Текст книги "Empire"

Автор книги: Steven Saylor

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“The mosaics are exquisite,” said Lucius.

“Yes. There you see the twins suckled by the she-wolf, and there, the rescue of Remus by his brother, the slaying of King Amulius and the taking of his iron crown. There, the sighting of the vultures, and Romulus plowing a furrow to mark the city boundaries. There, the first triumphal procession, and the king’s ascent to the heavens during a thunderstorm.”

Lucius nodded. He recalled something Claudius had told him, that the emperor had considered taking the name Romulus as a title, rather than Augustus, but ultimately rejected the name as unlucky; Romulus murdered his brother, after all, and though legend said that Romulus was taken alive by the gods to Olympus, some historians believed he was murdered by conspiring senators.

“Of course, one cannot take the legends too literally,” Claudius noted, pointing to the image of the suckling she-wolf. “My tutor Titus Livius says that our ancestors used the same word, lupa, to mean either a she-wolf or a whore. Livius suggests that the twins may have been raised not by a wild beast but by a common prostitute.”

“Don’t be impious, nephew!” snapped Augustus, and seemed about to say more when a crack of thunder shook the room. The emperor frantically reached for the sealskin amulet he wore on a chain around his neck. “Even here, so deep under ground, the earth shakes!” he whispered. “Is it possible the house has been struck by lightning two times in one night?” His rheumy eyes flashed with something Lucius could only interpret as fear.

“Why did you s-s-summon us, Great-Uncle?” asked Claudius quietly.

“I’ll show you now – though to do so, we’ll have to leave the safety of the Lupercale.” Augustus frowned, then braced himself and led the way up the stairs, taking them slowly. Euphranor was waiting for them at the top of the steps. At Augustus’s order, the freedman brought each of them a torch to carry.

“When you see the omen, Claudius, you’ll understand why no one else must know of this. No one!” Augustus turned to Lucius. “Do you understand as well, young man? Any omen that regards my person is a state secret and must never be divulged. There’s no telling how it might be used by those who wish me harm. To divulge such a secret is a crime punishable by death.”

He led them to a courtyard. The neatly trimmed hedges and paving stones glistened. The rain had relented; only a light mist descended on them. The courtyard was dominated by a bronze statue of the emperor himself, painted in lifelike colors. Did he ever look like that? wondered Lucius, for the statue of the serenely self-assured, handsome young warrior scarcely resembled the shaken old man standing beside him.

As they stepped closer to the statue, Lucius’s torch illuminated something on the ground, on the far side of the pedestal. It was the dead body of a young man, dressed in the charred remains of what once had been the tunic of an imperial slave.

“Look there!” cried Augustus. “Wisps of smoke still rise from the corpse. He burns from the inside, like a coal in a brazier.”

Claudius pursed his lips. “This slave – he was k-k-killed by the first lightning bolt, the one that struck while Lucius and I were in the Temple of Apollo?”

“Yes. Lightning struck the statue. The slave must have been standing too close. See the damage to the statue – the places where the paint has been scorched, the way the ivory inlays for the whites of the eyes have turned black!” Augustus sucked in his breath. “By Hercules, the statue has been struck again, by that second lightning bolt, the one we felt down in the Lupercale! It’s incredible…”

“Impossible!” protested Claudius. “All authorities agree, lightning n-n-never strikes the same spot twice. Such a thing is unheard of.”

“And yet, it’s true. The bronze plaque on the pedestal wasn’t damaged before, I swear to Jupiter it wasn’t – but now, see how the letter C is missing, blasted into nothing.” Augustus swallowed hard. His face was ashen.

Looking closer, Lucius saw that the damage was just as the emperor had described. On the bronze plaque with an embossed inscription, the first letter of CAESAR had been melted away, leaving almost no trace.

“What does it mean, Claudius?” asked Augustus. “Such freaks of nature are always signs from the gods. Useless as you are for most things, skulking in that library of yours, you do know everything there is to know about omens.”

Claudius touched his fingertips to the scorched bronze plaque, then quickly drew them back. “Too hot to touch!” he gasped, then stared at the plaque and whispered, “Aesar. ”

“What’s that you say?”

Claudius shrugged. “I was simply reading the word that remains, without the letter C. ”

“But aesar is not a word.”

“I think it might be, in Etruscan. I’m not sure.”

“Then find out!”

“T-t-time, Great-Uncle. It will take time to properly interpret such an omen. Do you not agree, Lucius? We must know to the minute the time of the two lightning strikes. We must know the name of the dead slave. Even the name of the sculptor who made this statue might be significant. I must retire to my library to look through the literature, to c-c-consult my Etruscan dictionaries, to study previous omens derived from lightning.”

“How long will this take?”

Claudius furrowed his brow, then brightened. “Lucius will help me. As you yourself noted, Great-Uncle, it’s no accident that Lucius was with me when you sent that summons. Together, I promise you, Lucius and I will determine the meaning of this omen.”

“Do it quickly!”

“Qu-quick as asparagus, Great-Uncle!” Claudius smiled crookedly and wiped a bit of drool from the corner of his mouth.

“Perhaps our fortunes are about to improve, Lucius,” said Claudius. “We’ve just been given a very important task by the emperor himself. That makes us important men. We’d better get started.”

They were in Claudius’s library. The room was brightly lit by many lamps. Lucius had never seen so many scrolls and scraps of parchment in one place, all neatly, even obsessively, filed and sorted. There were histories, maps, calendars, and genealogies. There were detailed lists of every magistrate who had ever served the Roman state. There were numerous dictionaries, not just of Latin but of Greek, Egyptian, Parthian, the Punic tongue that had died with Carthage, the virtually defunct Etruscan language, and even languages Lucius had never heard of. There were sketches of historic sites Claudius has visited, together with his personal notes and copies of inscriptions taken from statues and other monuments.

Searching among the documents, Claudius found a scroll of heavy parchment, unrolled it on a small table, and placed weights to hold down the corners. A large circle drawn on the parchment was divided into quarters by a vertical line and a horizontal line and surrounded by notations. Though he knew little about astrology, Lucius recognized it as a horoscope.

“And not just any horoscope, but that of the emperor himself,” said Claudius. “This is an exact copy of the very horoscope that was cast for the young Octavius by the astrologer Theogenes of Apollonia. Surely you know the story? No? Ah, well, then…” Claudius cleared his throat.

“This was back in the days when the Divine Julius was still on earth, though very near the end of his life. He decided to send his nephew to be educated at Apollonia, on the west coast of Greece. For a companion, Octavius took along his dear friend Marcus Agrippa. The boys decided to have their horoscopes cast by the famous Theogenes. Agrippa went first, telling the astrologer the exact time and place of his birth. Theogenes disappeared into his study while the boys waited. The horoscope that resulted was so f-f-favourable – Theogenes swore he had never seen one to match it – that Octavius decided not to have his done after all, for fear that it would pale beside that of his friend. But Agrippa pressed him – teased him mercilessly, I should imagine – until Octavius relented and gave the astrologer the information he needed. Again the boys waited. When Theogenes finally emerged from his study, he fell to his knees before Octavius in awe, and declared that Octavius would become the master of the world. They say – though I have never been able to verify this for certain – that the horoscope was delivered to Octavius at the very moment that his uncle was murdered back in Roma.

“Ever since that day, the emperor has been so sure of his d-d-destiny that he’s made no secret of the hour of his birth. He even puts his sign, Capricornus, on his c-coinage. If anything merits classification as a state secret, you’d think it’s the emperor’s horoscope! Yet here it is, for you and me to study, just as Theogenes cast it. And since we have access to the information, we might as well use it.”

“But, Claudius, I know nothing about astrology.”

“Then you shall leave this room knowing more than when you entered.”

“But the magister says that augury is sufficient for all divinations.”

“I suspect the magister is a bit envious of the increasing popularity of astrology. I myself see no conflict between the principles of augury and the study of astral science. Any thoughtful person must perceive that heavenly bodies exert an influence on objects both animate and inanimate.

Certain effects of the sun and moon are obvious: they cause vegetation to grow, determine when animals sleep and rut, and control the tides. Likewise, the stars control storms and floods, which can be observed to come and go according to the rise and fall of certain constellations. This influence is invisible, as is the influence of a magnet. Considering the all-pervasive nature of this invisible influence, it would be irrational to presume that it does not exert an effect on human beings.

“It was the Babylonians who first charted the movements of the stars and created a vocabulary to describe their influence on humankind. After Alexander the Great conquered Persia, the study of astrology spread to Greece and Egypt. It was the Babylonian priest Berossus who moved to Cos, founded the first astrological school in Greece, and translated The Eye of Bel into Greek. It was Bolus of Egypt who wrote Sympathies and Antipathies, which remains the standard textbook. I’ve almost worn my copy out.”

Lucius stared at the horoscope, puzzling over the mathematical calculations and the notations about houses, signs, and planets. “Do you really think the solution to the lightning omen lies in the emperor’s horoscope?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if it has some role to play in our research. But I think we should begin by consulting my Etruscan dictionaries, to see if I’m right about this word aesar…”

All night the storm continued, rattling the shutters, pelting the roof with rain, and shaking the ground with thunder, while Lucius and Claudius pored over various texts. From time to time, slaves brought them food and drink and replenished the lamps when the oil ran low. Lucius was not aware that dawn had broken until he heard a cock crow. Claudius opened the shutters. The storm had passed. The sky was clear. But the pale morning sunshine could not dispel the grim mood in the room. They had succeeded in interpreting the omen.

“Perhaps we could tell him that the omen defeated us, that we discovered nothing,” said Lucius.

Claudius shook his head. “He won’t accept that. He’d be able to tell at once that we were hiding something.”

“Then perhaps he’ll simply dismiss our interpretation. Why should he believe the two youngest augurs in Roma?”

“Because our interpretation is correct, as he will see for himself. Great-Uncle has a deep and abiding faith in omens. The outcome of every one of his b-b-battles was foretold by an omen which he himself divined – the eagle that drove away two ravens at Bononia, which foretold his eventual triumph over his fellow triumvirs; the shade of Caesar that appeared before Philippi; the driver and ass he met on the road before the battle of Actium, one named Eutychus and the other Nicon – Greek for ‘prosper’ and victory.’”

“And now, this omen.”

“Which we have no choice but to d-d-deliver.”

Euphranor accompanied them up several flights of steps to the high, many-windowed chamber where the emperor awaited them. This was the room, as Claudius informed Lucius in a whisper, that Augustus called his Little Syracuse, because the great Syracusan inventor Archimedes had had such a room in his house, isolated from the rest of the building.

Augustus’s secluded retreat was cluttered with mementos. There were architect’s models of various of his buildings, including a miniature Temple of Apollo in ivory. There were war trophies, including a captured ship’s beak from the battle of Actium, where the naval skills of Agrippa had soundly defeated Antonius and Cleopatra. There were exotic Egyptian treasures brought back from Alexandria, where Antonius and Cleopatra had escaped capture only by committing suicide. Draped upon a statue of the Divine Julius was a red cape, a bit faded and moth-eaten, that had been worn by the great man himself at his last great battle, at Munda in Spain.

There were also more personal mementos, including toy ships and catapults that had belonged to the emperor’s deceased grandsons. When Lucius and Claudius entered, Augustus was fiddling with a pair of baby shoes.

“Such tiny feet he has, little Gaius! These just arrived from the German frontier, Claudius, with a note from your brother. Your little nephew has just outgrown these, so Germanicus sends them to me as a keepsake. Charming, aren’t they? I suppose Germanicus and Agrippina think they can induce me to name their two-year-old as my heir. Well, your older brother isn’t a bad sort, and Agrippina is the only one of my grandchildren who turned out to be not completely useless. Little Gaius is my great-grandchild, and they say the boy is healthy, so perhaps there is some hope for the future, after all…”

His voice trailed away. He stared at the tiny shoes for a long time before he finally put them down among the cast-off toys.

The emperor appeared to have suffered as sleepless a night as had the two younger men, and he looked much worse for it. He had changed from his trabea into a tunic so drab and worn that Lucius would not have been surprised to see a slave wearing it. The emperor’s voice was hoarse and there was a rattle in his throat.

“So? What have you discovered?”

Claudius stepped forward, but when he opened his mouth to speak, nothing came out. For a moment he was as stiff and silent as a statue, then suddenly he began to twitch and stammer, jerking this way and that and making incoherent noises. Lucius gripped his shoulder to steady him, but the twitching only grew worse. He had never seen Claudius so severely afflicted by his infirmities.

Augustus grunted and rolled his eyes. “Jupiter help me! You, then. Yes, you, Lucius Pinarius! Speak!”

Lucius’s heart pounded and he felt something thick pressing inside his throat. For a moment he feared that he was about to have a fit, like Claudius. Then he managed to take a breath and the words tumbled out.

“We believe – that is, Claudius and I – that our examination of the literature and our study of certain precedents – precedents pertaining specifically to lightning and to – to statues – and the Etruscan language – which we found in the literature-”

“By Hercules, you’re as useless as my nephew! Say what you have to say.”

Lucius felt light-headed and dazed from lack of sleep, but he pressed on. “For example, in the days of Tarquin, the last king, one of his statues was struck by lightning, which did damage only to the inscription, which was written in both Latin and Etruscan; well, you can see how the precedent applies here. In that instance, the numeral X was defaced in four places, as were the Etruscan words tinia, meaning days, and huznatre, meaning a group of young men. No one could interpret the omen, but its meaning became clear when, forty days later, a company of forty young warriors literally ran Tarquin and his sons from the city, ending the monarchy and establishing the Republic. It became clear then that the four Xs defaced by lightning meant forty, and referred to both the days remaining in Tarquin’s reign and the number of warriors who would drive him out. And there is a further example-”

“Enough of this antiquarian drivel! You try my patience, Lucius Pinarius. Deliver the omen clearly, at once.”

Lucius took a deep breath. “As Claudius thought, aesar is an old Etruscan word. It means a deity or divine spirit. And of course C – the letter that was melted away by the lightning – is also the symbol for one hundred. The presence of the dead slave was an indication of mortality, a small death foreshadowing a great one. When these facts are assembled, and the relevant precedents considered – the details of which you would have me omit – then we must conclude that the omen of the two lightning strikes indicates this: that in one hundred days, the person portrayed by the statue will leave the world of mortals and join the gods.”

The colour abruptly drained from the emperor’s face, like wine from a cup. His expression became so strange and his voice so thin that Lucius almost believed the shadow before him was the lemur of a man already dead. “What are you saying, young man? Are you telling me that I have only one hundred days to live?”

“N-n-ninety-nine, actually,” said Claudius, suddenly able to speak, but keeping his head down and his eyes averted. “The omen occurred yesterday, so we m-m-must subtract…” He abruptly looked up, as if surprised to hear his own voice, and fell silent.

Augustus was quiet for a long moment. “Will it be an easy death?”

“The omen gives no indication regarding the manner of death,” said Lucius.

Augustus nodded slowly. “I’ve always envied those who died easily. The Greeks have a word for it: euthanasia, ‘good death.’ That is all I hope for: euthanasia. I accept that I cannot control the time and place; that will be chosen by others. But I wish to go as quietly and as painlessly as possible, with my dignity intact.” He turned away from them, drew himself upright, and composed himself. “You understand that you must repeat this to no one. Now go. You are both dismissed.”

As he was leaving the room, Lucius looked back to see the emperor pick up the baby shoes of his great-grandson and stare at them, ashen-faced and with tears in his eyes.

Euphranor was nowhere to be seen. They found their own way down the steps.

“It’s almost as if he was expecting it,” said Lucius. He felt utterly drained.

“Perhaps he was expecting it. P-p-perhaps it was what he wanted to hear.”

“What do you mean, Claudius? Do you think your great-uncle is contemplating suicide? Or that he fears being murdered? What did Augustus mean, about not being able to control the time and place of his death? ‘That will be chosen by others,’ he said. What others? The gods?”

Claudius shrugged. “He’s an old m-m-man, Lucius. You and I can’t begin to imagine all the terrible things he’s seen, all the terrible things he’s done. Life has brought him a great deal of disappointment, especially in the last few years. So many d-deaths in the family, so much strife.” He drew a sharp breath. “Speaking of which…”

Coming towards them down the hallway, imposing despite her advanced age and the unassuming nature of her dress, was Claudius’s grandmother. The wife of Augustus did nothing to colour her hair or mask her wrinkles, and wore a stola simple enough to please even her luxury-hating husband, yet Livia projected an undeniable aura of privilege and power. Walking beside her, in an equally simple tunic, was her son, Claudius’s uncle, Tiberius, a robustly built man of middle age with a dour expression. By all accounts, Augustus intended to make Tiberius his heir, despite the fact that his stepson was not a blood relation.

Claudius and Lucius stepped to one side, but, instead of passing by, Livia and her son came to a stop before them. Claudius swallowed hard, then began to introduce Lucius, but he stuttered so badly that Livia cut him short with a wave of her hand.

“Never mind, grandson, I know who this is: young Lucius Pinarius.” She looked them up and down and raised an eyebrow. “Curious, that the two of you should still be wearing your trabeas from yesterday. Off to take the auspices, at this early hour? Or did you never go to bed? Yes, from the look of you, I think you’ve been up all night. But doing what? I wonder. Not celebrating, or else you’d smell of wine.”

She stared at Lucius, who was at a loss for an answer. The emperor had explicitly ordered them to speak of the omen to no one.

Livia seemed amused by his discomfort. “Can’t you see that I’m teasing you, young man? Nothing that happens in this house is a secret to me. I’m perfectly aware that lightning struck my husband’s statue last night, not once, but twice. While I’m amazed that he would entrust the interpretation of such an omen to the likes of you two, I’d be curious to know what you came up with. No answer? Ah, well, I shall simply ask him myself.”

Lucius glanced at Claudius. It was obvious that he lived in fear of his grandmother. Tiberius apparently did not frighten him as much, for Claudius dared to reach out and tap the sprig of laurel pinned to the man’s tunic.

“From last n-n-night, uncle? The storm is over and you need the laurel’s protection no longer. But I should think an atheist like yourself had no f-f-fear of lightning.” Claudius turned to Lucius. “Uncle Tiberius has no faith in the gods, and thus no belief in d-divination. If there are no gods, there is no point in trying to discern their will. Uncle Tiberius spurns augury. He puts his faith entirely in astrology.”

Tiberius looked at Claudius glumly. “That is correct, nephew. The stars decide when a man is born and when he dies, and the stars determine the course of his life. The logic is undeniable. Some mechanism unimaginably huge must control the movements of the stars, which in turn control our tiny lives. We mortals are many times removed from whatever primal force animates the cosmos.”

“Then the stars control humanity rather as the m-m-mechanism of a ballista controls the trajectory of its missile,” suggested Claudius, “or the cogs and gears of a water wheel control the m-m-movements of a leaf caught in the channel? Is that all we are, Uncle Tiberius, missiles hurtling through space, or leaves on a torrent?”

“Not bad metaphors, Claudius, especially for someone who believes lightning is an omen.” Tiberius sniggered and shook his head. “Only a fool or a child could believe that lightning is a weapon thrown down by some malicious giant in the clouds. Lightning is a natural phenomenon which occurs according to very precise, if very complicated, rules, just like the movement of the stars. I believe in science, Claudius, not superstition.”

Livia sighed, bored by the turn of the conversation. She took her son’s arm and indicated her desire to move on.

Claudius watched until they disappeared around a corner, gnashing his teeth. “There goes the next emperor.”

“Is it certain he’ll succeed Augustus?”

“There’s always a chance the old man will ch-ch-change his mind about Agrippa. He’s Augustus’s only surviving grandson, after all. And only two years older than you and me – young enough to enjoy a long reign. Agrippa’s banishment was Livia’s doing, I suspect: people who stand in her way have a habit of either dying or disappearing. Uncle Tiberius is the last man standing, so Tiberius is the heir apparent. It’s probably for the best. The bleeding wound of the German frontier is the biggest problem facing the empire right now, and Tiberius is a c-competent general, even if he is an atheist. I fear, Lucius, that our aptitude for divination will not serve us as well under the next emperor as it has under our present one.”

“Served us well? I don’t see how I’ve been well served by any of this!” Lucius snapped, suddenly feeling completely undone by lack of sleep and the strain of meeting the emperor’s demands. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “What if our prediction becomes known, and the emperor doesn’t die in a hundred days? I shall look like a fool!”

“N-n-ninety-nine days, actually-”

“And if he does die-”

“Then you shall look like a young fellow wise beyond his years.”

“Or will people hold us responsible for his death? What’s that old Etruscan saying? ‘Men blame the soothsayer’.”

“Oh, no, Lucius, if the emperor dies, it’s not you and me whom people will suspect.” Claudius glanced towards the spot where they had last seen Livia and Tiberius. “You might do well to take up a new study, Lucius. How much astrology do you think you can learn in n-ninety-nine days?”

“Perhaps, father, we should go to the Temple of Apollo on the Palatine and pray,” said Lucius.

By his careful reckoning, exactly 105 days had passed since lightning had struck the emperor’s statue. The date on which he and Claudius had predicted that Augustus would be taken by the gods had come and gone, but the accuracy of the prophecy was still uncertain. Augustus was away from Roma, and since news could arrive no faster than the pace of a quick horse, there was no way to know whether something had happened to Augustus or not.

But the latest news, which Lucius and his father went seeking in the Forum each day, was unsettling. Intending to journey to Beneventum, accompanying Tiberius partway on a mission to begin new military operations in Illyria, Augustus had fallen ill. He was said to be recuperating at his retreat on the island of Capri, suffering from a minor irregularity of the bowels. Again, today, Lucius and his father had come to the Forum, anxious for further news of the emperor’s condition.

“Prayer is to be commended,” said Lucius’s father. “But why the Temple of Apollo?”

“Because that was where this all began, the night of the storm.” Lucius recalled the uncanny premonition he had experienced just before Euphranor had come to summon Claudius.

“Ah, but what would we pray for?” His father lowered his voice and looked around. They were not far from the Temple of Vesta, on a busy stretch of the Sacred Way. Several Vestals were leaving the round temple with their attendants, and a group of senators in togas was nearby; some of them nodded and hailed the elder Pinarius before passing on. Father and son retreated to a more secluded spot on the far side of the Temple of Castor.

“As I was saying, son, for what would you have us pray? Surely not for the emperor’s death; that would be treason. Yet, if we pray that the emperor should not die in accordance with the omen, then are we not praying to thwart the will of the gods?”

Not for the first time, Lucius regretted confiding in his father. If anything, the elder Pinarius was more nervous than Lucius about the omen and its outcome. And had he not put his father in danger by telling him about the omen, against the emperor’s explicit orders? Yet, Lucius could hardly have borne the strain of waiting alone.

“Then let us pray for neither of those things, father. Let us pray for the well-being of the Roman state,” suggested Lucius.

“Ah, you remind me of your late grandfather!” said the elder Pinarius with a dry laugh. “The old man was a master at finding the middle path. You’re right, of course. We shall go to the Senate House and make an offering there.”

They crossed the Forum, walking past the massive buildings Augustus had erected to house the imperial bureaucracy. They passed the ancient speaker’s platform called the Rostra, decorated by captured-ships’ beaks, where the great orators of the Republic had harangued the voters of Roma. The Rostra was little used these days.

The Senate House was relatively new, having been begun by Julius Caesar just before his assassination and completed by Augustus. The exterior was quite austere compared to the elaborately coloured and decorated temples nearby. “I was present when the emperor dedicated this building,” recalled the elder Pinarius, “still a boy, not yet wearing my manly toga. I practically grew up here, watching debates with your grandfather, taking notes and carrying messages for him long before I became a senator myself.”

They ascended the steps and entered. In contrast to the exterior, the chamber was exquisitely finished. Gilded railings and plush red draperies divided the various spaces within the vast room. Polished marble adorned the walls and floors. Windows set high in the walls filled the lofty space with light. The Senate was not meeting on this day, but there were plenty of members about, idly conversing or tending to business with their secretaries. Under the autocratic rule of Augustus, the Senate still performed numerous bureaucratic functions. The continuing survival of the ancient institution helped to maintain the official fiction that Roma was still a republic, and the emperor was merely the first among equals, not the master of his fellow citizens but the devoted servant of all.

Lucius and his father approached the Altar of Victory. The altar itself was made of green marble adorned with elaborate carvings of laurel leaves. Looming beyond and above the altar was a towering statue of the goddess Victory, surrounded by a sampling of the spoils of war taken by Augustus. These displays were changed from time to time. On this day the spoils on exhibit included the iron prow of an Egyptian warship taken at Actium, fashioned in the shape of a crocodile’s head. There was also a selection of Queen Cleopatra’s royal jewellery, including a carnelian necklace, and one of the queen’s tall atef crowns made of ivory with inlays of gold and lapis.

The elder Pinarius began the ritual performed by every senator upon entering the chamber. He burned a bit of incense on the altar, poured a libation of wine, and recited a prayer. “Goddess, grant victory to Roma and defeat to her enemies. Watch over the empire which you delivered to Augustus. Protect Roma from all those who would cause her harm, whether from without or from within.”