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 with 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 Tigellinus, Onesimus lay sick, and shamed, and fettered in a prison among the lowest of offending slaves. CHAPTER XXVI _A BANQUET AND A CONVERSATION_ ‘The citron board, the bowl embossed with gems, And tender foliage wildly wreathed around Of seeming ivy ... whate’er is known Of rarest acquisition; Tyrian garbs, Neptunian Albion’s high testaceous food, And flavoured Chian wines with incense fumed, To slake patrician thirst.’ DYER, _Ruins of Rome_. We are far more likely to underrate than to exaggerate the splendour of a great Cæsarean banquet. It differed wholly from the soft, luxurious, disreputable feast of voluptuous debauchees at which we have been present in the house of Otho. Nothing was allowed to disturb its magnificent decorum. Nero’s feast was arranged in the highest style of imperial grandeur. Many a gilded and ivory lectica, borne by African slaves in rich liveries and surrounded by crowds of freedmen and clients, had been carried down the Sacred Way and the Street of Apollo; and if any distinguished nobles looked through the curtains the populace raised a cheer. The guests were set down under the great arch of the state entrance.