r what the daughter of
Sejanus passed through before death."

Speaking thus he was not altogether sincere, since he was concerned
more for Vinicius than for Lygia. Still he knew that in no way could
he restrain him from a dangerous step as well as by telling him that he
would bring inexorable destruction on Lygia. Moreover he was right; for
on the Palatine they had counted on the visit of the young tribune, and
had taken needful precautions.

But the suffering of Vinicius surpassed human endurance. From the moment
that Lygia was imprisoned and the glory of coming martyrdom had fallen
on her, not only did he love her a hundred times more, but he began
simply to give her in his soul almost religious honor, as he would a
superhuman being. And now, at the thought that he must lose this being
both loved and holy, that besides death torments might be inflicted on
her more terrible than death itself, the blood stiffened in his veins.
His soul was turned into one groan, his thoughts were confused. At times
it seemed to him that his skull was filled with living fire, which would
either burn or burst it. He ceased to understand what was happening; he
ceased to understand why Christ, the Merciful, the Divine, did not come
with aid to His adherents; why the dingy walls of the Palatine did
not sink through the earth, and with them Nero, the Augustians, the
pretorian camp, and all that city of crime. He thought that it could not
and should not be otherwise; and all that his eyes saw, and because
of which his heart was breaking, was a dream. But the roaring of wild
beasts informed him that it was reality; the sound of the axes beneath
which rose the arena told him that it was reality; the howling of the
people and the overfilled prisons confirmed this. Then his faith in
Christ was alarmed; and that alarm was a new torture, the most dreadful
of all, perhaps.

"Remember what the daughter of Sejanus endured before death," said
Petronius to him, meanwhile.

Chapter LII

AND everything had failed. Vinicius lowered himself to the degree that
he sought support from freedmen and slaves, both those of Caesar and
Poppaea; he overpaid their empty promises, he won their good will with
rich gifts. He found the first husband of Poppaea, Rufus Crispinus, and
obtained from him a letter. He gave a villa in Antium to Rufius, her son
by the first marriage; but thereby he merely angered Caesar, who hated
his step-son. By a special courier h