"He was an honest man," said the consul with emphasis. "His statue shall remain standing here and everywhere, whatever may be thrown down, and as honest men are not too common, it shall be set up in every city of Greece."
It was now time for the friends to part. Polybius had received a commission from Rome to arrange the affairs of the other cities of the Peloponnese, and he would gladly have taken his young friend with him in the capacity of secretary. But Cleanor felt irresistibly called, and by more motives than one, to Italy. There awaited him there an honourable and lucrative employment, which would be all the more welcome because it was wholly remote from the scenes, so full of painful associations, through which he had passed during the last two years of his life. This, as my readers will remember, was the translation of the famous treatise on Agriculture. And he never forgot for a moment that Italy now contained the two beings who were dearest to him in the world. Corinth, which the savage decree of the Senate had doomed to the flames, both were anxious to leave without delay. They parted on the deck of the _Ino_, the ship which carried Polybius to Sicyon, the first city which he was to visit in his official capacity, and which was to take Cleanor further westward to Rome. "Farewell!" said Polybius. "I shall be busy with my history when these affairs are settled. Remember that you have promised to criticise it. I shall not like to give it to the world till it has had your approval."
65: This was made of an alloy known as _Corinthian brass_ or _bronze_, and said to have been composed of gold, silver, and copper. In later times it was believed to have been first made, and that by accident, at this very taking of Corinth, when gold, silver, and other metals were found to have been melted by the violent conflagration and to have run together; but it had been known long before.
67: It was the Roman custom, and Polybius naturally uses Roman terms on this occasion, to set up a spear when an auction was going on.
The _Ino_ had a quick and prosperous voyage. But though Cleanor arrived safely at his destination, he learned, not without astonishment, that he had been running a very considerable danger of having a different ending to his travels. The Roman Republic was extending her borders in every direction, and was levelling to the dust the cities which had disputed with her the empire of the world, but she suffered herself to be insulted and her citizens and allies to be maltreated by insignificant enemies. While her legions and fleets were winning great victories abroad, her own coasts were harried by pirates. Near Ithaca the _Ino_ picked up a boat in which were three sailors reduced to the last stage of exhaustion by hunger and thirst. The poor fellows, who were almost unconscious when they were taken on board, had a piteous story to tell when they had recovered sufficient strength to speak. They had been drifting about for nine days, and were the survivors of a company of nine, the crew of a trader of Patræ which was bound with a cargo of wine for Tarentum.