couch, and the sculptor was exerting all his zeal to convince the noble
damsel that the size to which her hair was dressed was an exaggeration,
and that the super-incumbence of such a mass must disfigure the effect of
the delicate features of her face. He implored her to remember in how
simple a style the great Athenian masters, at the best period of the
plastic arts, had taught their beautiful models to dress their hair, and
requested her to do her own hair in that manner next day, and to come to
him before she allowed her maid to put a single lock through the curling-
tongs; for to-day, as he said, the pretty little ringlets would fly back
into shape, like the spring of a fibula when the pin was bent back.
Balbilla contradicted him with gay vivacity, protested against his desire
to play the part of lady's maid, and defended her style of hair-dressing
on the score of fashion.

"But the fashion is ugly, monstrous, a pain to one's eyes!" cried
Pollux. "Some vain Roman lady must have invented it, not to make herself
beautiful, but to be conspicuous."

"I hate the idea of being conspicuous by my appearance," answered
Balbilla. "It is precisely by following the fashion, however conspicuous
it may be, that we are less remarkable than when we carefully dress far
more simply and plainly--in short, differently to what it prescribes.
Which do you regard as the vainer, the fashionably-dressed young
gentleman on the Canopic way, or the cynical philosopher with his unkempt
hair, his carefully-ragged cloak over his shoulders, and a heavy cudgel
in his dirty hands?"

"The latter, certainly," replied Pollux. "Still he is sinning against
the laws of beauty which I desire to win you over to, and which will
survive every whim of fashion, as certainly as Homer's Iliad will survive