contemners of the gods that their heaviest punishments fell?

To-day the terrestrial Jupiter had again crushed into the earth with his
thunderbolts, an overbold mortal, and this time the son of the worthy
gate-keeper was his victim. The sculptor certainly had been so unlucky
as to touch Hadrian in his most sensitive spot, but a cordially
benevolent feeling is not easily converted into a relentless opposition
if we are not ourselves--as was the case with the Emperor--accustomed to
jump from one mood to the other, are not conscious--as he was--of having
it in our power directly to express our good-will or our aversion in
action.

The sculptor's capacities had commanded the Emperor's esteem, his
fresh and independent nature had at first suited and attracted him,
but even during the walk together through the streets, the young man's
uncompromising manner of treating him as an equal had become unpleasing
to him. In his workshop he saw in Pollux only the artist, and delighted
in his original and dashing powers; but out of it, and among men of a
commoner stamp, from whom he was accustomed to meet with deference, the
young man's speech and demeanor seemed unbecoming, bold, and hard to be
endured. In the eating-house the huge eater and drinker, who laughingly
pressed him to do his part, so as not to make a present to the landlord,
had filled Hadrian with repulsion. And after this, when Hadrian had
returned to Lochias, out of humor and rendered apprehensive by evil
omens, and even then had not found his favorite, he impatiently paced up
and down the hall of the Muses and would not deign to offer a greeting to
the sculptor, who was noisily occupied behind his screens.

Pollux had passed quite as bad an evening as the Emperor. When, in his
desire to see Arsinoe once more, he penetrated to the door of the