I have a new fencing school in which perhaps we may find a few _threces_[153] and _retiarii_,[154] who will give some tolerable sword and net play." [152] President of the games.
[153] Buckler and cutlass men.
[154] Net and trident men.
"_Hei!_" groaned Curio, with a lugubrious whisper, "to think of it, I have never a sesterce left that I can call my own, to stake on the struggle!" "At least," laughed Drusus, "I am a companion of your grief; already Lentulus and Ahenobarbus have been sharing my forfeited estate." But the proconsul looked serious and sad.
"_Vah_, my friends! Would that I could say that your loyalty to my cause would cost you nothing! It is easy to promise to win back for you everything you have abandoned, but as the poets say, 'All that lies in the lap of the gods.' But you shall not be any longer the mere recipients of my bounty.

Stern work is before us.

I need not ask you if you will play your part.

You, Curio, shall have a proper place on my staff of legates as soon as I have enough troops concentrated; but you, my dear Drusus, what post would best reward you for your loyalty?
Will you be a military tribune, and succeed your father ?" "Your kindness outruns your judgment, Imperator," replied Drusus.
"Save repelling Dumnorix and Ahenobarbus, I never struck a blow in anger.

Small service would I be to you, and little glory would I win as an officer, when the meanest legionary knows much that I may learn." "Then, amice," said Caesar, smiling, perhaps with the satisfaction of a man who knows when it is safe to make a gracious offer which he is aware will not be accepted, though none the less flattering, "if you will thus misappraise yourself, you shall act as centurion for the present, on my corps of _praetoriani_,[155] where you will be among friends and comrades of your father, and be near my person if I have any special need of you." [155] General's body-guard of picked veterans.
Drusus proffered the best thanks he could; it was a great honour--one almost as great as a tribuneship, though hardly as responsible; and he felt repaid for all the weariness of his desperate ride to Ravenna.
And then, with another of those strange alternations of behaviour, Caesar led him and Curio off to inspect the fencing-school; then showed them his favourite horse, pointed out its peculiar toelike hoofs, and related merrily how when it was a young colt, a soothsayer had predicted that its owner would be master of the world, and how he--Caesar,--had broken its fiery spirit, and made it perfectly docile, although no other man could ride the beast.
The afternoon wore on.