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Updated: June 17, 2025
"That almost sounds," said Balbilla laughing and pointing to her abundant locks, "as if I especially needed to conceal what is covered by my hair." "Even the Lesbian swan was called the fair-haired," replied Florus. "And you are our Sappho," said the praetor's wife, drawing the girl's arm to her bosom. "Really! and will you not write in verse all that you have seen to-day?" asked the Empress.
Balbilla had arrived at Lochias about noon, accompanied, as was fitting, by the worthy Claudia, the not wealthy widow of a senator, who for many years had filled the place of lady-in-attendance and protecting companion to the rich fatherless and motherless girl. At Rome, she conducted Balbilla's household affairs with as much sense and skill as satisfaction in the task.
Balbilla observed his hesitation and said: "Speak on; I can hear anything. That folly is past and over." "Caesar is at work at the plans for a new town to be built and called Antinoe, and a sketch for a monument to his ill-fated favorite," said Pontius. "He will not accept any help, but I have to teach him to discriminate what is possible from what is impossible."
He had only to-day met Balbilla for the first time, but he had heard from Titianus that she was staying at the Caesareum with the Empress, and the prefect had also told him that she was the granddaughter of that same governor, Claudius Balbillus, who had granted freedom to his own grandfather, a learned Greek slave.
"And did you suppose that that was new to me?" asked Pollux. "I can see the restless spirit of my model in her brow and in her mouth, and her nature is revealed in her eyes." "And in my snub-nose?" asked Balbilla. "It bears witness to your wonderful and whimsical notions, which astonish Rome so much." "Perhaps you are one more that works for the hammer of the slaves," laughed Balbilla.
Farewell, till we meet again, fair Balbilla," and the praetor hurried off. Outside the Caesareum he got into his chariot and set out for Lochias.
Any one observing Balbilla at her occupation could hardly have believed that she was studying.
Pontius ground his teeth, and then said very earnestly: "Balbilla seems to me a merry-hearted girl, but of a noble nature. I see no reason to laugh at her." Hadrian looked keenly into the daring architect's eyes, laid his hand on his shoulder, and replied with a certain threatening accent in his deep voice: "It would be an evil moment for you, or for any one, who should do so in my presence.
As he got out of his litter at the door of his sister's town-house he shook his head, smiling at himself; for he confessed to himself that the whole of the long distance he had hardly thought of anything but Balbilla. Paulina's house had but few windows opening upon the street and these belonged to the strangers' rooms, and yet his arrival had been observed.
While he was still speaking he had plunged his powerful hands into the yielding clay, and kneading and pinching like a practised modeller, wiping off and pressing on, he formed a woman's face with a towering structure of curls, which resembled Balbilla, but which reproduced every conspicuous peculiarity with such whimsical exaggeration that Pollux could not contain his delight.
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