““I’d seen enough of his stone likenesses scattered around Rome to guess his identity from his torchlit profile, but even if I hadn’t, I would have known him instantly. Here was a man who wore power like a cloak, effortlessly, comfortably. The thrill I felt at having been chosen to swear the oath conflicted with the raw dread of knowing just who, exactly, I was swearing my oath to. Gaius Julius Caesar, proconsul of Rome, the great dictator himself, had come to the ludus to attend the oath swearing of his newest crop of thorny wildflowers.””
