A miserable scene in any,
but most deplorable in the eyes of Caesar, thus beholding what
havoc his prodigious ambition, not satisfied with his own bloody
ghost, had made upon his more innocent remains, even to the total
extinction of his family. For it is (seeing where there is any
humanity, there must be some compassion) not to be spoken without
tears, that of the full branches deriving from Octavia the eldest
sister, and Julia the daughter of Augustus, there should not be
one fruit or blossom that was not cut off or blasted by the
sword, famine, or poison.
"Now might the great soul of Caesar have been full; and yet
that which poured in as much or more was to behold that execrable
race of the Claudii, having hunted and sucked his blood, with the
thirst of tigers, to be rewarded with the Roman Empire, and
remain in full possession of that famous patrimony: a spectacle
to pollute the light of heaven! Nevertheless, as if Caesar had
not yet enough, his Phoeban majesty caused to be introduced on
the other side of the theatre, the most illustrious and happy
prince Andrea Doria, with his dear posterity, embraced by the
soft and constant arms of the city of Genoa, into whose bosom,
ever fruitful in her gratitude, he had dropped her fair liberty
like the dew of heaven, which, when the Roman tyrant beheld, and
how much more fresh that laurel was worn with a firm root in the
hearts of the people than that which he had torn off, he fell
into such a horrid distortion of limbs and countenance, that the
senators, who had thought themselves steel and flint at such an
object, having hitherto stood in their reverend snow-like thawing
Alps, now covered their faces with their large sleeves.
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