“True,” said a painter.  “Without the restraint and worry of apprenticeship no one can ever rise to happy and independent creativeness; and in the schools of rhetoric or in hunting or fighting no one can study drawing.  It is not till a pupil has learned to sit steady and worry himself over his work for six hours on end that I begin to believe he will ever do any good work.  Have you any of you seen the Emperor’s work?”

“I have,” answered a mosaic worker.  “Many years ago Hadrian sent a picture to me that he had painted; I was to make a mosaic from it.  It was a fruit piece.  Melons, gourds, apples, and green leaves.  The drawing was but so-so, and the color impossibly vivid, still the composition was pleasing from its solidity and richness.  And after all, when one sees it, one cannot but feel that such superfluity is better than meagreness and feebleness.  The larger fruits, especially under the exuberant sappy foliage, were so huge that they might have been grown in the garden of luxury itself, still the whole had a look of reality.  I mitigated the colors somewhat in my transcript; you may still see a copy of the picture at my house, it hangs in the studio where my men draw.  Nealkes, the rich hanging-maker, has had a tapestry woven from it which Pontius proposes to use as a hanging for a wall of the work-room, but I have made a fine frame on purpose for it.”

“Say rather for its designer.”

“Or yet rather,” added the most loquacious of the painters, “for the visit he may possibly pay your workshops.”

“I only wish the Emperor may come to ours too!  I should like to sell him my picture of Alexander saluted by the priests in the temple of Jupiter Ammon.”

“I hope that when you agree about the price you will remember we are partners,” said his fellow-artist smugly.

“I will follow your example strictly,” replied the other.

“Then you will certainly not be a loser,” cried Papias, “for Eustorgius is fully aware of the worth of his works.  And if Hadrian is to order works from every master whose art he dabbles in, he will require a fleet on purpose to carry his purchases to Rome.”

“It is said,” continued Eustorgius, laughing, “that he is a painter among poets, a sculptor among painters, an astronomer among musicians, and a sophist among artists—­that is to say, that he pursues every art and science with some success as his secondary occupation.”

As he spoke the last words Pontius returned to the table where the artists were standing round the winejar; he had heard the painter’s last remark and interrupted him by saying: