We dressed hurriedly in some apprehension. One does in such circumstances. No one likes to be caught naked when there is danger of sword-play. My mind was full of all that I had heard and read of the proscriptions in the struggle between Sulla and Marius; how Julius himself had nearly lost his life then, for, said Sulla, 'in that young man there are many Mariuses.' I could not be certain that the slave who had brought the message was not the precursor of those who had constituted themselves my enemies as well as Julius's. I was his next-of-kin; it would make sense to dispose of me. I was indeed prudent to have such fears, for my death would have been an act of prudence on their part.

They should have killed me. I wonder when they realized that themselves. It is known that they regretted not putting Antony to death at the same time as my uncle. Cassius, wise man, wished to do so. The ostentatiously virtuous Marcus Brutus over-ruled him. The truth is, there was never so thoughtless a conspiracy. They imagined, these self-styled Liberators, these besotted idealists, these disgruntled fools, that if they killed Julius, the Republic would resume its old stability of its own accord. They were futile men, without foresight.

That night in Illyria Agrippa organized a guard for me, alert to our peril. I had gone out before the crowd and stilled their tumult. To express grief for Julius, I tore my clothes (Maecenas having first thoughtfully run a knife along the seam). I begged the crowd, whose grief I knew to be as great as mine – they liked that assurance – to go home and leave me to mourn. To my surprise it worked. They were a poor lot and even more confused than I was myself. 'Well,' I said to Maecenas when we were alone.

He stopped plucking his eyebrows, a task he would normally have left to a slave.

'Well,' I said, 'I am head of the family. Julius had no other heir. I am almost his adopted son.'