Even the blood of a brother must flow if it is for the good of the state intrusted to us.

My nurse had taught me that being good meant doing unto others as we would be done by; Cilo cried to me: 'Strike down, that you may not be struck down--away with mercy, if the welfare of the state is threatened!' And how many hands are raised against Rome, the universal empire, which I rule over! It needs a strong hand to keep its antagonistic parts together.

Otherwise it would fall apart like a bundle of arrows when the string that bound them is broken.

And I, even as a boy, had sworn to my father, by the Terminus stone in the Capitol, never to abandon a single inch of his ground without fighting for it.

He, Severus, was the wisest of the rulers.