Ed. Note: The h2g2 Post is ever-cognisant of its leading role in international education. In this dramatisation, our author offers Homework Help to students faced with the muddle of Roman history and/or that survey of Elizabethan drama. You can read this, or you can read Suetonius and Shakespeare. This page suddenly looks more attractive, doesn't it?

It is night. Rome is under a spell. Strange things are afoot. An owl was seen in the Capitol, in broad daylight. Men all afire walked through the streets. Dead women were seen abroad. Priests reading the entrails of slaughtered beasts, saw portents of doom and most telling of all, Caesar's statue wept blood. What more could the gods do to warn mortal man of the dangers now facing him?

'What a night! Who knew the heavens to quake so and light the sky with such a terrifying spectacle!'

'Such weather reflects the hearts of men at such times.'

'You talk of Caesar?'

'Be who it may.'

'I don't think Caesar can be that ambitious; after all, he refused the crown three times didn't he?'

'A joke between him and Mark Antony. A bunch of old laurel leaves thrust at him. I saved his life once, when he fell in the Tiber. Did you know that?'

'No.'

'I wonder if I should have bothered. It left him deaf in one ear and that's the one I spit my venom into. He thinks I must love him because I saved his wretched hide but that was then and this now. 'For always I am Caesar!' What a pompous ass! I detest the man.

'He lost the first Gallic war.'

'But he won the second.'

'What about that disastrous invasion of Britain?'

'The siege of Alesia was pure genius, with its two lines of defence; one to keep Vercingetorix in and one to keep reinforcements out.'

'Crassus was a fool to take on The Parthians.'

'I don't doubt it.'

'Without him the triumvirate as an alliance failed.'

'Does that mean you blame him for the civil war then?'

'No, but he and Pompey were patricians, men of class. Caesar is an upstart, a man of the people. Do you want to be ruled by a populist, a lover of the proletariat?'

'Not I!'

'Then you are with me on this?'

'I am, indeed.'

'Good, for I have much to discuss with you then. Will you join me and some other like-minded friends tomorrow night at my house for supper?'

'Good. Until then, Casca, fare thee well.'

Several days later�

'My dear, I fully understand your nightmares and fears for my safety, after all I am the most powerful man in Rome. But look, Decius has arrived and I am expected at the Senate.'

'But –'

'Enough, for always I am Caesar!'

'Come, Caesar, we must away. Great things await us!'

'You know, it wasn't only my wife's fears that detained me. I received a scroll from Artemidorus warning me of something but it was so vague, it was almost gibberish.'

(They both laugh).

'No names, then? Nothing definite?'

'No.'

'I've been through two campaigns against the Gauls and even visited that gods-forsaken rock they call Britain – cold, miserable, perpetually wet. Imagine the cheek of sending troops from there to support their fellow Celts. Perhaps they came across, not to fight but just simply to get warm!'

(They both laugh again).

'I suppose Metellus Cimber's brother is going to petition me again about his return?'

'Alas, Caesar.'

'Well, he's out of luck. I remain firm on this, for always I am Caesar!'

(Under his breath) 'And don't we know it!'

Paigetheoracle

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