able I should prefer it to gold; as it is, it is so cheap. But there was once a workman who made a glass cup that was unbreakable. So he was given an audience of the Emperor with his invention; he made Cæsar give it back to him and then threw it on the floor. Cæsar was as frightened as could be. But the man picked up his cup from the ground: it was dinted like a bronze bowl; then he took a little hammer out of his pocket and made the cup quite sound again. without any trouble. After doing this he thought he had himself seated on the throne of Jupiter, especially when Cæsar said to him: 'Does anyone else know how to blow glass like this?' Just see what happened. He said not, and then Cæsar had him beheaded. Why? Because if his invention were generally known we should treat gold like dirt. Myself I have a great passion for silver. I own about a hundred four-gallon cups engraved with Cassandra killing her children, and they lying there dead in the most life-like way. I have a thousand jugs which Mummius left to my patron, and on them you see Dædalus shutting Niobe into the Trojan horse. And I have got the fights between Hermeros and Petraites on my cups, and every cup is a heavy one; for I do not sell my connoisseurship for any money."

-MICHAEL HESELTINE.

TRIMALCHIO'S TOMBSTONE 1

PETRONIUS

[From the Satyricon]

Trimalchio is at one with the average Roman in his desire for an elaborate tombstone which shall secure for him the benefits of earthly immortality.

'From The Loeb Classical Library, reprinted by permission.

Then he looked at Habinnas and said, "Now tell me, my dear friend: you will erect a monument as I have directed? I beg you earnestly to put up round the feet of my statue my little dog, and some wreaths, and bottles of perfume, and all the fights of Petraites, so that your kindness may bring me a life after death; and I want the monument to have a frontage of one hundred feet and to be two hundred feet in depth. For I should like to have all kinds of fruit growing round my ashes, and plenty of vines. It is quite wrong for a man to decorate his house while he is alive, and not to trouble about the house where he must make a longer stay. So above all things I want added to the inscription, 'This monument is not to descend to my heir.' I shall certainly take care to provide in my will against any injury being done to me when I am dead. I am appointing one of the freedmen to be caretaker of the tomb and prevent the common people from running up and defiling it. I beg you to put ships in full sail on the monument, and me sitting in official robes on my official seat, wearing five gold rings and distributing coin publicly out of a bag; you remember that I gave a free dinner worth two denarii a head. I should like a diningroom table put in too, if you can arrange it. And let me have the whole people there enjoying themselves. On my right hand put a statue of dear Fortunata holding a dove, and let her be leading a little dog with a waistband on; and my dear little boy, and big jars sealed with gypsum, so that the wine may not run out. And have a broken urn carved with a boy weeping over it. And a sundial in the middle, so that anyone who looks at the time will read my name whether he likes it or not. And again, please think carefully whether this inscription seems to you quite appropriate: 'Here lieth Caius Pompeius Trimalchio, freedman of

Mæcenas. The degree of Priest of Augustus was conferred upon him in his absence. He might have been attendant on any magistrate in Rome, but refused it.

God-fearing, gallant, constant, he started with very little and left thirty millions. He never listened to a philosopher. Fare thee well, Trimalchio: and thou too, passer-by." "

After saying this, Trimalchio began to weep floods of tears. Fortunata wept,

Habinnas wept, and then all the slaves began as if they had been invited to his funeral, and filled the dining-room with lamentation. I had even begun to lift up my voice myself, when Trimalchio said, "Well, well, if we know we must die, why should we not live? As I hope for your happiness, let us jump into a bath. My life on it, you will never regret it. It is as hot as a furnace." "Very true, very true," said Habinnas, "making two days out of one is my chief delight." And he got up with bare feet and began to follow Trimalchio, who was clapping his hands.

-MICHAEL HESELTINE.

"Love

no trace of its existence behind. cf money began this revolution," he replied. "In former ages virtue was still loved for her own sake, the noble arts flourished, and there were the keenest struggles among mankind to prevent anything being long undiscovered which might benefit posterity. So Democritus extracted the juice of every plant on earth, and spent his whole life in experiments to discover the virtues of stones and twigs. Eudoxos grew old on the top of a high mountain in order to trace the movements of the stars and the sky, and Chrysippus three times cleared his wits with hellebore to improve his powers of invention. If you turn to sculptors, Lysippus died of starvation as he brooded over the lines of a single statue, and Myron, who almost caught the very soul of men and beasts in bronze, left no heir behind him. But we are besotted with wine and women, and cannot rise to understand even the arts that are developed; we slander the past, and learn and teach nothing but vices. dialectic now, or astronomy? the exquisite way of wisdom? ever been to a temple and made an offering in order to attain to eloquence, or to drink of the waters of philosophy? They do not even ask for good sense or good health, but before they even touch the threshold of the Capitol, one promises an offering if he may bury his rich neighbor, another if he may dig up a hid treasure, another if he may make thirty millions in safety. Even the Senate, the teachers of what is right and good, often promise a thousand pounds in gold to the Capitol, and decorate even Jupiter with pelf, that no one need be ashamed of praying for money. So there is nothing surprising in the decadence of painting, when all the gods and men think an ingot of gold more beautiful than anything those poor crazy Greeks, Apelles and Phidias, ever did."

Where is Where is Who has

MICHAEL HESELTINE.