of Greek strength and manly beauty. His mantle had been taken from him
in prison, and he wore only the short chiton, which also left bare his
powerful but softly modeled arms. He had been allowed no time to arrange
and anoint his hair, and the light-brown curls were tossed in disorderly
abundance about his shapely head. This favorite of the gods appeared in
Caesar's eyes as an Olympic victor, who had come to claim the wreath with
all the traces of the struggle upon him.

No sign of fear, either of Caesar or his lion, marred this impression.
His bow, as he approached the potentate, was neither abject nor awkward,
and Caesar felt bitter wrath at the thought that this splendid youth, of
all men, should have selected him as the butt of his irony. He would
have regarded it as a peculiar gift of fortune if this man--such a
brother of such a sister--could but love him, and, with the eye of an
artist, discern in the despot the great qualities which, in spite of his
many crimes, he believed he could detect in himself. And he hoped, with
an admixture of anxiety such as he had never known before, that the
painter's demeanor would be such as should allow him to show mercy.

When Alexander besought him with a trustful mien to consider his youth,
and the Alexandrian manners which he had inherited both from his parents
and his grandparents, if indeed his tongue had wagged too boldly in
speaking of the all-powerful Caesar, and to remember the fable of the
lion and the mouse, the scowl he had put on to impress the youth with his
awfulness and power vanished from Caesar's brow. The idea that this
great artist, whose sharp eye could so surely distinguish the hideous
from the beautiful, should regard him as ill-favored, was odious to him.
He had listened to him in silence; but suddenly he inquired of Alexander
whether it was indeed he, whom he had never injured, who had written the
horrible epigram nailed with the rope to the door of the Serapeum and