Read Online RomanQuest by Herbie Brennan - Free Book Online

Patriae
    â€œFather of the Nation,” translates your Mercury phone respectfully, but not very usefully.
    â€œThere you are!” exclaims a voice so close that you almost drop your Sibylline Pass from the shock.
    You spin round and find yourself face to mad face with the Sibyl.
    â€œWhere on earth have you been?” she demands angrily. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere! Don’t you know what day this is? Don’t you know what time this is? Don’t you know Vesuvius is going to erupt at any second, according to the ancient prophetic scrolls?”
    â€œWhere have I been?” you gasp, astonished by her sheer brass neck. “I’ve been fighting my way out of the Roman Games and finding I’m in the wrong city at the wrong time, that’s where I’ve been, thanks to you and that stupid god you’ve got as your transport manager!”
    The Sibyl glances around her furtively. “Don’t call Jupiter stupid,” she whispers. “He doesn’t take kindly to disrespect. Has a habit of hurling thunderbolts.”
    â€œWhat else would you call him?” you hiss back angrily. “I’m miles and years from where I should be and so are you!”
    â€œHe gets distracted,” the Sibyl explains. “I expect it was a pretty girl - that’s usually his problem. But there’s no time to lodge a formal complaint. We have to get you back to the time of the first Caesar without delay otherwise Caligula’s parents will get together and our whole plan is down the aqueduct.”
    You frown. “Back to the time of Julius Caesar? Isn’t that a bit early?”
    The Sibyl looks at you blankly for a moment, then her brow clears. “Oh, no, you don’t understand. Julius was the first Caesar worth talking about, but the first Caesar wasn’t the first Caesar if you know what I mean.”
    You shake your head. “No.”
    â€œLet me put it this way,” says the Sibyl. “Most people in your time think of the Caesars as Emperors, don’t they?”
    â€œThe Caesars were Emperors, weren’t they?” you frown, thoroughly confused.
    â€œYes and no,” says the Sibyl, adding to your problems. “When Julius Caesar was dividing up Gaul and crossing the Rubicon and doing naughty things with Cleopatra, Rome was a Republic. Julius made himself so powerful he was very nearly an Emperor - he called himself Dictator for Settling the Constitution - but the nobles didn’t like that. That’s why they assassinated him.”
    â€œOn the Ides of March,” you put in.
    â€œ44 b.c.,” says the Sibyl nostalgically. “I remember it well.”
    â€œBut if Caesar wasn’t the first Caesar - Emperor - who was?” you ask a little desperately.
    â€œOctavian. Julius Caesar’s adopted son. That’s his statue you were admiring. Father of the Nation.”
    â€œI’ve never heard of an Emperor Octavian,” you tell her.
    The Sibyl smiles patiently. “That’s because he changed his name. He was still a teenager when Julius died, but he was a better politician than all the middle-aged Senators put together - and a far better general. In a few years he’d put down most of the opposition and after the Battle of Actium, Mark Antony committed suicide leaving Octavian the most powerful man in the whole Roman world. That was in 30 b.c. as I remember. Just three years later, on January 13, 27 b.c., the Senate gave him the name Augustus.”
    â€œJolly Good Fellow,” your Mercury phone translates.
    â€œSo Octavian became the Emperor Augustus!” you exclaim as light begins to dawn.
    â€œHe was called Imperator Caesar Augustus,” the Sibyl explains. “Those were his actual names, the same way you might have a friend called Jason Brian Brightman. But he was so highly thought of that all the later Emperors took the names as titles. Caesar was once just a family