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Updated: June 12, 2025
The Augustas too like to have me beside them, to talk pleasing gossip in their ears. 'Twill be easiest for me, at a signal given, to strike with my dagger in the Cæsar's throat." "Thine shall be that glory, O Escanes, since thou dost will it so," said Caius Nepos, not without a touch of irony. "Directly the deed is done, the praetorian guard shall raise the cry: 'The Cæsar is dead!"
Everyone noticed that the Cæsar specially commanded her to sit on his left, Cæsonia being on his right, and that the Augustas all frowned with dissatisfaction at this signal honour paid to Dea Flavia. Anon Caius Nepos, the praetorian praefect, came to the front of the tribune, and in stentorian voice commanded everyone to kneel.
And up in the imperial tribune the Cæsar jested and laughed, the standards waved above his head, the striped awning threw a cool blue shadow over his gorgeous robes and the jewel-crowned heads of the Augustas. The rest of the gigantic arena was a blaze of riotous colour now, with the mid-morning's sun darting its rays almost perpendicularly on the south side of the huge oval place.
Here was a mighty plant flowering twice a year and giving its seed to the four winds. Every July and January its erection was celebrated in the imperial republic. Vergilius stood beside the emperor that day when, at the Ars Pacis Augustas, he addressed the people.
'Twas averred that Cæsonia, his wife, had given him a potion to cure him of his infatuation for Dea Flavia, his kinswoman, whom he had exalted above all the other Augustas, and whose absence from Rome and from all festivities had rendered him half distracted with wrath. He would have liked to vent that wrath on Dea, but he could not lay hands on her.
Even a minute later thou laidst in my arms like a dead white swan, and I pushed my way through the soldiers, and past the other Augustas who cowered in the tribune, screaming and wringing their hands. Two of thy slaves were luckily close at hand. Together we carried thee down to thy litter and bore thee safely home for which to-morrow I will offer special sacrifice to Minerva who protected thee."
The Augustas were clinging together in obvious terror, their heads were pressed close to one another, and the jewels in their hair formed a curious shimmering mass of diamonds and rubies which caught the rays of the sun and threw back blinding sparks of prismatic colours. Dea Flavia was not near them.
It was all a part of the show stage-managed for their amusement. They were interested to see the Augustas, and those who knew mentioned the various names to their less fortunate neighbours. "Cæsonia standeth next her lord. She gave him a love potion once, so 'tis said, because his passion for her was quickly on the wane. And 'tis that love potion which hath made him crazy."
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