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210 DARKNESS AND DAWN
companions cringed to the handsome slave of Octavia, who
might rise, as others had done, to be an all-powerful freedman.
With his youth, his quickness, his good looks, who
could tell whether he might not even become a favourite of
Cassar himself, and have untold influence and power
? Onesimus
found himself the centre of flattering attention in the
slave world both of the Palace and the city. He began to think
himself a person of importance. Was he not under the immediate
patronage of Acte, and, in order to avoid scandal, had it
not even been necessary to make it known that he was her kinsman
and foster-brother, brought up under the same roof?
Onesimus was too unstable to withstand the combined
temptations by which he was surrounded. The image of
Junia might have acted as an amulet, but he scarcely ever
got an opportunity of seeing her, for Nereus looked upon him
witli anything but favour. He kept aloof from Christians,
for he never heard them mentioned except with contempt and
hatred, and he liked the atmosphere of compliment and pleasure.
Slaves naturally imitate the vices of their masters, and
the wicked world of the aristocracy was reflected in darker
colours in the wicked world of servile myriads. Flinging all
that he had learnt of morals to the winds, betting, gambling,
frequenting the lewdest shows of the theatre and the most
sanguinary spectacles of the games, and forever haunting the
cook-shops, the taverns, and the Subura, he spent his almost
unlimited leisure in that vicious idleness above which only
the best slaves had strength to rise.
And so it
happened that at the time when he ought to
have been most on the alert he got entangled in a low dispute
at a drinking bout, and returned to the Palace not only
wounded and smeared with blood, but also in a state of shameful
intoxication. In this guise Nero had seen him, and,
without even knowing his name, or anything about him, had
furiously ordered him to be taken to his steward, Callicles,
for severe punishment. He had again been scourged, put
into fetters, thrust into a prison, and fed on bread and
water. This disgrace was concealed from Acte, and while
she was relying upon his quick intelligence to convey a
warning to Britannicus, and to devise means of frustrating
the plot of Tigelliuus, Onesimus lay sick, and shamed, and
fettered in a prison among the lowest of offending slaves.