POLYSTRATUS Not all of it! The very greatest items in her praise are still unincluded. I mean that in so elevated a station she has not clothed herself in pride over her success, and has not been uplifted above the limit that beseems humanity through confidence in Fortune, but keeps herself upon the common plane, with no tasteless or vulgar aspirations, treats her visitors familiarly and as an equal, and gives her friends greetings and evidences of affection that are all the sweeter to them because, although they come from one who is above them, they make no display of circumstance. Truly, all those who employ great power not in superciliousness but in kindness, are regarded as especially worthy of the blessings that have been bestowed upon them by Fortune, and they alone deserve to escape envy. Nobody will envy the man above him if he sees him behaving with moderation amid his successes and not, like Homer's Ate,

Iliad, 19, 91-94.

treading on the heads of men and crushing whatever is feebler. That is the way: in which the low-minded are affected because of their vulgarity of soul. When, without their expecting anything of the sort, Fortune suddenly sets them in a winged, aerial car, they do not bide contentedly where they are, and do not look beneath them, but force themselves ever upwards. Therefore, as in the case of Icarus, their wax quickly melts, their wings moult, and they bring ridicule upon themselves by falling head-first into deep waters and breaking seas. But those who pattern after Daedalus in the use of their wings and do not rise too high, knowing that their pinions were made of wax, but stint their flight as mere mortals should and are content to be carried above, but only just above, the waves, so that they keep their wings always wet and avoid exposing them to sheer sunshine— they wing their passage at once safely and discreetly. This is what might be most praised in her. Consequently she gets from all the return that she deserves ; for all pray that these wings may abide with her and that blessings may accrue to her in still greater fulness.

LYCINUS So be it, Polystratus. She deserves it, because it is not in body alone, like Helen, that she is fair, but the soul that she harbours therein is still more fair and lovely. It was in keeping, too, that our Emperor, kindly and gentle as he is, along with all the other blessings that he enjoys, should be so tavoured by Fortune as to have such a woman born in his time and consort with him and love him. For that is no trivial favour of Fortune—a woman about whom one can quote with propriety the saying of Homer, that she vies with golden Aphrodite in beauty and equals Athena herself in accomplishments.

Iliad9, 389-90.

Among mortal women there is none to compare with her, “neither in stature nor mould” (as Homer says), “nor in mind nor in aught that she doeth.”

Iliad 1, 115.

POLYSTRATUS You are right, Lycinus. So, if you are willing, let us put our portraits together, the statue that you modelled of her body and the pictures that I painted of her soul; let us blend them all into one, put it down in a book, and give it to all mankind to admire, not only to those now alive, but to those that shall live hereafter. It would at least prove more enduring than the works of Apelles and Parrhasius and Polygnotus, and far more pleasing to the lady herself than anything of that kind, inasmuch as it is not made of wood and wax and colours but portrayed with inspirations from the Muses; and this will be found the most accurate kind of portrait, since it simultaneously discloses beauty of body and nobility of soul.