Britannicus was to have had a room to himself, in consideration of his exalted rank, but he asked to share the sleeping-room of Titus and Clemens. They went to bed at an early hour, for Vespasian was still a poor man, and oil was expensive. But they often talked together before they fell asleep. Titus would rarely hear a word about the Christians. He declared that they were no better than the worshippers of the dog-headed Anubis, and he appealed to the caricature of the Domus Gelotiana as though it proved the reality of the aspersions against them. He was, however, never tired of talking about the Jews. He had seen Agrippa; he had been dazzled into a boyish love by the rich eastern beauty of Berenice. The dim foreshadowing of the future gave him an intense interest in the nation whose destiny he was to affect so powerfully in after years. Stories of the Jewish Temple seemed to have a fascination for him. But he was as credulous about the Jews as the rest of his race, and believed the vague scandals that they were exiles from Crete, and a nation of lepers, and about Moses and the herd of asses--which afterwards found a place in Tacitus and later historians. Another subject about which he liked to talk was Stoicism. He thought nothing so grand as the doctrine that the ideal wise man was the most supreme of kings. He was full of high arguments, learnt through Epictetus, to prove that the wise man would be happy even in the bull of Phalaris, and he quoted Lucretius and Virgil to prove that he would be always happy-- ‘If to know Causes of things, and far below His feet to feel the lurid flow Of terror, and insane distress, And headlong fate, be happiness.’ At all of which propositions Britannicus was inclined to laugh good-naturedly, and to ask--much to the indignation of his friend--if Musonius was happy when he had a bad toothache. Finding him unsympathetic on the subject of the Christians, Britannicus ceased to speak of them. On the other hand, he soon discovered that Clemens knew more about them than himself. ‘Are you a Christian, Flavius?’ asked Britannicus, when they were alone, after one of these conversations. ‘I have not been baptised,’ he answered. ‘No one is regarded as a full Christian until he has been admitted into their church by baptism.’ ‘Baptism? What is that?’ ‘It is the washing with pure water,’ said Clemens. ‘Our Roman ceremonies are pompous and cumbersome. It is not so with the Christians. Their symbols are the simplest things in the world. Water, the sign of purification from guilt; bread and wine, the common elements of life, taken in remembrance of Christ who died for them.’ ‘And are the elders of these Christians--the presbyters, as they call them--the same sort of persons as our priests?’ ‘I should hope not!’ said Clemens. ‘They are simple and blameless men--more like the best of the philosophers, and more consistent, though not so learned.’