My father rose in confusion and defended himself hotly against the accusation of cruelty by assuring them that he had not struck me.
When Barbus realized his state of mind, he noisily called on all the gods of Rome and swore that he would fall on his own sword to make good his guilt, as Timaius had done. He became so excited that he probably would have done himself harm had not we all three, my father, Sophronia and I, succeeded in wresting his sword and shield from him. What he had in fact thought of doing with the shield, I did not know. Afterwards he explained that he had been afraid my father would strike him on the head and his old head could no longer bear the blows it had once borne in Armenia.
My father asked Sophronia to send out for the best meat and have a feast prepared, since we must all be hungry after our escapade, and he himself had not been able to eat a thing after he discovered I had left home and that he had been so unsuccessful in bringing up his own son. He also had invitations sent to his freedmen in the city, for they had all been concerned about me.
My father washed my wounds with his own hands, smeared them with healing ointment and bandaged them with clean linen, although I myself would have preferred to retain the bloodstained bandages a little longer. Barbus was given the opportunity of relating the story of the lion. My father became even more morose and accused himself even more that his son had felt himself bound to face death in a lion’s mouth rather than turn to his own father to atone for a boy’s youthful prank.
Finally Barbus became thirsty from all his talk and I was left alone together with my father. He said that he realized he must talk to me about the future, for I should soon be receiving the man-toga, but he found it difficult to find words to begin. He had never before spoken to me as father to son. He looked at me with troubled eyes and sought vainly for the words which might help him to find me.
I looked at him too, and I saw that his hair had grown thin and his face furrowed. My father was already nearer fifty than forty and in my eyes was elderly lonely man who could enjoy neither his life nor the fortunes of his freedmen. I looked at his scrolls and for the first time realized that there was not a single idol of a god in his room, nor even an image of a genius. I remembered Timaius’ malevolent accusations.
“Marcus, my father,” I said. “Before his death my tutor, Timaius, told me several evil things about my mother and you. That was why I struck him on the mouth. I do not want to excuse what I did in any way, but all the same, tell me if there is anything evil. Otherwise as an adult how shall I be able to watch over my actions?”
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My father looked troubled, rubbed his hands together and avoided my eyes. Then he said slowly, “Your mother died giving birth to you, and that I could not forgive either you or myself until today, when I noticed that you are the image of your mother. I first feared I had lost you, then my sight returned and I realized that I have little to live for except you, my son Minutus.”
“Was mother a dancing woman, a loose woman and a slave, as Timaius maintained?” I asked directly.
My father was visibly upset.
“You shouldn’t even speak such words, Minutus,” he cried. “Your mother was a more noble woman than any I have known, and of course she was no slave although she had, because of a promise, dedicated herself to serve Apollo for a time. I once journeyed in Galilee and Jerusalem with her, looking for the king of the Jews and his kingdom.”
His words gave me courage. My voice trembled as I said, “Timaius told me that you were so involved in the secret conspiracies of the Jews that the magistrate was forced to expel you from Judaea, and this was why you did not regain your knighthood and not just because of a whim of Emperor Gaius.”
My father’s voice also shook as he said, “I have waited before telling you all this until you had learned to think for yourself, and I did not have to force you to think about things which not even I fully understood. But now you stand at the crossroads and must yourself choose the direction you take. I can only hope that you choose the right one. I cannot force you, for I can only offer you invisible things which I myself do not understand.”
“Father,” I said, appalled, “you haven’t secretly gone over to the Jewish faith, after having so much to do with them, have you?”
“But Minutus,” said my father in surprise. “You have been with me at the baths and athletics. You must have seen that I don’t bear the sign of allegiance on my body. If I had, I should have been laughed out of the baths.
“I don’t deny,” he went on, “that I have read a great deal in the Jewish holy scripts in order to learn to understand them better. But in reality, I bear something of a grudge against the Jews, for it was they who crucified their king. I’ve borne a grudge against the Jews because of your mother’s painful death, yes, even against their king, who on the third day arose from the dead and founded an invisible kingdom. His Jewish pupils still
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