Cicero shook his head as he remembered how Julius had accepted the trite speeches of senators. He had let them talk, but when he rose, the Republic fell away from him like an old skin. The scribes had been aching by the time he had finished and the senators who had welcomed him could only sit in stunned awareness.

Cicero rose slowly to his feet, wincing as his knees cracked. The noise of the city seemed to surround the Senate house and he shuddered at the thought of going out through the drunken crowd. Would it have been different if they could have heard Caesar speak? He had promised to remake Rome: a new forum, great temples and roads, coins minted fresh from the gold of Gaul. His supporters would all have places in the Senate, his legions would be given the best lands and made wealthy. He planned four Triumphs over the months to come, more than any general of Rome had ever had. Gods, there was no end to it! In the midst of all the promises, Cicero had been desperate to hear some sign that Julius needed the Senate. Just a word to salve their dignity would have been enough, but it did not come. He told them the future and it never occurred to him that every word he spoke went further to cut himself free of them.

It was not how they had planned it, Cicero remembered. When Mark Antony had read the letters Julius sent from Egypt, they had discussed how they might honor the greatest general under Rome. In private, they had wondered whether he would accept the Senate at all. Cicero had voted with the others to bestow a Dictatorship of ten years, unheard of in history. The balanced scales of the Republic had been thrown down. It was all they could do.

Julius had nodded at the news as if it was no more than he had expected, and Cicero had known despair. He had not missed the significance of Julius holding his son up to the voracious mob. The man had no true peers to lay a hand on his shoulder and force him to caution. Cicero wondered if Caesar’s Triumphs would include the boy to ride with him and whisper “Remember, you are mortal” into his ear.

The bronze doors creaked and Cicero jerked around to see who dared to breach the privacy of the Senate. Surely there were guards outside? He would not have been surprised to hear they had succumbed to drink and the hysterical crowd were stumbling in to vomit in the halls of their masters.

“Who is there?” he called, ashamed to hear the quaver in his voice. It was the nervous tone of an old man, he thought bitterly.

“Suetonius,” came a reply. “I tried your home, but Terentia said you had not come back. She is worried about you.”