A chill wind blew down from the Brindabellum Mountains and over
Capittaline Hill as footsteps echoed across the Forum in the pale light of
the long-awaited dawn Wrapping her cloak tightly around her, Julia Caesar
shivered. How had it all gone so horribly wrong?
She gazed up at the statue of her illustrious predecessor, Bennelongus
Imperium. Relaxum and Comfortabilis was his motto. How ordinary these
words now looked, etched in stone and covered in bird poop. Yet, she now
realised, they possibly represented the greatest triumph any leader could
achieve?
Passing the vomitorium, she could hear squeals of delight and faint
laughter intermingled with sounds of dry-retching and puking. No doubt,
she thought to herself, Slipperius was down there in his black toga
regurgitating his cab charges.
Where on earth, she wondered, did he go on all those long journeys? And
what debauchery went on in the back of those chariots that had so depleted
the imperial coffers?
Swiftly walking past the Unionatis Hospitalis, she shuddered at the
thought of her favoured son, the handsome Dobellius, taking tithes off the
lowly slaves who toiled to clean soiled bed-sheets while he cavorted in
the Via Bordello.
She turned abruptly, certain she could hear someone following her.
Treachery and subterfuge swirled around her, clothed in darkness. Her
enemies were everywhere, plotting, waiting for the right moment to strike.
But she knew she could defeat them all, she was certain of that. " They
may have knives", she thought to herself, "but they are as nothing
compared to my formidable political skills, my acute sense of timing, my
renowned judgment, my phenomenal ability to communicate with the masses
and my mesmerising vocal skills.” Her enemies didn't stand a chance!
But still, that nagging feeling kept creeping back: where on earth was
Kevino Septimus?
One by one she mentally ticked off her foes. There was Minimus Shortus,
the diminutive former slavemaster who had recently taken to mocking her in
the Forum. "Whatever the Empress says, I support" he had proclaimed to
roars of laughter from the crowds, "even though I have no idea what it is
she said."
More cunning was Praaetor Smith, with his cash-starved armies outside the
city walls in the Fields of Duntroon. For 18 months he had patiently
waited for the moment to strike, like an adder in the grass.
And what of Senator Carcero, the great orator with the booming voice, who
as tribune of Nova South Walesium had razed it to the ground with his
Punic land tax while entertaining the proletariat with extravagant Games
in his specially built colosseum?
How smart had it been to let him back into the Senate? Had his ambitions
been sated? Still on travels to distant lands, imposing Roman law on the
Fijians, she was relieved she had sent him far away.
She turned to look at the foundation stones of the Basilica Juia, where
her statue was being built, a magnificent testimony to her legacy,
emblazed with her own epithet: Nos sunt nobis: we are us. It would be the
largest statue in Rome. After all, wasn't her most towering achievement,
the introduction of the Carbonara Tax, a 23 dinar levy on all pasta
production, a triumphant political victory that future generations would
honour her for?
Most dangerous of all, she knew, were those closest to her. Such as
Quastor Waynium Swannus, the man she trusted more than any other with the
regulation of marketplaces. His day of glory was fast approaching, when he
would trick the plebeians by showering them with surplus bread and
treasure. She felt an icy chill run down her spine. Somehow, she couldn't
help thinking, whenever a leader was overthrown it was he who was always
left standing.
Or Gregorius Combatus? A soldier of fortune who'd made his name all those
years ago, fighting injustice among the patrician galley-owners. He was
now chief priest of the goddess Gaia, a powerful position from whence he
could scrutinise the entrails. What had they really told him about her
future? Even old Creaanus, could she really trust him?
She stopped to listen, certain someone was close by. She froze as she
heard the serpentine hiss of steel being drawn from leather. "Julia!" a
voice whispered behind her. She spun around and couldn't believe her eye.
"You?" she said. "What on earth are you...? But already it was too late.
Rowan Dean, who wrote this brilliant piece, is an Australian Financial
Review columnist..
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Moses said to the children of Israel …
"Pick up your shovels, mount your asses and camels, and I will lead you to
the Promised Land."
Whitlam said to the people of Australia?
Put down your shovels, sit on your asses, and light up a Camel, this is
the Promised Land."
Today, Gillard has Stolen your shovel, taxed your asses, put camels in plain packaging, and
mortgaged the Promised Land!
Keep it nice, I might cry if you write anything upsetting (like not)
