When we press the thorn to our chest we know, we understand, and still we do it. - Colleen McCullough

The Julian ancestry was so stellar, so august, that opportunities to fill the family coffers had passed

The long wait is over. I go to Spain to command an army legally at last; I will put my hands on a living machine which in the right hands -my hands- cannot be stopped, warped, dislocated, ground down. I have yearned for a supreme military command since I sat, a boy, at old Gaius Marius's knee and listened spellbound to a master of warfare telling stories. But until this moment I did not undestand how passionately, how fiercely I have lusted for that military command.

I will lay my hands on a Roman army and conquer the world, for I believe in Rome, I believe in our Gods. And I believe in myself. I am the soul of the Roman army. I cannot be stopped, warped, dislocated, ground down.

A woman can live without it quite well for years at a stretch, but it was nice, when it was the one man.