The room without windows
Rome still pretends it is a city of equals. The Forum is loud with speeches about liberty. Behind a shuttered door, three men rearrange the map as if it were furniture.
Gaius Julius Caesar is broke and brilliant. Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus is a war hero with too many veterans and not enough offices. Marcus Licinius Crassus is the richest man in Rome and the most impatient.
They do not call themselves a government. They call themselves friends. Friendship, in this city, is a legal instrument.