CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Rome.
The largest city in the empire. Almost a million strong with a population increasing dramatically.
Spread out and rolling across the seven hills bracing the southeastern banks of the Tiber, the city was becoming a magnificent vision of imperial power. Of the seven sacred hills, Caesar Augustus, like so many others of the nobility, lived on the Palatine. In the early morning light just after dawn, standing at the railing of one of the several courtyards which surrounded the house, his eyes took in the thousands of cooking fires originating from the various apartment dwellings, street vendors, and villas lifting columns of smoke into the hot, humid air. Even here, standing in one of the many gardens of the magnificent residence, the aromas of the city assaulted his
