The advice of Vespasian was perfectly sincere. In his homely way he saw too deeply into the heart of things to care for the outside veneer. It was his mother, Vespasia Pollathe daughter of the military tribune - who, led on by dreams and omens, had forced him into the career of civil honours. His brother obtained the right to wear the laticlave, or broad purple stripe on the toga, and the silver C on the boots, which marked the rank of senator. Vespasian was unwilling to lay aside the narrow stripe, the angusticlave, which showed him to be of equestrian rank. He only yielded to the pressure, and even to the abuse, of his mother, who asked him how long he meant to be the lacquey - the anteambulo of his brother. He had nearly thrown up his public life in disgust, when during his ædileship Gaius had ordered the soldiers to cover him with mud, and to heap mud into the folds of his embroidered magisterial robe, because he found the roads insufficiently attended to. He had practised the advice he was now giving.

'My head has been struck on coins,' said Britannicus, with a sigh; but I can't say that it has made me much happier.' You are as happy as Nero is,' said Titus. 'I am quite sure that all the revels at Subiaco will not be worth the boar-hunt we mean to have to-morrow.'

'Clemens,' said Vespasian, Domitilla tells me that yesterday morning you were learning my favourite poem, the "Epode" of Horace about the pleasures of country life, and the lines of Virgil on the same subject. As we have nothing special to do this morning, suppose you repeat the poems to us, while the boys and I make a formido for our next

deer-hunt.'

The boys got out the long line of string, and busied themselves with tying to it, at equal distances, the crimson feathers which were to frighten the deer into the nets; while Flavius, standing up, recited feelingly and musically the wellknown lines of the Venusian poet, whose Sabine farm lay at no great distance from the place where they were living

'Blessed is he remote as were the mortals

His life escapes from the contentious Forum,

And shuns the insolent thresholds of the great.'1

And when, to the great delight of his uncle, he had finished repeating this poem, he repeated the still finer lines of Virgil, who pronounces 'Happy above human happiness the husbandmen for whom far beyond the shock of arms earth pours her plenteous sustenance.' 2

The boys talked together on all sorts of subjects; only if Domitian was with them, they were instinctively careful about what they said. For Domitian could never forget that Britannicus was a prince. If Britannicus became Emperor he might be highly useful in many ways, and it was worth Domitian's while to insinuate himself into his favour. In this he soon saw that he would fail. The young prince disliked him, and could not entirely conceal his dislike under his habitual courtesy. Domitian then changed his tactics. He would try to be Nero's friend, and if he could find out anything to the disadvantage. of Britannicus, so much the better. He had already attracted the notice of two courtiers—the dissolute Clodius Pollio, who had been a prætor, and the senator Nerva, both of whom stood well with the Emperor. Already this young reprobate had all the baseness of an informer. But in this direction also his little plans were defeated, for in his presence Britannicus was as reticent as to Titus he was unreserved.

Britannicus was to have had a room to himself, in consideration of his exalted rank, but he asked to share the sleepingroom of Titus and Clemens. They went to bed at an early hour, for Vespasian was still a poor man, and oil was expensive. But they often talked together before they fell asleep. Titus would rarely hear a word about the Christians. He declared that they were no better than the worshippers of the dogheaded Anubis, and he appealed to the caricature of the Domus Gelotiana as though it proved the reality of the aspersions against them. He was, however, never tired of talking about the Jews. He had seen Agrippa; he had been dazzled into a boyish love by the rich eastern beauty of Berenice. The dim foreshadowing of the future gave him an intense interest in the nation whose destiny he was to affect so powerfully in after years. Stories of the Jewish Temple seemed to

1 Hor. Epod. ii. 1; Lord Lytton's version.

2 Virg. Georg. ii. 458.

have a fascination for him. But he was as credulous about the Jews as the rest of his race, and believed the vague scandals that they were exiles from Crete, and a nation of lepers, and about Moses and the herd of asses which afterwards found a

place in Tacitus and later historians.

Another subject about which he liked to talk was Stoicism. He thought nothing so grand as the doctrine that the ideal wise man was the most supreme of kings. He was full of high arguments, learnt through Epictetus, to prove that the wise man would be happy even in the bull of Phalaris, and he quoted Lucretius and Virgil to prove that he would be always happy

'If to know

Causes of things, and far below
His feet to feel the lurid flow
Of terror, and insane distress,
And headlong fate, be happiness.'

At all of which propositions Britannicus was inclined to laugh good-naturedly, and to ask — much to the indignation of his friend if Musonius was happy when he had a bad toothache.

Finding him unsympathetic on the subject of the Christians, Britannicus ceased to speak of them. On the other hand, he soon discovered that Clemens knew more about them than himself.

Are you a Christian, Flavius?' asked Britannicus, when they were alone, after one of these conversations.

I have not been baptised,' he answered. 'No one is regarded as a full Christian until he has been admitted into their church by baptism.'

'Baptism? What is that?

Our

'It is the washing with pure water,' said Clemens. Roman ceremonies are pompous and cumbersome. It is not so with the Christians. Their symbols are the simplest things in the world. Water, the sign of purification from guilt; bread and wine, the common elements of life, taken in remembrance of Christ who died for them.'

And are the elders of these Christians the presbyters, as they call them the same sort of persons as our priests?' 'I should hope not!' said Clemens. They are simple and blameless men more like the best of the philosophers, and more consistent, though not so learned.'

-

The entrance of Domitian - whom they more than suspected of having listened at the door stopped their conversation. But what Britannicus had heard filled him with deeper interest, and he felt convinced that the Christians were possessors of a secret more precious than any which Seneca or Musonius had ever taught.

But the happy days at the Sabine farm drew to an end. When November was waning to its close it was time to return from humble Phalacrine and its russet hills, to the smoke and wealth and roar of Rome.

CHAPTER XIX

OTHO'S SUPPER AND WHAT CAME OF IT

'Quoi cum sit viridissimo nupta flore puella
Et puella tenellulis delicatior hædis,
Asservanda nigellulis diligentius uvis,
Ludere hanc sinit, ut lubet.'

CATULL. Carm. xvii. 14.

WE left Onesimus bound hand and foot in his cell, and expecting the severest punishment. His crimes had been heinous, although the thought of escaping detection by slaying Junia had only been a momentary impulse, such as could never have flashed across his mind if it had not been inflamed by the furies of the amphitheatre. As he looked back in his deep misery, he saw how fatally all his misfortunes dated from the self-will with which he had resisted light and knowledge. He might by this time have been good and honoured in the house of Philemon, less a slave than a brother beloved. He might have been enfranchised, and in any case have enjoyed that happy freedom of soul which he had so often witnessed in those whom Christ had made free indeed. And now his place was among the lowest of the low. Nereus had of course reported to Pudens his attempt at theft. Pudens was sorry for the youth, for he had liked him, and saw in him the germs of better things. But such a crime could not be passed over with impunity. Onesimus was doomed to the scourge, as well as to a trinundine1 of solitude on bread and water, while he remained fettered in his cell.

The imprisonment, the shame, the solitariness which was a cruel trial to one of his quick disposition, were very salutary to him. They checked him in a career which might have ended in speedy shipwreck. And while his heart was sore every kind influence was brought to bear upon him. Pudens

A period of seventeen days.