So they bade farewell to Pomponia, and the soldiers saw them safely to the Palace.
When they had started, Claudia said: ‘Oh, Pomponia, while he was at the gathering the Power came upon him; he seemed scarcely able to resist it; but for his fainting I believe that he would have spoken with the tongue!’
Pomponia clasped her hands, and bowed her head in silent prayer.
‘Even then The princely blood flows in his cheek, he sweats, Strains his young nerves, and puts himself in posture.’
Nero was chary of showing his bruised face. He daily smeared it with the juice of an herb called _thapsia_ from the island of Thapsos where it was found, and with a mixture of wax and frankincense, but it retained for some days the marks of the buffet which he had received from the arm of Pudens. From Octavia he did not care to conceal either that or any other disgrace. He had reduced his unhappy girl-bride to such a condition that she dared ask him no question. From Agrippina he would gladly have concealed it, but he had been unable as yet to break the habit of paying her a daily visit. Intensely miserable was that visit to them both, and, except when Nero chose to bring his friends and attendants with him, the salutations often ended with the stormiest scenes.
The Augusta at once noticed the bruise on Nero’s cheek, and she was perfectly aware of the cause of it; for she had not sunk so completely out of the old habits of power as not to have spies in her pay who kept her well informed of the Emperor’s proceedings.
Supremely wretched, but even in her wretchedness agitated by the furies of pride and passion, she had scarcely received his cold kiss when she began to taunt her son.
‘Cæsar looks gallantly to-day,’ she said; ‘for all the world like some clumsy gladiator who has been hit while practising with wooden foils.’
She added: ‘No doubt it is as worthy of a Roman Emperor to roam about at night and join in street brawls with slaves as it is for him to sing, and write verses, and dance on the stage.’
‘How do you know that I have roamed the streets?’
Unwittingly she had betrayed herself, but in an instant she recovered from her confusion.
‘What Otho and your other boon companions do--such as they are--is notorious; and when Cæsar has a black eye the event is hard to account for in any ordinary way.’