[A Friend of Caesar by William Stearns Davis]@TWC D-Link bookA Friend of Caesar CHAPTER XI 1/31
The Great Proconsul I The plot was foiled.
Drusus was unquestionably safe.
So long as Flaccus had the affidavits of Phaon's confession and the depositions of the captured gladiators stored away in his strong-box, neither Lucius Ahenobarbus nor the ever versatile Pratinas would be likely to risk a new conspiracy--especially as their intended victim had carefully drawn up a will leaving the bulk of his property to Titus Mamercus and AEmilia.
Drusus had no near relatives, except Fabia and Livia; unless the Ahenobarbi were to be counted such; and it pleased him to think that if aught befell him the worthy children of his aged defender would acquire opulence. But after the excitement was over, after Phaon had been brought up from the inn at Gabii to Praeneste, and there had the truth wormed out of him by the merciless cross-examination of Curio and Flaccus; after the freedman had been suffered to depart with a warning and threat to his prompters, after the captured gladiators had been crucified along the roadway leading toward Rome, and the wreck left in the atrium of the villa caused by the attack had been cleared away,--after all this, then the reaction came.
Drusus, indeed, found that though the sun shone bright, its brightness was not for him.
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