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Augustus had commanded sufficient authority to bend whole nations to his will. But at that moment Lucius saw only a little old man with rotten teeth, unkempt straw-colored hair, tufts of hair in his nostrils, and bushy eyebrows that met above his nose.
    Eye to eye with the ruler of the world, Lucius was buoyed by a curious sense of confidence, remembering the premonition he had experienced in the Temple of Apollo that something very important was about to happen.
    “Shall I send him away, Great-Uncle?” said Claudius.
    Augustus stared at Lucius, so long and hard that Lucius’s confidence began to waver. The old man finally spoke.
    “No. Young Lucius Pinarius may stay. He is an augur now, is he not? And his ancestors were among the very first augurs in Roma. A Pinarius accompanied Romulus when he took the auspices, and before that the Pinarii were keepers of the people’s first shrine, the Great Altar of Hercules. The state assumed that duty over three hundred years ago; perhaps I should return the Great Altar to the hereditary keeping of the Pinarii. Reviving ancient traditions is pleasing to the gods. And he is a blood relation, for whatever that’s worth. Perhaps, Lucius Pinarius, the gods themselves delivered you here to me tonight.”
    Lucius averted his eyes, humbled by the emperor’s scrutiny. He stared at the mosaics above them.
    “Images from the life of Romulus, as you no doubt perceive,” explained Augustus. “The chamber in which we stand is the Lupercale, the sacred cave where the foundling twins Romulus and Remus were suckled by the she-wolf. I myself discovered the cave when the foundations for this house were being laid, and under my directions it’s been decorated as a sacred shrine.”
    “The mosaics are exquisite,” said Lucius.
    “Yes. There you see the twins suckled by the she-wolf, and there, the rescue of Remus by his brother, the slaying of King Amulius and the taking of his iron crown. There, the sighting of the vultures, and Romulus plowing a furrow to mark the city boundaries. There, the first triumphal procession, and the king’s ascent to the heavens during a thunderstorm.”
    Lucius nodded. He recalled something Claudius had told him, that the emperor had considered taking the name Romulus as a title, rather thanAugustus, but ultimately rejected the name as unlucky; Romulus murdered his brother, after all, and though legend said that Romulus was taken alive by the gods to Olympus, some historians believed he was murdered by conspiring senators.
    “Of course, one cannot take the legends too literally,” Claudius noted, pointing to the image of the suckling she-wolf. “My tutor Titus Livius says that our ancestors used the same word,
lupa,
to mean either a she-wolf or a whore. Livius suggests that the twins may have been raised not by a wild beast but by a common prostitute.”
    “Don’t be impious, nephew!” snapped Augustus, and seemed about to say more when a crack of thunder shook the room. The emperor frantically reached for the sealskin amulet he wore on a chain around his neck. “Even here, so deep under ground, the earth shakes!” he whispered. “Is it possible the house has been struck by lightning two times in one night?” His rheumy eyes flashed with something Lucius could only interpret as fear.
    “Why did you s-s-summon us, Great-Uncle?” asked Claudius quietly.
    “I’ll show you now—though to do so, we’ll have to leave the safety of the Lupercale.” Augustus frowned, then braced himself and led the way up the stairs, taking them slowly. Euphranor was waiting for them at the top of the steps. At Augustus’s order, the freedman brought each of them a torch to carry.
    “When you see the omen, Claudius, you’ll understand why no one else must know of this. No one!” Augustus turned to Lucius. “Do you understand as well, young man? Any omen that regards my person is a state secret and must never be divulged. There’s no telling how it might be used by