Those dressed, like their host, in purple-bordered togas and red sandals made up the bulk of the assembly: Roman senators, they had come to witness the birth of a child to Lucius Falerius Nerva, one of the leading men of the city-state, and by their presence to affirm their allegiance to both the man and his cause. Lesser mortals filled the atrium, intent on laying claim to a share of his gratitude that the gods should bless him so, a share in the power the Falerii could command in these troubled times. In the streets of Rome, just a few feet away, few men dared to walk alone; the city was split into warring factions, as the ill-bred supporters of Livonius fought the Senate for control of the most potent state the world had ever known.

Tiberius Livonius, plebeian tribune, was bent on forcing his reforms through the assembly, the Comita Tribalis; acts that appealed to the basest sectors of Roman society, an alteration to the voting qualifications that would spread authority through the ranks of the thirty-five tribes, so even the meanest, ill-bred member would stand on a level with the richest and most aristocratic. Patrician nobles, members of the oldest and most illustrious families, like Lucius Falerius and those assembled to witness this birth, opposed such moves with all the considerable energy at their command. For such people power could only be entrusted to men of quality and wealth — anything else was a surrender to the mob.

They had stood quietly, faces set, just like the death masks of the Falerii ancestors that lined the walls, sweating in their uncomfortable garments while out of sight the midwives worked diligently in the bedchamber, muttering incantations for the intercession of Lucina, the Goddess of Childbirth. Each invited guest had stoically ignored the cries of Lucius’s wife, Ameliana, as she struggled, strapped in to her special delivery chair, to bring forth the child; that was in the nature of things and not a cause for comment.