[70] Cattle-market.

Chapter V

A Very Old Problem

I

Drusus had at last finished the business which centred around the death of his uncle, old Publius Vibulanus.  He had walked behind the bier, in company with the other relatives of the deceased—­all very distant, saving himself.  On the day, too, of the funeral, he had been obliged to make his first public oration—­a eulogy delivered in the Forum from the Rostra—­in which Drusus tried to pay a graceful but not fulsome tribute to the old eques, who had never distinguished himself in any way, except the making of money.  The many clients of Vibulanus, who now looked upon the young man as their patron, had raised a prodigious din of applause during the oration, and Quintus was flattered to feel that he had not studied rhetoric in vain.  Finally, as next of kin, he had to apply the torch to the funeral pyre, and preside over the funeral feast, held by custom nine days after the actual burning, and over the contests of gladiators which took place at this festivity.  Meanwhile Sextus Flaccus had been attending to the legal business connected with the transfer of the dead man’s estate to his heir.  All this took time—­time which Drusus longed to be spending with Cornelia in shady and breezy Praeneste, miles from unhealthy, half-parched Rome.

Drusus had sent Agias ahead to Cornelia, as soon as the poor boy had recovered in the least from his brutal scourging.  The lad had parted from his deliverer with the most extravagant demonstrations of gratitude, which Quintus had said he could fully repay by implicit devotion to Cornelia.  How that young lady had been pleased with her present, Drusus could not tell; although he had sent along a letter explaining the circumstances of the case.  But Quintus had other things on his mind than Agias and his fortunes, on the morning when at last he turned his face away from the sultry capital, and found his carriage whirling him once more over the Campagna.

Drusus had by personal experience learned the bitterness of the political struggle in which he had elected to take part.  The Caesarians at Rome (Balbus, Antonius, and Curio) had welcomed him to their number, for young as he was, his wealth and the prestige of the Livian name were not to be despised.  And Drusus saw how, as in his younger days he had not realized, the whole fabric of the state was in an evil way, and rapidly approaching its mending or ending.  The Roman Republic had exported legions; she had imported slaves, who heaped up vast riches for their masters, while their competition reduced the free peasantry to starvation.  And now a splendid aristocracy claimed to rule a subject world, while the “Roman people” that had conquered that world were a degenerate mob, whose suffrages in the elections were purchasable—­almost openly—­by the highest bidder.  The way was not clear before Drusus; he only saw, with his blind, Pagan vision, that no real liberty existed under present conditions; that Pompeius and his allies, the Senate party, were trying to perpetuate the aristocracy in power, and that Caesar, the absent proconsul of the Gauls, stood, at least, for a sweeping reform.  And so the young man made his decision and waited the march of events.