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not coming,” Tiberius said, “at least not right away. There has been much panic since word of the disaster broke out. Augustus feels that you’d be best suited staying back to calm the masses for the time being.”
    “My place is with you, uncle,” Germanicus protested. “My place is with my men.”
    “Your place is where the Emperor tells you it is .” Tiberius snapped.
    Germanicus looked crestfallen. Tiberius was a hard, practical man, but he was not entirely unsympathetic. He remembered what it was like to be left behind on an important campaign. In his case, it had been the campaign where his beloved brother died. Oh yes, he understood how his nephew felt. He suddenly felt the need to console the young man who had served him so well in the past.
    “Germanicus, I know your quality as a soldier and as a leader of men. You have learned your lessons, both in study and on the battlefield. I dare say you rival your father as a tactician.”
    Germanicus smiled at the compliment.
    “I also know,” Tiberius continued, “that you have a way with the people of the city. They look to you for inspiration and guidance. The Emperor, while dearly loved, is an old man. He is tired. He looks to the young to breathe life and hope back into the city. You alone can do that. You have the gift. It is the gift many lack, to include myself.”
    Tiberius, while a capable administrator with strong ethics and principles, lacked the ability to convey these to the public. He was seen as a bitter, spiteful individual, preferring solitude over companionship. This , of course, was an exaggeration brought on by the gossips. His closest companions were philosophers and scholars, and that damned astrologer of his. At forty-nine, he was still in amazing health, though his face bore the scars of acne and his body the ravages of war. Drusus, his late brother and the father of Germanicus, had been a good-looking and charming young man with the same gift for words that his son now possessed. The force of his aura and personality could inspire even the bleakest of souls to do great things. He had been adored by the public and was loved like a father by his men. And he had been one of the few people Tiberius, himself, ever truly loved. While he did possess a certain fondness for his own son, also named Drusus, for some reason the feelings just didn’t run as deep as they should have between a father and son.
    Besides his brother, only two other people in his life were loved. The first was his father, divorced by his mother while she was pregnant with his brother. He died when Tiberius was still a boy. The other was his now ex-wife, Vipsania, whom Augustus forced him to divorce years ago. Tiberius had then been forced into a loveless marriage with Augustus’ daughter, Julia. That was amongst the prices he had had to pay in order to ensure his succession, and it was something he would always regret. In reality, Tiberius had no desire to be Emperor. He was especially bitter that he was selected to be Emperor by default, every potential successor having died a very premature death. Yet, in spite of everything, he still loved Rome. The city and the empire were in his soul. And though he had no desire to rule the known world, he truly felt he was the one most capable of it, and therefore obligated to take the reins of power. He knew he would serve Rome until his dying day.
    In his heart, he wished that years ago he ’d had the courage to tell Augustus what he could do with that whore of a daughter of his. The result would have been forced retirement from public service; no longer would he have been able to serve Rome. And, of course, there was the possibility of banishment. That he could have handled, for at least he would have still been with Vipsania, and perhaps he could have been a more active father in their son’s life. It was the one time he truly felt he had been a coward. But sadly, he could not undo the past. Vipsania remarried. Julia had been