Thou shalt wax and he shall dwindle, thou shalt be the mighty one yet;
Thine the liberty, thine the glory, thine the deeds to be celebrated;
Thine the myriad-rolling ocean, light and shadow illimitable,
Thine the lands of lasting summer, many-blossoming Paradises,
Thine the North, and thine the South, and thine the battle-thunder of God.’
The old king Caradoc lived with them for a time in the charming villa which they had built. He had fancied at first that, after the disgrace of defeat and betrayal, he would never be able to show his face among the warlike Silures whom he had led to victory. But Christianity softened his soul. He received a warm welcome from many of his friends and former subjects, and it was no little due to his conversion and his teaching that Christianity secured a footing among the Cymry long before its truths had been accepted in other portions of the British Isles.
Pomponia crowned a life of love and gracious kindness with a death of perfect peace. She recovered from the virulent fever which she had caught in the prisons, and consoled the drooping years of her husband, Aulus Plautius. He died in the reign of Titus, and she did not long survive him. She was happily spared the spectacle of the reign of Domitian and the martyrdom of Flavius Clemens. All who were in sorrow sought her for consolation. Even the imperial Titus came gladly to her when his dark hour was upon him, and his heart was broken by the cruel ingratitude of his brother. She heard often from Pudens and Claudia, and from all whom she had loved. She fostered by every means in her power the struggling community of the catacombs, and when she lay upon her deathbed St. Clement, the fourth Bishop of Rome, administered to her the last sacrament. Her example had been of high benefit even to the Pagans of Roman society. It was her influence which told in the improved manners of the reign of Vespasian, and no vestal was more honoured for her official sanctity than Pomponia Græcina for her Christian holiness. When the ear heard her it blessed her, and when the eye saw her it gave witness to her. The blessings of those that were ready to perish came upon her, and she caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy.
The close of the life of Onesimus was as peaceful as its youthful years had been full of trouble and storm. After the martyrdom of the Apostle Paul, and the all-but-extinction of the Church in Rome, he proposed that Nereus, and Junia, who was now united to him in holy wedlock, should leave Aricia, and, with the means which they possessed, should establish a new home in his native Thyatira, or in Hierapolis, or in Ephesus. Nereus gladly consented, for the gloom and loneliness of Aricia weighed upon his spirits, and he was haunted by the thoughts of the agonies which he had witnessed in the imprisonment and death of his brethren at Rome. Before they started, Onesimus sought a secret interview with his cousin and foster-sister Acte. He found her still living in the Golden House, but profoundly uncertain about the future. She had bathed the mangled corpse of Nero with her tears; she had adorned his grave with flowers; she had ventured even to pray for his soul. To her he was not the monster into which he developed, but still the youth who had loved her, and whom she had loved. But now, amid the terrible scenes which Rome was witnessing, and seemed likely long to witness in the fierce struggles of rival generals for power, her life was anxious. Apart from the obvious perils which might befall her in the hands of such wretches as Nymphidius and Tigellinus, she had long desired to escape from that city of Circean splendour. Eagerly she offered Onesimus to accompany him, and told him that now she, like himself, was a baptised Christian. She resumed her old name of Eunice, which she had borne as a child before the evil days of Rome, and she had wealth sufficient to maintain them all.
Her preparations were made secretly, with the aid of the Christian slaves in Cæsar’s household. She sold her jewels, and, taking much of her property with her, sailed with Onesimus and his wife and Nereus to Ephesus. They fixed their home at Hierapolis, where they could enjoy the teaching of the Deacon Philip, and where Acte, gladly serving as a deaconess of the little Church, gave all her goods to the poor, and lived in happy friendship with the virgin daughters of the Evangelist. The children of Onesimus and Junia owed much to her kindly nurture and teaching. In due time Onesimus himself was ordained to the ministry, and became in later years a bishop of the Church of Ephesus. There, when he was quite an old man, in the year A.D. 107, he met the martyr Ignatius of Antioch, when he was being conducted to his martyrdom in the Colosseum by the decuria of soldiers whom he calls ‘his ten leopards.’ He showed the greatest kindness to the holy martyr, who, in his letter to the Ephesians, gratefully commemorates the ‘inexpressible love’ which Onesimus had manifested towards him. Some say that he, too, suffered martyrdom at Ephesus, after a long life and many happy years.