In executing this work the poor poet nearly lost his wits. But his victory was complete, and Constantius more than charmed. He believed that Publius had surpassed all the poets of antiquity; he wrote the author a letter with his own hand, assuring him of protection and ending thus: "In our age My bounty, like the calm breath of the zephyrs, is breathed upon all who write verses."
Nevertheless his confiscated property was not restored to the poet; he was simply given money and authorised to quit his desert island for Athens.
There he led a melancholy existence. The ostler in the stables of the circus, in comparison with Publius, lived in luxury.
In the company of gravediggers, shady speculators, furnishers of nuptial feasts, he passed whole days in the antechambers of the illiterate great, in order to obtain orders for a marriage ode, an epitaph, or a love-letter. At this trade he gained little, but never lost heart, hoping to offer to the Emperor one day a poem which would win him complete pardon.
Julian felt that in spite of this outward abasement Porphyrius bore at heart a deep love for Hellas. He was a fine critic of Greek poetry and Julian enjoyed his conversation.
They left the high-road and approached the high wall of an enclosure like some _palæstra_ or exercise-ground. Round about all was solitary; two black lambs were cropping the grass; near the closed door, in the chinks of which poppies and white daisies were growing, there stood a chariot and two white horses. Their manes were close-cut like those of the horses in the bas-reliefs. By them stood an old slave, a deaf-mute, but evidently of an affable disposition, for he immediately recognised Publius and nodded to him in friendly fashion, pointing to the closed gate of the wrestling ground.
"Lend me your purse a moment," said Publius to Julian. "I'll take out one or two pence for this poor old fool."
He threw the coins, and the mute, with servile grimaces and pleased grunts, opened the door.
They entered under a long and dark covered gallery. Between rows of columns ran other galleries laid out for the exercise of athletes. The spaces in their midst were now widths of grass instead of sand. The two friends penetrated a large inner portico. Julian's curiosity became keener at every step, the mysterious Publius leading him on by the hand without a word. Doors of _exedræ_, or academic halls where orators used to meet, opened into the second portico, and the grasshoppers were humming now where eloquent discourses of Athenian sages had in old time resounded. Above the deep grass bees were whirling: silence and melancholy pervaded all. Suddenly, a woman's voice was heard, and the noise of a disk striking the marble, followed by a merry burst of laughter.