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A Friend of Cæsar: A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C.

William Stearns Davis




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  A Friend of Caesar

  A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic

  Time, 50-47 B.C.

  By William Stearns Davis

  "Others better may mould the life-breathing brass of the image, And living features, I ween, draw from the marble, and better Argue their cause in the court; may mete out the span of the heavens, Mark out the bounds of the poles, and name all the stars in their turnings. _Thine_ 'tis the peoples to rule with dominion--this, Roman, remember!-- These for thee are the arts, to hand down the laws of the treaty, The weak in mercy to spare, to fling from their high seats the haughty."

  --VERGIL, _AEn._ vi. 847-858.

  New YorkGrosset & Dunlap Publishers1900

  To My Father

  William Vail Wilson Davis

  Who Has Taught Me MoreThan All My Books

  Preface

  If this book serves to show that Classical Life presented many phasesakin to our own, it will not have been written in vain.

  After the book was planned and in part written, it was discovered thatArchdeacon Farrar had in his story of "Darkness and Dawn" a scene,"Onesimus and the Vestal," which corresponds very closely to the scene,"Agias and the Vestal," in this book; but the latter incident was toocharacteristically Roman not to risk repetition. If it is asked why sucha book as this is desirable after those noble fictions, "Darkness andDawn" and "Quo Vadis," the reply must be that these books necessarilytake and interpret the Christian point of view. And they do well; butthe Pagan point of view still needs its interpretation, at least as ahelp to an easy apprehension of the life and literature of the great ageof the Fall of the Roman Republic. This is the aim of "A Friend ofCaesar." The Age of Caesar prepared the way for the Age of Nero, whenChristianity could find a world in a state of such culture, unity, andsocial stability that it could win an adequate and abiding triumph.

  Great care has been taken to keep to strict historical probability; butin one scene, the "Expulsion of the Tribunes," there is such a confusionof accounts in the authorities themselves that I have taken some slightliberties.

  W. S. D.

  Harvard University,January 16,1900.

  Contents

  Chapter Page

  I. Praeneste 1

  II. The Upper Walks of Society 21

  III. The Privilege of a Vestal 37

  IV. Lucius Ahenobarbus Airs His Grievance 50

  V. A Very Old Problem 73

  VI. Pompeius Magnus 102

  VII. Agias's Adventure 117

  VIII. "When Greek Meets Greek" 146

  IX. How Gabinius Met with a Rebuff 159

  X. Mamercus Guards the Door 172

  XI. The Great Proconsul 198

  XII. Pratinas Meets Ill-Fortune 217

  XIII. What Befell at Baiae 241

  XIV. The New Consuls 262

  XV. The Seventh of January 277

  XVI. The Rubicon 302

  XVII. The Profitable Career of Gabinius 329

  XVIII. How Pompeius Stamped with His Feet 334

  XIX. The Hospitality of Demetrius 364

  XX. Cleopatra 387

  XXI. How Ulamhala's Words Came True 409

  XXII. The End of the Magnus 433

  XXIII. Bitterness and Joy 448

  XXIV. Battling for Life 464

  XXV. Calm after Storm 496