[278] THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS ANSWER TO IT. See the passages in the letter of Pliny, who as the Christians’ foe, reports to the emperor: “This superstition has not only spread over the city, but through the villages and surrounding country.” (Pliny, _Ep._ X, 98.) [279] NAZARENE GRACCHUS. Quintus here perceives, like Thrax Barbatus, in the carpenter’s son of Nazareth a real representative of the people’s rights, and therefore a companion of Tiberius and Caius Sempronius Gracchus, the two tribunes of the people (about the middle of the second century B.C.) [280] MONS JANICULUS. Now Monte Gianicolo, on the right bank of the Tiber. CHAPTER XIV. On a purple couch, her right hand supporting her handsome head, while her left played mechanically with the folds of her robe, lay the Empress Domitia; Polycharma, her favorite slave, sat in silence on the floor, holding in her lap a red and blue bird, which now and then flapped its wings and gave a loud, strange cry. All else was silent, oppressed by sultry gloom and the steamy stillness of the air. In spite of its nearness, the noise of the Forum was dulled to a murmur like that of wind-rocked trees. The marble statue of Venus[281] by the door-way looked sleepily down under her drooping lids; even the little Eros with his lightly-tilted jar, seemed touched with melancholy. Outside, in the corridors and antechambers, there was scarcely a sound. The slaves glided cautiously about on tiptoe, and spoke in whispers or expressed themselves by signs. Their imperial mistress’s melancholy mood seemed to fill the very atmosphere with a subtle _malaise_ and anxious forebodings. A few hours since, the first meeting had taken place between the reconciled couple. They had met with dignity and a calm semblance of friendly regard on both sides; but between them lay the unspoken but bitter certainty that, after all that had passed, no real reconciliation could ever be possible. Caesar’s suspicious nature recoiled from Domitia’s superiority of intellect and vehement temper--which flashed ominously in her eyes in spite of conventional smiles and smoothness--and from the scathing irony of her proud and revengeful spirit. She, on the other hand, knew the Emperor’s hatred and implacable malice; she knew that, once aggrieved, Domitian had the tenacity of a tiger in ambush, never weary of watching for an opportunity for the fatal spring. Added to this there was the remembrance of her own humiliations--her banishment from the palace, the execution of Paris, and the emperor’s passion for his niece Julia. And now, to be forgiven by him whom she so thoroughly despised--to accept the clemency of Domitian--this was the worst and deepest humiliation of all....