When Andronicus the Great became the first emperor, back in the year dot, he had the senators dragged in front of him in chains, the way you do, and one of them, head of the oldest and proudest of the hundred and sixteen, told him he was nobody, human garbage, didn’t even know who his own father was. Quite true, Andronicus said. But my family begins with me; yours ends with you. Then, to show his magnanimity, he spared all their lives, and fifteen years later they had him stabbed to death in his bath; moral, don’t neglect an opportunity to get rid of your enemy for the sake of a great
...more
