Gleva: Why does the trumpet sound?
Calpurnius: To call some straggler back to Rome.
Gleva: Rome! (With a cry.)
Calpurnius: Yes. For every one of us, the camp on the empty hill-top there is Rome, and all Rome's in the trumpet call.
Gleva: Is the sound so strange and moving?
Calpurnius: Yes. Most strange, most moving. For I know that at this actual minute every Roman soldier on guard throughout the world has the sound of it in his ears, here in the forest of Anderida, far away on some fortress wall in Syria. (Throws off his seriousness.) But I am talking of sacred things, and that one should be shy to do. Come, Gleva. We have little time. When the moon touches those trees I climb again.
Gleva: Yet, my lord, for one more moment think of me not as the foolish, conquered slave. Listen! Turn your head this way and listen.
Calpurnius: What shall I hear? Some nightingale pouring out love upon a moonlit night? He'll not say "Calpurnius" with so sweet a note as you.
Gleva: You'll hear no nightingale, nor any sound that has one memory of me in it. Listen, you'll hear--all Rome.
[He looks at her quickly. In the pause is heard the sound of men marching.]