In the following weeks Paulus remembered some things in the
conversation of this day, which at the time had made but slight
impression on him. The stories of professors and teachers had meant
little until he knew at first hand the lentil suppers and brilliant
talking at the house of Taurus, the ethical discussions with
Peregrinus in his hovel on the outskirts of the city, and, most of
all, the generous and ennobling hospitality, in his city house and
villas, of the millionaire rhetorician, Herodes Atticus. About
Peregrinus Paulus could never make up his mind. Was he the helpful
teacher Gellius thought him, or the blatant charlatan of Lucian's
frequent attacks? At any rate, the stories that were abroad about
his wild youth, his connection with the strange sect known as
Christians, his excommunication by them for profaning one of their
rites, his expulsion from Rome by the Prefect of the City for his
anarchistic harangues made a picturesque background for his cynic
garb and ascetic preaching. To Taurus and Atticus, on the other hand,
Paulus could give himself with unreserved loyalty. His hardy will
responded to the severe standards of thought and conduct set by the
Platonic philosopher, while the wilder heart within him seemed to
seek and understand the rhetorician's emotional nature and
extravagant affections.
Indeed, as the spring passed into summer, all the elements in
Paulus's life seemed to confirm the glory of that day on the slopes
of Hymettus when he had first felt sure of the significance Greece
held for him. The cumulative effect of his association with older
men, his young friendships, his work toward his chosen goal, his
grave but piercing pleasures, was to make him at home in Athens as
he had never been at home in Rome. He rested in the charm of the
smaller, simpler city, where among all classes and all ways of life
mental refinement took precedence of crass display. Here, he felt,
he could live and work, unknown to fame indeed, but with all that
was best in him dedicated in freedom and integrity to the life of
the spirit. The memory of Egypt, where all effort lost itself in the
mockery of the desert, and the thought of Rome, where in these later
years all fruitful effort was military, political, commercial,
became almost equally abhorrent to him. Greece, set within her
stainless seas, was like a holy temple set apart, a place of refuge
from shams and error and confusion.
This worshipful attitude towards Athens was crystallized in the
young poet at the time of the Panathenaic festival, in July. The
festival was still a brilliant one, a brief radiance falling upon
city and citizens. Unlike a holiday season at Rome, here were no shows
of gladiators or beasts, no procession of captors and captives, no
array of Arabian gold or Chinese silk or Indian embroideries. The
Athenians, seeking novelty, found it in their own renewed
appreciation of the physical skill of athletes, of music and drama,
of observances still hallowed by religion and patriotism. On the
Acropolis Paulus watched the arrival of the procession bringing this
year's peplos to Athena. After centuries of shame in the political
life of her city the gold-ivory statue of the Guardian Goddess shone
undefiled in a temple whose beauty was a denial of time. The pageant
also, once more paying tribute to Wisdom, was noble and beautiful
as in the days of Phidias. The gifts of Greece were beyond the reach
of conqueror or destroyer. Paulus entered the inner shrine and looked
up at the winged Victory borne upon the hand of the goddess. To dwell
in Athens seemed a sacred purpose. Involuntarily, in self-dedication,
he found himself using the familiar prayer of the theatre:
O majestical Victory, shelter my life
Neath thy covert of wings,
Aye, cease not to grant me thy crowning.