I swore inwardly at being dragged into the Christians’ loathsome machinations in this way, but Paulina blessed me in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, touching my forehead and chest gently with the tips of her fingers, so I could say nothing. I promised to do as she asked and to return the next day, ready for the journey.
As we parted from her, Claudia sighed, but I was excited by this unexpected decision and the thought of the long journey which would solve all my problems. Despite Claudia’s hesitation, I wanted her to come into our house so that I could present her as my friend to Aunt Laelia.
“Now that my father has become a shameful Christian,” I said, “you have nothing to be ashamed of in our house. You are de jure the daughter of the Emperor and of noble birth.”
Aunt Laelia made the best of the situation. When she had collected herself after the first surprise, she took Claudia in her arms and looked at her carefully.
“You’ve grown into a lively, healthy young woman,” she said. “I used to see a great deal of you when you were a child and I remember well that dear Emperor Gaius always called you cousin. Your father behaved shamefully towards you, but how is Paulina Plautia? Do you really shear sheep with your own hands on her farm outside the walls, as I’ve been told?”
“Stay and talk together for a while,” I suggested. “I know women are never at a loss for anything to talk about. I must go and see my lawyer and my father, for early tomorrow morning I am going to Britain.”
Aunt Laelia burst into tears and wailed that Britain was a wet and misty island where the fearful climate permanently ruined the health of those who survived the fighting against the blue-painted Britons. At the time of Emperor Gaius’ triumph, she had been to the amphitheater and seen Britons cruelly fighting each other in the arena. On Mars field they had built, plundered and destroyed a whole British town, but in Britain itself there was presumably little chance of plunder, if the town in the victory performance had been like the home towns of the Britons themselves.
I left Claudia with her to console her, fetched money from my lawyer and then went to Tullia’s house to find my father. Tullia received me reluctantly.
“Your father,” she said, “has shut himself up in his room in his usual state of dejection and doesn’t want to see anyone. He hasn’t spoken to me for several days. He gives the servants orders by nods and gestures. Try to get him to speak before he turns quite dumb.”
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I consoled Tullia and told her my father had had the same kind of attacks at home in Antioch. When she heard that I was going to Britain to fight in the army there, she nodded in approval.
“That’s a good idea,” she said. “I hope you will honor your father there. I have tried in vain to get him to interest himself in the affairs of the city. In his youth he studied law, although of course he has forgotten all that now. Your father is much too lazy and unenterprising to acquire a position which is worthy of him.”
I went in to see my father. He was sitting in his room with his head in his hands. He was drinking wine from his beloved wooden goblet and he stared at me with bloodshot eyes. I shut the door carefully behind me.
“Greetings from your friend Paulina Plautia,” I said. “Because of your holy kiss, she’s in trouble and has been denounced for superstition. I must go quickly to Britain with a message about the matter for her husband. I’ve come to ask you to wish me well on my journey in case I do not return. In Britain I shall probably join the army to complete my military service there.”
“I have never wanted you to be a soldier,” stammered my father, “but perhaps even that is better than living here in this Babylon of whores. I know my wife Tullia has brought unhappiness to Paulina by her jealousy, but it should have been I who was denounced. I have been baptized in their baptismal bath and they laid their hands on my head, but the spirit did not enter me. I shall never again speak to Tullia.”
“Father,” I asked, “what exactly does Tullia want from you?”
“That I become a senator,” my father replied. “That is what that monstrous woman has got into her head. I own enough land in Italy and am of sufficiently noble birth to be able to become a member of the Senate. And Tullia, by special dispensation, has obtained the rights of a mother of three children, although she has never bothered to have any. In my youth I loved her. She followed me to Alexandria and never forgave me for choosing your mother, Myrina. Now she talks on at me as one talks to an oxen, abuses me for my lack of ambition and will soon turn me into an incurable drunkard if I don’t do what she wants and become a senator. But Minutus, my son, there is no wolf blood in me, even though in all truth, many a worse man has sat in red boots on an ivory stool. Forgive me, my son. You understand now why under these circumstances I could do nothing else but declare myself a Christian.”
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