Cleopatra showed great presence of mind. She packed her jewels and nothing else; she stained her face with walnut-juice, and put on a coarse peasant’s garment, bidding myself and Iras do likewise; then, taking plenty of money with us, we went out through the back gate, crossed the river, and quite unobserved reached the Gate of Ostia. There we took a litter and started for Ostia, whence we embarked for Alexandria. We have now been here a week, and Cleopatra, as I have already told you, is completely changed. But the change as far as we are concerned is for the better, for I can give you no idea of the fun we are having. Please come here as soon as you can. Alexandria is far more amusing than either Rome or Athens, and there is no tiresome Caesar to interfere with us. Farewell. CHARMIAN. OVID’S BANISHMENT _Letter from Diogenes, a Sculptor, to a friend in Athens_ My work, or rather the business which called me to Rome, is now accomplished, and the Caryatids which I was commissioned to make for the Pantheon of Agrippa are now in their place. But in what a place! Alas, they have been set up so high that their whole effect is lost, and the work might just as well be that of any Roman bungler. The Romans are indeed barbarians. They consider that as long as a thing is big and expensive it is beautiful; they take luxury for comfort, notoriety for fame, eccentricity for genius, and riches for wisdom; or rather they deem that wealth is the only thing which counts in the modern world, and here at Rome this is true. Their attempts at art are in the highest degree ludicrous. Yesterday I visited the studio of Ludius, who is renowned in this city for his decorative work. He paints walls and ceilings, and the Emperor has employed him to decorate his villa at Naples. His work, which is not devoid of a certain talent, is disciplined by no sense of proportion. It would not be tolerated in Greece for a moment owing to an extravagance and an exaggeration which, so far from displaying any originality, merely form the futile mask of a fundamental banality. The man himself wears his hair yards long like a Persian, and favours a pea-green toga. I could not help saying to him that in Greece artists took pains to dress like everybody but to paint like no one. Last night I supped with Maecenas at his house on the Esquiline. Let me do justice to my host and give praise where praise is due; here are no jarring notes and no foolish display. Maecenas has exquisite taste; his house is not overcrowded with ornaments nor overwhelmed by useless decoration. By a cunning instinct he has realized that art should be the servant of necessity. Everything in his house has a use and a purpose; but where a vase, a bowl, a cup, a chair, or seat is needed, there you will find a beautiful vase, a beautiful bowl, and so forth.