'A piece of advice before we start. Don't believe those fools who preach that death is a friend, or worse, like Paullus and his crew of fanatics, the happy gateway to a better and fuller existence. It's nothing of the sort. Death, gentle reader, is nothing but a necessary bore, and you can tell it I said so. There, now. If I really have to die before my time (and needs must, ho hum, when the emperor drives, even when the emperor is poor loopy Lucius)...