a brotherly embrace as their new colleague.  When Caesar commanded me to appear at your side in the Circus, wearing the white toga with the broad purple stripe, and I remarked that the shops of the better clothes-sellers would be shut by this time on account of the performance, and that such a toga was not to be obtained, there was a great laugh over the Alexandrian love of amusement.  From all sides they offered me what I required; but I gave the preference to Theocritus, on account of his height.  What is long enough for him will not be too short for me.—­And now one of the emperor’s chariots is waiting for me.  If only Alexander were at home!  The house ought to have been illuminated and hung with garlands for my arrival, and a crowd of slaves waiting to kiss my hands.