Si linguam latinam potes intellegere... If you can understand the Latin language, which I doubt, since you are not only boastful by nature, but also you speak an inferior version of the tongue loaded with many barbarian accretions, let me tell you this. It is possible that you dare to think of yourself as an equal of one of the great leaders of ancient Rome, but if so you are deluded.

First, look at your family and upbringing. You are a mere provincial novus homo, a new man, a Gaul from Mediolanum, which they now call Milan; I, on the other hand am a scion of the gens Iulia, descended from Iulus himself, son of Aeneas, prince of Troy. I learned politics as a child, from watching Rome rip itself apart under Marius and Sulla; it was Sulla who planted the idea that what Rome needed was a dictator though he, the fool, resigned his post after a year. More importantly, I learned power in the battlefield and by enduring great hardship on campaigns. This is where great men are made, not, as you might say, in the boardroom.

Why, my first famous act was, having been captured and then ransomed for 50 talents by a band of ruthless pirates, to pursue the bandits' ship, capture and crucify them, as I had coolly promised them I would during my period of incarceration. Fools! They took me for a mere boy.

But that was just the beginning. Julius Caesar conquered all Gaul and added it to the possessions of the already great Roman empire, whose territories encompassed Africa, Hispania, Graecia, Syria, Asia and beyond. And what is Rome now? Merely the "capital" of a country they call Italia? Alas, I had hoped the gods of Rome had a more glorious destiny in mind. The only military undertaking to which you have contributed (not personally, of course, as you yourself do not know one end of a sword from the other) is in Parthia, what you call Iraq. But the Parthians are doughty fighters, and even in my lifetime we failed to subdue these lawless tribes. To Rome's eternal shame my own former colleague and sponsor Crassus lost a legion, and his head, to these barbarians.

I admit that at times you have showed a certain shrewdness: in evading prosecution; and, the use of bribery - or so it is rumoured in the shady regions of Dis that I now inhabit. If so, you have done nothing more than I: bribery is necessary to ensure the goodwill of influential men, and money is indivisible from power. Like me, you also showed a certain skill in forging alliances in order to attain power for yourself; you may remember, if your history lessons meant anything to you, my creation of the First Triumvirate. Your facility for controlling "the media" is clear, and had I been living in your benighted times, no doubt I would have done the same. Your marriages, your love affairs, are understandable: even the conqueror of Gaul was at times conquered by Cupid, and there are moments when I still sigh for Servilia, mother of my assassin Brutus; and for the enchanting Cleopatra of Egypt.

But why am I continuing to address you? Having attained power, you failed to cling on to it. You are no true leader of warlike Rome; you are a mere merchant. It is more out of kindness than respect that I offer you one last piece of advice: beware your friends, lest they turn into assassins.