''Unto Caesar'', page 239 by Baroness Emmuska Orczy
<< Return to Title Details & Download240
hould be the chosen of to-day, the god of to-morrow; let the brutish Cæsar be swept from before his path.
The people clamoured, and did they see the praefect of Rome standing virile and powerful before them, they would fall on their knees and acclaim him princeps, imperator, greater than great Augustus himself.
And in this very house, but a few steps from where Dea sat musing, were the men, the patricians who were ready to accept the decision of the people, who were all-powerful to make the legions acknowledge the new Cæsar, and ready to set the seal of official acceptance to the wild desires of the plebs.
The patriciate of Rome had combined with the people to place its destinies in Dea Flavia's hands. The Cæsar's insane pronouncement in the Circus yesterday had confirmed the wishes of the conspirators. All envies and jealousies would best be set at rest if the kinswoman of great Augustus chose the future Cæsar, and secured the inheritance of the great Emperor for his descendants later on.
And now there was but her choice to be made, and the imperium would descend on the noblest head that had ever worn a crown. Dea Flavia felt the hot blood rush to her cheeks at thought that the choice did rest with her, that the man who was so proud, so self-absorbed, so self-willed but a few days ago in the Forum, would receive supreme gifts through her; that he would be the recipient and she, like the goddess holding riches, power, honour in her hands; that she would shower them on him while he knelt--a suppliant first, then a grateful worshipper--at her feet.
Ambitious? He must be ambitious! Ambition was the supreme virtue of the Roman patrician! And she had it in her power to satisfy the wildest cravings of ambition in the one man above all men whom she felt was worthy of the gifts.
Those were the first thoughts that merged themselves into a coherent whole in Dea Flavia's head after Caius Nepos and the others had bowed themselves from out her presence, and the