Britannicus was silent for a moment, and then, hesitatingly and with reluctance, he said, ‘Will you forgive me, noble Pomponia, if I ask you a question?’
The pale countenance of the lady grew a shade paler, and she replied, ‘You might ask me what I should not think it right to answer.’
‘You know,’ said the boy, ‘that at banquets and other gatherings I cannot help hearing the gossip and scandal which they talk all the day long. And all the worst ladies—persons like Crispinilla and Petina and Silana—seem to hate you, I know not why; and they said that you would be accused some day of holding a foreign superstition.’
Pomponia clasped her hands, and uttered a few words which Britannicus could not hear. Then, turning to him, she said, ‘Perhaps Musonius has quoted those lines of Cleanthes, “Lead me, O Father of the world. I will follow thee, even though I weep.”[19] We can never prevent the wicked from accusing us, but we can always give the lie to their accusations by innocent lives.’
‘What they said besides, must have been an absurd and wicked lie,’ continued Britannicus. ‘They said’—and here he made the sign of averting an evil omen which has been prevalent in Italy from the earliest days—‘that—you—were—dare I speak the vulgar word?—a Christian.’
‘And what do you know about the Christians, Britannicus?’
‘In truth I know very little, for I am not allowed to go about much; but Titus, who hears more than I do, tells me that they meet at night, and kill a babe, and drink its blood; and bind themselves by horrid oaths; and tie dogs to the lamp-stands, and hark them on to throw over the lamps, and are afterwards guilty of dreadful orgies. And they worship an ass’s head.’
‘What makes you believe that slanderous nonsense?’
‘Why, Titus is fond of scratching his name on the wall, and when we were going out of the pædagogium in the House of Gelotius, which, you know, is now used as a training school for the pages, he scrawled Titus Flavius Vespasianus leaves the pædagogium, and then drew a little sketch of a donkey, and underneath it Toil, little ass, as I have done, and it will do you good. I laughed at him for scribbling on the wall, and to make fun of him I wrote underneath—
‘“I wonder, oh wall, that your stones do not fall,