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Ah, Herodes Atticus, what glory is his!

Alexander of Seleucia, one of our better sophists,

on arriving in Athens to lecture,

finds the city deserted, since Herodes was

away in the country. And all of the young people

followed him out there to hear him.

So Alexander the sophist

writes Herodes a letter

requesting that he send back the Greeks.

And smooth Herodes swiftly responds,

“I too am coming, along with the Greeks.”

How many lads in Alexandria now,

in Antioch, or in Beirut

(tomorrow’s orators, trained by Greek culture)

when they gather at choice dinner parties

where sometimes the talk is of fine intellectual points,

and sometimes about their exquisite amours,

suddenly, abstracted, fall silent.

They leave their glasses untouched at their sides,

and they ponder the luck of Herodes—

what other sophist was honored like this?—

whatever he wants and whatever he does

the Greeks (the Greeks!) follow him,

neither to criticize nor to debate,

nor even to choose any more; just to follow.

[1900; 1911; 1912]