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Perhaps the women of Rome could save her after all.

Three hundred senators sat on benches inside the Curia Julia, split into two sides with the open floor between them. They murmured and muttered, coughed and cleared their throats, awaiting the arrival of Marcellus. The noise formed a burbling bubble of sound, slightly muffled and faraway, as Claudia stood in silence before them.

‘How much longer?’ one man grumbled.

‘He isn’t making a very good first impression.’

‘Maybe he’s engaged in more important matters.’

‘More important than the Senate?’

At the far end of the room was the Altar of Victory: a statue of the goddess Victoria standing on a globe, holding out a wreath with her wings spread wide. She symbolized victory in war. The altar had been installed by Augustus to celebrate his victory at the Battle of Actium.

‘Perhaps we should begin?’ said Damocles reluctantly.

He looked at Claudia, but just then the internal doors clattered noisily as Marcellus burst in.

‘Apologies for my uncharacteristic lateness,’ he said, trailing soldiers and imperial cultists. ‘I spent the morning going from door to door, speaking to the people of Rome about their concerns for the future.’

That rotten liar.

‘More like he was out cold after pissing away the night,’ said Gia, under her breath. ‘You should expose him.’

‘I don’t think the senators will look well on me telling tales,’ Claudia said. ‘Marcellus will just say I had a party of my own, albeit a less successful one.’

It was obvious from her cousin’s slightly dishevelled appearance that he was recovering from drunkenness, although drunkenness was not a hurdle to the position, if her father was anything to go by.

If she had turned up like this, she’d never have heard the end of it, but no one commented on Marcellus. Unfair as it was, she’d have to best him on the merit of her argument instead.

Her cousin stalked onto the floor, walking past Claudia with only the barest of acknowledgements. He smiled confidently and parted his arms with the broad span of a mediocre man who has no doubt in his mind about his own brilliance. Whether he was qualified and deserving of the role didn’t even seem to enter his mind. He was assured of his own potential, in the absence of any evidence, and that in itself was a strength.

‘I’m ready to share my grand vision for the empire. Senators, are you ready?’ he said.

‘The floor is yours. The Senate is listening,’ said Damocles.

As gracefully as she could manage, Claudia shuffled back to the edge of the room, where Gia and the others were standing in shadows, including the female cultists. Gia gave her a supportive, sympathetic look, but that only made her feel more pitiful.

‘Rome is already great,’ began Marcellus, his booming voice echoing, ‘but… what if it could be greater?’

Later, Claudia would struggle to recall much of what he’d said. Her mind had wandered wildly, rehearsing her own speech in preparation, but she knew Marcellus’s speech contained many grandiose plans for even bigger buildings with even more gold on them.

‘Greatness means always striving for more,’ he said. ‘Greatness does not sit on its laurels and say, “we have enough”. No. Greatness is about thinking bigger, further, wider, stronger.’

It was a lot of empty promises of unnecessary construction, but it sounded suitably impressive, enough to earn him waves of nods from senators on the front benches.

He promised better games, better races, better chariots, better walls, better spas, better roads, better soldiers, even better slaves. Everything would be superior under his reign, though he didn’t explain in detail how these things would be achieved.

Nevertheless, he had the air of a man who was already emperor and didn’t need to explain himself to plebians. He believed himself great, and thus he was.

Claudia could feel it. The future was slipping away from her.

‘Our armies will continue to dominate Germania and Britannia, and prevent the advance of the barbarians. The future of western civilization is at stake. We shall continue to lead the world in knowledge and technology. If Rome is strong, then so is mankind.’

His plan to expand the British invasion caused several of the senators to whisper in alarm, including the senator who had attended her gathering the night prior, but Senators Tacitus and Thelonius were convincing the men around them to support her cousin’s claim and his plan to push the boundaries of Rome even further. And Marcellus was accompanied by General Aquinas. If the military stood against her, the battle was already lost. It was over, and Marcellus had won.

‘We cannot be led by a sheltered child,’ Marcellus said. ‘One who has never known war.’

He looked at Claudia pointedly. She wanted to protest but she clamped her jaw instead, her hands clutching at the sides of her robes. She would wait her turn.