click to read pdf file - The Preterist Archive

BROTHER AND SISTER 155
CHAPTEE XX
BROTHER AND SISTER
'
Hopes have precarious life :
They are oft blighted, withered, snapped sheer off
In vigorous growth, and turned to rottenness ;
But faithfulness can feed on suffering
And knows no disappointment.'
GEORGE ELIOT.
FAR different was the way in which Britannicus had spent
the memorable evening of Otho's supper.
He was thrown largely upon himself and his own resources.
If Titus happened to be absent; if Epaphroditus did not
chance to bring with him the quaint boy Epictetus if the
;
duties of Pudens summoned him elsewhere, he had few with
whom he could converse in his own apartments. Sometimes
Burrus visited him, and was kind ;
but he could hardly forgive
Burrus for his share in Agrippina's plot. Seneca
occasionally came to see him, and Seneca felt a genuine wish
to alleviate the boy's unhappy
lot. But Seneca had been
Nero's supporter, and Britannicus could not quite get over the
misgiving that his fine sentences were insincere. And at last
an incident occurred which made it impossible for him ever to
speak to Seneca without dislike. One day Nero had sent for
his brother, and Britannicus, entering the Emperor's room
before he came in, saw a copy or the Lucius de morte Claudii
Cccsaris lying on the table. Naturally enough he had not
heard of this ferocious satire upon his unhappy father.
Attracted by the oddness of the title '
Apokolokyntosis,'
which the librarian had written on the outer case, he took up
the book, and had read the first few columns when Nero
entered. As he read, his soul burned with inexpressible
indignation. His father had received a sumptuous Csesarean
funeral ;
he had been deified by the decree of the Senate a
;