Free The Venus Throw by Steven Saylor

soldier in the legions of Gaius Julius Caesar in Gaul, I didn’t see my son Meto for months at a time, though we conversed often by letter. This was fortuitous in a way that I could never have foreseen.
    Meto’s letters came to me by military messengers. This is a common way to send all sorts of correspondence, since only very wealthy men can afford to have slaves merely for the purpose of carrying letters, while military messengers range far and wide throughout the empire and are more reliable than merchants or pleasure travelers. Letters leaving Caesar’s camp, as it turned out, were not entirely private; the messengers who carried them usually read them to make sure that they contained no compromising information. One of Caesar’s most trusted messengers, impressed by Meto’s style and observations, passed a copy along to one of Caesar’s most trusted secretaries, who thought it worthwhile to pass it along to Caesar himself, who then moved Meto out of the tent where he had been ordered to polish newly minted armor and into the commander’s staff.
    Between conquering Gaul and vying for control of Rome, it seems that the great man finds time in his busy schedule to keep a minutely detailed journal. While other politicians leave their memoirs as monuments to posterity, Caesar intends to distribute his (so Meto suspects) as a tool in his election campaigns. The people of Rome will read of Caesar’s extraordinary skins of leadership and his triumphs in spreading Roman civilization, and then rush to support him at the polls—provided, of course, that things continue to go as Caesar wishes in Gaul.
    Caesar has slaves to take his dictation, of course—Meto says the commander often dictates while on horseback riding from camp to camp, so as not to waste time—and he has slaves to assist in the collation and compilation of his notes, but as my own experience has often borne out, the rich and powerful will make use of other men’s talents wherever they find them. Caesar happens to like Meto’s prose style—nevermind that Meto was born a slave, received only sporadic tutoring in mathematics and Latin after I adopted him, and has no experience at practicing rhetoric. Ironic, too, is the fact that Meto, who chose to be a soldier against my wishes, now finds himself a tent-bound literary adjutant. instead of a sunburned, wind-bitten legionary. It would be hard, I imagine, for one of his humble origins to rise much higher, with so many patricians and sons of the rich vying for honor and glory in the upper ranks.
    Which is not to say that he no longer faces danger. Caesar himself takes extraordinary risks—this is said to be one of the keys to the hold he has over his men, that he faces the enemy alongside them—and no matter what his day-to-day duties, Meto has seen plenty of battle. His role as one of Caesar’s secretaries simply, means that during quiet times, instead of building catapults or digging trenches or making roads, Meto labors over his commander’s rough drafts. Just as well; Meto was never very good, at working with his hands or his back. But when the crisis comes and the enemy must be faced, Meto puts clown his stylus and takes up his sword.
    Meto had plenty of hair-raising tales to thrill his older brother and set his brooding father’s teeth on edge. Ambushes at dawn, midnight raids, battles against barbarian tribes with unpronounceable names—I listened to the details and wished I could cover my ears, as images ran riot through my head of Meto in hand-to-hand combat against some hulking, hairy Gaul, or dodging a rain of arrows, or leaping off a catapult consumed by fire. Meanwhile I watched him wide-eyed, at once amazed, appalled, proud and melancholy at how thoroughly the boy had vanished and the man taken his place. Though he was only twenty-two, I counted a few gray hairs among the shock of unruly black curls on his head, and his jaw was covered with stubble. His speech, especially in the excitement