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BROTHER AND SISTER 161
Britannicus sighed. 'Octavia,' he said, 'I would gladly
know more of this foreign superstition, which makes men
good amid wickedness, and joyful amid afflictions ;
which
makes women like Pomporiia, and girls like Claudia, and
boys like Flavius Clemens.'
'
Let us, then, sup to-night with Pomponia,' said Octavia.
She knows that I am lonely, arid she has told me that
'
her old general and herself will always delight to see us,
if I will come without state and share their simplicity
Nero sups to-night with Otho. No one will prevent us
from going together to the house of one whose loyalty is
so little suspected as that of Aulus Plautius.'
And thus it was that while Nero revelled, and drank,
and made the streets of his capital unsafe with riot and
assault, Britannicus was present at the first Christian assembly
which he had ever witnessed.
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