The Great Proconsul
I
The plot was foiled. Drusus was unquestionably safe. So long as
Flaccus had the affidavits of Phaon's confession and the depositions
of the captured gladiators stored away in his strong-box, neither
Lucius Ahenobarbus nor the ever versatile Pratinas would be likely to
risk a new conspiracy--especially as their intended victim had
carefully drawn up a will leaving the bulk of his property to Titus
Mamercus and AEmilia. Drusus had no near relatives, except Fabia and
Livia; unless the Ahenobarbi were to be counted such; and it pleased
him to think that if aught befell him the worthy children of his aged
defender would acquire opulence.
But after the excitement was over, after Phaon had been brought up
from the inn at Gabii to Praeneste, and there had the truth wormed out
of him by the merciless cross-examination of Curio and Flaccus; after
the freedman had been suffered to depart with a warning and threat to
his prompters, after the captured gladiators had been crucified along
the roadway leading toward Rome, and the wreck left in the atrium of
the villa caused by the attack had been cleared away,--after all this,
then the reaction came. Drusus, indeed, found that though the sun
shone bright, its brightness was not for him. He had friends in
plenty; but not such friends as he needed--as his heart craved. Truth
to tell, he was one of those more delicate natures to whom the average
pity and the ordinary demonstrations of sympathy come with an
offending jar, and open, not heal, long-festering wounds. Curio was
kind, but could only hold out the vaguest hopes that, for the present
at least, anything would compel the consul-elect to consent to his
niece's marriage with a mortal enemy. Flaccus took the same position.
The hard-headed man of money thought that Drusus was a visionary, to
be so distraught over the loss of a wife--as if the possession of a
fortune of thirty odd millions did not make up for every possible
calamity. Antonius was still less happy in his efforts at consolation.
This dashing young politician, who had been equally at home basking in
the eyes of the young Egyptian princess, Cleopatra, eight years
before, when he was in the East with Aulus Gabinius, or when fighting
the Gauls as he had until recently under his uncle, the great
proconsul,--had now been elected Tribune of the Plebs for the coming
year; and was looking forward to a prosperous and glorious career in
statecraft. He had had many a love intrigue, and made such matters a
sort of recreation to the real business of life. Why Drusus--who
certainly had very fair worldly prospects before him--should not
console himself for one unsuccessful passage of arms with Cupid, by
straightway engaging in another, he could not see. He plainly
intimated to his friend that there were a great many women, almost if
not quite as good looking as Cornelia, who would survey him with
friendly eyes if he made but a few advances. And Drusus, wounded and
stung, was thrown back on himself; and within himself he found very
little comfort.
Although he believed himself safe at last from the wiles of
Ahenobarbus and his Greek coadjutors, there was still a great dread
which would steal over Drusus lest at any moment a stroke might fall.
Those were days when children murdered parents, wives husbands, for
whim or passion, and very little came to punish their guilt. The
scramble for money was universal. Drusus looked forth into the world,
and saw little in it that was good. He had tried to cherish an ideal,
and found fidelity to it more than difficult. His philosophy did not
assure him that a real deity existed. Death ended all. Was it not
better to be done with the sham of life; to drink the Lethe water, and
sink into eternal, dreamless slumber? He longed unspeakably to see
Cornelia face to face; to kiss her; to press her in his arms; and the
desire grew and grew.
She was no longer in the capital. Her uncle had sent her away--guarded
by trusty freedmen--to the villa of the Lentuli at Baiae. The
fashionable circles of the great city had made of her name a three
days' scandal, of which the echo all too often came to Drusus's
outraged ears. His only comfort was that Ahenobarbus had become the
butt and laughing-stock of every one who knew of his repulse by his
last inamorata. Then at last Drusus left Praeneste for Rome.
Ahenobarbus and Pratinas were as well checked as it was possible they
could be, and there was no real ground to dread assassination while in
the city, if moderate precautions were taken. Then too the time was
coming when the young man felt that he could accomplish something
definite for the party for which he had already sacrificed so much.
The events clustering around Dumnorix's unsuccessful attack had made
Drusus a sort of hero in the eyes of the Praenesteans. They had years
before elected his father as their patron, their legal representative
at Rome, and now they pitched upon the son, proud to have this highly
honourable function continued in the same family. This election gave
Drusus some little prestige at the capital, and some standing in the
courts and politics. When he went to Rome it was not as a mere
individual who had to carve out his own career, but as a man of honour
in his own country, a representative of a considerable local interest,
and the possessor of both a noble pedigree and an ample fortune.
Curio found him plenty to do; wire-pulling, speech-making, private
bargaining,--all these were rife, for everybody knew that with the
first of January, when Lentulus became consul, the fortunes of Caesar
were to be made or marred irretrievably. There were rumours, always
rumours, now of Caesar, now of Pompeius. The proconsul was going to
march on Rome at once, and put all his enemies to the sword. Pompeius
was to be proclaimed dictator and exterminate all who adhered to the
anti-senatorial party. And into this _melee_ of factions Drusus threw
himself, and found relief and inspiration in the conflict. His innate
common-sense, a very considerable talent for oratory which had
received a moderate training, his energy, his enthusiasm, his
incorruptibility, his straightforwardness, all made him valuable to
the Caesarians, and he soon found himself deep in the counsels of his
party, although he was too young to be advanced as a candidate for any
public office.
Agias continued with him. He had never formally deeded the boy to
Cornelia, and now it was not safe for the lad to be sent to dwell at
Baiae, possibly to fall into the revengeful clutches of Phaon, or
Pratinas, or Ahenobarbus. Drusus had rewarded Agias by giving him his
freedom; but the boy had nowhere to go, and did not desire to leave
Quintus's service; so he continued as a general assistant and
understrapper, to carry important letters and verbal messages, and to
aid his patron in every case where quick wits or nimble feet were
useful. He went once to Baiae, and came back with a letter from
Cornelia, in which she said that she was kept actually as a prisoner
in her uncle's villa, and that Lentulus still threatened to force
Ahenobarbus upon her; but that she had prepared herself for that final
emergency.
The letter came at a moment when Drusus was feeling the exhilaration
of a soldier in battle, and the missive was depressing and maddening.
What did it profit if the crowd roared its plaudits, when he piled
execration on the oligarchs from the Rostra, if all his eloquence
could not save Cornelia one pang? Close on top of this letter came
another disquieting piece of information, although it was only what he
had expected. He learned that Lentulus Crus had marked him out
personally for confiscation of property and death as a dangerous
agitator, as soon as the Senate could decree martial law. To have even
a conditional sentence of death hanging over one is hard to bear with
equanimity. But it was too late for Drusus to turn back. He had chosen
his path; he had determined on the sacrifice; he would follow it to
the end. And from one source great comfort came to him. His aunt,
Fabia, had always seen in him her hero. With no children of her own,
with very little knowledge of the world, she had centred all her hopes
and ambitions on her sister's son; and he was not disappointing her.
She dreamed of him as consul, triumphator, and dictator. She told him
her hopes. She applauded his sacrifice. She told him of the worthies
of old, of Camillus, of the Scipios, of Marcellus, the "Sword of
Rome," of Lucius AEmilius Paulus, and a host of others, good men and
true, whose names were graven on the fabric of the great Republic, and
bade him emulate them, and be her perfect Fabian and Livian. And from
his aunt Drusus gained infinite courage. If she was not Cornelia, yet
it was a boon ineffable to be able to hear a pure, loving woman tell
him face to face that her heart suffered when he suffered, and that
all his hopes and fears were hers.
Finally an interlude came to Quintus's political activity. Curio was
becoming uneasy, lest his distant superior should fail to realize the
full venom of the Senate party and the determination of his enemies to
work his ruin.
"I must go to Ravenna," said the politician to his young associate.
"My tribuneship is nearly run out. Antonius and Cassius will take my
place in the office. And you, who have done so much for Caesar, must go
also, for he loves to meet and to know all who are his friends."
"To Caesar I will go," answered Drusus; and of himself he asked, "What
manner of man will this prove, whom I am serving? A selfish grasper of
power? Or will he be what I seek--a man with an ideal?"
II
Night was falling on the dark masses of the huge Praetorium, the
government-house and army barracks of the provincial capital of
Ravenna. Outside, sentinels were changing guard; Roman civil officials
and provincials were strolling in the cool of the porticos. Laughter,
the shout of loungers at play, broke the evening silence. But far in
the interior, where there was a secluded suite of rooms, nothing but
the tinkle of a water-duct emptying into a cistern broke the
stillness, save as some soft-footed attendant stole in and out across
the rich, thick carpet.
The room was small; the ceiling low; the frescos not elaborate, but of
admirable simplicity and delicacy. The furniture comprised merely a
few divans, chairs, and tripods, but all of the choicest wood or
brass, and the most excellent upholstery. One or two carved wooden
cupboards for books completed the furnishings.
There were only two persons in the room. One of them,--a handsome
young Hellene, evidently a freedman, was sitting on a low chair with
an open roll before him. His companion half sat and half lay on a
divan near by. This second person was a man of height unusual to
Italians of his day; his cheeks were pale and a little sunken; his
dark eyes were warm, penetrating; his mouth and chin mobile and even
affable, but not a line suggested weakness. The forehead was high,
massive, and was exaggerated by a semi-baldness which was only
partially concealed by combing the dark, grey-streaked hair forward.
He was reclining; if he had arisen he would have displayed a frame at
once to be called soldierly, though spare and hardly powerful. To
complete the figure it should be added that on one finger he wore a
large ring set with a very beautiful seal of an armed Venus; and over
his loose but carefully arranged tunic was thrown a short, red mantle,
caught together on the left shoulder--the paludamentum, a garment only
worn by Roman military officers of the very highest rank.
The general--for so his dress proclaimed him--was playing with a
stylus and a waxen tablet, while the young Greek read. Now and then he
would bid the latter pause while he made a few notes. The book was
Euripides's "Troades."
"Read those lines again," interrupted the general. The voice was
marvellously flexile, powerful, and melodious.
And the freedman repeated:--
"Sow far and wide, plague, famine, and distress;
Make women widows, children fatherless;
Break down the altars of the gods, and tread
On quiet graves, the temples of the dead;
Play to life's end this wicked witless game
And you will win what knaves and fools call Fame!"[122]
[122] Translated in the collection "Sales Attici."
The freedman waited for his superior to ask him to continue, but the
request did not come. The general seemed lost in a reverie; his
expressive dark eyes were wandering off in a kind of quiet melancholy,
gazing at the glass water-clock at the end of the room, but evidently
not in the least seeing it.
"I have heard enough Euripides to-day," at length he remarked. "I must
attend to more important matters. You may leave me."
The Greek rolled up the volume, placed it in the cupboard, and left
the room with noiseless step. The general had arisen, and was standing
beside the open window that looked out into a quiet little court. It
was dark. The lamps of the room threw the court-yard into a sombre
relief. Overhead, in the dimming, violet arch of the sky, one or two
faint stars were beginning to twinkle.
"Play to life's end this wicked witless game
And you will win what knaves and fools call Fame!"
repeated the general, leaning out from the stone work of the
window-casing in order to catch the cool air of the court. "Yes, fame,
the fame of a Xerxes; perhaps the fame of a Hannibal--no, I wrong the
Carthaginian, for he at least struck for his country. And what is it
all worth, after all? Does Agamemnon feel that his glory makes the
realm of Hades more tolerable? Does not Homer set forth Achilles as a
warrior with renown imperishable? And yet, 'Mock me not,' he makes the
shade of Achilles say; 'Better to be the hireling of a stranger and
serve a man of mean estate, whose living is but small, than be the
monarch over all those dead and gone.'"
The general leaned yet farther out, and looked upward. "These were the
stars that twinkled over the Troy of Priam; these were the stars that
shone on Carthage when she sent forth her armies and her fleets, and
nigh drove the Greeks from Sicily; and these are the stars which will
shine when Rome is as Troy and Carthage. And I--I am an atom, a
creature of chance, thrown out of the infinite to flash like a
shooting star for a moment across a blackened firmament and then in
the infinite to expire. _Cui bono?_ Why should I care how I live my
life, since in a twinkling it will all be as if it had never been? And
if Cato and Domitius and Lentulus Crus have their way with me, what
matter? What matter if a stab in the dark, or open violence, or the
sham forms of justice end this poor comedy? I and all others play. All
comedy is tragedy, and at its merriest is but dolorous stuff. While
the curtain stays down[123] we are sorry actors with the whole world
for our audience, and the hoots mingle full often with the applause.
And when the curtain rises, that which is good, the painstaking
effort, the labour, is quickly forgotten; the blunders, the false
quantities in our lives, are treasured up to be flung against our
names. We play, but we do not know our parts; we are Oedipus, who has
committed unwitting sin, and yet must reap his reward; we are
Prometheus who is to be chained to the rock forever, for offending the
gods; we are Orestes whom the Eumenides pursue, chasing him down for
his guilt. And all the time we vainly imagine that we are some
victorious hero, some Perseus, especially favoured by the gods to fare
scatheless over land and sea, and bear away the Medusa's head, and
live renowned and happy forever." The reverie was becoming deeper and
deeper; the Roman was beginning no longer to whisper merely to
himself, he was half declaiming; then of a sudden, by a quick
revolution of mind, he broke short the thread of his monologue.
"_Phui!_ Caius, you are ranting as if you were still a youth at
Rhodes, and Apollonius Molo were just teaching you rhetoric! Why has
no letter come from Curio to-day? I am anxious for him. There may have
been a riot. I hadn't expected that those excellent 'Optimates' would
begin to murder tribunes quite so soon. The carrier is late!" and the
general moved away from the window, and took from a cupboard a package
of tablets, which he ran over hastily. "Here are the despatches of
yesterday. None to-day. I fear the worst." The brow of the solitary
speaker grew darker. "Poor Curio, poor Antonius; if they've dared to
murder them, let them tremble. I could forgive a mortal enemy to
myself, but not one who had slaughtered a friend."
[123] The ancient curtain (_aulaeum_) had its roller at the bottom.
There were steps in the court below, and voices were raised. In an
instant the general's eyes were kindled, his frame on a poise. He
sprang to the window, and shouted down the dark court.
"Curio! Do I hear you speaking?"
"_Salve!_ Caesar. It is I!"
"Venus be praised!" and the proconsul, with almost undignified haste,
was running out upon the stairs to meet his friend. "Has the city
broken out? Has Antonius been murdered? Is the truce at an end? Are
you alone?"
And Curio, who did not quite possess his leader's ability to "do all
things at the same time," answered in a breath: "The city so far keeps
tolerable order. Antonius is safe. The consuls and Senate still keep
the peace; but so poorly that I thought it my duty to come to you and
say things that cannot go in a letter."
"And who is this young man with you?"
"My friend," said Curio, turning to his companion, "is Quintus Livius
Drusus, of whom I have had occasion to write no little."
The proconsul sprang forward and seized Drusus by both hands, and
looked him fairly in the eye.
"_Papae!_ I see Sextus Drusus once more, the best tribune in his
legion, and my dear friend. Your face should be cause for your
welcome, if nothing else. Ah! how much we shall have to say! But you
are travel-stained and weary. Words will keep while you bathe, and our
dinner is prepared; for I myself have not dined, waiting, as I
thought, for your despatches."
"Your excellency shows me too much courtesy," said Drusus, bowing in
what was, to tell truth, some little embarrassment; "it is not fit
that a young man like myself should dine at the same table with an
imperator before whom nations have trembled."
And then it was that Drusus caught his first glimpse of that noble and
sententious egotism which was a characteristic of the great proconsul.
"To be a friend of Caesar is to be the peer of kings."
Drusus bowed again, and then, with Curio, followed the attendants who
were leading them to comfortably, though not sumptuously, furnished
apartments.
* * * * *
Quintus Drusus in years to come sat at the boards of many great men,
enjoyed their conversation, entered into their hopes and fears, but he
never forgot the first dinner with the proconsul of the Gauls. Caesar
kept a double table. His hospitality was always ready for the people
of note of the district where he happened to be staying, and for his
own regular army officers. But he dined personally with such high-rank
Romans and very noble Provincials as chanced to be with him from day
to day. To this last select company Drusus found himself that evening
admitted; and in fact he and Curio were the proconsul's only personal
guests. The dinner itself was more remarkable for the refinement of
the whole service, the exquisite chasteness of the decorations of the
dining room, the excellent cooking of the dishes, and the choiceness
of the wines than for any lavish display either of a great bill of
fare, or of an ostentatious amount of splendour. The company of
officers and gentlemen of the Ravenna district dined together in a
spacious hall, where Drusus imagined they had a rather more bounteous
repast than did the immediate guests of their entertainer. At one end
of this large hall was a broad alcove, raised a single step, and here
was laid the dinner for the proconsul. Caesar passed through the large
company of his humbler guests, followed by Curio and Drusus,--now
speaking a familiar word to a favourite centurion; now congratulating
a country visitor on his election to his local Senate; now introducing
the new-comers to this or that friend. And so presently Drusus found
himself resting on his elbow on the same couch with Caesar, while Curio
occupied the other end. For a time the latter held by far the larger
part of the conversation in his hands. There were a myriad tales to
tell of politics at the capital, a myriad warnings to give. Caesar
listened to them all; and only rarely interrupted, and then with words
so terse and penetrating that Drusus marvelled. The proconsul seemed
to know the innermost life history and life motives of everything and
everybody. He described a character with an epithet; he fathomed a
political problem with an expletive. Only now and then did his words
or motions betray any deep personal concern or anxiety, and once only
did Drusus see him flush with passion.
"That affair of the magistrate of Coma, to whom you gave the
franchise," said Curio, "was extremely unfortunate. You of course
heard long ago how Marcellus, the consul, had him beaten with rods and
sent home, to show[124]--as he said--to you, Caesar, the print of his
stripes."
[124] Caesar had given the magistrates of towns of the north of Italy
the Roman franchise: no Roman citizens could be lawfully flogged.
By his action Marcellus denied Caesar's right to confer the franchise.
The face of the proconsul reddened, then grew black with hardly reined
fury.
"Yes, most unfortunate for Marcellus." It was all that Caesar said, but
Drusus would not have exchanged his life then, for that of Marcellus,
for a thousand talents of gold.
"And our dear friend, Cato," went on Curio, who was perhaps not
unwilling to stir the vials of his superior's wrath, "has just sworn
with an oath in public, that as soon as your army is disbanded he will
press an impeachment against you; and I've heard it reported that you
will be compelled to plead, like Milo when he was tried for the
Clodius affair, before judges overawed by armed men."
"I anticipate no such proceeding," said Caesar, dryly, in an accent of
infinite contempt. Then turning to Drusus, he entirely changed his
intonation.
"So long," he said, with a shrug of his rather slight shoulders, "we
have talked of comitias and senates! Praise to the gods, all life is
not passed in the Forum or Curia! And now, my dear Quintus, let us put
aside those tedious matters whereof we all three have talked and
thought quite enough, and tell me of yourself; for, believe me, our
friendship would be one-sided indeed, if all your trouble and exertion
went for me, and you received no solicitude in return."
And Drusus, who had at first found his words coming awkwardly enough,
presently grew fluent as he conversed with the proconsul. He told of
his student days at Athens, of his studies of rhetoric and philosophy,
of his journey back to Praeneste, and the incidents of the sea voyage,
and land travel; of his welcome at Praeneste by the old retainers and
the familia of the Drusi, and then of his recent political work at
Rome.
"These have been the chief events of my life, Caesar," he concluded,
"and since you have condescended to hear, I have ventured to tell; but
why need I ask if such a commonplace tale of a young man who has yet
his life to live, should interest you?"
Caesar smiled, and laying down the beaker from which he was sipping
very slowly, replied:--
"_Mehercle!_ And do you wish to have all your exploits crowded into a
few short years of youth, that mature age will have nothing to
surpass? Listen,--I believe that when the historians, by whom our dear
Cicero is so anxious to be remembered favourably, write their books,
they will say something of my name,--good or bad, the Genius
knows,--but fame at least will not be denied me. Twelve years ago when
I was in Spain I was reading in some book of the exploits of Alexander
the Great. Suddenly it seemed as though I could not control myself. I
began to weep; and this was the explanation I gave to my friends, 'I
have just cause to weep, when I consider that Alexander at my age had
conquered so many nations, and I have all this time done nothing that
is memorable.'"
"But even when your excellency went into Spain," remarked Drusus, "you
had done that which should have given renown. Consider, you had won
the praetorship, the office of Pontifex Maximus--"
"_St_," interrupted the proconsul, "a list of titles is not a pledge
from Fortune that she will grant fame. Besides, I was about to
add--what folly it was for me to weep! Do I imagine now, that
Alexander was happy and contented in the midst of his conquests?
Rather, unless he were, indeed, of more than mortal stuff, for every
morsel of fame, he paid a talent of care and anxiety. Rush not too
quickly after fame; only with age comes the strength to pay the price
thereof."
Drusus was half wondering at, half admiring, the unconscious
comparison the proconsul was drawing between himself and Alexander.
But Caesar went on:--
"But you, O Drusus, have not dealt honestly with me, in that you have
failed to tell that which lies nearest your heart, and which you
consider the pivot of all your present life."
Drusus flushed. "Doubtless, your excellency will pardon a young man
for speaking with diffidence on a subject, to recollect which is to
cause pain."
Caesar put off the half-careless air of the good-natured wit, which he
had been affecting.
"Quintus Livius Drusus," and as he spoke, his auditor turned as if
magnetized by his eye and voice, and hung on every word, "be not
ashamed to own to me, of all men, that you claim a good woman's love,
and for that love are ready to make sacrifice."
And as if to meet a flitting thought in the other's mind, Caesar
continued:--
"No, blush not before me, although the fashionable world of Rome will
have its stories. I care not enough for such gossip to take pains to
say it lies. But this would I have declared, when at your age, and let
all the world hear, that I, Caius Caesar, loved honourably, purely, and
worthily; and for the sake of that love would and did defy death
itself."
The proconsul's pale face flushed with something very akin to passion;
his bright eyes were more lustrous than ever.
"I was eighteen years old when I married Cornelia, the daughter of
Cinna, the great leader of the 'Populares.' Sulla, then dictator,
ordered me to put her away. Cornelia had not been the wife of my
father's choice. He had wished to force upon me Cossutia, an heiress,
but with little save riches to commend her. I gained neither riches,
political influence, nor family good-will by the marriage. Sulla was
in the fulness of his strength. I had seen nearly all my friends
proscribed, exiled, or murdered. Sulla bade me put away my wife, and
take such a one as he should appoint. He was graciously pleased to
spare my life, in order that I might become his tool. Why did I
refuse?"
Caesar was sitting upon the couch and speaking nervously, in a manner
that betokened great and unusual excitement.
"I knew the dictator meant to favour me if I would only humour him in
this matter. A word from him and all ambition of mine had probably
been at an end, I take no praise to myself for this. I refused him. I
defied his threats. He seized my property, deprived me of my
priesthood,[125] finally let loose his pack of assassins upon me. I
almost became their victim. But my uncle, Aurelius Cotta, and some
good friends of mine among the Vestal Virgins pleaded my cause. I
escaped. Sulla said he was over-persuaded in sparing me; 'In me were
many Mariuses.' But did I regret the loss, the danger, the check for
the time being to my career? Quintus Drusus, I counted them as of
little importance, not to be weighed beside the pure love that
mastered me. And as the faithful husband of my Cornelia I remained,
until cruel death closed her dear eyes forever. One can love once, and
honourably, with his whole being, but not truly and honourably love a
second time, at least not in a manner like unto the first. Therefore,
my Quintus, blush not to confess that which I know is yours,--a thing
which too many of us Romans do not know in these declining
days,--something that would almost convince me there were indeed
celestial gods, who care for us and guide our darkened destinies. For
when we reason of the gods, our reason tells us they are not. But when
pure passion possesses our hearts, then we see tangible visions, then
our dreams become no dreams but realities; we mount up on wings, we
fly, we soar to Olympus, to Atlantis, to the Elysian fields; we no
longer wish to know, we feel; we no longer wish to prove, we see; and
what our reason bids us to reject, a surer monitor bids us to receive:
the dangers and perils of this life of shades upon the earth are of no
account, for we are transformed into immortals in whose veins courses
the divine ichor, and whose food is ambrosial. Therefore while we love
we do indeed dwell in the Islands of the Blessed: and when the vision
fades away, its sweet memory remains to cheer us in our life below,
and teach us that where the cold intellect may not go, there is indeed
some way, on through the mists of the future, which leads we know not
whither; but which leads to things purer and fairer than those which
in our most ambitious moments we crave."
[125] Marius had made young Caesar, Flamen Dialis: priest of Jupiter.
The voice of the conqueror of Gaul and German sank with a half tremor;
his eye was moist, his lips continued moving after his words had
ceased to flow. Drusus felt himself searched through and through by
glance and speech. Was the proconsul a diviner to find all that was
deepest in his soul and give it an utterance which Drusus had never
expressed even to himself? The young man was thrilled, fascinated. And
Caesar, in quite another tone, recovered himself and spoke.
"Wherefore, O Drusus! be ashamed to tell how the Lady Cornelia loves
you and you love her? What if the grim old consul-elect, like the
jealous elder in the comedy, will stand in your way! _Phui!_ What are
the complaints, threats, and prohibitions of such as he? At present,
the wind blows from his quarter, but it will not be ever so. Either
Lentulus will be in no place to hinder you before long, or we all
shall be beyond caring for his triumph or failure."
"Your excellency bids me hope!" cried Drusus.
"I bid you love," replied Caesar, smiling. "I bid you go to Baiae, for
there I have heard your dear lady waits her long-absent Odysseus, and
tell her that all will be well in time; for Caesar will make it so."
"For Caesar will make it so," repeated the young man, half-unconscious
that he was speaking aloud.
"For Caesar will make it so," reiterated the proconsul, as though Zeus
on Olympus were nodding his head in awful and irrevocable promise.
And the proconsul took both of his guest's hands in his own, and said,
with seriousness:--
"Quintus Drusus, why did you abandon your bride to support my cause?"
"Because," replied the other, with perfect frankness, "I should not be
worthy to look Cornelia in the face, if I did not sacrifice all to aid
the one Roman who can save the state."
"Young man," replied the proconsul, "many follow me for selfish gain,
many follow me to pay off a grudge, but few follow me because they
believe that because Caesar is ambitious, he is ambitious as a god
should be ambitious--to bestow the greatest benefits possible upon the
men entrusted to his charge. I know not what thread for me the Fates
have spun; but this I know, that Caesar will never prove false to those
who trust him to bring righteousness to Rome, and peace to the world."
* * * * *
That night, as Drusus was retiring, Curio spoke to him:--
And what manner of man do you think is the proconsul?"
"I think," replied Drusus, "that I have discovered the one man in the
world whom I craved to find."
"And who is that?"
"The man with an ideal."