Under the deified Augustus, it was not yet true that a man’s utterances endangered his life, but they did cause him trouble. Rufus, a man of senatorial rank, once at a dinner expressed the hope that Caesar would not return safe from the journey that he was planning; and he added that all the bulls and the calves7 wished the same thing. Some of those who were present carefully noted these words. At the break of day, the slave who had stood at his feet when he was dining told him what he had said at dinner while he was drunk, and urged him to be the first to get Caesar’s ear and volunteer charges against himself. Following this advice, Rufus met Caesar as he was going down to the forum, and, having sworn that he had been out of his mind the night before, expressed the hope that his words might recoil upon his own head and the head of his children, and begged Caesar to pardon him and restore him to favor. When Caesar had consented to do so, he said: “No one will believe that you have restored me to favor unless you bestow upon me a gift,” and he asked for a sum that no favorite need have scorned, and actually obtained it. “For my own sake,” said Caesar, “I shall take pains never to be angry with you!” Caesar acted nobly in pardoning him and in adding to his forgiveness liberality. Everyone who hears of this incident must necessarily praise Caesar, but the first to be praised will be the slave! You need not wait for me to tell you that the slave who had done this was set free. Yet it was not a gratuitous act. Caesar had paid the price of his liberty!