Caesar had seen her during the feast; and Vinicius doubted not for an instant that she must have seemed to him the most beautiful woman he had seen yet.

How could it be otherwise?
It is true that Lygia had been in Nero's own house on the Palatine, and he might have kept her openly.

But, as Petronius said truly, Caesar had no courage in crime, and, with power to act openly, he chose to act always in secret.

This time fear of Poppaea might incline him also to secrecy.

It occurred now to the young soldier that Aulus would not have dared, perhaps, to carry off forcibly a girl given him, Vinicius, by Caesar.