groves more shady, and the
sea bluer. Oh, Lygia, how good it is to live and love! Old Menikles, who
manages the villa, planted irises on the ground under myrtles, and at
sight of them the house of Aulus, the impluvium, and the garden in which
I sat near thee, came to my mind. The irises will remind thee, too, of
thy childhood's home; therefore I am certain that thou wilt love Antium
and this villa.

"Immediately after our arrival I talked long with Paul at dinner. We
spoke of thee, and afterward he taught. I listened long, and I say only
this, that even could I write like Petronius, I should not have power to
explain everything which passed through my soul and my mind. I had not
supposed that there could be such happiness in this world, such beauty
and peace of which hitherto people had no knowledge. But I retain all
this for conversation with thee, for at the first free moment I shall be
in Rome.

"How could the earth find place at once for the Apostle Peter, Paul
of Tarsus, and Caesar? Tell me this. I ask because I passed the evening
after Paul's teaching with Nero, and dost thou know what I heard there?
Well, to begin with, he read his poem on the destruction of Troy, and
complained that never had he seen a burning city. He envied Priam, and
called him happy just for this, that he saw the conflagration and ruin
of his birthplace. Whereupon Tigellinus said, 'Speak a word, O divinity,
I will take a torch, and before the night passes thou shalt see blazing
Antium.' But Caesar called him a fool. 'Where,' asked he, 'should I go
to breathe the sea air, and preserve the voice with which the gods
have gifted me, and which men say I should preserve for the benefit of
mankind? Is it not Rome that injures me; is it not the exhalations of
the Subura and the Esquiline which add to my hoarseness? Would not
the palaces of Rome present a spectacle a hundredfold more tragic and
magnificent than Antium?' Here all began to talk, and to say what an
unheard tragedy the picture of a city like that would be, a city which
had conquered the world turned now into a heap of gray ashes. Caesar
declared that then his poem would surpass the songs of Homer, and he
began to describe how he would rebuild the city, and how coming ages
would admire his achievements, in presence of which all other human
works would be petty. 'Do that! do that!' exclaimed the drunken company.
'I must have more faithful and more devoted friends,' answered he.

"I conf