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the Eurotas, where the long line of green picks out the marble of Synnas. The doorways yield not in splendour, the ceilings are radiant, the gables glitter with mosaics of pictured life. The very fire is astounded at the riches he encompasses, and tempers the fierceness of his sway. Everywhere is flooding light, where the sun pierces the roof with all his rays, and, spite of all his fierceness, is scorched by a heat that is not his own. Nought is common there, nowhere will you mark bronze of Temese,^[1] but from silver is the glad wave poured and into silver it falls, and marvelling at its own beauty stands poised upon the gleaming brim and refuses to go its way. But the dark-blue stream without, running gaily between snow-white banks, all clear to see from lowest depth to surface—whom would it not tempt to throw off his lazy robe and plunge into the water? From these deeps had Cytherea chosen to be born; here, Narcissus, hadst thou seen thyself more clearly; here would swift Hecate fain bathe, e’en though discovered. Why now should I tell of the floors laid upon the earth, destined to hear the noise of balls, where languidly creeps the warmth about the house and a scant haze rolls upward from the furnaces below? Such beauty would no guest despise, though fresh from the shore of Baiae, nor, if I may compare great things with small, would one who had bathed of late in Nero’s baths^[2] refuse to sweat here once more. A blessing, Claudius, on thy brilliant cleverness and careful thought! may this work grow old with thee, and thy fortune learn to rise to a new and more glorious birth.