“So that should Tigellinus ever say to me, ‘Scevinus was with thee,’ I might answer, ‘He was with thee, too, that very day.’”
Scevinus, when he heard this, broke the ivory cane which he had in his hand, and said,—“May the evil fall on this stick! I shall be with Tigellinus to-day, and later at Nerva’s feast. Thou, too, wilt be there? In every case till we meet in the amphitheatre, where the last of the Christians will appear the day after tomorrow. Till we meet!”
“After to-morrow!” repeated Petronius, when alone. “There is no time to lose. Ahenobarbus will need me really in Achæa; hence he may count with me.”
And he determined to try the last means.
In fact, at Nerva’s feast Cæsar himself asked that Petronius recline opposite, for he wished to speak with the arbiter about Achæa and the cities in which he might appear with hopes of the greatest success. He cared most for the Athenians, whom he feared. Other Augustians listened to this conversation with attention, so as to seize crumbs of the arbiter’s opinions, and give them out later on as their own.
“It seems to me that I have not lived up to this time,” said Nero, “and that my birth will come only in Greece.”
“Thou wilt be born to new glory and immortality,” answered Petronius.
“I trust that this is true, and that Apollo will not seem jealous. If I return in triumph, I will offer him such a hecatomb as no god has had so far.”
Scevinus fell to repeating the lines of Horace:—
“Sic te diva potens Cypri, Sic fratres Helenæ, lucida sidera, Ventorumque regat Pater-”