Are you satisfied?"
The answer was a roar of cheers, roar after roar. When the cheering
subsided Cleander, three separate times, urged anyone who wished to speak
up. No man spoke. Then he said:
"I am commissioned by Caesar to repeat to you explicitly what he has
himself partly expressed to you twice today: his appreciation of your
fealty and good intentions, his thanks for your good order on your march
from Britain and for your having saved him from unsuspected peril, and his
gratitude. But please take note and remember that Caesar specially
commissions me to say to you that no similar deputation from Britain or
from anywhere else will ever be permitted to reach Rome, to enter Italy or
even to set out from the posts assigned to its members. Any attempt at
such a deputation will be treated, not as well-meant effort to help our
Sovereign, but as sacrilegious rebellion against him.
"Also please note that, whereas he has accepted your advice and acted upon
it, any further expression of advice from any of you or any future attempt
of any legionaries to advise the Emperor will be regarded as an unbearable
act of insolence and presumption and dealt with as such. Caesar commands
you to be silent and obey.
"Through me he notifies you that your stay at Rome is to be short, that
you are, within a few days, under officers appointed by him, to set out on
your return march to your Gallic port, there to reembark for Britain,
there to guard the frontier or keep order in the provinces.
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