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Marcus Ancyrus, they say, could have pulled down every temple in the Forum and rebuilt it at his own cost, and Philippus Decius who was there had recently spent the sum of fifty million sesterces upon the building and equipment of his new villa at Herculaneum.
She had received Caius Nepos, the praetorian praefect, Marcus Ancyrus, the elder, my lords Hortensius Martius, Philippus Decius and the others, and they, who had heard so many conflicting rumours throughout the morning and were beginning to quake with fear, for none of the rumours were reassuring, were grouped trembling and expectant around her.
"Yet, do ye want shelter and protection from me?" asked Dea Flavia. She had no liking for these men, all of whom she knew. Caius Nepos, selfish and callous; Ancyrus, the elder, avaricious and self-seeking; young Escanes whom she knew to be unscrupulous; Philippus Decius whose ostentation and lavishness she despised. She vaguely wondered why my lord Hortensius Martius was among them.
His eyes, glowing with dull and sullen hatred, searched the face of Dea Flavia, trying to read what went on behind the pure, straight brow and those liquid blue eyes, deep as the fathomless sea. "What is to be done?" said Ancyrus, the elder, with a pitiable look of perplexity directed at the Augusta.
Taurus Antinor had distinguished the voice of Hortensius Martius and that of Ancyrus, the elder. The sigh of sadness turned to one of bitterness, his arms dropped by his side, and a cry of harsh contempt escaped his parched? throat. "Oh, Man of Galilee," he murmured, "didst die for such as these?" "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."
"And on his death his son and hers a direct descendant of great Augustus would be the only fitting heir," concluded another. "Meseems," now said Ancyrus decisively, "that we would solve a grave difficulty by accepting the suggestion made by Hortensius Martius. The imperium as is only just would remain in the family of the great Augustus.
He liked not this talk of the family of Cæsar which took the attention of his closest adherents away from his own claim. "The entire House of Cæsar," he said, "is rotten to the core. There is not one member of it fit to rule." "But of a truth," said prudent Ancyrus, "they have the foremost claim."
"She hath made her choice, my lord," said Caius Nepos amiably, taking the younger man by the arm, "a woman was not like to reject such brilliant proposals." "I will ask for the praefecture of Rome," murmured Ancyrus, the elder, complacently.
"I suppose that there is no doubt as to the truth of the tales which are current about the expedition," quoth Marcus Ancyrus, whose years rendered him more cautious than the others. "No doubt whatever," rejoined the host, "and some of the tales fall far short of the truth. There never was a real blow struck during the whole time that madman was away.
Young Escanes from time to time fingered the poniard which he had hidden under his tunic, Hortensius Martius gave free rein to his ardent admiration of Dea Flavia, Ancyrus, the elder, kept watch over every phase of the temper of the audience its apathy, its excitement, its murmurs of dissatisfaction and cries of enthusiasm.
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