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He was glad to have come to some conclusion, at any rate provisionally, with regard to these matters, for six days had slipped away since the works had been begun in the palace of Lochias, and Hadrian's arrival was nearing rapidly. He found Sabina, as usual, on her divan, but on this occasion the Empress was sitting upright on her cushions.
"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.
They both made a grimace, and laughed nervously. 'Get the frying-pan, said Emmie to Matilda. 'But he's as cocky as ever, said Matilda, narrowing her eyes and shaking her head knowingly, as she handed the frying-pan. 'Mannie! said Emmie sarcastically. Hadrian's new-fledged, cock-sure manliness evidently found no favour in her eyes. 'Oh, he's not bad, said Matilda.
There is no actual buying and selling in open slave markets, it is true, but the men who built the Pyramids and dragged the stone for Hadrian's Villa, were they any worse off really than the workers in the mines today? Upon my soul, I don't know. Life is only a span between the Unknown and the Unknowable. Living is made up in all centuries of just so many emotions.
The acrimonious correspondence which ensued centred round the relations of the Italian bishops to the Emperor, the respective claims of each party to Rome, and the restoration of the Tuscan inheritance and all the other lands which it claimed, to the Papacy. The excommunication of the Emperor the open declaration of war was prevented by Hadrian's death on September 1, 1159.
When Floras tried to prove that under Hadrian's rule Rome had risen to the highest stage of its manhood, his friend, Demetrius, of Alexandria, interrupted him, and begged him to tell him something about the Emperor's person. Florus willingly acceded to this request, and sketched a brilliant picture of the administrative talent, the learning, and the capability of the Emperor.
There the wild fig tree and the vine O'er Hadrian's mouldering Villa twine; The cypress in funeral grace Usurps the vanished column's place; O'er fallen shrine and ruined frieze The wall-flower rustles in the breeze; Acanthus leaves the marble hide They once adorned in sculptured pride; And Nature hath resumed her throne O'er the vast works of ages flown."
Domenico e Sisto and Santa Pudenziana, where they appear among the marble sheathing of the walls. In the chapel of the Gaetani in the last-mentioned church, the wall is incrusted with the richest marbles, especially Lumachella and Brocatello, and large tablets of Hadrian's breccia setting off the splendid sarcophagus of Breccia nera e gialla dedicated to Cardinal Gaetani.
There was the gold plating to clean on the narrow greaves and the leather straps which belonged to his master's military boots, his clothes to air and to perfume with the slight, hardly perceptible scent that he liked, but the preparations for Hadrian's bath were what took up most of his time.
The ancient entrance, by which Hadrian's ashes, and those of other imperial personages, were probably brought into this tomb, has been walled up, perhaps ever since the last emperor was buried here. We were now in a vaulted passage, both lofty and broad, which circles round the whole interior of the tomb, from the base to the summit.
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