Tiberius i-2

by Allan Massie

  Tiberius

  ( Imperial - 2 )

  Allan Massie

  Allan Massie

  Tiberius

  INTRODUCTION

  by way of Disclaimer

  I don't know when I have undertaken anything with more hesitation than this preface, which my publishers have demanded of me. They have done so because they don't wish, as they put it, "to be associated with anything which may turn out to be a fraud without making their doubts as to the authenticity of the publication known".

  Fair enough, of course; but where does it leave me, for even the strongest disclaimer is unlikely to allay the reader's doubts? After all, if the book itself is not what it purports to be, why should the introduction be believed?

  And yet I see why they want it. That is the irritating thing. It's the coincidence as much as anything which disturbs them. Let me explain then, as far as I can.

  In 1984 the autobiography of the Emperor Augustus was discovered in the Macedonian monastery of SS Cyril and Methodius (not St Cyril Methodius as erroneously stated by Professor Aeneas Fraser-Graham in his introduction to my English version of the book, an error which has persisted obstinately, despite my appeals, in British, American, French, Italian, German and, as far as I can determine squinting at uncut pages, Danish editions).

  This autobiography, lost since antiquity, but attested to by Suetonius and other writers, was entrusted to me to translate. Mine was to be a popular edition published in advance of the great scholarly annotated edition which was being prepared and is still, as far as I know, being prepared, and indeed looks likely to remain in that state of preparation for a long time to come. That is no concern of mine however.

  My translation attracted gratifying notice on the whole, also, of course, the attention of the odd lunatic; one such, for example, informing me that page 121 of the American edition disclosed the secrets of the Great Pyramid, which is surely unlikely.

  Then, eighteen months ago, when I was visiting Naples at the invitation (as I supposed, though this was in fact an error on my part) of the British Council, I was accosted in the Galleria Umberto by a stout middle-aged man in a dingy suit. He was clutching a black book under his left arm. The way he held it drew my attention to a hole in the elbow of his jacket. He addressed me by name, according me, in the Italian fashion, a doctorate to which I am not entitled, owing (if I may digress) to a difference of opinion with the authorities of Trinity College, Cambridge in 1960.

  Then he introduced himself to me as Count Alessandro di Caltagirone, a name the significance of which I did not immediately grasp. He told me he had been greatly impressed by my translation of the memoirs of Augustus, though he understood, of course, that they were not authentic.

  "Why should you think that?" I said.

  "That is no question to put to me," he replied, and called for a brandy and soda at my expense.

  "Unlike what I can offer you," he continued. "And what is that?"

  "The authentic memoirs of the Emperor Tiberius," he replied. "Come," I said, "this is too much of a coincidence…" "On the contrary, it is only so much of a coincidence because it was written that it should so be…" "Written?" I said.

  "In your horoscope, which I cast myself, more than two hundred years ago."

  By now, as you may imagine, I concluded that I was dealing with a madman, and tried to remove myself as inconspicuously as possible. But he would not be shaken off. He positively attached himself to my person, and, to cut a long story short, we eventually came to an agreement, the exact terms of which I am not at liberty to divulge. The long and short of it was that I came into possession of the Latin manuscript which I have now translated and present to you here.

  I am not going to pronounce on its authenticity: that is for the reader to determine. If it convinces him or her, that is a testimony such as no scholar can gainsay. (And my own faith in scholarship has, I confess, been shaken in recent years. Scholars are like other people: they believe what it suits them to believe and then find reasons for doing so.)

  But there are certain reservations which, to protect my good name, I wish to make.

  First, the manuscript from which I worked is probably the only one in existence and is written on paper which dates only from the eighteenth century.

  Second, Count Alessandro di Caltagirone is, I have gathered, a man with a dubious reputation. For one thing, this is certainly not his name, and it is doubtful if he is really a count. More alert readers will have made at once a connection which escaped me for some months. Caltagirone was the name of the monastery where Giuseppe Balsamo, better known as Count Alessandro di Cagliostro, was educated from 1760-69. Cagliostro of course — physician, philosopher, alchemist and necromancer — claimed to possess "the elixir of eternal youth", a phrase that has dropped also from my friend Caltagirone's lips, though I am bound to add that his appearance contradicts it.

  When I asked him about the provenance of the manuscript, he was first evasive, then said he could certainly account for its whereabouts since 1770. What is one to make of that?

  Even a cursory reading of the memoirs must inspire the critic with doubts. There are moments when Tiberius appears to have the sensibility which one associates with the eighteenth-century Enlightenment rather than with Ancient Rome. There is, too, a curious lack of detail about daily life in imperial Rome, and an absence of that awareness of religion which, despite other indications to the contrary, formed such an integral part of the superstitious Roman character. Such references as there are to this central experience of the Roman spirit are perfunctory, as if the author of the manuscript found the whole business a bore to which he nevertheless paid occasional heed. If one remembers that the eighteenth century saw the first revulsion from Tacitus, the traducer of Tiberius, a revulsion expressed, for instance, by both Voltaire and Napoleon, then it seems plausible to suggest that what we have here is an "Anti-Tacitus" composed by some mischievous intellectual of that time for his own diversion.

  On the other hand, if one accepts the Caltagirone-Cagliostro identification (which I am loth to do), then it may contain some occult message which I have failed to decipher.

  That is indeed a possibility, but if there be such a message, then it is likely to be understood only by the surviving lodges of Egyptian Freemasons which were founded by Cagliostro himself. There is one in Palermo, another in Naples itself, a third in St Petersburg (inactive, I am told) and a fourth, which is also the largest and most vocal, in Akron, Ohio. Yet even the Akron lodge has failed to respond to my appeals for help.

  A week after Caltagirone pressed the manuscript upon me, his death was announced on the front page of Il Mattino, the principal Neapolitan daily. He was described in the frank manner of the Italian press as "a notorious swindler".

  So I was left with the manuscript, and, intrigued, set to work on it.

  Further discrepancies appeared, and it was soon clear to me that, whatever its provenance, whatever its element of authenticity, the memoirs had been the work of more than one hand, and at different periods. I became convinced that even the eighteenth-century paper was a blind or false trail or red herring. It seemed strange, for instance, that on page 187 of the manuscript Tiberius should be quoting Nietzsche. This, together with the tone of some passages, made me wonder whether a gloss had been put on the original (if it existed) by some resident of Capri in, perhaps, the first decade of this century. And this suspicion was intensified when my all-seeing agent, Giles Gordon, remarked that one incident seemed to be drawn from The Story of San Mich ele by Axel Munthe.

  As against this, the coincidence is explicable if one remembers that the figure who appears to Munthe also claims to have appeared centuries previously to none other than Tiberius. It has always been assumed that Munthe invented
this genius loci; but what, it occurred to me, if he had not? Might not such a supposition confirm the authenticity of the memoirs?

  Then there is another story — about Sirens — which recalls one by Giuseppe di Lampedusa. That would place the concoction of the memoirs unacceptably late, I thought; besides, the Mediterranean lands are rich in Siren stories, and it is known that Tiberius took a particular interest in the myth. And then there is the postscript, which is decidedly rum, though it purports to account for the survival of the original memoirs in manuscript.

  Ultimately I remain undecided. I do not assert that these are the memoirs of Tiberius, or not unequivocally so. I think the bare bones of the narrative may be authentic, but that subsequent versions have refined, expanded and glossed them.

  And I find myself asking whether it matters. What we have here, persuasively and movingly in my opinion — else I should not have put myself to the labour of translating the work — is a remarkable portrait of one of the greatest, and certainly the unhappiest, of Roman emperors. In the end, I say to myself, fiction — if this is fiction — may offer truths to which neither biography nor even autobiography can aspire. Who knows himself or another man as thoroughly as the artist may imagine a life? Whose identity is fixed? A great and malignant artist, Tacitus, pinned a terrible portrait of Tiberius on the wall of history. If another hand has been moved to amend that picture, so be it. It was Napoleon, with his uncanny penetration of men's motives, who dismissed the great historian as le poete; yet Tacitus' lying truth held sway for centuries. The author of this autobiography, whoever he may be, is, I would claim, a poet himself at moments, and I trust that his version of the story, a version which is certainly the case for the defence, will work its influence also. Tiberius has waited long for justice; perhaps it is time that the deceptive bargain offered him by the divine boy in the garden, who promised the aged emperor peace of mind in exchange for the sacrifice of his reputation, should be expunged.

  So I do not care whether these memoirs are authentic or not. They convince me that they contain important verities. Basta!

  I had written this and left it to rest a week or two, to see if there was anything I wished to add.

  No sooner had I concluded that I was satisfied, than I received a telephone call.

  I recognised the voice at once. It was the Count. He reminded me of a bargain we had not made: that he should receive seventy-five per cent of translation rights, and twenty per cent of my English royalties. When I told him I had no memory of this, and had anyway thought him dead, he laughed.

  "I have given Tiberius to drink of my elixir," he said. "Why should you suppose that either he or I can die?"

  I had no answer to that. He promises to appear at the publication party. We shall see.

  Book One

  Chapter One

  That I relish dryness is not strange: I have campaigned too many years in the rains of the Rhine and Danube valleys. I have marched miles, ankle-deep, through mud, and slept in tents soaked through by morning. Yet my relish for what is dry is of another nature: I detest sentiment or displays of feeling; I detest acting. I detest self-indulgence, and that emotion in which one eye does not weep but observes the effect of tears on those who watch. I take pleasure in language which is precise, hard and cruel. This has made me a difficult and uncomfortable person. My presence makes my stepfather, the Princeps, uneasy. I have known this since I was a youth. For years I regretted it, for I sought his approval, even perhaps his love. Then I realised I could never have either of these: he responded to the false spontaneous charm of Marcellus, as he does now to that of his grandsons, Gaius and Lucius, who are also my stepsons.

  Nothing has been easy for me, and it would not be surprising if I were to relapse into self-pity. It is a temptation, because my merits have ever been unjustly disregarded on account of my lack of charm. I have never been able to dispel clouds with a smile and a jest, and it is natural if I have experienced twinges of envy when I see my inferiors able to do so. Yet I am kept from self-pity by my pride. This is inherited. It is Claudian pride.

  Augustus has always been rendered uneasy on account of the indignity of his birth. It is only by the accident of marriage that he has had a career; the accident of two marriages, I should say, for there can be no question that his own marriage to my mother smoothed his path to power.

  It was, however, the marriage of his grandfather, M. Atius Balbus, to Julia, the sister of Gaius Julius Caesar, the future dictator, which raised his family from an obscure provincial station. The Princeps' own father was the first member of the family to enter the Senate. Contrast that with my heredity.

  I shall not boast of the Claudian gens: our achievements glitter on every page of the Republic's history.

  Mark Antony — a liar of course — used to delight in mocking my stepfather's antecedents. He would claim that the great — grandfather of his colleague in the triumvirate had been a freed-man and rope-maker, and his grandfather a dishonest money-changer. It is not necessary to believe such charges to understand why Augustus' attitude to the old aristocracy of Rome has been ambiguous: he is both resentful and dazzled.

  I, being a Claudian, judge these things better. I know the worthlessness of my fellow nobles. I recognise that their decadence has made them unfit to govern, and so destroyed Liberty in Rome. Though the Roman Empire now extends over the whole civilised world to the limits of the Parthian Empire in the East, our great days are behind us; we have been compelled to acquiesce in the suppression of Liberty.

  I write this in retreat in Rhodes, in the tranquillity of my villa overlooking the sea. My life is now devoted to the study of philosophy and mathematics, and to pondering the nature of experience. Accordingly it is not surprising that I should think to write my autobiography. There is good precedent for this, and any man of enquiring intelligence must frequently stand amazed before the spectacle of his own life and wish to make sense of it.

  I am forty-two years old. My public life is ended through circumstances and my own desire. I have been humiliated in my private life. I am disgraced through no fault of my own, rather on account of the schemes of others and my own indifference. I may, if the Gods will it, have as long to live again, though nightly I pray otherwise. Even from this distance I cannot contemplate the shipwreck of old age with equanimity.

  My father was Tiberius Claudius Nero, dead now for more than thirty years. (I was nine when he died. They made me deliver his funeral oration. More of that later, if I can bring myself to write it.) My mother, who still lives, is Livia Drusilla. She was seduced by the triumvir, Caesar Octavianus, who is now styled Augustus. He was not deterred by the fact that she was pregnant. My brother, Drusus, was born three days after their marriage. He knew no father but Augustus, and our real father refused to receive him: he liked to pretend that Drusus was not his son. This was nonsense. Perhaps it salved his pride.

  I used to go to stay with him on the estate in the Sabine Hills to which he had retired. I wish I could claim vivid memories. But I have few, except of meals. He comforted himself with gluttony; his dinner lasted the whole afternoon. He liked me, even when I was only six or seven, to drink wine with him.

  "Don't water it," he said, "it delays the effect…"

  As the sun set he would embark on long monologues, to which I scarcely listened and which I could not anyhow have understood.

  He was an unlucky man, of poor judgment and some sense of honour. Fortune having dishonoured him, he sought refuge from the regrets which assailed him in eating and drinking. As the years have slipped away, I have come to understand him; and to sympathise.

  "Why prolong life save to prolong pleasure?" he would sigh, raising a cup of wine; and a tear would trickle down his fat cheek.

  A few years ago my father started to appear in my dreams. I would see him standing on a promontory looking out to sea. He was watching for a sail. I gazed at the blue water too, but did not dare to approach him. Then the sun was darkened, as if in an eclipse, and whe
n light returned my father had vanished; in his place stood a white cockerel bleeding from the neck. This dream came to me, in identical form, perhaps seven times. At last I consulted Thrasyllus but even he, the most acute interpreter of dreams, was unable to supply an explanation.

  Or perhaps dared not. In my position few, even among trusted friends, have the courage to speak their minds.

  Drusus, as I say, was never allowed to visit our father. Indeed I do not think he ever thought of him, except when I compelled the subject. But then he had no memories, and Drusus was never introspective. I, on the other hand, can recall my father on his knees clutching my mother's ankles and sobbing out his love for her. She disengaged her legs: he fell prostrate on marble; and I began to howl. I was three at the time.

  I adored my mother for her beauty, and for being herself. She would sing me to sleep with honied voice; the touch of her fingers on my eyelids fell like rose petals. She would tell me stories of my ancestors and of the gods, of Troy and of Orpheus, and the wanderings of my forefather Aeneas. At the age of five I wept for Dido, Queen of Carthage, and she said:

  "You are wrong to weep. Aeneas was fulfilling his destiny." "Is destiny so grim, Mama?" "Go to sleep, child."

  Drusus would clamber all over our stepfather who would kiss him and throw him in the air and laugh at his whoops. But I kept my distance. My love was for Mama, whose favourite I knew myself to be. That was important to me, and it confirmed me in what may have been an instinctive conviction that the world is ignorant of justice: for I knew Drusus to have a charm that I lacked, and, moreover, I recognised in him a sunny virtue which was absent from my character. His temper was benign. Nothing alarmed him. He was always truthful and generous. Even as a baby he would surrender a cherished toy with a happy smile. But I was greedy, and untruthful, and afraid of the dark places and of night. (Yet I also welcomed the night, and never went reluctant to bed, because I knew that bedtime promised me my mother's undivided attention, promised me stories, and the cool touch of her sweet-smelling hand; I would lie waiting for sleep in a world from which all but the two of us were banished…)