‘A person, then, who can regard it as criminal to reject the popular belief must be ignorant of all philosophy and all literature. Is any one bound to suppose that there really is such a god as Panic; or such goddesses as Muta, Febris, and Strenia? Are the Greek poets to be condemned who have repeatedly spoken of one God? God is everywhere. He is that without which nothing is. He comes to men; He comes into men. No one is good without God. Pomponia’s character alone is sufficient to prove that there is nothing harmful in her belief. To the God who is near us, to the sacred Spirit who dwells with us, the observer and guardian of all our evil and our good, she has been supremely true. The image of the gods cannot be formed with gold and silver, or such materials, but with the beauty and dignity of human souls. God is best worshipped, not by sacrifices of bulls, but by innocence and rectitude.
‘And you, O Aulus, you know what a wife Pomponia has been to you, how chaste, how gentle, how faithful! How often have you found her quietly spinning wool among her modest maidens, when other matrons are sitting at riotous banquets, or gazing at dishonourable scenes! How wisely and quietly has she managed your fortunes, and governed your family! How true and tender she was as a mother to the little boy whose immature death you wept, whose ashes are inurned in the tomb of your house! How purely has she trained your youthful Aulus! To whom save to her does he owe that beautiful mixture of manly courage and virginal modesty which distinguishes him among the youth of Rome? And will you, at the word of a vile informer actuated by base greed, and set on by female rancour—will you desecrate the shrine of your own household gods? Will you dishonour the fame of your ancestors? Will you sever a union which has been to you so fruitful of blessings? Remember how she smiled on you on the day that you walked in proud ovation with Cæsar by your side! Remember how she shared the toils, the hardships, the anxieties of your campaigns in that far-off Thule, which was subdued by your valour! Remember how by her sympathy she has diminished all your troubles, and intensified all your joys! And will you hand over such a wife, and such a mother—so gentle, so pure, so noble—to the fury of the executioner? Will you see the sword flash down upon a head which has often rested on your breast? Or will you coldly and sternly dismiss your innocent and well-loved wife to end her days on some dreary island-rock, amid the storms of Adria or the Tyrrhene Sea? Yours, O Aulus, yours and not hers, will be the infamy; yours, not hers, will be the loss! Not hers the shame—for no informer, and no unjust condemnation can fix a stain upon the guiltless; not hers the misery—for wherever she goes she will carry the God within her, since in each one of us, as our great poet says,
‘“Some god is dwelling, though we know not who.”
You may banish her to Pontia or Pandataria, but everywhere she will see the sunlight and the stars, and will feel that she is not abandoned. When we enter a dense forest, we are struck with awe at its huge tree-trunks, its spreading boughs, its dark shade, and we feel that the Divine is there; when we enter some cavern in the hills, we feel the presence of a Deity: but we feel it much more when we see a brave and pure soul rising superior to the menaces of calamity. Look at her, Aulus, where she sits. In her calmness, in her fortitude, in the serene and tranquil beauty of a countenance on which no vice has set its mark, see the living proof of her freedom from all blame! Proclaim to Cæsar, to Regulus, to the society of Rome, to all the world, that Pomponia has done or thought nothing unworthy of the immortal gods, nothing unworthy of her ancestors, of her husband, and of her home!’
Many a cry of applause had greeted Seneca, as he thus ventured to pour forth, in the secrecy of a domestic tribunal, the thoughts which he had often uttered to his friends, and even published in his writings. He sat down amid a murmur of admiration, during which not a few of the noblest of his auditors pressed round him with expressions of warmest congratulation, and Amplias, the Christian freedman of Pomponia, in a burst of enthusiasm, bent down and kissed his hand. He was deeply gratified by the impression he had made, for when there was nothing to arouse his fear or imperil his ambition, he felt a genuine happiness in doing deeds of kindness. But he raised his hands for silence while the assembly awaited the decision of those whom Plautius had asked to be his assessors in the judgment.
They consulted together for a few moments, and then, amid the deepest silence, Plautius rose. He was almost too much moved to speak. It required all his Roman firmness and dignity to force back the tears which were brimming in his eyes, and to control into steadiness the voice which seemed ready to break; but he succeeded. Rising with dignity, he said:
‘Friends and kinsmen, I have consulted with those who have shared with me the responsibility of judgment. We are agreed. The evidence is altogether worthless. Pomponia is innocent of anything hostile to religion, or forbidden by the laws of Rome. Friends and kinsmen, I thank you for your presence and your counsel, and I thank you most of all, illustrious Seneca. I thank the Emperor, that he has spared us the pain and anxiety of a public trial, and I shall announce to him, and to all Rome, that Aulus Plautius will thank the gods, even till death, that they have given him a wife so innocent, so noble, and so chaste.’
Pomponia raised her eyes and her clasped hands to heaven in a transport of gratitude, and as she did so a sudden burst of sunshine streamed through the window, and glorified her face. The lambent flame played over her hair, and lit up her features, and gave to her calm beauty a heavenly radiance. This was regarded as a complete justification of the sentence of acquittal, and a visible proof of the divine favour. The hall resounded with acclamations, and Claudia, who had been among the witnesses of the scene, flung herself into the arms of Pomponia, who tenderly folded the fair British maiden to her heart, while Pudens looked on with a happy smile.
And when Pomponia retired to her own room, she knelt down, and with bowed head, and clasped hands, and outstretched arms, poured out her thanks to Him who had been her protector in this most painful trial of her life. She was a confessor and a martyr, in will if not in deed; for though she had not been called upon to declare herself a Christian, she had been prepared to do so if the question had been put to her. When Plautius entered he found her praying, and as she rose at his entrance he saw upon her features a beauty even brighter than that which she had caught from the sunbeam which had shone upon her in the hall.
‘My wife,’ he said to her very tenderly, as he kissed her. ‘I know not what to think of thy beliefs. Thou hast not concealed from me that thou art of this new sect. I know that men call it despicable and execrated; but if it makes its votaries such as thou art, it is more blessed and more potent than the worship of the gods of Rome.’