Arsinoë wished to hide the statue, but Hortensius was in such mortal affright that he threatened to give up his ward herself to the informers. In deep disgust at the degradation of the public, Arsinoë allowed them to do with her work everything that Hortensius desired, and masons broke up the figure. Arsinoë hastily left Athens, her guardian having persuaded her to follow him to Rome, where friends had long promised him the office of Imperial quæstor. They installed themselves in a house not far from the Palatine Hill. Days flowed by in inactivity, Arsinoë realising that there was no longer scope for the greatness and freedom of antique art. She bore in mind her conversation with Julian at Athens; and it was the only link which restrained her from suicide. The long suspense of inaction seemed to her intolerable. In moments of discouragement she longed to have done with it all, to leave all, to set out for the Gallic battlefield and at the side of the young Cæsar attain power, or perish. But she fell seriously ill. In the long and calm days of convalescence she found a devoted consoler in her most faithful adorer, Anatolius, a centurion of the Imperial cavalry, son of a rich merchant of Rhodes. He was a Roman centurion, as he used to say himself, merely as the result of a mistake, having only taken to the military career to satisfy the empty-headed ambition of his father, who desired as the summit of earthly honour to see his son clothed in gilt armour. Evading discipline by generous gifts, Anatolius passed his life in luxurious idleness, amidst works of art and books, in feastings and indolent and costly travel. The profound lucidity of soul which had characterised ancient Epicureans was not possessed by this modern. He complained to his friends-- "I suffer from a mortal malady...." They would ask him dubiously-- "What malady?" And he would say-- "What you call my spirit of irony and what seems to me melancholy madness." His finely cut delicate features expressed extreme fatigue. Sometimes he would awake as from a sleep, undertake a wild excursion with fishermen in a hurricane in the open sea, or set off to hunt wild boar and bear, or contemplate hatching a plot against the life of Cæsar, or seek initiation into the terrible mysteries of Mithra and Adonis. On such occasions he was capable of astonishing by his rashness and audacity even those persons who were ignorant of his ordinary way of living. But the excitement once evaporated he would return to listlessness and lassitude, still more sleepy, still more cynical and sad. "Nothing can be done with you, Anatolius," Arsinoë used to say to him; "you are so soft that people might think you had no bones." But she felt a kind of Hellenic grace in this last of the Epicureans; liked to read in his weary eyes their melancholy mockery of himself and everything else. He would say--