He had learned the art of war in no gentle school.

He had ceased even so much as to grumble inwardly at the hardships endured by the hard-pressed Caesarian army.

The campaign was not going well.

Pompeius had broken through the blockade; and now the two armies had been executing tedious manoeuvres, fencing for a vantage-ground before joining pitched battle.
Drusus was exceedingly weary.

The events of the past two years,--loves, hates, pleasures, perils, battles,--all coursed through his mind; the fairest and most hideous of things were blended into buzzing confusion; and out of that confusion came a dull consciousness that he, Quintus Drusus, was thoroughly weary of everything and anything--was heavy of heart, was consumed with hatred, was chafing against a hundred barriers of time, space, and circumstance, and was utterly impotent to contend against them.
The Imperator--how he loved and adored him! Through all the campaigning nothing could seem to break the strength of that nervous, agile, finely strung physique.