He hurried out with flashing eyes. The Prefect cast a satisfied glance after him.
"Dictator, yes; but only until the Republic is in full security," said the jurist, and followed Licinius.
"To be sure," said Cethegus, with a smile; "then we will wake up Camillus and Brutus, and take up the Republic from the point at which they left it a thousand years ago. Is it not so, Silverius?"
"Prefect of Rome," said the priest, "you know that I was ambitious to conduct the affairs of the fatherland as well as of the Church. After this, I am so no more. You shall lead, I will follow. Swear to me only one thing: the freedom of the Roman Church--free choice of a Pope."
"Certainly," said Cethegus; "but first Silverius must have become Pope. So be it."
The priest departed with a smile upon his lips, but with a weight upon his mind.
"Go," said Cethegus, after a pause, looking in the direction taken by his three visitors. "You will never overthrow a tyrant--you need one!"
This day and hour were decisive for Cethegus. Almost against his will, he was driven by circumstances to entertain new views, feelings, and plans, which he had never, until now, put to himself so clearly, or confessed to be more than mere dreams. He acknowledged that at this moment he was sole master of the situation. He had the two great parties of the period--the Gothic Government and its enemies--completely in his power. And the principal motive-power in the heart of this powerful man, which he had for years thought paralysed, was suddenly aroused to the greatest activity. The unlimited desire--yes, the necessity--to govern, made itself all at once serviceable to all the powers of his rich nature, and excited them to violent emotion.
Cornelius Cethegus Cæsarius was the descendant of an old and immensely rich family, whose ancestor had founded the splendour of his house as a general and statesman under Cæsar during the civil wars; it was even rumoured that he was the son of the great Dictator.
Our hero had received from nature various talents and violent passions, and his immense riches gave him the means to develop the first and satisfy the last to the fullest extent. He had received the most careful education that was then possible for a young Roman noble. He practised the fine arts under the best teachers; he studied law, history, and philosophy in the famous schools of Berytus, Alexandria, and Athens with brilliant success. But all this did not satisfy him. He felt the breath of decay in all the art and science of his time. In particular, his study of philosophy had only the effect of destroying the last traces of belief in his soul, without affording him any results. When he returned home from his studies, his father, according to the custom of the time, introduced him to political life, and his brilliant talents raised him quickly from office to office.