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LYCINUS So be it, Polystratus. She deserves it, because it is not in body alone, like Helen, that she is fair, but the soul that she harbours therein is still more fair and lovely. It was in keeping, too, that our Emperor, kindly and gentle as he is, along with all the other blessings that he enjoys, should be so tavoured by Fortune as to have such a woman born in his time and consort with him and love him. For that is no trivial favour of Fortune—a woman about whom one can quote with propriety the saying of Homer, that she vies with golden Aphrodite in beauty and equals Athena herself in accomplishments.Iliad9, 389-90. Among mortal women there is none to compare with her, “neither in stature nor mould” (as Homer says), “nor in mind nor in aught that she doeth.”Iliad 1, 115.
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POLYSTRATUS You are right, Lycinus. So, if you are willing, let us put our portraits together, the statue that you modelled of her body and the pictures that I painted of her soul; let us blend them all into one, put it down in a book, and give it to all mankind to admire, not only to those now alive, but to those that shall live hereafter. It would at least prove more enduring than the works of Apelles and Parrhasius and Polygnotus, and far more pleasing to the lady herself than anything of that kind, inasmuch as it is not made of wood and wax and colours but portrayed with inspirations from the Muses; and this will be found the most accurate kind of portrait, since it simultaneously discloses beauty of body and nobility of soul.
