I have no doubt, my friend, that you, with your stern, if antique, ideas of Republican virtue, both deplore and despise Narcissus and all that he represented. I shall take no issue with you there; beyond remarking that he was evidently a man of some capacity. Now that, in exile, I care nothing for lineage, I can say what I would once have been ashamed to utter: that I find more satisfaction in being in reality the son of the capable, though ruthless and corrupt, Narcissus than of the feeble Scaurus whose name I bear and of whose ancestors I used to boast.

Of course I didn't for years know my true paternity. My mother – a woman of strong character – burst out with it in one of our many quarrels. I have no doubt that she spoke the truth, if only because Narcissus was long dead by then, and rumours of her association with him could have brought her nothing but disgrace. Her admission gave me a weapon, which subsequently I did not scruple to use against her. She was stern, harsh-judging woman. Yet I adored her in youth when her beauty seemed to me to rival that of Venus herself.

You will understand the relevance of my confession to your inquiry, for you must know that it was by the patronage of Narcissus that Vespasian rose from obscurity, obtaining first the command of a legion, then sharing the glory of the conquest of Britain, where he subdued the whole Island of Wight, subsequently being rewarded with triumphal decorations and a consulship. Without Narcissus, Vespasian would, in his middle forties, have been a retired officer of no consequence, subsisting on half-pay, and farming on a contemptibly small scale. It is indeed not by merit alone that men rise in our degenerate world!