And though Cicero had written his Tusculan disputations to prove the doctrine of immortality, had he not, in his letters and speeches, spoken of that doctrine as a mere pleasing speculation, which might be discussed with interest, but which no one practically held? Yet to these good Christians that doctrine was an unshakable conviction, a truth which consoled their heaviest afflictions. To them the eternal, though unseen, was ever present. It was not something future, but a condition of which they breathed the atmosphere both here and now. To them the temporal was the shadowy; the eternal was the only real. While Octavia was thus silently going through the divine education which was to prepare her for all that was to come, Britannicus was supremely happy in the Sabine farm. Its homeliness and security furnished a delightful contrast to the oppressive splendour of the Palace at Rome. There, in the far wild country, he had none but farm labourers about him, except the members of the Flavian family, who, on the father’s side, rose but little above the country folk. He was as happy as the day was long. He could lay aside all thoughts of rank and state, could dress as he liked, and do as he liked, and roam over the pleasant hills, and fish in the mountain streams, with no chance of meeting any one but simple peasant lads. With Titus and his two cousins, young Flavius Sabinus and Flavius Clemens, he could find sympathy in every mood, whether grave or gay. Titus with his rude health, his sunny geniality, his natural courtesy--a boy ‘tingling with life to the finger tips’--was a friend in whose society it was impossible to be dull. Flavius Clemens was a youth of graver nature. The shadow of far-distant martyrdom, which would dash to the ground his splendid earthly prospects, seemed to play over his early years. He had already been brought into contact with Christian influences, and showed the thoughtfulness, the absence of intriguing ambition, and the dislike to pagan amusements, which stamped him in the vulgar eyes of his contemporaries as a youth of ‘most contemptible indolence.’ A fourth boy was often with them. It was Domitian, the younger brother of Titus, destined hereafter to be the infamy of his race. He was still a child, and a stranger unable to read the mind’s construction in the face would have pronounced that he was the best-looking of the five boys. For his cheeks wore a glow of health as ruddy as his brother’s, and his features were far softer. But it was not a face to trust, and Britannicus, trained in a palace to recognize what was indicated by the expression of every countenance, never felt any liking for the sly younger son of Vespasian.