The most noted sat directly at the tables; the lesser served to amuse in
time of eating, and waited for the moment in which the servants would
permit them to rush at the remnants of food and drink. Guests of this
sort were furnished by Tigellinus, Vatinius, and Vitelius; for these
guests they were forced more than once to find clothing befitting the
chambers of Cæsar, who, however, liked their society, through feeling
most free in it. The luxury of the court gilded everything, and covered
all things with glitter. High and low, the descendants of great
families, and the needy from the pavements of the city, great artists,
and vile scrapings of talent, thronged to the palace to sate their
dazzled eyes with a splendor almost surpassing human estimate, and to
approach the giver of every favor, wealth, and property,--whose single
glance might abase, it is true, but might also exalt beyond measure.

That day Lygia too had to take part in such a feast. Fear, uncertainty,
and a dazed feeling, not to be wondered at after the sudden change, were
struggling in her with a wish to resist. She feared Nero; she feared
the people and the palace whose uproar deprived her of presence of mind;
she feared the feasts of whose shamelessness she had heard from Aulus,
Pomponia Græcina, and their friends. Though young, she was not without
knowledge, for knowledge of evil in those times reached even children's
ears early. She knew, therefore, that ruin was threatening her in the
palace. Pomponia, moreover, had warned her of this at the moment of
parting. But having a youthful spirit, unacquainted with corruption,
and confessing a lofty faith, implanted in her by her foster mother, she
had promised to defend herself against that ruin; she had promised her
mother, herself and also that Divine Teacher in whom she not only
believed, but whom she had come to love with her half-childlike heart
for the sweetness of his doctrine, the bitterness of his death, and the
glory of his resurrection.