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"Simpleton," he said, "if you want me to be pleased with you, you must be again just what you were before we came to Alexandria. Leave it to others to do things to vex me. You are created by the gods to delight me." During Hadrian's last words a chamberlain had entered the room to inform the Emperor that the deputation of the Egyptian priesthood had arrived to do homage to him.
On the morrow, Athalfrida and Veranilda sat together in the gardens, or what once had been the gardens, of Hadrian's palace, and looked forth over the vast brown landscape, with that gleam upon its limit, that something pale between earth and air, which was the Tyrrhene Sea.
When he rose next morning Antinous was startled at his aspect, for Hadrian's face and lips were perfectly bloodless. After he had read the remainder of his letters he started, not on foot but on horseback, with Antinous and Mastor for Besa, there to await the rest of the escort. The unchained elements had raged that night with equal fury over the Nile city of Besa.
With these words he tore himself loose from the miserable old man who left the room with his head hanging down, and who soon was standing at the door of the Emperor's rooms with the letter in his hand. Hadrian's appearance and manner had filled him with terror and respect, and he dared not knock at the door.
Antinous listened and what he heard seemed to be somewhat out of the common for he suddenly quitted the position in which the sculptor had placed him only a few minutes before, ran to the window and called to Pollux in a subdued voice: "It is true! I am not mistaken! There is Hadrian's wife Sabina talking out there to your mother."
And the successes of the Emperor in his advance were almost balanced by the disasters which accompanied his retreat disasters so serious as to cause a general belief that Hadrian's concessions sprang more from prudence than from generosity.
The Empress would gladly have returned to Rome or to Tibur, for Verus had been obliged to quit Egypt by the orders of the physician as soon as the summer heat had set in. He departed with his wife, as the son of the Imperial couple, but no word on Hadrian's part had justified him in hoping confidently to be nominated as his successor to the sovereignty.
Hadrian's own horse, Borysthenes, which had had too long a rest, pawed and stamped impatiently in a separate stall, and close at hand the Emperor's retrievers, boar-hounds and harriers were housed in hastily-contrived yards and kennels.
His old master had also been witness of Hadrian's anger against him, and was quite the man to take every advantage of what he had overheard. It is never a recommendation for any one that he is an object of dislike to the powerful, and least of all does it help him with those who look for the favor and gifts of the great men of the world.
As much can be done today by influence and bribery as could be done under Perennis or Cleander, only it cannot be done so crudely and openly, and much else can be done openly. "We have endeavored to arrange to have you tried by a bunch of jurymen presided over by a praetor, just as if you were a freeman, according to Hadrian's law.
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