The Rubicon I It was growing late, but the proconsul apparently was manifesting no impatience.

All the afternoon he had been transacting the routine business of a provincial governor--listening to appeals to his judgment seat, signing requisitions for tax imposts, making out commissions, and giving undivided attention to a multitude of seeming trifles.

Only Decimus Mamercus, the young centurion,--elder son of the veteran of Praeneste,--who stood guard at the doorway of the public office of the praetorium, thought he could observe a hidden nervousness and a still more concealed petulance in his superior's manner that betokened anxiety and a desire to be done with the routine of the day.
Finally the last litigant departed, the governor descended from the curule chair, the guard saluted as he passed out to his own private rooms, and soon, as the autumn darkness began to steal over the cantonment, nothing but the call of the sentries broke the calm of the advancing night.
Caesar was submitting to the attentions of his slaves, who were exchanging his robes of state for the comfortable evening _synthesis_.
But the proconsul was in no mood for the publicity of the evening banquet.

When his chief freedman announced that the invited guests had assembled, the master bade him go to the company and inform them that their host was indisposed, and wished them to make merry without him.
The evening advanced.

Twice Caesar touched to his lips a cup of spiced wine, but partook of nothing else.