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VESPASIAN'S FARM 131
CHAPTER XVIII
VESPASIAN'S FARM
'
At secura quies, et uescia fallere vita,
Dives opum variarum, at latis otia fundis,
Mugitusque bourn, mollesque sub avbore somni,
Et patiens operum exignoque assueta juventus,
Sacra Deum, sanctique patres.'
VIUG. Georg.
ii. 467.
OCTAVIA was left in the comparative desertion of the Villa
Castor, without even the homely companionship of Vespasian's
wife. The respectable guests had departed. There
was scarcely a person about her to whom she could speak.
As for her young husband, he treated her with habitual
neglect and open scorn. His conduct towards her was due
partly to the indifference which he had always felt, partly to
jealousy lest he should be thought to owe the Empire to his
union with her. He therefore followed his own devices ;
and
she desired no closer intercourse with him, for she shrank
from the satyr which lay beneath his superficial graces. She
was best pleased that he should be out of her sight.
The
void of an unloved heart was preferable to the scenes which
took place between them when Nero's worst qualities were
evoked by the repulsion which she could not wholly conceal.
Accustomed to hourly adulation, it was intolerable to him
that from those who constituted his home circle he never
received the shadow of a compliment. He was disturbed by
the sense that those who knew him most intimately saw
through him most completely. His mother did not abstain
from telling him what he really was with an almost brutal
frankness ;
his wife seemed to shrink from him as though
there were pollution in his touch.
As there was little occasion for him to pay any regard to
conventionalities in the retirement of Subiaco, he rarely paid