caffeinated reader

“Do not call me your dear boy.” Octavius did not raise his voice; like his face, it was totally without expression. “I am the son of Julius Caesar, and I am consul of Rome. You will not call me boy again.”
― John Williams, Augustus

“I have learned patience with Athenodorus. Again, I questioned him about this Octavius. “He is a man like any other,” he said. “He will become what he will become, out of the force of his person and the accident of his fate.”
― John Williams, Augustus

“The matter of Caesarion: (I) Yes, he was only seventeen years old. (2) Yes, it was our decision that he be put to death. (3) Yes, it is my judgment that he was the son of Julius. (4) No, he was not put to death because of his name, but because of his ambition, which was inarguable. I spoke to Octavius about his youth, and Octavius reminded me that he himself had been seventeen once, and ambitious.”
― John Williams, Augustus

“I do not hate Octavius Caesar, though I would fight him, were that my duty; I do not love Marcus Antonius, though I would die for him were that my duty. It is not the place of the soldier to think of politics, and it is not the business of the soldier to hate or love. It is his duty to fulfill his oath.”
― John Williams, Augustus