Claudius the God (Claudius, #2)

by Robert Graves

When she saw Lupus’s sword she looked up anxiously into his face and knew that she was doomed. She stretched out her neck. ‘Strike clean,’ she said. ‘Don’t bungle it like the other assassins did.’ Caesonia was no coward. He struck and the head fell. He then caught up the little brat, who came rushing at him, biting and scratching. He held her by the feet, swung her head against a marble pillar, and so dashed out her brains. It is always unpleasant to hear of the murder of a child: but the reader must take my word for it that if he too had known little Drusilla, her father’s pet, he would have longed to do what Lupus did.

Romans don't play games.

The only effect that this slime and honey had on me was to make me quite satisfied in my mind that I had not wronged anyone by his banishment – except perhaps the island of Corsica.

It is curious how appropriate some people’s names are. Gallus means cock, and Asinus means donkey, and Asinius Gallus was the most utter little donkey-cock for his boastfulness and stupidity that one could find in a month’s tour of Italy.