Count Belisarius by Robert Graves Page A

he blushed again, face and neck, and when the blush had gone he turned pale. Never in her life did she ever sing better, I believe, and there was a great rattling of cups in her praise – even Simeon contributed a ‘bravo’, though he did not greatly care for pagan music and had tried to look indifferent while she was dancing. Symmachus the philosopher congratulated Modestus, exclaiming: ‘Now really you have provided us with a rare phenomenon: a singing girl who keeps both her instrument and her voice in key, accentuates her words correctly, prefers Meleager to the nonsensical ballads of the streets, is beautiful. I have not heard or seen better at Athens itself. Here, girl, let a grateful old man embrace you!’
    If the invitation had come from Belisarius, my mistress would have been on his lap with a single bound, twining her arms about his neck. But on lean, snuffling, pedantic old Symmachus she had no favours to bestow: she cast her eyes down. For the rest of the meal, though she sang and danced and joked beyond her usual best, she allowed nobody to take any liberties with her – not even Bessas, though he was a man of the world and good-looking and strong, in fact just the sort whom she would otherwise have marked down as a worthy lover to spend the night with. She behaved modestly; and this was not altogether an affectation, for she did not feel her usual bold self.
    When the principal meats are brought in, served on dishes of massive ancient silver – a roast lamb, a goose, a ham, fish-cakes – Modestus glows with satisfaction. He begins a long, involved speech, recommending his nephew Belisarius to Bessas as a young man who intends to take up the profession of arms, and who will, he hopes, restore the old lustre to the Roman military name. ‘It is long yearssince a soldier with true Roman blood in his veins led any of the armies of the Emperor. Nowadays all the higher commands have somehow fallen into the hands of hired barbarians – Goths, Vandals, Gepids, Huns, Arabians – and the result is that the old Roman military system, which once built up the greatest empire that the world has ever known, has lately degenerated beyond all recognition.’
    Palaeologus, who is reclining next to Bessas, feels obliged to pluck at the striped tunic and whisper: ‘Most generous of men, please take no notice whatsoever of what our host is saying. He is drunk and confused and so old-fashioned in his ways of thinking as to be almost demented. He is not purposely insulting you.’
    Bessas chuckles: ‘Have no fear, old beard. He is my host, and the wine is good, and this is excellent lamb. We barbarians can afford to let the Romans complain a little of our successes. I do not understand one-quarter of his jargon; but that he is complaining, that much at least I understand.’
    Modestus goes on, inconsequently, to point the close resemblance – has Malthus noted it?–between this villa and the favourite villa of the celebrated author, Pliny. ‘The entrance hall, plain but not mean, leading to a D-shaped portico with the same glazed windows and overhanging eaves as Pliny’s, thence to the inner hall and the dining-room with windows and folding doors on three sides. The same view of wooded hills to the south-east; but south-west, instead of the view to the sea which Pliny had – in rough weather the breakers used to drive up to the very dining-room, which must have been both alarming and inconvenient – the river valley of Hebrus, and the fertile Thracian plain beloved of the drunken devotees of the Wine-God, who ran with their breasts uncovered, their loose hair speed-tossed, and carrying in their passionate hands wands ivy-wreathed and tipped with pine-cones – why, observe, there they are so in the frieze just above the window; beloved also of Orpheus, pictured with his lute, who made rocks dance that should have stood still, and waters stand still