"And women," continued Drusus, "such as you! Ah! There is something left of Rome after all. We are not altogether fallen, unworthy of our ancestors. Why shall we not be merry? A Greek would say that it was always darkest before Eos leaves the couch of Tithonus,[75] and who knows that our Helios is not soon to dawn and be a long, long time ere his setting? I feel like throwing formality to the winds, crying 'Iacchos evoe,' and dancing like a bacchanal, and singing in tipsy delight,-- [75] The "rosy-fingered Dawn" of Homer; Tithonos was her consort. "'Oh, when through the long night, With fleet foot glancing white, Shall I go dancing in my revelry, My neck cast back, and bare Unto the dewy air, Like sportive faun in the green meadow's glee?'[76] [76] Milman, translator. as old Euripides sings in his 'Bacchae.' Yes, the Hellenes were right when they put nymphs in the forest and in the deep. Only our blind practical Latin eyes will not see them. We will forget that we are Romans; we will build for ourselves some cosey little Phaeacia up in the Sabine hills beside some lake; and there my Sappho shall also be my Nausicaa to shine fair as a goddess upon her distressed and shipwrecked Odysseus." "Yes," said Cornelia, smiling, "a delightful idyl; but Odysseus would not stay with Nausicaa." "I was wrong," replied Drusus, as they walked arm in arm out from the portico, and down the broad avenue of stately shade trees. "You shall be the faithful Penelope, who receives back her lord in happiness after many trials. Your clever Agias can act as Telemachus for us." "But the suitors whom Odysseus must slay?" asked Cornelia, entering into the fun. "Oh, for them," said Drusus, lightly, "we need not search far. Who other than Ahenobarbus?" II Rather late in the afternoon, a few days subsequently, the most noble Lucius Cornelius Lentulus Crus, consul-designate, and one of the most prominent politicians of his time and nation, arrived at Praeneste; having hurried away from Rome to escape for a little while the summer heats which made the capital anything but a pleasant place for residence. Drusus's travelling cortege would have seemed small enough compared with the hedge of outriders, footmen, and body-servants that surrounded the great man. But notwithstanding his prospective dignities, and his present importance, Lentulus Crus was hardly an imposing personality. He was a bald-pated, florid individual, with rough features, a low, flat forehead, and coarse lips. He was dressed very fashionably, and was perfumed and beringed to an extent that would have been derided anywhere save in the most select circles of Rome. He was stout, and when he alighted from his carriage, he moved away with a somewhat waddling gait, and lifted up a rasping, high-pitched voice in unsonorous complaint against a slave who let fall a parcel of baggage.