Among Glaukias's companions was Argeios, a vain and handsome young poet,
with scented locks betraying him from afar, who was fain to display the
promptness of his poetical powers; and, even while the elder artist was
speaking, he had run Alexander's satirical remarks into the mold of
rhythm. Not to save his life could he have suppressed the hastily
conceived distich, or have let slip such a justifiable claim to applause.
So, without heeding Melissa's remonstrance, he flung his sky-blue mantle
about him in fresh folds, and declaimed with comical emphasis:

"Down to earth did the god cast his son: but with mightier hand
Through it, to Hades, Caesar flung his brother the dwarf."

The versifier was rewarded by a shout of laughter, and, spurred by the
approval of his friends, he declared he had hit on the mode to which to
sing his lines, as he did in a fine, full voice.

But there was another poet, Mentor, also of the party, and as he could
not be happy under his rival's triumph, he exclaimed: "The great dyer--
for you know he uses blood instead of the Tyrian shell--has nothing of
Father Zeus about him that I can see, but far more of the great
Alexander, whose mausoleum he is to visit to-morrow. And if you would
like to know wherein the son of Severus resembles the giant of Macedon,
you shall hear."

He thrummed his thyrsus as though he struck the strings of a lyre, and,
having ended the dumb prelude, he sang:

"Wherein hath the knave Caracalla outdone Alexander?
He killed a brother, the hero a friend, in his rage."