But while the boys were eagerly talking together, and discussing those Cæsars, and members of their family, who from the time of Julius Cæsar downward had been deified, Vespasian suddenly grew afraid lest the same thought which struck him should strike them. In those days he did not dream that he too should wear the purple and die the apparent founder of a dynasty. He was not, indeed, unaware of various prognostics which were supposed to portend for him a splendid fate. At Phalacrine, his native hamlet, was an ancient oak sacred to Mars, which had put out a new branch at the birth of each of the three children of his father, Sabinus. The third, which represented himself, grew like a great tree. Sabinus, after consulting an augur, told his mother, Tertulla, that her grandson would become a Cæsar. But Vespasian shared the feelings of the old lady, who had only laughed immoderately at the prophecy, and remarked, ‘How odd it is that I am in my senses, while my son has gone raving mad!’ Seeing that the boys were fascinated by the grandeur of Cæsarism, he rolled up the stemma. ‘Do not be ambitious, lads,’ he said. ‘Could the name of _Imperator_ or the sight of your radiated heads upon a coin, give you more happiness than you are enjoying here and now?’ The advice of Vespasian was perfectly sincere. In his homely way he saw too deeply into the heart of things to care for the outside veneer. It was his mother, Vespasia Polla--the daughter of the military tribune--who, led on by dreams and omens, had forced him into the career of civil honours. His brother obtained the right to wear the laticlave, or broad purple stripe on the toga, and the silver C on the boots, which marked the rank of senator. Vespasian was unwilling to lay aside the narrow stripe, the angusticlave, which showed him to be of equestrian rank. He only yielded to the pressure, and even to the abuse, of his mother, who asked him how long he meant to be the lacquey--the _anteambulo_--of his brother. He had nearly thrown up his public life in disgust, when during his ædileship Gaius had ordered the soldiers to cover him with mud, and to heap mud into the folds of his embroidered magisterial robe, because he found the roads insufficiently attended to. He had practised the advice he was now giving. ‘My head has been struck on coins,’ said Britannicus, with a sigh; ‘but I can’t say that it has made me much happier.’ ‘You are as happy as Nero is,’ said Titus. ‘I am quite sure that all the revels at Subiaco will not be worth the boar-hunt we mean to have to-morrow.’ ‘Clemens,’ said Vespasian, ‘Domitilla tells me that yesterday morning you were learning my favourite poem, the “Epode” of Horace about the pleasures of country life, and the lines of Virgil on the same subject. As we have nothing special to do this morning, suppose you repeat the poems to us, while the boys and I make a _formido_ for our next deer-hunt.’