In the fourth act, Longinus, who made such a prosperous and enviable start in the first act, is left alone in the desert, sick, blind, helpless, incredibly old, to die: not a friend left in the world--another ruined life. And in that act, also, Appelles' worshipped boy, Nymphas, done to death by the mob, breathes out his last sigh in his father's arms--one more failure. In the fifth act, Appelles himself dies, and is glad to do it; he who so ignorantly rejoiced, only four acts before, over the splendid present of an earthly immortality--the very worst failure of the lot!