When the prefect, with evident annoyance, but still quite calmly, desired
to know what this extraordinary insult might be, Theocritus showed that
even in his high position he had preserved the accurate memory of the
mime, and, half angry, but yet anxious to give full effect to the lines
by voice and gesture, he explained that "some wretch had fastened a rope
to one of the doors of the sanctuary, and had written below it the
blasphemous words:

'Hail! For so welcome a guest never came to the sovereign of Hades.
Who ever peopled his realm, Caesar, more freely than thou?
Laurels refuse to grow green in the darksome abode of Serapis;
Take, then, this rope for a gift, never more richly deserved.'"

"It is disgraceful!" exclaimed the prefect.

"Your indignation is well founded. But the biting tongue of the
frivolous mixed races dwelling in this city is well known. They have
tried it on me; and if, in this instance, any one is to blame, it is not
I, the imprisoned prefect, but the chief and captain of the night-watch,
whose business it is to guard Caesar's residence more strictly."

At this Theocritus was furious, and poured out a flood of words,
expatiating on the duties of a prefect as Caesar's representative in the
provinces. "His eye must be as omniscient as that of the all-seeing
Deity. The better he knew the uproarious rabble over whom he ruled, the
more evidently was it his duty to watch over Caesar's person as anxiously
as a mother over her child, as a miser over his treasure."

The high-sounding words flowed with dramatic emphasis, the sentimental