Legate I speak from the heart.

Caesar A disgusting, fashionable habit.

Legate I have no cynicism –

Caesar Nor have I! (He stares at the Legate.) I take rhetoric very, very seriously. In war, what is done is done. In speech, what is meant is meant. You’re a young man, learn how a Roman must speak. Of his life, in public, at moments like this. When you are being reprimanded, for having lost control of your command, during a minor mopping up exercise, against a wretched bunch of wog farmers, women and children, in a filthy backwater of humanity, somewhere near the edge of the world.

A silence.

There. I’ve spoken of your tiny stupidity – and ended with the world. Textbook rhetoric, little to big? Eh? (He grimaces, tonguing his bad tooth. He massages his face. He stops.)

A silence.

It’s an affliction.

A silence. He sniggers.

I think I am going to make a remark for the Official Biography, Asinus.

Asinus, notes at the ready. Caesar sniggers again.

I was going to say it’s an affliction, to see in any one act, its consequence. To see a man – (He gestures at the Legate.) and see his future. At once. Bang, like that.

In any predicament, its opposite. To build a tower, knowing brick by brick, how it can be destroyed. Even in the victory of an enemy, I see his defeat.

Once I was captured by pirates. Island fishermen really. I told them – when my ransom is paid, I will return and kill you.

My ransom was paid. I raised a fleet. I stormed their islands. I crucified them all, all their communities, twenty thousand of them, men women and children! Wooded islands. The crosses took all the trees. The islands will be rock and turf for ever. A logic. I walked in forests as a captive. Free, the same ground had to be a barren plain. One extreme the mother of the opposite extreme.

After all, my ancestral mother is Venus, Goddess of love, and I am a man of war.

He sniggers. A silence.

Legate What –

Caesar What’s your future? You – (He puts his arm round the Legate’s shoulders.) will die, a little before me, a very old man, very rich, very happy and very senile. You are relieved of your command in all but name and show. The Prefect of your legion will take his orders directly from me. You will stay on my staff. Your humiliation as a military man will be politely obscured. If you protest, you will be stoned by your soldiers, with relish. The political consequences of maltreating so favourite a son would be tiresome, but easily overcome by my party.

Legate I –

Caesar No no no. Put it like this, are you my friend, or aren’t you, eh? (Hugging the Legate.) What d’you say?

Legate I’m your friend.

Caesar What a fucking island, eh? What a wretched bunch of wogs, eh? Go and have a swim.