The young slave blushed. ‘Eight weeks ago,’ he said, ‘I was walking past the door of the triclinium, when a slave came out with some crystal vases on a tray. He ran against me, and one of the vases fell and was broken. He charged me with having broken it, and Epaphroditus ordered my leg to be twisted. It hurt me terribly, but Musonius had taught me to endure, and I only cried out, “If you go on, you will break my leg.” He went on, and broke it. I did not give way then, and I am ashamed that you saw me crying now.’ ‘Poor lad! Come with me to Prince Britannicus and tell him that story. He is kind, and will pity you, and perhaps get the Empress Octavia to do something for you.’ Epictetus limped after Titus, and Britannicus was pleased with the slave-boy’s quaint fortitude and the preternatural gravity of his face. He often sat on the floor while the two friends talked or played at draughts, and would sometimes retail to them what he had heard in the lectures of Musonius. They laughed at his _naïveté_, but something of the teaching stuck. The Stoicism of Titus had its germ in those boyish days. One other friend, strange to say, Britannicus had near at hand, though she could not openly have much conversation with him. It was the fair freedwoman Acte. Her situation in the Palace did not argue in her a depraved mind. She had not been trained in an atmosphere which made her suppose that there was anything sinful in her relations with the Emperor. Brought from Asia in early youth, she was practically no more than a slave, though she had been emancipated by Claudius. The will of a master, even if that master was far below an Emperor, was regarded as a necessary law.[17] But Acte had a good heart, and so far from being puffed up by the ardent affection of Nero, her one desire was to use her influence for the benefit of others. For Britannicus she felt the deepest pity. She had even aroused the anger of her lover by pleading in his behalf, and though it was impossible that she should do more than interchange with him an occasional salutation, the boy gratefully recognised that Acte did her best to gain for him every indulgence and relaxation in her power.