My common sense and my confused feelings vied with each other to say that I must believe this gentlewoman, the Emperor’s consort, more than Claudia. I bowed my head, for hot tears were rising in my eyes from painful disappointment. Agrippina pressed my face to her soft bosom. Suddenly I felt an excited trembling in my body and was even more ashamed of myself.
“Please don’t thank me now, although I’ve done much for you that has been distasteful to me,” she whispered in my ear, so that I felt her warm breath and trembled even more. “I know that you will come and thank me later, when you’ve had time to think the matter over. I have saved you from the worst danger a young man can meet on the threshold of manhood.”
Cautiously, for fear of some unexpected witness, she pushed me away and gave me a lovely smile. My face was so burning hot and tear-stained that I did not want anyone to see it. Agrippina sent me away a back way. I walked down the steep alley of the Goddess of Victory with my head bowed, and I stumbled on the white stones.
Book V
Corinth
Corinth is a metropolis, the most lively and lighthearted metropolis in the world, according to its own citizens. Although Mummius razed it to the ground two hundred years ago, the city, risen from the ashes, has today gathered half a million inhabitants from countries all over the world, thanks largely to the foresight of the god Julius Caesar. From the Acropolis, the city and its streets appear to glow with light well into the night. For a melancholy youth brooding bitterly over his own gullibility, Corinth and its colorful life is in truth a cure.
But my servant Hierex many a time regretted that he had so tearfully begged me to buy him as he stood on the slave dealer’s platform in Rome. He could read, write, massage, cook, haggle with the tradesmen and speak both Greek and broken Latin. He assured me he had traveled in many countries with his previous masters and learned to smooth the way for them.
The price asked for him was so high that he ought to have been a slave of the highest quality, though of course there turned out to be reasons for a reduction. Hierex asked me not to haggle too much, for his master had given him up reluctantly for financial reasons caused by a court action. I guessed that Hierex would receive a share of his own price if he could raise it with his glib tongue. But in the state of mind I was in at the time, I was not in a position to haggle.
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Hierex naturally hoped for a friendly young master and was afraid of ending up in a carefully run household of jaundiced old people. My silence and melancholy taught him to hold his tongue, however difficult that was, for he was a real Greek chatterer by birth. Not even the journey distracted me and I did not want to speak to anyone. So I gave orders as Pallas did, with gestures only. He did his best to serve me, probably fearing that behind my dismal exterior lay a cruel master who found pleasure in chastising a slave.
Hierex was born and bred as a slave. He was not strong, but I bought him to avoid having to look further, for he had no visible defects and his teeth were good although he was over thirty. Naturally I guessed there was something wrong with him for him to be for sale at all, but in my position I could not travel without a servant. At first he was nothing but a torment to me, but when I had taught him to keep silent and look as gloomy as myself, he took care of my luggage, my clothes and my food very well. He could even shave my still youthful beard without cutting me too badly.
He had been to Corinth before and he chose quarters for us in the Ship and Lantern Inn, near the temple of Neptune.” He was astonished that I did not at once hurry off to make a thank-offering for the successful outcome of a dangerous journey, but instead, after washing and changing, at once went to the forum to report to the Proconsul.
The government building of the province of Achaia was a handsome house with a propylaeum, and the outer courtyard was surrounded by a wall and guardhouses. Both the legionary guards at the entrance were picking their teeth and chatting to passers-by, their shields and lances leaning against the wall. They glanced ironically at my narrow red band, but let me in without a word.
Proconsul Junius Annaeus Gallio received me dressed in the Greek way, smelling of salves and with a wreath of flowers on his head, as if he were on his way to a banquet. He was a goodhearted man and offered me wine from Samos as he read his younger brother Seneca’s letter and the others which I had brought with me as a courier from the Senate. I left my goblet half full and did not bother with more wine, for I deeply despised the whole world into which I had so unfortunately been born, and on the whole, no longer believed any good of human beings.
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