Cholon knew that lesser men, enmeshed in the dirty world of politics, sneered derisively at what they saw as his master’s arrogance. They would hold that a senator and ex-consul showed insufficient gravitas when he discarded his home, his responsibilities, his friends, even his toga on such an occasion, but the general who had humbled the heirs of Alexander the Great and brought powerful Macedonia to heel, so that it was now a vassal-state to the Roman Republic, could ignore and withstand the disapproval of anyone. His family was as ancient as any in Rome: the death masks of his ancestors stood proud in their decorated cupboards. These lined the walls of the family chapel in the home of the Cornelii on the Palatine Hill, situated right above the broad avenue of the Via Triumphalis.

Had he been in that chapel and sensed the disapproval of those ancestors at this clandestine birth, he would have looked at their masks with disdain. Aulus Cornelius Macedonicus was the greatest of his tribe, the foremost exemplar of the family Genius. His mask, on his death, would take pride of place above the family altar when future generations gathered for prayers. He prized his reputation as much as the next man, just as he felt keenly the need to maintain his honour, yet he would not see another suffer to retain that, especially one he loved. He could not bear that his wife should be shamed in public for something he held to be entirely his own fault.

Marcia, feeling nervous, stifled a yawn as she sat watching the nameless woman cradle the child to her breast, encouraging it to feed, but the infant, having already taken its fill, did not respond. Occasionally the lady moaned, exactly reproducing the sounds she had uttered in labour through the tooth-marked leather strap, now discarded.