[74] GADES, now Cadiz, was famous for its dancers of easy morality. (See Juv. _Sat._ XI, 162.) [75] THYRSUS, (θύρσος) a pole or wand wreathed with vine and ivy leaves, and borne by Bacchus and by Bacchantes. [76] BRIDGE OF NERO. One of this emperor’s mad undertakings was the construction, at an enormous expense, of a perfectly useless bridge aslant across the bay of Baiae. [77] SURRENTUM, now Sorrento. [78] CAIETA, now Gaëta. [79] URBANITAS. Literally: city training. [80] A PALE, BEARDED MAN. Wearing beards first became general under the Emperor Hadrian. At the time of this story it was still the custom among the higher classes (but not among the lower ones and the slaves) to shave off the beard after the twenty-first year. [81] STOA. The school of the stoics; so named from the pillared hall (ποικίλη στοά) at Athens, where Zeno, the founder, taught. The doctrine inculcated was the subjugation of physical and moral evil by individual heroism. CHAPTER III. The second serious meal of the day, the coena[82] or supper had begun; the party had betaken themselves to the cavaedium,[83] where it was now beginning to grow dusk. This airy colonnade--the handsomest portion perhaps, of an old Roman house--was here very pleasingly decorated with flowers and plants of ornamental foliage. The arcades, which surrounded the open space in the middle, were green with ivy, while an emerald grass-plot, with cypresses and laurels, magnolias in full bloom, pomegranates and roses, filled up half the quadrangle. Twelve statues of bronze gilt served to hold lamps, and a fountain tossed its sparkling jet as high as the tallest trees. For some time the party sat chatting in the dusk; then two slaves came in with torches and lighted the lamps of the twelve statues; two others lighted up the arcades so that the painted walls and their purplish backgrounds were visible far across the court-yard. A flute-player from Cumae now played to them in a tender mode; she stood in the entrance, dressed in the Greek fashion, with her abundant hair gathered into a knot and her slender fingers gliding up and down the stops of the instrument. Her features were sweet and pleasing, her manner soft and harmonious; only from time to time a strange expression of weariness and absence of mind passed over her face. When she had done playing, she was conducted by Baucis to the back gate. She took the piece of silver which she received in payment with an air of indifference, and then bent her way down the hill towards Cumae, which already lay in darkness. “Allow me to ask,” said Herodianus to Quintus, “what is the name of this tunefully-gifted damsel?” “She is called Euterpe, after the muse who presides over her art.” “Her name is Arachne,” added Lucilia, “but Euterpe sounds more poetical.”