“Avaunt nonsense! Your position, your opportu nities! Just think! There is cousin Cnæus must be given a help up. He is a fool—but that don’t matter, you must get him a proconsulship. Then there is Fulvia, you must exert yourself to find her a wealthy husband. As the Gods love me! you can push up all your father’s family, and mine to boot. Come, get the girls to dress you becomingly and make haste.”
“I cannot go.”
“You must. The Augustus wills it.”
“And if I refuse?”
“You cannot refuse.”
“I do so now.”
“My dear, by the Good Event! you shall come. You can no more refuse him than you can Destiny.”
“Let him send his lictors and lead me to death.”
“Lead you to—how can you talk such rubbish? You must come. This is how the matter stands. There has been a good deal of disturbance in Rome. As the Gods love me! I do not know why it is, but the people like thee vastly, and the rumor has got about that thou wast about to be repudiated, and that raw-boned filly taken in your place. First there were murmurings, then pasquinades affixed to the statues of the august Domitian. Then bands of rioters passed under his windows howling out mocking songs and blasphemies against his majesty, and next they clustered in knots, and that Insula of Castor and Pollux is a nest of insubordination. In fact, return you must to quiet men’s minds. You know what a disturbance in Rome is, we have gone through several. By Jupiter! I shall never forget the rocking I went through that night of the Lectisternium. These sort of things are only unobjectionable when seen from a distance. But they leave a taste of blood behind them. When the riot is over, then come proscription; the delators have a fine time of it, and the rich and noble are made to suffer.”
“But, mother, let Julia do what she will, I care not.”