He began with the most fulsome praise of Cleopatra and Antony, reminding
his hearers that the Imperator was a descendant of Herakles. The
Alexandrians especially were aware that their Queen and Antony claimed
and desired to be called "The new Isis" and "The new Dionysus." But
every one who beheld the Roman must admit that in face and figure he
resembled a god far more than a man.

The Imperator had appeared as Dionysus, especially to the Athenians. In
the proscenium of the theatre in that city was a huge bas-relief of the
Battle of the Giants, the famous work of an ancient sculptor--he,
Beryllus, had seen it--and from amid the numerous figures in this piece
of sculpture the tempest had torn but a single one--which? Dionysus, the
god as whose mortal image Antony had once caroused in a vine-clad arbour
in the presence of the Athenians. The storm to-night was at the utmost
like the breath of a child, compared with the hurricane which could wrest
from the hard marble the form of Dionysus. But Nature gathers all her
forces when she desires to announce to short-sighted mortals the approach
of events which are to shake the world.

The last words were quoted from his master who had studied in Athens.
They had escaped from his burdened soul when he heard of another portent,
of which a ship from Ostia had brought tidings. The flourishing city
Pisaura--

Here, however, he was interrupted, for several of those present had
learned, weeks before, that this place had sunk in the sea, but merely
pitied the unfortunate inhabitants.

Beryllus quietly permitted them to free themselves from the suspicion
that people in Alexandria had had tidings of so remarkable an event later