As I said, I must have seen him seldom; yet even now it seems
that he was always there. I can close my eyes, and almost feel
myself thrown into the air, and hear the ecstatic laughter of a
child's safe terror, and feel the hands catch me from the nothingness
into which I had been tossed. I can hear the deep voice,
comforting and warm; I can feel the caresses upon my head; I
can remember the games of handball and pebbles; and I can feel
my legs strain up the little hills in the garden behind our house
on the Palatine, as we walked to a point where we could see the
city spread out like a gigantic toy beneath us. Yet I cannot
remember the face, then. He called me Rome, his "Little Rome".

(From "Augustus" by John Williams)