And thus the old man’s soul was joyful in the Lord.
Did Mark, did Timothy come to him
‘Before the white sail of his soul had rounded
The misty cape, the promontory Death’?
Mark was at Alexandria, and Timothy did not see him. The Lycaonian hastened to Rome the moment he had received Paul’s letter, but he came too late—came to be himself imprisoned, though happily only for a time. The Apostle was not mistaken in saying that his death was imminent. During Nero’s absence in Greece he had been summoned before the two wretched freedmen, Helius and Polycletus, on the second ground of his indictment—that he was a Christian, and therefore the preacher of a forbidden religion. That cause needed no trial. The accused not only confessed, but gloried in the accusation. Defence, therefore, was superfluous, since no apology for Christianity could alter the now established law that its practice was prohibited on pain of death. He would have been put to death at once, but Nero in a letter from Greece had expressed some wish to see him, and to ask him some further questions about the Christians before he attached his sign manual to the order of execution.
The truth was that Nero was half mad with anxiety, and as all magic incantations had failed to give him the least inkling of the future, he desired to learn something from the Christians. Among the slaves in the Palace who had been denounced as Christians by the informers, Herodion only had been spared, not only because of his age and blameless fidelity, but also because, in a household where the buzz of incessant gossip made it impossible to keep anything secret, it had been generally rumoured that he possessed the gift of prophecy. Nero therefore summoned Herodion into his presence. But Herodion refused to speak, and Nero, in a transport of fury, unsheathed his dagger, and held it over the poor old slave with his uplifted hand. But Herodion’s countenance did not blench, and he said with perfect calmness—
‘O Cæsar, thou canst not kill me if thou wilt.’
‘How? canst not?’ said the Emperor, stooping to pick up the dagger, which had dropped from his astonished grasp. ‘Canst not? One step, one thrust, and thou art a dead man.’
‘Canst not,’ said Herodion, with unmoved serenity. ‘I shall die, indeed, but it is not thus, nor by thy hand, that I shall die.’
‘Lead him off to death,’ said Nero. ‘These fanatics are inexplicable.’