house of Seneca and Polion. He could not resist a certain admiration
with which he was filled by her face, pensive but mild, by the dignity
of her bearing, by her movements, by her words. Pomponia disturbed his
understanding of women to such a degree that that man, corrupted to the
marrow of his bones, and self-confident as no one in Rome, not only felt
for her a kind of esteem, but even lost his previous self-confidence.
And now, thanking her for her care of Vinicius, he thrust in, as it were
involuntarily, "domina," which never occurred to him when speaking, for
example, to Calvia Crispinilla, Scribonia, Veleria, Solina, and other
women of high society. After he had greeted her and returned thanks, he
began to complain that he saw her so rarely, that it was not possible to
meet her either in the Circus or the Amphitheatre; to which she answered
calmly, laying her hand on the hand of her husband:

"We are growing old, and love our domestic quiet more and more, both of
us."

Petronius wished to oppose; but Aulus Plautius added in his hissing
voice,--"And we feel stranger and stranger among people who give Greek
names to our Roman divinities."

"The gods have become for some time mere figures of rhetoric," replied
Petronius, carelessly. "But since Greek rhetoricians taught us, it is
easier for me even to say Hera than Juno."

He turned his eyes then to Pomponia, as if to signify that in presence
of her no other divinity could come to his mind: and then he began to
contradict what she had said touching old age.

"People grow old quickly, it is true; but there are some who live