"He crouched down in front of the dead eight-eyed eel and wept bitterly, as if it were not a fish but his daughter." - Dio's History of Rome describes a Roman senator in 92 BC

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Outside the courtroom, his supporters and freedmen cheered and urged him to go to the Grand Place to deliver the High Priest's campaign speech, because the voting to decide the "uncrowned king" was about to begin.

For the sake of this campaign, Caesar quietly threw all the support given to him by Crassus and Luculas into the bottomless pit of bribery of the electorate, in other words, he was burdened with debts that he could not afford to pay, and this time he would either rise or never recover. In the wax hallway, Caesar gradually developed a wonderful sense of hearing, and he heard the sound of dice rolling on the table

In this voice, Caesar hung his head, went to the atrium, half-knelt down before his mother Otria, who was sitting on a circle chair, gently rubbed her mother's hand on her face, kissed the back of her hand repeatedly, and said, "Oh, mother, today, either I will return honorably as a high priest, or I will go into exile unto death." Because his opponent was the last retired chief consul, a supporter of Catiline, Quintas. Luta Hughes. Catullus, a dignitary among the Roman nobles.

In the evening, on Jochola Street, and finally to the cheers of the people, it was the charming Caesar, who waved with ease to his enthusiastic supporters, as if the campaign had no difficulty at all, for he never transmitted any negativity to those who supported him, a skill necessary for any wise politician.

"Yes, Caesar has won again."

"It's not a big deal, it's all expected, and supporting Caesars is a risk-free but lucrative gamble."

This is the impression that Caesar wants to leave in the hearts of all his supporters.

Passing by a beautiful brick apartment in Crúcola, he saw a young oriental man with black hair and a pierced left ear on the terrace, smiling and giving him a thumb salute accompanied by a curly-haired woman and a boy with light yellow curly hair, a Colosseum's gesture to the victor.

Caesar smiled and made the same gesture, knowing that this wealthy freeman named Calabis had contributed no less than half a million Sequestres for his campaign, and that he was his own Sequestre, and that he had to reciprocate something.

"That's Julius. Caesar? Paruma looked up and asked her adoptive father.

Calabis half-crouched down, pressed Paruma's little head, and said, "Yes, remember his face, maybe in ten years, you, as a knight, will be betrothed to a certain woman of the Julius family." ”

"I would rather have the little pigeon married to the daughter of a freeman or knight, so that he may live without fear of being fed." Potti covered her mouth as she spoke, apparently uncomfortable from the air currents of the crowd on the street.

"Yes, yes, this is obviously the life of our other son, Leo." Calabis said, pressing his face against Potti, who was proudly bulging his belly, "When Leo comes out, we will leave Rome and settle in the country house of Apilon, which will be left to the care of the little knight Paruma." ”

"Aren't you worried about losing the Roman inheritance to the little pigeon?" After taking the shoulder that Calabis handed him to protect himself from the wind, and draped it over his body, Potty led Calabis into the inner room and quipped.

"No, not the slightest worry, because the parluma (pigeons) cannot leave the city, while Leo (the lion) is better to grow in the countryside." When he had put his wife on the couch, Calabis walked out of the door, "The virgin of the temple of the Stove has been busy with the new year's festival lately, and I now have time to go to Apilon, to see if Milu and Pope have remodeled our villa." ”

"Don't make it too difficult for them, you're asking for something the Romans never wanted." Potty smiled and stroked his stomach to remind.

"How can you make money out of the renovation of so many knights' apartments in Rome without a new idea? It was a great gift from Caesar for me to support his campaign, and it was also a result of Zuihou after he stepped down as mayor, and I had to do it perfectly. After saying this, Calabis prayed to the shrine of the god of the house.

"Don't forget that you may have a child," said Porti, who she knew had rarely mentioned, or would not mention, the queen of the Amazons, Helenputina, "if the child was still alive, it would have been the age of Paruma, whom we had adopted." ”

"My Liliang has not yet reached the Caucasus and the Yukxing Sea, so far away - I can't protect the child, even if he exists." Listening to Potty's words, Calabis paused for a moment, then put the key in the blanket, closed the door softly, and left.

The next morning, in the breezy valley of Apilon, dozens of craftsmen were busy on the exterior wall of the small villa in Calabis, which seemed a little too delicate with the large villas that the rest of the aristocratic merchants here often stretched for thousands of Roman feet, but Calabis did not care, the villa could have been completed a long time ago, but he then spent 20,000 drachmas and asked for rework. Because he wants to use his villa as an "experiment" for new architectural ideas.

It's always easy to get things done when you have money, and the veterans readily agreed. Milou and Tagus were not there today, only Pop kept reminding the conductor at the scene, and after seeing Calabis, the two exchanged warm greetings, and Pope said that the problem was solved - and then Calabis followed him into the oval inner hall of the villa, which was against the wall, similar to Lucuras's study, and a set of large bookcases on the floor, in front of which was a plane wood drawing table, plus a horizontal maple desk, connected to the pottery shelf, and the floor was paved with opaline marble from the East, There are pale yellow Corinthian columns, and the walls are crisscrossed with pottery water pipes (Calabis did not dare to use the lead pipes commonly used by the Romans for fear of poisoning), but Calabis's gaze stayed on a place in the center of the inner hall, which he specially asked Pop to make, or rather, he spent a lot of money to ask Pop to rework the cottage, which is the purpose.

It was a marble-walled room, with a fireplace with a convection chamber underneath. Yes, in the city of Rome, even the richest nobles could only use bronze braziers for heating, and there was no such thing as a fireplace, but now they did, because Calabis told Pop in advance about the way of the "Franklin fireplace", and the nobles, knights, and wealthy freemen of Rome were about to set off a new and fanatical "fireplace wind", and together with the "rooftop spa wind" and the "fish farming wind", countless silver coins were blown into his Calabis pocket.