eat, and the food they brought might have tempted a full man to excess,
but I could only swallow a few mouthfuls. Berenike--the mother--did not
even moisten her lips, but Seleukus did duty for us both, and this I
could see displeased his wife. During supper the merchant made many
inquiries about me and my father; for he had heard Philip's praises from
his brother Theophilus, the high-priest. I learned from him that Korinna
had caught her sickness from a slave girl she had nursed, and had died of
the fever in three days. But while I sat listening to him, as he talked
and ate, I could not keep my eyes off his wife who reclined opposite to
me silent and motionless, for the gods had created Korinna in her very
image. The lady Berenike's eyes indeed sparkle with a lurid, I might
almost say an alarming, fire, but they are shaped like Korinna's. I said
so, and asked whether they were of the same color; I wanted to know for
my portrait. On this Seleukus referred me to a picture painted by old
Sosibius, who has lately gone to Rome to work in Caesar's new baths. He
last year painted the wall of a room in the mer chant's country house at
Kanopus. In the center of the picture stands Galatea, and I know it now
to be a good and true likeness.

"The picture I finished that evening is to be placed at the head of the
young girl's sarcophagus; but I am to keep it two days longer, to
reproduce a second likeness more at my leisure, with the help of the
Galatea, which is to remain in Seleukus's town house.

"Then he left me alone with his wife.

"What a delightful commission! I set to work with renewed pleasure, and
more composure than at first. I had no need to hurry, for the first
picture is to be hidden in the tomb, and I could give all my care to the
second. Besides, Korinna's features were indelibly impressed on my eye.