And this Onesimus meant to do, and might have done but for his own misconduct.
He was weak in character, and if he had gone astray in the safe obscurity of the house of Pudens he was liable to far worse temptations in the familia of the Palace. All his old companions cringed to the handsome slave of Octavia, who might rise, as others had done, to be an all-powerful freedman. With his youth, his quickness, his good looks, who could tell whether he might not even become a favourite of Cæsar himself, and have untold influence and power? Onesimus found himself the centre of flattering attention in the slave world both of the Palace and the city. He began to think himself a person of importance. Was he not under the immediate patronage of Acte, and, in order to avoid scandal, had it not even been necessary to make it known that he was her kinsman and foster-brother, brought up under the same roof?
Onesimus was too unstable to withstand the combined temptations by which he was surrounded. The image of Junia might have acted as an amulet, but he scarcely ever got an opportunity of seeing her, for Nereus looked upon him with anything but favour. He kept aloof from Christians, for he never heard them mentioned except with contempt and hatred, and he liked the atmosphere of compliment and pleasure. Slaves naturally imitate the vices of their masters, and the wicked world of the aristocracy was reflected in darker colours in the wicked world of servile myriads. Flinging all that he had learnt of morals to the winds, betting, gambling, frequenting the lewdest shows of the theatre and the most sanguinary spectacles of the games, and forever haunting the cook-shops, the taverns, and the Subura, he spent his almost unlimited leisure in that vicious idleness above which only the best slaves had strength to rise.
And so it happened that at the time when he ought to have been most on the alert he got entangled in a low dispute at a drinking bout, and returned to the Palace not only wounded and smeared with blood, but also in a state of shameful intoxication. In this guise Nero had seen him, and, without even knowing his name, or anything about him, had furiously ordered him to be taken to his steward, Callicles, for severe punishment. He had again been scourged, put into fetters, thrust into a prison, and fed on bread and water. This disgrace was concealed from Acte, and while she was relying upon his quick intelligence to convey a warning to Britannicus, and to devise means of frustrating the plot of Tigellinus, Onesimus lay sick, and shamed, and fettered in a prison among the lowest of offending slaves.
CHAPTER XXVI
A BANQUET AND A CONVERSATION
‘The citron board, the bowl embossed with gems,
And tender foliage wildly wreathed around
Of seeming ivy ... whate’er is known
Of rarest acquisition; Tyrian garbs,
Neptunian Albion’s high testaceous food,