The most of the guests were sycophants and satellites of the emperor, and in the intervals between the courses employed their art in flattering his vanity or fomenting his prejudices. One of them, Semphronius by name, an old fellow with a very bald and shiny head and a very vivacious manner, made great pretensions to the character of a philosopher or professor of universal knowledge, and was ever ready, with a great flow of often unmeaning words, to give a theory or explanation of every conceivable subject. Others were coarse and sensual-looking bon vivants, who gave their attention chiefly to the enjoyment of the good fare set before them. Another sinister-looking fellow, with a disagreeable cast in one eye and a nervous habit of clenching his hand as if grasping his sword, was Quintus Naso, the prefect of the city. He had been a successful soldier, or rather butcher, in the Pannonian wars, and was promoted to his bad eminence of office on account of his truculent severity. Of very different character, however, was a young man of noble family, Adauctus by name, who was present in his official character as Treasurer of the Imperial Exchequer.[11] He almost alone of the guests paid a courteous attention to the high-born ladies of the party, to whom he frequently addressed polite remarks while the others were intent only in fawning on the great source of power. He, also, alone of all present, conspicuously refrained from pouring out a libation—a circumstance which did not escape the keen eye of the emperor. After interrupted talk on general topics, in which the ladies took part, the conversation drifted to public matters, on which they were not expected to meddle.
"Well, Naso, how was the edict received?" said the emperor to the prefect, as a splendid roast peacock, with sadly despoiled plumage, was removed.
"As every command of your divine Majesty should be received," replied Naso, "with respectful obedience. One rash fool, indeed, attempted to tear it down from the rostra of the Forum, like that mad wretch at Nicomedia; but he was taken in the act. He expiates to-night his crime, so soon as I shall have wrung from him the names of his fanatical accomplices,"—and he clenched his hands nervously, as though he were himself applying the instruments of torture.
"And you know well how to do that," said the emperor with a sneer, for, like all tyrants, he despised and hated the instruments of his tyranny.
"You may well call them fanatics, good Naso," chimed in the would-be philosopher, Semphronius; "a greater set of madmen the world never saw. They believe that this Chrestus whom they worship actually rose from the dead. Heard ever any man such utter folly as that! Whereas I have satisfied myself, from a study of the official records, that he was only a Jewish thaumaturge and conjuror, who used to work pretended miracles by means of dupes and accomplices. And when, for his sedition, he was put to death as the vilest of felons, these accomplices stole his body and gave out that he rose from the dead."[12]
"I have heard," said Adauctus gravely, "that the Romans took care to prevent such a trick as that by placing a maniple of soldiers on guard at His grave."
"Yes, I believe they say so," went on the unabashed Semphronius; "but if they did, the dastards were either overpowered, or they all fell asleep while his fellow-knaves stole his body away."
"Come now, Semphronius," said the emperor, "that is too improbable a story about a whole maniple of soldiers. You and I know too well, Naso, the Roman discipline to accept such an absurd story as that."
"Oh, if your divine Majesty thinks it improbable, I fully admit that it is so," the supple sophist eagerly replied. "I am inclined to identify this impostor and a kinsman of his who was beheaded by the divine Herod with the Janus and Jambres whose story is told in the sacred books of the Jews. But it is evident, from the identity of name of one of these with the god Janus, that they merely borrowed the story from the Roman mythology. This execrable superstition, they say, was brought to Rome by two brothers named Paulus and Simon Magus. They both expiated their crimes, one in the Mammertine Prison, the other without the Ostian Gate. They say also that when Simon the magician struck the prison wall, a well of water gushed forth for some of their mystic rites; and that when the head of Paulus was smitten off it bounded three times on the ground, and at each spot where it touched a well of water sprang up. But these are stories that no sane man can believe."[13]
"I quite agree with you in that," said Adauctus.