“My dear Maro, I have been here for years, and I have listened, but heard nothing new. I have heard in the Poikile that Thales maintained that there were no gods, but that everything had been produced from moisture. I have further heard Anaximines’ doctrine that air was the source of all things; Pherecydes’ doctrine of ether as the original principle; Heraclitus’ doctrine of fire. Anaximander has taught me that the universe came from some primitive substance; Leucippus and Democritus spoke to me of empty space with primitive corpuscles or atoms. Anaxagoras made believe that the atom had reason. Xenophanes wished to persuade me that God and the Universe were one. Empedocles, the wisest of the whole company, despaired at the imperfection of reason, and went in despair and flung himself head foremost into Etna’s burning mountain.” “Do you believe that?” “No! it may well be a lie like everything else. Then I learnt a number of interesting doctrines from Plato which were subsequently all confuted by Aristotle. At last I took up my position with the wisest of the wise--Socrates, who openly declared, as you know, that he knew nothing.” “That is the same as the Sophists said,--that one knew nothing, and hardly so much.” “You are right, and our good Socrates was a Sophist, without wishing to be one. But there is one, a single one, who.... Yes, I mean Pythagoras. He has proclaimed this and that doctrine in the East and the West, but I have found one anchor in his philosophy, and I have gripped firm ground with it. I certainly swing in the wind, but I do not drift away from it.” “Tell me.” “Do what you think right at the risk of being banished from your country; the mob cannot judge what is right. Therefore you should think little of their praise, and despise their blame. Cultivate the friendship of kindred spirits, but regard the rest of mankind as a worthless mass. Always be at war with ‘the beans’ (he means the democrats). ‘Odi profanum vulgus et arceo!’” “You ought to live at home in Rome, Flaccus, where....” “Yes, what are you doing now in Rome?” “Caesar is Caesar; he conquers the world, and unites all the highest functions, even the priestly, in his own person. I have nothing against it, but they say he is aiming at his own deification.” “Why not? All gods have first been heroes, and many gods have not been so great as Caesar. Romulus was certainly no giant, though he had the luck to come first, as someone must. Now he is a god, has a temple, and they sacrifice to him.” “It is probably a lie, like everything else.” “Probably.” “Yes, I have heard another legend of the founding of Rome by Aeneas’ son Ascanius, who fled from Troy; and I intend to take it as the starting-point of my great poem....” “You mean the _Aeneid_, of which I have heard mention.” “Yes, the _Aeneid_.” “Is it difficult to write poetry?” “No; one follows good patterns. Hitherto Theocritus has been mine, but now I shall go to Father Homer himself.”