improved it. The more humble our material, the better I shall be pleased
if the work satisfies Caesar; he himself has tried his hand at
sculpture."

"If only Hadrian could hear that!" cried one of the painters. "He likes
to think himself a great artist--one of the foremost of our time. It is
said that he caused the life of the great architect, Apollodorus--who
carried out such noble works for Trajan--to be extinguished--and why?
because formerly that illustrious man had treated the imperial bungler as
a mere dabbler, and would not accept his plan for the temple of Venus at
Rome."

"Mere talk!" answered Pontius to this accusation. "Apollodorus died in
prison, but his incarceration had little enough to do with the Emperor's
productions--excuse me, gentlemen, I must once more look through the
sketches and plans."

The architect went away, but Pollux continued the conversation that had
been begun by saying:

"Only I cannot understand how a man who practises so many arts at once
as Hadrian does, and at the same time looks after the state and its
government, who is a passionate huntsman and who dabbles in every kind
of miscellaneous learning, contrives, when he wants to practise one
particular form of art, to recall all his five senses into the nest from
which he has let them fly, here, there, and everywhere. The inside
of his head must be like that salad-bowl--which we have reduced to
emptiness--in which Papias discovered three sorts of fish, brown and
white meat, oysters and five other substances."