Spent Treasure

Spent Treasure Julius Caesar desired Brittania not its tin for soldiers weaponry but for an island strung with pearls the rarest and most prized of gems he would face the channel storms Caesar’s lust for jewels and gold with captives sent to plunder banks shuck icy rivers’ mussel stores and freeze for gods of vanity to secure the emperor's fame a cuirass made of British pearls he laid on Venus Genetrix ancestor of the Julian line holy mother of the Roman state could tempt a queen into his bed reserved for the nobility alone set within crown jewels to come adornment for Elizabethan gowns protected now so few remain it’s rare to find a pearl or humble shell.