294Chapter VIII.—Family History.

Then Peter inquired, “Are you really, then, alone in your family?”  Then I answered, “There are indeed many and great men, being of the kindred of Cæsar.  Wherefore Cæsar himself gave a wife of his own family to my father, who was his foster-brother; and of her three sons of us were born, two before me, who were twins and very like each other, as my father told me.  But I scarcely know either them or our mother, but bear about with me an obscure image of them, as through dreams.  My mother’s name was Mattidia, and my father’s, Faustus; and of my brothers one was called Faustinus, and the other Faustinianus.^11461146    [The family names as given in the Recognitions are:  Matthidia; Faustinianus (the father); Faustinus and Faustus, the twin sons.—Comp. Recognitions, viii. 8, and passim.—R.]  Then after I, their third son, was born, my mother saw a vision—so my father told me—which told her, that unless she immediately took away her twin sons, and left the city of Rome for exile for twelve years, she and they must die by an all-destructive fate.