Home > Work > Shadows in Bronze (Marcus Didius Falco, #2)
1 " You could tell those two had been married by the way that she ignored him. "
― Lindsey Davis , Shadows in Bronze (Marcus Didius Falco, #2)
2 " The plumber plodded along in silence, like a man who has learned to be polite to lunatics through dealing with civil engineers. "
3 " He listened with the mild demeanour of a man who had waited eight years for his town council to draw up a specification for emergency repairs. "
4 " She called me a rat.’ ‘Oh yes, I gathered you two were very close! "
5 " popular men who laugh at your jokes pose a threat which blatant villains can never command. "
6 " I would rather see Rome ruled by a man who once had to ask his accountant tricky questions before his steward could pay the butcher’s bill than by some mad limb like Nero, who was brought up believing himself the son and the grandson of gods, and who thought wearing the purple gave him free rein to indulge his personal vanities, execute real talent, bankrupt the Treasury, burn half of Rome – and bore the living daylights out of paying customers in theatres! "
7 " We marched him to the turfy shack where he lived with his parents and while the youth sulked Petronius Longus put the whole moral issue in succinct terms to them: Ollia’s father was a legionary veteran who had served in Egypt and Syria for over twenty years until he left with double pay, three medals, and a diploma that made Ollia legitimate; he now ran a boxers’ training school where he was famous for his high-minded attitude and his fighters were notorious for their loyalty to him… The old fisherman was a toothless, hapless, faithless cove you would not trust too near you with a filleting knife, but whether from fear or simple cunning he co-operated eagerly. The lad agreed to marry the girl and since Silvia would never abandon Ollia here, we decided that the fisherboy had to come back with us to Rome. His relations looked impressed by this result. We accepted it as the best we could achieve. "
8 " Petronius would take his free bread buns and run. I happened to know that since Petro had been elected to the watch he had never cast a vote. He believed a man on a public salary should be impartial. I didn’t agree but I admired him being so stubborn in his eccentricities. Aufidius Crispus would be an unusual politician if he had allowed for such morality in the voters he was courting. "
9 " We managed to make a good night of it, in the desperate way people do when the choice is between dogged survival or sliding under the morass. "
10 " Si una mujer con el aspecto de la Venus de Praxíteles se hubiese apeado de una fuente para sentarse en mi regazo, ataviada un par de sandalias de fantasía y una sonrisa, la habría apartado y me habría alejado para rumiar a solas. "
11 " Pompeya contaba con vino, cereales, lana, metalistería, aceite de oliva, un ambiente de pujante prosperidad y diez atalayas estratégicas empotradas en la muralla de la ciudad.—¡Es un lugar que se propone durar!— exclamé y fue uno de mis comentarios más sagaces. "
