“No; he was a Roman citizen.”
“That I cannot understand. Yet perhaps he spoke it at an election time, or when he was an advocate in the forum. It was a sentiment; very fine, smartly put, but not to be practiced.”
“There, Blanda, you are wrong. We Christians do act upon this principle, and it forms a bond of union between us.”
“Well, I understand it not. I have heard the slaves declaim among themselves, saying that they were as good as, nay, better than, their masters; but they never whispered such a thought where were their masters’ ears, or they would have been soundly whipped. In the forum, when lawyers harangue, they say fine things of this sort; and when candidates are standing for election, either as a sevir or as a quatuorvir, all sorts of fine words fly about, and magnificent promises are made, but they are intended only to tickle ears and secure votes. None believe in them save the vastly ignorant and the very fools.”
“Come, tell me about thyself and Pedo.”
“Ah, lady, that was many years ago. I was then in the household of Helvia Secundilla, wife of Calvius Naso. On one occasion, because I had not brought her May-dew wherewith to bathe her face to remove sun-spots, she had me cruelly beaten. There were knucklebones knotted in the cat wherewith I was beaten. Thirty-nine lashes I received. I could not collect May-dew, for the sky was overcast and the herb was dry. But she regarded not my excuse. Tullia, my fellow-slave, was more sly. She filled a flask at a spring and pretended that she [pg 248]had gathered it off the grass, and that her fraud might not be detected, she egged her mistress on against me. I was chastised till my back was raw.”
“Poor Blanda!”
“Aye, my back was one bleeding wound, and yet I was compelled to put on my garment and go forth again after May-dew. It was then that I encountered Pedo. I was in such pain that I walked sobbing, and my tears fell on the arid grass. He came to me, moved by compassion, and spoke kindly, and my heart opened, and I told him all. Then he gave me a flask filled with a water in which elder flowers had been steeped, and bade me wash my back therewith.”
“And it healed thee?”
“It soothed the fever of my blood and the anguish of my wounds. They closed, and in a few days were cicatriced. But Pedo had been fellow-slave with a Jewish physician, and from him had learned the use of simples. My mistress found no advantage from the spring-water brought her as May-dew. Then I offered her some of the decoction given me by Pedo, and that had a marvelous effect on her freckles. Afterwards her treatment of me was [pg 249]kinder, and it was Tullia who received the whippings.”