Ave, Caesarion

by Deborah Davitt

  In spite of his hatred for Octavius and his disdain for his mother, he did have to acknowledge that they’d truly seemed to be in love, at least at first—as much as two fiercely ambitious people could be, at any rate. And Livia’s miscarriage, which might have given Tiberius another brother or sister, had apparently ended the physical side of the marriage, but not the partnership between the two of them. Still, it had somewhat shocked him to walk in on Octavian and the slave, though with the clarity of hindsight, he somewhat understood it—Octavian hadn’t wished to divorce Livia. And so he’d found a quiet, discreet way to deal with his needs, in a way that wouldn’t embarrass her in public. A method used by any number of other Roman patricians with male concubines, it had to be admitted. But not Octavian, the moral arbiter of the upper classes. Never him. Hah.

  But later that night—Tiberius hadn’t been particularly willing when the slave entered his bedchamber. He’d ordered the man to leave, in fact. “My apologies, young master. But your father’s orders come before yours.”

  Humiliating. Held down under the body weight of a man twice his age, and brought to release. Not once, but several times. Pleasure, but tainted and filthy. And while he hadn’t been forced to play the woman’s part, he’d still felt used, adding still more to his hatred of Octavian.

  So the first few nights when he and Alexander had been out carousing, it had been with female whores. It had rankled his sense of honor a bit—he was betrothed, after all. But it had felt much cleaner than what had been done to him at his step-father’s orders. And then, after they’d shared one girl between them—a specialty act, apparently—they’d come back to the villa so drunk that he’d leaned over to kiss Alexander’s cheek in gratitude for finding a way to make him feel like a man again. Clean. Washed of the past. And he’d missed, landing on Alexander’s lips, instead.

  The thing that surprised him the most—beyond how much pleasure he took in what they did—was that he didn’t feel any less like a man for it. Nor did he feel dirty, or sullied in any way. In private, they were equals. In public, both patricians of the same age. They were careful to avoid the acts that spoke of dominance or power to the Roman mind. Just mutual pleasure.

  He got cleaned up, and helped his brother mount his small pony for the short ride to Agrippa’s house, which wasn’t in the Palatine. “I’m glad you said you’d come with me,” Drusus piped up along the way. “You’ve been spending so much time with Alexander lately. I miss you.”

  That stung Tiberius’ conscience. It had been him and his brother against the world for so long. “I’m sorry—I haven’t meant to neglect you.”

  “You haven’t!” Drusus replied indignantly. “You’ve been busy. I understand that. You’re head of family now. I just miss . . . us. Going for rides without all the Julii.”

  Tiberius nodded. “And all your lessons are with Octavia and Selene now.” Only the company of girls. He must be bored.

  “It’s all right,” Drusus insisted. “More poetry than I’m used to. And half of Selene’s instruction is in Egyptian.” He made a face. “The other half’s in Hellene. That, I at least speak.”

  Tiberius chuckled. “I’ll make sure to drop by more often,” he promised as they pulled up at Agrippa’s house, and servants took their mounts.

  Inside, the great engineer of Rome was not at home; he was out campaigning for aedile. Which left only Livia, who should have been out of mourning by now, and certainly should have left Agrippa’s house, as he had no wife at the present, to greet them. “There you are, my fine sons,” she said as they entered the tablinium, which doubled as Agrippa’s study. Open to the air of the atrium and peristylium as it was, Tiberius wondered briefly how well the scrolls on the racks here could endure the humid air from the nearby fountains. “Come, come, sit down, make yourselves comfortable.”

  The brothers uncomfortably followed the directions, each taking a couch. A half-hour of forcibly cheerful chatter ensued, with Livia clapping one hand to her forehead near the end and saying, “Oh, my, I almost forgot. I found such a trove of Octavian’s scrolls last week. All his plans for what he wished to propose before the Senate. And you, Tiberius—you’re an adult now. You need to start considering your senatorial career.”

  Tiberius sighed internally. She never changes, he thought glumly. Just being in her presence made his soul want to curl up inside of him, and he could feel the smiles he’d learned to wear in the Julii house falling from his face, leaving nothing but leaden weight behind. “I need my military career to begin before I can think about a senatorial one,” he reminded her in clipped tones.

  “Oh, I know that.” An airy wave of one hand. “I just thought it might be a good thing for you to read through them. Agrippa and Publius Servilius Rullus both found them quite fascinating. I think Rullus might offer some of them before the Senate for consideration soon, himself. My Octavian was so brilliant, after all, and his ideas so sound, that even in the hands of a lesser man, his plans might be the making of someone.” A meaningful stare at Tiberius.

  He took a sip from the watered vinegar in his cup. “What sort of proposals were these, then?” Might as well get a good look at what she’s got in the trap.

  “Reforms! Oh, and what reforms they are. Proposals to ensure the sanctity of Roman marriage. Ending the old manus rites.” Manus rites were hand-fastings, a simple agreement between a man and a woman to live together in a married state. “Ensuring that everyone of patrician birth is married properly and legally. Legislation to decrease the number of divorces in Rome—it’s shocking, really, how many marriages end, and for no better reason than someone got a better offer from another family—”

  “Odd,” Tiberius said, his voice still clipped. “Both you and Octavian were divorced. He divorced twice, as I recall.”

  Livia waved a hand. “It hardly signifies,” she informed her son brightly. “He wanted to cleanse Rome. Bring it back to the precepts of morality that we had in the days of the Republic. And to that end, we need more people to be married, and to stay married. To have children within the bounds of wedlock—”

  “I hadn’t noticed that people were having difficulty having children,” Tiberius muttered. “As a matter of fact, didn’t you complain last year that Rome was overrun by people, and everyone seemed to have a . . . what was the phrase? . . . ah yes. A squalling brat in tow.”

  Livia awarded him an impatient stare. “The wrong people are having children,” she said, her tone scathing. “All the lower-class people. The immigrants. The freedmen and freedwomen.” She exhaled. “They’re breeding us out, you know. To avoid that, Octavian wanted to ensure that people stayed married. To that end, a law stating that in order to inherit property, a man must be married when his father dies. Oh! And a tax on unmarried men under the age of forty. As soon as they get properly married, in a temple, the tax goes away! It’s really quite brilliant, and fills the republic’s coffers at the expense of those who can’t be bothered to contribute to society by continuing their families and lineages.” She tapped a finger against her chin. “And he proposed not allowing legionnaires to marry until their term was up. Sixteen, twenty years. Then they could finally settle down. You see, with them gone for such long periods, surely, their wives tend to stray, and adultery is the inevitable result. Much to the moral decline of the state.”

  “So, we tax the legionnaires who’re forbidden to marry, for being unmarried. And by legally closing off avenues for divorce—which is a natural response to adultery, I might add—we encourage people to remain married. Oh, and by and forcing people to remarry in haste when their elderly relatives take ill, we’ll surely drive up the birthrate of patrician families,” Tiberius murmured into his cup. “Of course, quite a few of those extra children might be born into the wrong families. And I can’t help but think that in a system without the possibility for divorce, that quite a few husbands and wives might mysteriously fall ill. Or down the stairs at inopportune moments. Still, a masterstroke for the upper classes, Mother. Well-
done, Octavian. Was there anything else? We’re due to go to the theater soon.”

  Livia’s mouth clamped shut. “I assume that that man is taking you. And probably his sisters. Octavian wanted to enlarge the freedom of women—but not by allowing them into licentious places like the theater. He’d have banned women’s attendance there.” She nodded firmly. “But one of his scrolls suggests that a woman who’d had three children would be allowed to travel on her own, or own a business without a man’s assistance! I know, it’s a shocking reform, and one that wouldn’t even have applied to me, since I have only the two of you.” A quaver to her voice there, which Tiberius ignored. “But he wanted to reward women who built strong, large, healthy families for their service to Rome.”

  “Octavian, the moral reformer,” Tiberius said, raising his cup with irony in his voice. “I’m sure that he would have decried Hellene love, too, as taking away from the solidity of the Roman family.” In spite of what he did in private.

  Livia’s eyes narrowed, and she stared at her son fiercely. “Yes,” she said flatly. “I’m quite sure he disapproved of such disgusting practices.” Her smile returned, like a knife. “I do wonder what he’d have thought of young Alexander,” she crooned softly. “You and he have become such fast friends. It would be a shame to see that youthful career cut short. You should really consider taking those scrolls with you, my son,” she added, off-handedly. “They could be the basis of your entire Senatorial career. If, of course, you have one.”

  Tiberius set his cup down with a sharp tap on the table in front of him, aware of his brother’s wide-eyed stare. Drusus hated family arguments. Had been apt to hide during the worst of them and pull the blankets over his head, in years past. Think before you speak. She just threatened not just you, but Alexander. But she doesn’t know anything. We’ve never done anything outside of the Julii villa besides visit brothels. And those Egyptian servants of theirs have kept many secrets. So has their household guard. Tiberius took a calming breath. “What would your husband have thought of Alexander?” he repeated tightly. “Why, Mother, we already know that he underestimated Alexander’s intelligence and loyalty. He thought him an easy tool to use against his brother. Octavian was wrong.” He met his mother’s eyes steadily, and because of that, saw the minute flinch there. “However, thank you for the scrolls,” he went on, his voice still taut. “I’ll take them with me and look them over, as you requested. All of them. I may not have agreed with your husband on much—” Anything! his mind shouted. “But he was a master politician. I could learn from him.” The words made his tongue taste foul. And I’ll pray that Rullus and Agrippa haven’t already made copies.

  Her expression lightened, as it always did when she got her way. “There’s a darling boy,” she told him, offering her cheek to be kissed.

  His shoulders rigid, Tiberius obliged her, and he and Drusus left with sacks filled with parchment rolls over their shoulders. “What was that all about?” Drusus hissed as they rode off. “It sounded like a fight, except there wasn’t any yelling for once.”

  “That was the sound of the Republic being destroyed from within,” Tiberius snapped back, a scowl on his face openly now. His younger brother gave him a harried look. The ten-year-old obviously hadn’t caught most of the implications of the proposed legislation.

  Back at the villa, with an hour to spare before the play would begin at mid-afternoon, Tiberius dragged Drusus straight for Caesarion’s study, between the atrium and the peristylium, bursting in on the young Emperor of Rome and Alexander, who were poring over maps of Hispania. Normally, Tiberius would have been inclined to look at the maps of the reported positions of the Tillii troops with great enthusiasm. Instead, he marched forward and upended his bag of scrolls on Caesarion’s desk. “You have to do something about this!” Tiberius snapped, as if they’d already had the conversation that had been boiling through his head the entire way here.

  Caesarion blinked, his red eyes wide. “I have to do something about what?”

  “This!” Tiberius waved a hand at the scrolls. “Gods damn Octavian, still meddling from beyond the grave. If I thought it would work, I’d dig up his grave and desecrate the bones, but ideas live longer than men do.” He swore, realizing that his hands were shaking. “Look at these,” he insisted, grabbing one scroll at random and ripping it open. The handwriting there was that of Octavian’s favorite scribe, Sarmentus, and it hit him like a blow in the stomach. Tiberius doubled over from the sudden nausea, and Alexander started towards him in alarm. “I’m fine,” Tiberius snapped, shaking off Alexander’s hand.

  “You’re raving,” Alexander hissed. “Drusus, what in Pluto’s name happened at Agrippa’s villa?”

  Drusus had backed away to a safe wall, and stared at them all in incomprehension. “I don’t know. He’s been mad since Mother suggested he take some of F . . . some of Octavian’s papers and propose them before the Senate.”

  Caesarion had taken the first scroll from Tiberius’ hands, and stared at it now, incredulously. “He wanted to ban women from the theater, but allow them the freedom to travel and own businesses—”

  “Only if they’ve had more than three children,” Tiberius rapped out. “Born only into weddings that took place within temple walls. That would invalidate half the marriages in Rome. Most people just settle for the man picking the woman up and placing her on the ceremonial bed in the atrium, in the sight of all their friends and family. Lighting the hearth together. But the temples would charge fees for every marriage performed.”

  “And would keep records, which isn’t a bad thing, necessarily,” Caesarion muttered, his eyes skimming over the document. “Wait, what does this say?”

  “You got to the part about forbidding legionnaires to marry, didn’t you?” Tiberius couldn’t help it. It came out as a shout.

  “What the fuck?” Caesarion said, the barracks vulgarity tumbling past his lips without censor. “I’d lose half my men—three-quarters! The ones who didn’t resign because they wouldn’t divorce their wives would revolt!”

  “If they’d even be permitted to divorce them. After all, he wants to cut down on that. But then again, half those marriages wouldn’t be valid anyway, because they weren’t in a temple, a delightful little dance around law and custom.” Tiberius wanted to spit. “Keep reading! It gets better! Now that the men have no wives, no families to return to, he wanted their term of service upped to twenty years. And in keeping with the rest of his moral legislation, anyone caught seeking pleasure in the arms of another man, to be stripped of rank. And camp followers to be forbidden! All hail the highly moral armies of Octavian!”

  Caesarion stared at the parchment, and then went scrabbling for other pieces. “For the sake of all the gods, I know he commanded troops a few times in his life. What did he think they were, marble statues? The legions are the best path to citizenship—joining gives you rights and privileges. This would take half those rights away—the rights to children, and families, and turn the men into what? Ascetics? No one would volunteer. We’d be back to drafting the unwilling again, and that didn’t even work well before Marius.” He scrabbled in the pile for another piece of parchment, staring at it, baffled. “But these laws are . . . mutually incompatible with everything else! How can you outlaw marriage for large segments of the population, but mandate it for others? How do you demand that people have children, but forbid them to have them, at the same time?”

  “Because only the right people should breed, apparently! It’s a breeding program for the patrician and equestrian classes, and enforced celibacy for the populares—”

  “Coupled to what I can only call a religion of the state. There aren’t any gods in this!” Caesarion’s voice had become even more offended. “This is turning Rome into a god.”

  “Which explains why he wanted to make your father a god, doesn’t it?”

  “The gods won’t stand for this. I won’t stand for this. They might not talk to me often, but I do hear their voices, and this sort
of shit is not their primary concern—”

  Their voices rang off the tiled walls. Drusus had put both of his hands over his ears and backed into a corner, his face crumbling. Alexander tried to intervene, “But Octavian is dead. There’s no force behind any of these pieces of parchment—”

  “She’s got Agrippa and Rullus to carry on the dream!” Tiberius snarled. All he could see in his mind’s eye was Octavian’s face. Smiling that little faint smile, from beyond the grave. “And she wants me to do it, too. I won’t. I won’t. You can’t legislate honor. Either a man has it, or he doesn’t. Either he’s honorable and takes care of his wife and children, or he doesn’t. Forcing people to marry, and leaving them chained to people who might come to abuse them, without recourse, is wrong. Refusing our military the right to have families is also wrong, and I won’t have it. You have to do something about this, Caesarion. You have to stop this—”

  “What’s going on?” A voice cut through the echoes of their shouts, and Tiberius, his vision having gone gray at the edges, saw Caesarion’s head swing up from the scrolls, looking past him towards the door to the peristylium. “I could hear shouting all the way from the second floor.” Eurydice peered around the doorframe shyly. She was a pretty thing, just a year younger than Tiberius and Alexander were, with a trim figure, and legs that, when he’d caught sight of them once or twice, had started to show muscles from horseback riding. But he’d also seen her eyes turn hawk-gold once or twice. And that made Tiberius watch her carefully, with all the superstition of his Roman soul comingling with the knowledge that Alexander adored his younger sister.

  “Eurydice, thank the gods you’re here,” Alexander said in a tone of great relief. “These two have been agreeing loudly at each other for ten minutes, and I can’t get them to stop.”

  She slipped around the doorframe, dark eyes wide. “That was agreeing? There are Praetorians down the hall trying to decide if they need to come in here and break up a fight.”