Caesar's Women Quotes

“Love and hate are cruel, only liking is kind”
― Colleen McCullough, Caesar's Women

“The lioness in Rome is quiet. I will not wake her to seek more money.”
― Colleen McCullough, Caesar's Women

“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.”
― Colleen McCullough, Caesar's Women

“Cato the Censor would weep. Then he would go home and hang himself. Oh, how often I have had to resist the temptation to do the same!” “Don’t, Cato, don’t resist it a moment longer!” cried Crassus.”
― Colleen McCullough, Caesar's Women

“Thus it was Caesar felt Brutus’s pain, not Servilia. Never conquered by a woman as Julia had conquered Brutus, he could yet understand exactly what Julia had meant to Brutus, and he found himself wondering whether if he had known he would have had the courage to kill like this. But yes, Caesar, you would have. You’ve killed before and you’ll kill again. Yet rarely eye to eye, as now. The poor, poor fellow! He won’t recover. He first wanted my daughter when he was fourteen years old, and he has never changed or wavered. I have killed him—or at least killed what his mother has left alive. How awful to be the rag doll between two savages like Servilia and me.”
― Colleen McCullough, Caesar's Women

“And yet,” said Servilia slowly, “when Silanus died something went out of the room. I didn’t see it go, I didn’t hear it. But it went, Caesar. The room was empty.”

“I suppose what went was an idea.”

“An idea?”

“Isn’t that what all of us are, an idea?”

“To ourselves, or to others?”

“To both, though not necessarily the same idea.”
― Colleen McCullough, Caesar's Women

“Listen to the great Pompeius, who was consul before he so much as qualified to stand as a mere tribune of the plebs! Who do you think you are? What, you don’t even know? Then allow me to tell you! An unconstitutional, unprincipled, un-Roman lump of arrogance and fancy, that’s what you are! As to who—you’re a Gaul who thinks like a Gaul—a butcher who is the son of a butcher—a pander who sucks up to patricians to be let negotiate marriages far above him—a ponce who adores to dress up prettily to hear the crowd goo and gush—an eastern potentate who loves to live in palaces—a king who queens it—an orator who could send a rutting ram to sleep—a politician who has to employ competent politicians—a radical worse than the Brothers Gracchi—a general who hasn’t fought a battle in twenty years without at least twice as many troops as the enemy—a general who prances in and picks up the laurels after other and better men have done all the real work—a consul who had to have a book of instructions to know how to act—AND A MAN WHO EXECUTED ROMAN CITIZENS WITHOUT TRIAL”
― Colleen McCullough, Caesar's Women

“You regard the new Pontifex Maximus!” he cried from the doorway, hands clasped above his head.

“Oh, Caesar!” she said, and wept.

Nothing else could have unmanned him, for in all his life he could never remember her shedding a tear. He gulped, face collapsing, stumbled into the room and lifted her to her feet, his arms about her, her arms about him, both of them weeping.

“Not even for Cinnilla,” he said when he was able.

“I did, but not in front of you.”
― Colleen McCullough, Caesar's Women