- [Pullo and Octavian are interrogating Evander]
- Gaius Octavian: Evander, move forward. Your life is over. The only question is, how do you want to die?
- [Evander hesitates, but keeps silent]
- Gaius Octavian: We need to hear the truth. If you persist in lying to us, we'll torture you. You'll die only after many hours of agony and horror. You give us honesty now, and you'll go swiftly, painlessly.
- Evander Pulchio: Please!
- Gaius Octavian: Evander, tell the truth.
- [Evander hesitates, but keeps silent]
- Gaius Octavian: Torture him.
- Titus Pullo: Juno's a cunt, but you're salty! And I was worried about bringing you!
- Gaius Octavian: Go on, then.
- Titus Pullo: [Hesitates] I've never actually tortured anyone. I don't know how.
- Gaius Octavian: You don't know how?
- Titus Pullo: They have specialists!
- Gaius Octavian: Why not cut of his thumbs?
- Titus Pullo: That's good enough. It's a start.
- [On Caesar and Servilia's affair]
- Gaius Octavian: Calm yourself, mother. You're over-reacting. Who cares who he beds, it is trivial.
- Atia of the Julii: You take after your father, simple as milk - and it isn't "trivial", if Caesar were not in bed with that witch he'd be chasing down Pompey - they republic is at stake!
- Gaius Octavian: Since when do *you* care about the republic?
- Atia of the Julii: I care *deeply* about the republic.
- Gaius Octavian: It would not be wise to interfere with this...
- Atia of the Julii: Of course! It doesn't matter away; affairs like these tend to ruin themselves anyway.
- Gaius Julius Caesar: They say slaves talk of bravery as fish talk of flying.
- Posca: They say that, do they? How very witty of them.
- Titus Pullo: Maybe I won't go back to camp. My time's nearly done anyway.
- Lucius Vorenus: Leave the 13th? Why?
- Titus Pullo: [hesitates] You did.
- Lucius Vorenus: You're not me, you've no talent for peace.
- Gaius Julius Caesar: You'll remain here with the 13th to keep the peace.
- Mark Antony: Keep the peace?
- Gaius Julius Caesar: The city will be in your charge. I'll leave Posca to assist you.
- Mark Antony: That's ridiculous. I'm a soldier, not a peacekeeper.
- Mark Antony: Poor sad wretch gives everything you ask for. The Senate will ratify your status. You get your triumph, stand for consul, and Pompey will retire to Spain. He'd suck Posca's cock if you asked him to.
- Gaius Julius Caesar: Too generous by far. I never thought Pompey would accept such terms.
- Mark Antony: You think it's a strategem?
- Gaius Julius Caesar: I doubt it. He and what few forces he has are trapped and grow weaker by the day. We might crush him at will. But now that he has offered truce, I would look like the worst sort of tyrant if I attack him. Posca here thinks I should accept. Make peace.
- Mark Antony: In exchange for what?
- Posca: Peace is its own reward.
- Mark Antony: Snivelry! The ram has touched the wall! No mercy!
- Posca: Pompey has no great army, but he has the Senate with him. He has legitimacy.
- Mark Antony: In Rome they are the Senate. Beyond these walls they're just three hundred old men.
- Gaius Julius Caesar: As you say Anthony. But others will agree with Posca. They have made this shameful surrender public. It will be read throughout Italy. If I am not a tyrant. If I merely seek legitimacy then why would I not accept such favorable terms?
- Posca: [Perusing Pompey's surrender] He refuses to meet us in person?
- Gaius Julius Caesar: [thinking] Very good. Simple. Hoi polloi can understand a reason like that. He refuses to meet me face to face, man to man.
- [in mock anger]
- Gaius Julius Caesar: He refuses to meet me!
- Mark Antony: [laughing] Right. That's it. No truce. Let's be after him.
- [begins to leave]
- Gaius Julius Caesar: Patience. He's well caught. We'll leave when the time is right.
- Mark Antony: When?
- Gaius Julius Caesar: When the time is right.
- Mark Antony: But we should have left Rome long ago. The apple is ripe for plucking and we sit here doing nothing?
- Gaius Julius Caesar: Pompey's not an apple. And I am not a farmer.
- Titus Pullo: I've seen you kill. There's plenty of soldier in you.
- Gaius Octavian: It's not the killing. It is the waving about of swords I find tedious. I dare say I can kill people readily enough, as long as they're not fighting back.
- Servilia of the Junii: Gods of the Junii, with this offering I ask you to summon Tyche, Megaera and Nemesis, so that they witness this curse. By the spirits of my ancestors, I curse Gaius Julius Caesar. Let his penis wither. Let his bones crack. Let him see his legions drown in their own blood. Gods of the inferno, I offer to you his limbs, his head, his mouth, his breath, his speech, his hands, his liver, his heart, his stomach. Gods of the inferno, let me see him suffer deeply, and I will rejoice and sacrifice to you.
- [Long pause]
- Servilia of the Junii: By the spirits of my ancestors, I curse Atia of the Julii. Let dogs rape her. Let her children die and her houses burn. Let her live a long life of bitter misery and shame. Gods of the inferno, I offer to you her limbs, her head, her mouth, her breath, her speech, her heart, her liver, her stomach. Gods of the inferno, let me see her suffer deeply, and I will rejoice and sacrifice to you.
- Gaius Octavian Caesar: This is absurd. I have no soldiery stuff in me, and this exertion brings on a fever. I feel it in my spleen.
- Titus Pullo: You're just not used to it. It takes time. I've seen you kill. There's plenty of soldier in you.
- Gaius Octavian Caesar: It's not the killing. It's the waving about of swords I find tedious. I dare say I can kill people readily enough as long as they're not fighting back.
- Titus Pullo: Never fear young Dominus. We'll make a regular terror of you.
- Gaius Octavian Caesar: At best I'll be a middling swordsman.
- Titus Pullo: It's better than nothing.
- Gaius Octavian Caesar: There you are wrong. The graveyards are full of middling swordsmen. Best not to be a swordsman at all than a middling swordsman.
- [Pompey dictates a response to Caesar's peace terms]
- Pompey Magnus: "My dear friend Gaius, how are we come to this absurd position? In the interests of peace and equity, I accept - "
- Marcus Tullius Cicero: "The Senate and People of Rome have authorized me to accept."
- Pompey Magnus: "... the Senate and People of Rome have authorized me to accept a truce - "
- Scipio: No, not "truce." That would imply that he is a sovereign rather than a criminal entity.
- Porcius Cato: Quite right. A criminal.
- Pompey Magnus: "... have authorized me to accept a cessation of hostilities on the terms offered in your last letter. I await your answer."
- Marcus Tullius Cicero: Good enough.
- Porcius Cato: Good enough? This abject humiliation is good enough? We're not men, we're worms.
- Marcus Tullius Cicero: "Worms" is harsh. Worms cannot run away as speedily as we do. Caesar has not even left Rome - gods know why not - yet his legions chase us from town to town with great ease. We're more like sheep than worms.
- Titus Pullo: Young Dominus... I need your advice on a delicate matter, if you'd be willing.
- Gaius Octavian: I am.
- Titus Pullo: Suppose you saw something which made you suspect something. Something terrible. Would you tell the husband of the suspicious article?
- Gaius Octavian: Suppose suspicion of what?
- [Pullo leans in and whispers conspiratorially]
- Titus Pullo: Another man.
- Gaius Octavian: Ah. We are speaking of Vorenus and his wife, I presume.
- Titus Pullo: I never said that.
- Gaius Octavian: It seems to me that suspicion alone is not enough to speak. Once spoken out, the suspicion of such depravity is real enough to do the work of truth. And what if you are mistaken? Then Vorenus is dishonored by error. Facts are necessary. Without facts, you must remain silent.
- [Pullo smiles]
- Titus Pullo: I knew you'd hit the jugular.
- [annoyed by a henchman's whistling]
- Erastes Fulmen: Enough of that Teuton droning! If you wanna whistle like somebody's bum boy, whistle a good Roman song at least.
- Pompey Magnus: He refuses truce. What now? What now?
- [Regarding his slave]
- Pompey Magnus: How happy, eh? To be a slave. To have no will. Make no decisions. Driftwood. How very restful it must be.
- Newsreader: Seeking only justice and peace, and to avoid the unnecessary shedding of Roman blood, Gaius Julius Caesar has publicly implored the renegade Gnaeus Pompey Magnus to accept truce and lay down his arms.