The River God

Начало книги

It was the worst year in the history of Rome. Well, perhaps it wasn’t quite that bad. There was, for instance, the year that Hannibal defeated our legions at Lake Trasimene, and the year Hannibal obliterated our legions at Cannae. We learned a great deal from Hannibal. Perhaps the worst was the year Brennus and his Gauls overran the City, put it to the sack, and levied an extravagant tribute. In return he gave us one of our best epigrams. When the tribute was weighed out and the consuls protested that the weights were dishonest, the Gaul tossed his sword onto the balance tray and said, “Woe to the vanquished!” He had an excellent grasp of Latin for a Gaul. We took this lesson to heart and applied it ruthlessly to everyone who fell afoul of us in subsequent years.

But those things had happened centuries before. This was by far the worst year the City had endured in my lifetime. The year of Catilina’s conspiracy was a festival by comparison.

Читать дальше →