during supper for the diversion of the guests--was presently heard
hovering round the place, soothingly, and so unobtrusively that the
company could not guess, and did not like to ask, whether or not it
had been designed by their entertainer. They inclined on the whole
to think it some wonderful peasant-music peculiar to that wild
neighbourhood, turning, as it did now and then, to a solitary reed-
note, like a bird's, while it wandered into the distance. It
wandered quite away at last, as darkness with a bolder lamplight came
on, and made way for another sort of entertainment. An odd, rapid,
phantasmal glitter, advancing from the garden by torchlight, defined
itself, as it came nearer, into a dance of young men in armour.
Arrived at length in a portico, open to the supper-chamber, they
contrived that their mechanical march-movement should fall out into a
kind of highly expressive dramatic action; and with the utmost
possible emphasis of dumb motion, their long swords weaving a silvery
network in the air, they danced the Death of Paris. The young
Commodus, already an adept in these matters, who had condescended to
[80] welcome the eminent Apuleius at the banquet, had mysteriously
dropped from his place to take his share in the performance; and at
its conclusion reappeared, still wearing the dainty accoutrements of
Paris, including a breastplate, composed entirely of overlapping
tigers' claws, skilfully gilt. The youthful prince had lately
assumed the dress of manhood, on the return of the emperor for a
brief visit from the North; putting up his hair, in imitation of
Nero, in a golden box dedicated to Capitoline Jupiter. His likeness
to Aurelius, his father, was become, in consequence, more striking
than ever; and he had one source of genuine interest in the great
literary guest of the occasion, in that the latter was the fortunate
possessor of a monopoly for the exhibition of wild beasts and
gladiatorial shows in the province of Carthage, where he resided.