Rush not too quickly after fame; only with age comes the strength to pay the price thereof." Drusus was half wondering at, half admiring, the unconscious comparison the proconsul was drawing between himself and Alexander.
But Caesar went on:-- "But you, O Drusus, have not dealt honestly with me, in that you have failed to tell that which lies nearest your heart, and which you consider the pivot of all your present life." Drusus flushed.

"Doubtless, your excellency will pardon a young man for speaking with diffidence on a subject, to recollect which is to cause pain." Caesar put off the half-careless air of the good-natured wit, which he had been affecting.
"Quintus Livius Drusus," and as he spoke, his auditor turned as if magnetized by his eye and voice, and hung on every word, "be not ashamed to own to me, of all men, that you claim a good woman's love, and for that love are ready to make sacrifice." And as if to meet a flitting thought in the other's mind, Caesar continued:-- "No, blush not before me, although the fashionable world of Rome will have its stories.

I care not enough for such gossip to take pains to say it lies.

But this would I have declared, when at your age, and let all the world hear, that I, Caius Caesar, loved honourably, purely, and worthily; and for the sake of that love would and did defy death itself." The proconsul's pale face flushed with something very akin to passion; his bright eyes were more lustrous than ever.
"I was eighteen years old when I married Cornelia, the daughter of Cinna, the great leader of the 'Populares.' Sulla, then dictator, ordered me to put her away.

Cornelia had not been the wife of my father's choice.