Morning at last broke on the final day of the gladiator tournament, and with its coming the whole of Rome seemed to hold its breath. A peculiar, electric hush clung to the city — not the ordinary hum of market stalls and cartwheels, but the taut silence that precedes a storm. The sunlight crawled over terracotta roofs and gilded eaves, but it did little to warm the tenseness that had settled into the streets.
Before the day had truly begun, legions of soldiers were already in motion. Men in Caesar's livery — not merely the city watch, but the slender, efficient core of his personal army — ran along paved roads and threaded between colonnades, taking up posts where they would be least expected and yet most effective. They numbered in the thousands; their presence was an assertion more than protection. They were all his men, bound by oath and favor to a single will. Where they gathered, the shape of power gathered with them.
