Epaphroditus avoided my eyes and carefully grasped my neck in such an iron grip that it was pointless to struggle. My voice choked and everything began to swim before my eyes, but I tried to indicate that I wished to bargain with them over whatever my life was worth. Epaphrod- itus slackened his grip.
“Naturally you can keep your property and your position in the mena-gerie,” I managed to croak, “if we separate like sensible people. My dear Sabina, forgive my hasty temper. Your son will bear my name and receive his share of the inheritance from me in time. Because of the love which once bound us together, I don’t wish to make you guilty of a crime, for in some way or other you would be found out. Let us have some wine brought in and take a conciliatory meal together, you and I and my foster brother-in-law, the strength of whose limbs I have the greatest respect for.”
Epaphroditus suddenly burst into tears and embraced me.
“No, no,” he cried. “I could not possibly strangle you. Let us be friends, the three of us. It will he a great honor for me if you really wish to eat at the same table with me.”
I too had tears of pain and relief in my eyes.
“It’s the least I can do,” I exclaimed. “I have already shared my wife with you. So your honor is also mine.”
When Sabina saw us embracing so intimately, she also came to her senses. We had the best the house could provide brought out, drank wine together and even called in the boy so that Epaphroditus could talk to him and hold him in his arms. Now and again a cold shiver went down my spine as I thought of what might have happened because of my own stupidity, but then the wine calmed me again.
When we had drunk a good deal, I was seized with melancholy.
“How could everything end like this?” I asked Sabina, “when we were so happy together at first and I was so blindly in love with you?”
“You’ve never understood my inner nature, Minutus,” said Sabina. “But I don’t reproach you for it and I regret my wicked words that time I insulted your manhood. If only you’d blacked my eye occasionally as I did to you the first time we met, if you’d whipped me sometimes, then everything might have been different. Do you remember how I asked you to take me by force on our wedding night? But there’s nothing in you of the ravisher’s wonderful overwhelming masculinity, that does as it likes however much one struggles or kicks or bites or threatens to scream.”
“I’ve always thought,” I said, dumbfounded, “that what a woman wants of love more than anything else is tenderness and security.”
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Sabina shook her head pityingly.
“That delusion,” she replied, “only goes to show how childish you are when it comes to understanding women.”
When we had agreed on necessary financial measures and I had repeatedly praised Epaphroditus as a man of honor and the greatest artist in his line, I walked to Flavius Sabinus’ house, fortified by the wine, to inform him of the divorce. To be honest, I was almost more frightened of his anger than of Sabina.
“I have long noted that all was not well with your marriage,” he said, avoiding my eyes. “But I do hope you’ll not let the divorce influence the mutual respect and friendship which has developed between us two. I’d be in a dilemma, for instance, if you foreclosed the loan you have made me. We Flavians are not so wealthy as one might wish. My brother Vespasian is said to be supporting himself by dealing in mules. As Proconsul in Africa, he became poorer than ever. The peo-pie there seem to have bombarded him with turnips. I’m afraid he’ll be forced to leave the Senate if the Censor notices he is not fulfilling the conditions of wealth.”
Nero had unexpectedly gone to Naples after taking it into his head that Naples was the place for his first great public appearance as a singer, since the audience there is of Greek descent and thus more sympathetic to art than the Romans. Despite his artist’s self-confidence, Nero was panic-stricken before every performance and trembled and sweated to such an extent that he had to have his own paid applauders who could lead the audience in the first liberating rounds of applause.
I hurriedly traveled after him, which was necessary anyway to my office. The lovely theater in Naples was full to bursting and Nero’s splendid voice sent the audience into ecstasies. Several visitors from Alexandria were especially noticeable, for they expressed their delight in their own countrymen’s way by clapping rhythmically.
In the middle of a performance the theater was shaken by a sudden earth tremor. Panic began to spread in the audience, but Nero continued to sing as if nothing had happened. He received much praise for his self-control, for the audience took courage from his fearlessness. He himself told me afterwards that he had been so absorbed in his singing that he had not even noticed the tremor.
He was so delighted with his success that he appeared at the theater for several days running and finally the city council had to bribe his singing tutor to warn him against overstraining his incomparable voice, for the daily life of the city and trade aid sea-trade were being disrupted by his appearances. He rewarded the Alexandrians for their sound judgment by giving them presents as well as Roman citizenship, and he decided to go to Alexandria as soon as possible and appear before a public which was worthy of him.
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