The centurion Julius was genuinely pleased with the invitation of Titus, and duly presented himself at the modest house of Vespasian. The other guests were Aulus Plautius and Pomponia, King Caradoc, Pudens and Claudia, and Seneca, together with several members of the family, and among them Vespasian’s brother, Flavius Sabinus, who had just been appointed Præfect of the City, in the place of Pedanius Secundus. The fortunes of the Flavian house were rising rapidly; but Sabinus, an eminent soldier, with his blushing honours fresh upon him, was regarded as the head of the family.
Vespasian was poor, and was also fond of money. That he had not amassed a fortune in his various commands was much to his credit. His house, afterwards occupied by Josephus, was so unpretending as to excite the wonder of those who saw it after he had become Emperor, and his entertainments were usually marked by a more than Sabine simplicity.
On this occasion, however, since a king, a prime minister, and a consular—his old commander—who had enjoyed the honour of sharing an Emperor’s triumphs, were among his guests, Vespasian had donned the unwonted splendour of his ‘triumphal ornaments,’ a flowered tunic, over which flowed a purple robe, embroidered with palm branches in gold and silver thread. He was not half at ease in this splendid apparel, and told his wife Cænis that he was an old fool for his pains. The entertainment was sufficient, though Otho would have thought it hardly good enough for his freedmen. The board was graced with old Sabine and Etruscan ware of great antiquity and curious workmanship, as well as with objects of interest which Vespasian had bought when he was an officer in Thrace, Crete, and Cyrene.
But Vespasian himself, who was sturdily indifferent to fashion, and took pleasure in showing how little he regarded the criticisms of Roman dandyism, drank out of a little silver cup which had belonged to his grandmother, and which he would not have exchanged for the loveliest crystal on the table of Petronius. And Caradoc, as he sat there in his simple dress and golden torque, was far more happy at that modest entertainment than he would have been at the house of any other of the Roman nobles.
The party was, so to speak, a British party, for most of them were familiar with the storm-swept Northern island, which was regarded as the Ultima Thule of civilisation. That day Pudens had received an appointment to go to Britain and support as well as he could the wavering fortunes of Suetonius Paulinus. Caradoc was permitted to return with him and take up his abode at Noviomagus, the town of the Regni. They were to sail as early as possible from Ostia. More than this, Aulus Plautius, to whose powerful influence these appointments had been due, had secured for his young friend Titus the excellent position of a tribune of the soldiers to the army in Britain. It was a graceful recognition of the services which Vespasian had rendered to him twenty years before, when, as his legate of the legion, he had fought thirty battles, captured more than twenty towns, and reduced the Isle of Wight to subjection. It was in Britain, as Tacitus says, that Vespasian had first been ‘shown to the Fates.’ The whole party were in the highest spirits. The old king rejoiced to think that he should rest at last in the land of his fathers. Claudia longed to escape from the suffocating atmosphere of Roman luxury. Pudens knew that in Rome his Christian convictions might speedily bring him into peril, and that in far-off Britain he could breathe a freer and purer air. Vespasian had much to tell of the glories of the country. Lastly, Titus felt all the ardour of a young soldier entering on high command in new and deeply interesting fields of adventure, and in the company of the officer whom he most respected and loved.
It was natural, therefore, that the conversation should turn on Britain, and the tremendous events of which it had recently been the scene. Aulus Plautius had heard from Suetonius Paulinus himself the story how he had carried his soldiers on flat-bottomed boats across the Straits of Mona, while the horses swam behind; how the British women, with dishevelled hair, stood thick upon the shore in dark robes, and, with torches in their hands, ran to and fro among the soldiers like Furies; above all, how the Druids stood there conspicuous, their long white beards streaming to the winds, and, with hands uplifted to heaven, cursed the Romans; and how at last, ‘falling on the barbarous and lunatic rout, he had beaten them down, scorched and rolling in their own fires.’ But darker news had followed. Roman emissaries—‘and those bad young Romans are the curse of Rome,’ said the old commander, looking up from the tablets of Suetonius—had behaved with infamous cruelty to Boadicea, the heroic Queen of the Iceni, and she was burning to revenge her wrongs. Paulinus described her as ‘a woman big and tall, of visage grim and stern, harsh of voice, her hair of bright colour flowing down to her hips, who wore a plighted garment of divers colours, and a great golden chain under a large flowing mantle.’
‘He has sent me some fierce British verses, King,’ said Aulus, turning to Caradoc, ‘which one of his literary officers—Laureatus, of the island of Vectis—has translated from British into Latin galliambics, the metre which, he says, most resembles their tumultuous lilt. The translator must be a true poet, for not even the “Atys” of Catullus is more impassioned. I shall be half afraid to read them to you, for they will stir your blood like the sound of a trumpet, and you will fancy yourself charging us again at the head of your Silures.’
‘Ah!’ said the old warrior, sadly; ‘my fires have long sunk into white embers. A king who has been led in fetters through the capital of his enemies can fight no more for a free nation, however intolerably it may have been wronged.’
Claudia pressed her father’s hand, and tears shone in her blue eyes.
‘Nay, Claudia,’ said the king; ‘I did not wish to sadden thee. Thou and I have other and brighter hopes than once we had, and it will be like new life to us to tread once more by the broad rivers of Britain, and on her heathy hills. I am an exile and poor. My jewels and trappings were carried before me at the triumph of Claudius and Aulus;—though Cartismandua, who betrayed me, still has her golden corslet and her enamelled chariot. These things are, I know, as the gods decide, and sometimes they suffer wickedness to triumph. But let Aulus Plautius read us the verses.’