Mark of the Thief

It was not unusual in antiquity for prominent and powerful members of a community to claim descent from heroes, who were themselves descended from gods. Such claims promoted the belief that high social position reflected divine support. In the case of Julius Caesar, whose magical bulla launches the story, claiming to be descended from the hero Aeneas and his mother, the goddess Venus, presented him as a man whose power and authority came directly from the gods. Thus, to challenge him was to challenge the gods themselves.

In the story about Caesar that Felix tells Nic, Caesar failed to maintain the proper reverence for the gods, believing more in his own powers than the power of the gods (a mistake heroes make in ancient myth narratives as well). In response to this delusion, Venus withdrew her support, leading to his assassination shortly after. This story of Caesar illustrates one of the traps that power creates: arrogance and loss of reverence for the true source of that power. This is the same trap that Radulf falls into. He believes so much in his own power that he believes he can challenge the gods.

A second trap of power explored in the

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