Augustus

by Allan Massie

  Timotheus. Slave-born. Has been a member of a dancing-troupe. Taken up by the gladiator Democritus.'

  'Has he been put to the question?'

  'Wasn't necessary. He babbled at the sight of the instruments.'

  I turned to the group of consulars I had invited to be present at the examination.

  'Would one of you like to question him?' I asked. 'You perhaps?' I offered the role to M. Cocceius Nerva, consul three or four years before, who had served under Antony, but who was also, like all his family, a close friend of Plancus. I made the choice carefully. Cocceius Nerva, a leading member of a rising family, was swithering on a tightrope of indecision; he danced in the air unable to decide which side would better promote his career. Now he looked for a moment as if he would rather decline my invitation, considered the consequences of that, and nodded his head in acceptance. He began to question the boy in a harsh guttural accent. The boy stuttered over his first responses (I thought to myself; he has a certain theatrical talent; well chosen, Agrippa). Seeing his fear, Nerva warmed to his work. His voice snarled out his questions, and the boy began to whimper obediently. Then at last, as if giving way to intolerable pressure, he told his story.

  He had had no responsibility himself, yet he had to confess he had been in it from the beginning.

  'I was drinking,' he said, 'with Democritus - that's my friend, my special friend, you understand, in a wineshop in the Suburra. We were short of money, business has been bad lately with so many patrons out of the city, and we were moaning about it. Democritus was always a moaner, I have to say that. Well, then, as we were drinking, a big hook-nosed fellow came up and sat at our table. I didn't like the look of him from the start. He spoke to Democritus as if he knew him, but it soon came out that he'd only been recommended to him. Then he looked at me doubtfully. "You can say anything before the boy," Democritus said. So the man nodded and said there was a job on. "What sort of a job?" says Democritus. "A big one," says the man. "Can you read?" he says. "Not so well," says Democritus.

  "Bugger that," says the man. "But I've friends as can," says Democritus, not anxious to see the job slip away from us. "That's all right then," says the man, "it's not a one-man job anyway." "So what is it then?" "Well," the man says, "you know the Temple of Vesta?" "Who doesn't? Not that any man's ever been in it," says Democritus, laughing but really intrigued now, because it does sound like it's going to be big. "Well, I don't," says the man. "I'm a Roman citizen, but I was born in a colony and I've never lived in Rome. I'm a soldier," he said, "from the East, and I don't know the city, else I'd do the job myself." "All right, then," Democritus says, "so what is it?" And then the man comes out straight. "The General Mark Antony has deposited his will with the Vestals, and the man wants us to snitch it." "Why?" says Democritus, playing dumb, "why and what's in it for us?" Well, to cut a long story short, what's in it for us sounds pretty good, but I understand you gentlemen want to know the why, and it seems from what I understood that this will was like to prove an embarrassment and so some of the General's friends, maybe the General himself, thought it best that it be got rid of. . .'

  'All right,' Nerva said, 'we understand that. Didn't it occur to ycu that he had only to ask for its return? Why this elaborate burglary . . . ?'

  The boy looked Nerva in the eye for the first time.

  'Of course that struck us,' he said. 'We're not stupid, you know, sir. We asked him that very question. And he had an answer. He said that they'd chosen this method because the burglary was sure to be blamed on Caesar here, and that was the reason . . .'

  Oh no, I thought to myself, Agrippa has overdone it. That's one refinement too many. Surely someone will see that if their burglary had been brought off, I would have been able to produce a will of some sort... my stomach twitched . . . but of course I was viewing the affair from a different angle; this possibility occurred to nobody else seemingly. Yet it was a possibility that must not be allowed to fester. Someone would spot the weak point in the story.

  'This must be nonsense,' I said. 'I apologize, Nerva, for intervening in this cross-examination which you are conducting so ably and which has already elicited such interesting information, but this can't be right. There is a fundamental flaw in the boy's story. Surely, if the burglary had taken place successfully, and the burglary had been blamed on me - which . . .' I hesitated ... 'is an impious thought profoundly offensive to me - such an attribution could only be convincing if I had had a will to produce. Otherwise the story would not hold water.'

  The consulars frowned into the muddy pool. The boy turned his huge eyes on me.

  'I thought of that too, General,' he said, 'and thinking my friend was being led into trouble, I even raised the point. The agent smiled and answered me in such a way as to leave no doubt that he was indeed your enemy. Then he furnished us with an explanation. You were indeed, after the burglary, to be supplied with the will - by a well-wisher. It was to be such that you could not resist publishing it. But Antony would have the real will, with the Vestals' seal, and the real will would be much more "innocuous" - that was his word - than the one you would have published. Then, you see, he would have sent the real will to the Senate, or invited leading senators to examine it. You see, my lords, the whole purpose of the plot was not to get hold of the will at all, because, according to our information, it really is innocuous; the plot was aimed at Caesar here. Its intention was to discredit him. It would seem he had first committed an act of sacrilege by ordering the burglary, and then discovering that the will he had stolen didn't suit his purposes, had committed a second crime: forgery . . .'

  I was amazed by the boy's talent. What's more, he was now evidently enjoying his role, playing the part of a man revelling in the release that comes from the self-abasement of confession. Moreover, I marvelled at the effect of this last speech. It was clear that the consulars were convinced it was true. It was therefore safe to confess myself staggered by the enormity of what had been revealed, and at a loss as to the appropriate action to be taken. I did so, and there was much shaking of heads.

  Only one consular, my wife's cousin Appius Claudius Pulcher, seemed doubtful still. He said he would like confirmation from the other members of the gang.

  'Killed, resisting arrest,' Agrippa said. 'My police report they were a desperate crew. Only this little rat submitted at once, in tears and without a struggle.'

  'We may be thankful that he did,' Nerva said. 'Otherwise who knows what vile conclusions, damaging to the Republic, might have been drawn?'

  The upshot was satisfactory. It was resolved that a motion be put to the Senate requiring the Vestals, in the name of the Senate and the Roman People, to broach convention and deliver to their keeping the Testament deposited there by Marcus Antonius, considering that they had reason to believe that the said Testament contained matter pertaining to the security and sovereignty of the Senate and the Roman People. Even the Vestals felt obliged to heed such a request, which they did, though adding a rider in which they proclaimed the reverence that should be due to testamentary documents lodged in their keeping - a reverence, I need hardly tell you, which I have never ceased to feel.

  The publication of the will had the anticipated effect. It aroused fear and anxiety and rumours were soon rife that Antony intended to move the capital of the empire from Rome to Alexandria. There were spontaneous outbursts of popular feeling against Antony who had once been the people's darling. Now his house on the Aventine was fired by the mob. Everywhere one heard stories of his abject subjection to Cleopatra. It was said that he had walked in the train of her eunuchs, himself dressed in Egyptian robes and that he had taken part in the abominable rites with which the corrupt and decadent inhabitants of the Nile valley celebrate their loathsome gods.

  No one dared to raise a voice in his defence, not even in the Senate. On the contrary, feeling ran so high against him that, without any necessary prompting on my part, he was divested of his imperium and deposed from the consulship for the following year to
which he had already been elected. There was even a proposal that he should be named as a public enemy; but here I thought fit to intervene. I had no desire to enflame feeling further against Antony, not because I had developed any tenderness for him - apart from the remnants of the affection which he had always inspired in me, however reluctantly - but for a more politic reason. Four years earlier, after Pompey's defeat, I had formally declared the era of the civil wars concluded. I had no wish to suggest that it was being renewed. On the contrary, the war, now being prepared, was directed against an enemy of Rome, not against a fellow-citizen who wished to subvert the state. Our foe was Cleopatra. I was calling on all Italy to make a supreme effort in a Great Patriotic War.

  Accordingly, I now prepared my master stroke. I called on the whole of Italy, the whole Western world, senators, troops and civilians, to swear an oath of loyalty to me in Rome's struggle against perfidious Egypt. None was compelled to take this oath. Indeed, mindful of Antony's presence in the ranks of the enemy, and mindful too of the solemn nature of personal obligations, I made it clear that those who felt such loyalties to Antony should be under no pressure; I even specifically exempted the city of Bologna, an old cliency of Antony's, and stated that I would not regard its loyalty to its old patron as an expression of disaffection to me or to Rome. It was said that such clemency and benignity exceeded anything displayed by Julius.

  Because the oath was voluntary and because my cause was just, being the cause of Rome and Italy, the whole country spontaneously flocked to the special offices established in every municipality to assure me of their trust. Nothing in my life has given me more enduring pride than this. Even those colonies of veterans who had served under Antony took the oath. I may add that this was all done despite the necessity of imposing some of the severest taxation Rome and Italy had ever suffered; denied resources of the East, we found it necessary to impose an income tax of twenty-five per cent to pay for the war. But, since all knew that the war was just, and all hoped that a combined and cheerful effort could bring it to a speedy termination, even this tax was paid, though before its purpose was fully understood and before the oath-taking served to rally the mass of our countrymen to the cause, there were sporadic riots and disturbances in some of the provincial towns. I could understand and forgive these; no sensible man likes to pay taxes. It was soon realized however that this tax was necessary, and it was paid all the more willingly when men remembered the enormous contributions to the public Treasury I had made and was continuing to make from my own resources. Moreover, everyone knew that I lived simply and spent little on myself.

  The triumvirate having been abolished, the Senate responded by granting me a right of command without limitation of function or command. The title of dictator had also been abolished, and I had no wish to revive it, for its associations were no longer those of the heroic past of the Republic; but in fact I now possessed all the powers of the dictatorship for an unlimited period. Yet it was important that these had been granted me not solely by the Senate but by the spontaneous confidence of all Italy.

  Only one shadow was cast over my serenity. Livia, distressed beyond my understanding by the affair of the Vestal Virgins, still denied me the marriage bed. My love was deep enough to enable me to continue to respect her feeling; but her withdrawal grieved me. My body and senses could find easy comfort, such as a man needs (or thinks he needs) but I felt a cold emptiness in my heart.

  I was over thirty, and my youth died in that winter as we prepared for war with Cleopatra.

  TWELVE

  Had the virtue departed from Antony? I asked myself that question as we lay in our camp at Mikilitsi in the hills on the north side of the Bay of Actium. He had already made so many mistakes that I could not but wonder if his heart was in the war. He should never have permitted us to cross to Greece unmolested. He had then allowed us to take up our strong position on the hills. At first I feared a trap, but, when he crossed the narrows and encamped his army two miles south of mine and despatched his cavalry to the north of us to try to cut our supply of water, his movements, formerly so sure and often surprising, were now so hesitant and lethargic, that I realized there was no such trap. Antony had lost confidence in his own genius.

  Agrippa now captured Patrae and Leucas, and as a result was able to place his fleet across Antony's communications. He would have to fight his way back to Egypt and we could meanwhile intercept his supplies.

  I had only to wait. We had got ourselves in a position which we could only lose by making a false stroke. I was determined to sit tight and compel Antony to move.

  There were only two clouds. First, my health was poor all that summer, though no doubt I suffered less on the heights than Antony's wretched army beset by flies, fever and on famine rations, in the plain below. Every day we could see fatigue parties sent beyond the lines to dig mass graves for the fever-victims. But I myself suffered from a persistent sore throat. My skin was dry and hot. I slept ill at nights. My digestion was poor and already I was a slave to the kidney-disease which, as you know, has compelled me to follow a strict diet.

  And then there was Livia. She had stayed behind in Rome (where I had left Maecenas in charge) to look after the children. I missed her for she had been my companion on my happiest campaigns. Worse, though, were her letters. She could neither forgive nor forget the affair of the will. She wrote coldly and brusquely about the children's health. Here is a specimen:

  We leave to-morrow first for your villa at Velletri, then for the house my father left us on the Bay of Naples. I shall be glad to be out of the city which is now disagreeably hot. The children are well and send you respectful greetings. Drusus, I am glad to say, shows sign of developing his athletic abilities. He really rides very well now. Tiberius has been in a silent and withdrawn state. I would pray that he does not fall a victim to the congenital malady of low spirits which so easily affects Claudians. I cannot but remember how his father would sink into supine depression. It is too often the fate of proud and sensitive natures which lack that capacity for self-approbation that enables many much less well-born to achieve more, since their equanimity permits them to do even what they know to be wrong without self-reproach. Tiberius is not like that. When he errs (as all children do) and has to suffer merited reproof, his self-esteem is sorely wounded, and he is then very likely to refrain from any further effort. It is the dark side of that Claudian pride which has on the other hand spurred so many of his family to do great service to the Republic. Julia, of course, has no such inhibitions. She dislikes being reproved (as I am sorry to say she frequently has to be), but it is not pride that is wounded in her case. She has, I am afraid, little natural sense of morality, which is to be regretted even if it hardly surprises me now. Her dislike of reproof is rather an expression of injured vanity - something quite different from pride, as different indeed as the true buffalo-milk cheese of Campania is from the cheap imitations sold in Rome. It offends her that anyone should dare not to think her perfect - I am afraid she is very spoiled - but instead of considering whether the reproof be deserved, and examining her own conscience - which indeed she could hardly do, for Octavia agrees with me that she possesses no such thing - she takes umbrage and is ready to reproach whoever has corrected her; usually, I am sorry to say, myself. Yet, I must say too that she and Tiberius are very close to each other. He is very loving and patient though she teases him endlessly and it may be therefore that his noble character will have some influence over hers, and do something to mitigate the selfishness, waywardness, conceit and capriciousness that are her chief faults. Still I must confess myself doubtful. Julia is so convinced of her own perfections that it is hard to believe her susceptible to any influence. I am sorry to hear that you are in poor health; still, your constitution is such that you cannot expect ever to be free of ailments or infirmities. Moreover, I understand that the Greek climate is too frequently enervating. I am well myself, though as I say, I shall be glad to be out of the city. Your obedient wife, Livia.
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  Ouch, you might say, what a letter; not a word of love and a sting in every sentence. Everything she said about poor little Julia was clearly intended for me. When I replied I tried to mollify her:

  Livia, I know you think you have cause to write to me in the cold and unloving tone of your letters. Believe me when I say that though your voice and words pain me, they only add to the love and respect I feel for you. I know the cause and respect it. Do you wish me to defend my actions? Perhaps I should do so. Perhaps I can only do so when the sea is between us, and I am poised here on the mountains overlooking Antony's camp and waiting, with a touch of fever in soul as well as body, for the battle that will determine whether my life will be of service to Rome, or will only be remembered as a bitter comedy of trivial ambition. You see, my dear and only girl, the state I find myself in. Do not, pray, be offended that, despite your coldness and your anger that throbs below that coldness and inspires it, I address you in this way. You are the only woman I have ever loved, fully as a man can love a woman, that is to say utterly, and if you withdraw that love from me then there is very little in my private life that could comfort me, that could protect me from the ravages that public life very surely inflicts on a man. You are my strength and my refuge. Do not deny me. You are not only the one woman I have loved in this way, but I know in my bones there will never be another.

  I can write these words, though I could not say them to you. And this is perhaps the one flaw in our marriage, and the rock that could break the fragile little raft on which we sail down life's river. In one sense - perhaps more than one, but certainly this one - We are too alike. We are both reticent. We both find difficulty in talking about what we feel. We both retreat when we find ourselves in disagreement into a silence that grows more and more bitter and unforgiving the longer it lasts. And it is this silence which could corrupt and kill our love. Not a single action, but a long brooding in which resentment festers. I do not know if I could survive that. You are in many ways stronger than I am, but, if that happened, if the love we have developed for each other, a love which has matured over the years of our marriage, should be poisoned, something would die in you too. You would, I think, be confined in the bonds of a narrow and unforgiving rectitude. You have, if you will allow me to say so (and try to remember that I speak out of love), a certain timidity which expresses itself in an unwillingness to contemplate the way others live and think. Perhaps this is the form that the Claudian pride takes in you. Indeed I am sure it is. What I can give you is true confidence and gaiety. Do not cut yourself off from what I can provide.