The change was not for the worse, for the Romans were clean and they had food, being powerful enough to take it from one and sundry wherever they chanced to be.

The Roman general into whose hands we had passed was named Germanicus. He was the nephew and adopted son of the Emperor Tiberius, and a grand fellow withal, but not much of a military phenomenon. He was also something of a weak sister at one minute and a bloody tyrant at the next, but I think his wife sicked him on to these latter extravagances. This Agrippina was a bitch.

After our capture, we were taken to the camp of Germanicus, and he looked us over. He was greatly taken with the appearance of Father. "This," he said, pointing at him, "is a gift from the gods. He is going to be nothing less than a sensation when he is led through Rome in chains behind my chariot on the occasion of my triumph. I wish I had a couple of dozen more of him, for it is going to be too bad to have to mar the grandeur of the occasion with a lot of lousy Germans who look like gorillas and smell like mephitis. Send him and these others to Ravenna, and we shall pick them up on our way back to Rome."

Agrippina was there, eyeing us down her long nose, and there was a little brat about four years old hanging onto her tunic. He was all tricked out in the uniform of a legionary, with tiny military sandals that laced well above his ankles. He kept casting a mean eye on me.

I was standing close to my mother and my father, and we were all standing very straight and stiff as became Britons-no servile bending of the knee of the grandson of Cingetorix and his family.

Suddenly the brat tugged at his mother's tunic and said, "I want," pointing at me. I was ten years old then, and, if I do say it myself, one of the finest-looking lads it has ever been my privilege to encounter.

A centurion was about to lead us away, when Agrippina stopped him with an imperious gesture; and, believe me, you don't know what an imperious gesture is unless you have seen Agrippina unleash one.

"Hold!" said Agrippina. "Caligula wishes the young barbarian. Take it away, burn that filthy wolf skin it is wearing, scrub it, and bring it to my tent."

I saw my mother's lip tremble, but she kept her head up and looked straight to the front. Father didn't even flick an eyelash, and his great mustachios looked as fierce as ever. I never saw them again but once: that was in Rome. I never spoke with either of my parents again.

I was now the slave of Little Boots, as the legionaries had named him because of the caligae that he wore. He was their darling, and I will say that at that time he was a very cute kid. They were so fond of him that a little later, when Agrippina was supposed to return to Rome because she was about to bring another nitwit into the world, the soldiers would not let Little Boots go with her; and Agrippina and Germanicus had to bow to their will.

These Roman soldiers were not such a bad lot when you got to know them. The veterans were tough, and fine soldiers; but Germanicus had a lot of conscripts drafted from the slums of Rome and old soldiers who had been dragged from their farms. The former wished to get back to Rome, the latter back to their farms; and they all wanted money and loot. They were a spoiled lot; and the officers, all the way up to the commanding general, were afraid of them.