"What's the mystery?" "Ask no questions; get up and come! The poet brings no harm to the poet's friend. You'll see a goddess." "What goddess?" "Artemis, the huntress." "A picture? Statue?" "Much better than that. If you love beauty, take your cloak and follow me." Publius assumed so seductive and mysterious an air that Julian was bitten by curiosity. "There's but one condition. Say nothing, and marvel at nothing we do. Otherwise the spell will break. In the name of Calliope and Erato, just trust me! We're only two yards from the place, and to shorten the road for you I'll read you the beginning of my epitaph on the widow." They issued on the dusty high-road. Under the first rays of the sun the steel shield of Pallas Athene darted lightnings from the rose-hued Acropolis. Along the stone walls, hiding brooks humming along under the fig-trees, the grasshoppers were singing shrilly, vieing with the hoarse voice of the poet as he recited the epitaph. Publius Porphyrius was a man not destitute of talent. His career had been a curious one. Several years previously he had possessed a pretty little house, a veritable temple of Hermes, at Constantinople, not far from the Chalcedonian suburb. His father, an oil merchant, had bequeathed him a little fortune which should have permitted him to live without cares. But Publius was a worshipper of antique Hellenism, and rebelled against what he called the triumph of Christian servitude. He wrote a liberal poem which displeased the Emperor Constantius, who was therein alluded to unfavourably. This allusion cost the author dear. Chastisement fell upon him; his house and goods were confiscated, and he himself banished to an islet in the archipelago, inhabited only by rocks, goats, and fevers. This trial was more than Publius could stand. He cursed liberal opinions, and determined to blot out his misdeeds at any price. Shaking with fever, he composed during his sleepless nights, by means of sentences culled from Virgil, a poem glorifying the Emperor; the verses of the ancient poet being grouped in such a fashion that they formed a new work. This ingenious puzzle tickled the palate of the Court. Publius had divined the taste of the century.