Ruthless Eros doth disregard Spring’s sweet tokens and hints of peace. Down he rushes like winter blasts-- Thracian storms with their searing flash-- Aphrodite’s resistless son Falls on me in his fury and fire-- Racks my heart with his torments.” Claudia ceased; the accompaniment on the cithara died away in soft full chords. Caius Aurelius sat spellbound. Never had he dreamed of the daughters of the fever-tossed metropolis as so simple, so natural, so genuine and genial. The strain almost resembled, in coy tenderness, those northern love-songs which he had been wont to hear from the lips of Gothic and Ampsivaric maidens. In those, to be sure, a vein of rebellion and melancholy ran through the melody and pierced through the charm, while in this all was perfect harmony, exquisite contentment--an intoxicating concord of joy, youth and love. In this he heard the echo of the smiling waves below, of the glistening leaves, and of heart-stirring spring airs. “A second Sappho!” exclaimed Herodianus, as his master sat speechless. “I can but compare the sweetness of that voice with the luscious Falernian we drank at dinner. That was a nectar worthy of the gods! Besides, indeed--the Hispanian wine--out there, what do you call the place--you know, my lord--what is the name of it--that was delicious too--and seen against the light.... What was I saying? I had an aunt, she sang too to the cithara--yes she did, why not?--She was free to do that, of course, quite free to do it--and a very good woman too was old Pris--Pris--Priscilla. Only she could not endure, that any one should talk when she blew the cithara....” Octavia was frowning; Aurelius had turned crimson and nodded to his Gothic slave, who was standing aside under the arcade. Magus quietly came up to Herodianus and whispered a few words in his ear. “That shows a profound, a remarkably profound power of observation!” cried the freedman excitedly. “In fact, what does music prove after all? I play the water-organ,[88] and--hold me up, Magus. This floor is remarkably slippery for a respectable cavaedium. It might be paved with eels or polished mirrors!” “You are a very good fellow,” muttered the Goth as he led him slowly away, “but you carry it a little too far....” “What? Ah! you have no sense of the sublime? You are not a philosopher, but only a--a--a--a man. But, by Pluto! you need not break my arm. I--take care of that, that.... Will you let go, you misbegotten villain!” But the Goth was not to be got rid of; he held the drunken man like an iron vice and so guided him in a tolerably straight course. When they disappeared in the corridor leading to the atrium, Aurelius was anxious to apologize for him, but Octavia laughed it off. “We are at Baiae,”[89] she said, “and Baiae is famous for its worship of Bacchus.” “It is impossible to be vexed with him,” added Lucilia; “he is so exceedingly funny, and has such a confiding twinkle in his eyes.”