In old age and in exile Servilia, mother of Marcus Brutus, awaited the suicide order from the Emperor Augustus, Caesar's hier, who put to death all of Julius Caesar's enemies. But instead he asked her to return to Rome and advise him as she once advised his predecessor, whose mistress she was. He wanted her to help raise the daughter of her old enemy Cleopatra, whom he brought back from Egypt after the death of the Serpent of the Nile: "Rome ... that great maw of cites, the eater of men that ground and chewed up lives as if they were mere sandy grit between its teeth and then spat them out again. Through endless cycles of the seasons, revolutions, civil wars, and lives always the same. Did I have enough strength in this feeble body to war with her again? The child looked up at me. The answer was on my lips."
Used availability for Linda Cargill's Jupiter Julius