“These things do not come without a cost, or without labor. Good Roman sweat and even blood will be shed before we can make an age of gold for our children and theirs. I do not fear the price. I do not fear the work. I do not fear these things because I am a Roman citizen, of the greatest city in the world.”

He turned away from the crash of their cheers, almost glowing with pleasure. The senators at his back had lost the smiles of reflected glory. Their eyes had hardened and grown cold as the words spilled out over the forum, lighting flames in the hearts of the mob. More than one of the older men wondered whether he could be controlled at all.

After the applause and grandiloquent speeches, the Senate house seemed to be filled with echoing ghosts as evening came. The celebrations would continue for days, and as Cicero stood alone in shadows he could hear muted laughter and old songs in the forum. There would be little time for peace or contemplation in the days ahead, at least until the wine had run dry. He wondered how many children would be conceived across the city and how many of them would be named for the man Rome honored.

He sighed to himself. An amphora of good red lay at his feet, unopened. He had intended to be among the first to toast Caesar, but somehow he had forgotten it as he witnessed the new breeze blowing through the city. The Republic had died at last, and the tragedy was that no one seemed to have noticed. What men like Pompey or Sulla could not achieve with fear and force of arms, Caesar had with indifference, shattering the traditions of centuries.

Cicero had known hope at first, when Julius stood to address the members of the nobilitas. Pompey’s death had not stained him and Cicero thought the old compact with the citizens could still be remade.

That thin faith had lasted only moments. The laws of Rome were there to limit power and prestige, so that no man could rise too far above his fellows. Even in the dying days, there was strength enough to rein in Marius or Sulla. Somehow, Caesar had dragged himself above the rest, away from Rome. He had addressed the Senate as if they were supplicants, while the mob chanted his name outside.

Cicero could not find it in himself to love the people of his city. In the abstract, he took pride in the earnest voting that was the foundation of the Republic. The powers of the Senate had always been granted rather than taken. Yet in the end, those same citizens had found themselves a champion. There was no holding Caesar now, if there ever had been.