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108 DARKNESS AND DAWN
they would come at her call, and feed out of her hand. Her
husband's mother, Antonia, had attached earrings to one pet
lamprey, so that people used to visit the villa to see it.
Agrippina followed her example.
Octavia followed Nero. She had not been suffered to possess
any villa which she could call her own, and much as
Nero would have liked to leave her behind, he was compelled
by public opinion to observe a certain conventional respect for
his Empress, the daughter of Claudius. The sedan in which
she travelled was carried by eight stalwart Bithynian porters,
but she was not honoured with any splendour or observance,
and had only a modest retinue out of her six hundred nominal
attendants. Still humbler was the following of Britanuicus.
He had been bidden to come partly because it would have
seemed shameful to leave him alone in Rome during an unhealthy
season, when even persons of low position were driven
into the country by the month in which Libitina claimed her
most numerous victims ;
and also because Nero was glad to
keep him in sight.
He was happy enough, for Titus was with
him, and Pndens was one of the escort ;
and as Epaphroditus
necessarily attended his master, Nero, it was not difficult to
get leave for Epictetus to come in his train. The two kindhearted
boys thought that the pale face of the slave-child
might gain a touch of rose from the fresh winds of the
Apennines.
Very few ladies were invited. It was necessary, indeed,
that one or two should accompany Octavia ;
and Nero, for
his own reasons, wished Junia Silana and Calvia Crispinilla
to be of the party. These were ladies with whom a young
matron like Octavia could scarcely exchange a word, but
happily for her, Flavia Domitilla, the wife of Vespasian,
was asked to accompany the Empress. Vespasian, who had
just returned from his proconsulate, had been summoned
to have an interview with Nero on the state of affairs in
Africa, and to stay for some days. Acte was in the train
of Nero, but, though she rarely saw Octavia, the unfortunate
Empress little knew that the presence of Domitilla, the
only lady to whom she could speak without a shudder, was
really due to the private suggestion of the lovely and kindhearted
freedwoman. Flavia Domitilla was of the humblest
origin, and her father had occupied no higher office than