He made her a low obeisance of mock respect, which she scarcely noticed by the slightest inclination of her head.
‘The fair Pomponia is fond of prisons,’ he said, with a sneer, ‘but she despises the poor Præfect of the Prætorians.’
‘Pomponia,’ she replied, ‘is not accustomed to the language of insincere and empty compliment. She despises none; but, if the Præfect desires her opinion, there are some of his humblest soldiers whom she respects more than him.’
Tigellinus cast on her a glance of savage hatred. He quailed before her queenly dignity of goodness, but could not bear to be foiled in the hearing of his escort, whose smiles had scarcely been suppressed.
‘Let Pomponia take care that she does not herself become the denizen of a prison. Some have whispered that she is as much a Christian as these whom she visits, and deserves the same fate.’
‘I deserve it,’ she says, ‘as much and as little as these do, for none knows better than Tigellinus that they are perfectly innocent.’
Tigellinus lost all self-control. ‘Do you not know, woman,’ he exclaimed[T17] hoarsely, ‘that your life is in my power?’
‘Man!’ she answered, with the calmest disdain, ‘you are addressing the wife of Aulus Plautius. My life is not in your power, but in the power of Him who gave it. I leave you, and shall continue to tend these hapless prisoners.’
She passed by him and he dared not meet her glance. To beard Tigellinus required a courage of which scarcely one person was capable. But Pomponia thought it her duty to attempt a yet more dangerous effort, and, if possible, to have an appeal made to the Emperor on behalf of the doomed Christians. She went to Seneca in his retirement. She found him anxious and miserable, full of disappointment and self-disgust. He did not respond to her entreaties. ‘I have no sympathy,’ he said, ‘with the Christians. They are only a sect of the Jews, and I should like to see their whole superstition eradicated.’
‘You call it their superstition,’ said Pomponia. ‘Is it more of a superstition than the worship of what you have called “our ignoble crowd of gods”?’