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Updated: June 17, 2025
"Only silly nonsense." "You have never found the right one; but I I see the meaning of the oracle." "You?" "Ay, I! The stern Balbilla will at last descend from the lofty Olympus of her high-anti-mightiness and no longer disdain that immutable foundation-rock, the adoration of her faithful Verus." "That foundation that rock!" laughed the girl.
"But often," retorted the praetor, "Eros proves to be a substitute for that unhappy friend of the gods." "The true or the sham Eros," asked Balbilla testily. "Certainly not the sham Eros," replied Verus. "On this occasion he merely plays the part of a kindly monitor, taking the place of Pontius, the architect, of whom your worthy matron-companion is so much afraid.
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."
The Empress would not let herself be seen by any one, not even by Balbilla, till she was completely dressed. A waiting-woman told Balbilla that Sabina would get up certainly, but that for the sake of her health she could not venture out in the night-air.
This thing is an insult in clay, malicious, and at the same time coarse in every detail; but it was not Pollux who did it, and it is not right to condemn without a trial." "You take your friend's part!" exclaimed Balbilla. "I would not tell a lie for my own brother." "You know how to give your words the aspect of an honorable meaning in serious matters, as he does in jest."
The gardener shall cut a magnificent bunch of roses, and we will send it to Antinous to please him." "Flowers to a man who does not care about them?" asked Pontius, gravely. "With what else can women reward men's virtues or do honor to their beauty?" asked Balbilla. "Our own conscience is the reward of our honest actions, or the laurel wreath from the hand of some famous man." "And beauty?"
"No one shall laugh at me!" declared Balbilla pertinaciously. "In a few weeks I will know how to use the Aeolian dialect, for I can do anything I am determined to do anything, anything." "What a stubborn little head we have under our curls!" exclaimed the Empress, raising a graciously threatening finger. "And what powers of apprehension," added Florus.
When imagination and dreaminess meet half-way they make a pair which float in the clouds and never even suspect the existence of that firmer ground of which your oracle speaks." "Nonsense," said Balbilla crossly. "Before we can fall in love with a statue, Prometheus must animate it with a soul and fire from heaven."
"Probably of the complaisant model who ventures into Lochias at night?" "No; a lady of rank will sit to me." "An Alexandrian?" "Oh, no. A beauty in the train of the Empress." "What is her name? I know all the Roman ladies." "Balbilla." "Balbilla? There are many of that name. What is she like, the lady you mean?" asked Hadrian, with a cunning glance of amusement.
Balbilla and her companion, Publius Balbinus and other illustrious Romans, Favorinus the sophist, and a numerous suite of chamberlains and servants, were to accompany the Empress by water, while Hadrian set forth on his land journey with a small escort to which he added a splendid array of huntsmen.
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