[134] Si vales bene est ego valeo, written commonly simply
  S. V. B. E. E. V.

Drusus lay back in the bottom of the boat, and looked up into the blue dome.  It was the same azure as ever, but a strange feeling of disenchantment seemed to have come over him.  For the first time he realized the deadly stakes for which he and his party were playing their game.  What fate had been treasured up for him in the impending chaos of civil war?  If he perished in battle or by the executioner’s axe, what awaited Cornelia?  But he had chosen his road; he would follow it to the end.  The battle spirit mounted in him.

The sky was darkening when the boat drew up to one of the busy quays of Puteoli.  Stars had begun to twinkle.  Cappadox aided his bruised and stiffened master to disembark.

“To-night rest,” cried Drusus, forgetting all his wounds.  “To-morrow away to Rome.  And at Rome—­the war of the Gods and the Giants!”

Chapter XIV

The New Consuls

I

It had come—­the great crisis that by crooked ways or straight was to set right all the follies and crimes of many a generation.  On the Calends of January Lentulus Crus and Caius Clodius Marcellus were inaugurated consuls.  In solemn procession with Senate, priesthoods, and people, they had gone up to the Capitol and sacrificed chosen white steers to Jupiter, “Best and Greatest,"[135] and invoked his blessing upon the Roman State.  And so began the last consulship of the Free Republic.

  [135] Optimus maximus.

Rome was in a ferment.  All knew the intention of the consuls to move the recall of Caesar from his government.  All knew that Curio had brought a letter from Ravenna, the contents whereof he carefully guarded.  That same afternoon the consuls convened the Senate in the Temple of Capitoline Jove, and every man knew to what purpose.  All Rome swept in the direction of the Capitol.  Drusus accompanied his friend, the tribune Antonius, as the latter’s viator, for there was need of a trusty guard.

The excitement in the streets ran even higher than when Catilina’s great plot was exposed.  The streets were jammed with crowds,—­not of the idle and base born, but of equites and noble ladies, and young patricians not old enough to step into their fathers’ places.  They were howling and cheering for Pompeius and Lentulus, and cursing the absent proconsul.  As Drusus passed along at the side of Antonius, he could not fail to hear the execrations and vile epithets flung from every side at him and his friend.  He had always supposed the masses were on Caesar’s side, but now every man’s hand seemed turned against the conqueror of the Gauls.  Was there to be but a repetition of the same old tragedy of the Gracchi and of Marcus Drusus?  A brave man standing out for the people, and the people deserting him in his hour of need?