The Daughters of Palatine Hill: A Novel

by Phyllis T. Smith

As we received the guests’ congratulations, I looked up at Juba and I saw a hint of wonder in his eyes. Truly, it was cause for amazement that we should stand before this company hand in hand, king and queen, man and wife.

  It was perfectly obvious I must marry again and to a man of Father’s choice, a man he would choose with politics in mind. If I had let myself dwell on the question of whom my next husband would likely be, surely I’d have been able to make a good guess. But there are times when the mind protects itself. Already dazed with pain, I avoided thinking of the future.

  I had seen death in the arena and I had been in close proximity to death when the pestilence carried away servants and acquaintances. But no one I loved had ever died before. Losing my husband devastated me. It seemed so strange that people, even people who had professed to love Marcellus, could carry on with their lives. People such as my father. He gave Marcellus a grand funeral and pronounced a noble eulogy. A few months later, he joined in the somewhat circumscribed festivities for Selene’s marriage; and if he still grieved, he hid it well.

  I noticed Selene casting somber looks at me during the wedding feast. I think she was one of the few people present who sensed what I felt on that occasion, who knew that I could not forget my own wedding to Marcellus and the hopes we had had on our marriage day. Perhaps the pain she had borne in her own young life enabled her to understand me. Maybe friendship could have grown out of that understanding, if she had stayed in Rome. But in just a few days, she left Rome with her glowing bridegroom to take charge of the kingdom Father had given them to rule.

  When Juba and Selene said their farewells, I saw their delight in each other—and Selene seemed transformed. She stood before us, queen of Mauretania, dressed not as a Roman wife but in a long blue robe, trimmed with pearls. A gift, I heard, from Mauretanians living in Rome—a gift to their new queen. It suited her. Taking leave of us, she embraced my father and Livia in turn. She hugged me too. She wore some exotic perfume I couldn’t place—a scent I imagined her mother might have worn. She did not have on much makeup, just enough to bring out her eyes. But for the first time, she made me think of paintings I had seen of Egyptian queens of long ago.

  “I wish you happiness,” I said.

  “I wish the same to you.”

  Then Selene and her bridegroom were gone. Off to a life that held every prospect of joy.

  I continued to live in my aunt Octavia’s household after Marcellus’s death. It was a bleak, cheerless place for a young woman of my age. Octavia’s three unmarried daughters kept sober miens and did their best never to trouble their mother, for her sadness permeated our home. The servants had taken to speaking only in low, grave voices. My aunt would sit in a chair and simply stare at a wall for hours on end. I would sometimes sit beside her, hoping my closeness would comfort her.

  “You are a good girl, Julia,” she said to me once. “You truly loved my boy.”

  Generally, she spoke very little.

  I think it was out of affection for me that she agreed to attend a poetry reading at my father’s house. Poetry was one of the few things that still gave me pleasure after losing Marcellus. Octavia had always been fond of poetry too.

  My father’s friend Maecenas was Rome’s most notable patron of the arts. He would bring artists and poets he favored to Father’s attention. Often poets gave readings in Father’s atrium, before select groups of his friends.

  On this occasion, a poet named Virgil was to read. We all had heard he was working on a great epic poem that some hoped would equal the Iliad. His literary gifts were far beyond the ordinary. Some people called him the Roman Homer.

  The grand epic was by no means finished, but Virgil proposed to read a short selection from it. I thought—foolishly—that listening to soaring poetry would distract Aunt Octavia from her pain.

  Father, Livia, Maecenas, and several dozen guests attended the reading. “I’m so glad you have come,” Father said to my aunt when he greeted her. She gave him a cool look, and a troubled expression flickered over his face. He quickly turned to introduce us to the poet, a ginger-haired man with a bland, forgettable face.

  My aunt and I were ushered to seats beside Father and Livia. An anticipatory buzz rose from the crowd. Then without preamble, Virgil began to read from a long parchment scroll he held in his hand.

  He kept his eyes averted from the audience, and he never gestured as some poets do. He had a flat, unimpressive voice. Despite this, I knew I was in the presence of greatness. His words transported us all to another time, another land.

  The hero of Virgil’s poem, Aeneas, a Trojan warrior, was said to be the forebear of us Romans. In the poem, he journeyed to the underworld to meet Romans that in his time were yet to be born. He saw famous generals like the two Scipios and great political leaders like the Gracchi passing by in procession. I glanced at Father and saw his eyes gleaming. Patriotic pride, Roman greatness—the stuff of Virgil’s poem was meat and drink to him.

  We viewed the grand panorama of Roman history. The poet lauded Father and Julius Caesar—how could he not, being here to curry favor? But he also referred to the cruelty of the late civil wars, even ventured to reproach those who had fought fellow Romans. This required no great courage. Father always allowed citizens to speak their minds in his presence.

  What came next, however, jarred us all. Certainly it jarred me to the soul. The poet referred to a young man, standing out among those awaiting birth and god-given destinies:

  “The Fates will only show him to the world, not allow him to stay long . . .”

  I felt a prickle along the back of my neck. Virgil went on in a low, mournful voice.

  “No boy of the line of Ilius shall so exalt his Latin ancestors by his show of promise, nor will Romulus’s land ever take more pride in one of its sons.

  Alas for virtue . . .”

  I knew he spoke of Marcellus. It was less a tribute to who he had been than who he might have become in time. And that only made it more heartbreaking.

  “Ah, boy to be pitied . . . Marcellus! Give me handfuls of white lilies, let me scatter radiant flowers . . .”

  Next to me, Aunt Octavia gave a wordless cry. She half rose from her chair, and then she fell forward. Then she lay on the floor, unmoving. The poet had fallen silent; we were all silent. Father went to his sister, knelt, and propped her up in his arms while we of the family crowded round. I saw that her eyes were shut and for a moment wondered if she had died.

  “Sister . . . Sister . . . ,” Father murmured.

  She opened her eyes and looked at him, the most terrible expression of loathing on her face.

  No one blamed Virgil. He had expressed what the Roman people felt about Marcellus’s death. They mourned a shining figure they had seen from a distance, they mourned the leader he might have become. But his mother and I—we mourned the flesh and blood young man.

  My aunt had suffered many blows in her life and carried on bravely. She struggled to avert civil war between my father and Mark Antony by maintaining a shell of a marriage. She saw her hopes collapse and never wept publicly for Antony, whom I had always believed was the only man she ever loved. Our entire family looked to her for steady good sense. I have never understood why listening to Virgil rhapsodize about Marcellus in deathless poetry destroyed my aunt.

  Father recoiled visibly at the awful look she gave him. Maidservants carried her to a nearby couch. Father summoned a physician who said she had suffered an emotional shock and made light of it. She was unable to walk, however, and was transported home in a sedan chair. We put her to bed in her own bedchamber. She clutched at my hand and would not let me leave.

  “You mourn my poor boy truly, don’t you?” she said. “But your father—I saw him shed tears at the funeral, but I tell you he wept for an implement, snatched out of his hand. Not for my son, his goodness, his sweetness. We should scatter handfuls of white lilies, just as the poet said. That good, dear boy . . .”

  “Oh, Aunt, put that poem out of your mind
,” I said.

  “Marcellus was young and strong. He might have gotten sick, but he would have recovered—he would never have died if your father had not driven him so mercilessly. Harried and pushed him, and never let him enjoy a moment of his youth.”

  “How can we know what caused Marcellus’s death?”

  “I am his mother and I know. I know! I know!”

  All my life my aunt had been mild, dutiful, and restrained. This was another woman.

  Her face softened. “But you were a good wife. You aren’t hard like your father is. Marcellus was not a nephew to him, only a tool to be used. As I was, when he had me wed Mark Antony. As you are—not a daughter but a tool. Understand who and what your father is.”

  I told myself Aunt Octavia would not have spoken so if she had not been so gripped by grief and misery. And yet she was saying things I already partly believed. I could not forget how Father had given his signet ring to Agrippa, and what that had done to Marcellus. To Marcellus and me.

  My aunt never spoke to me again in this fashion. All the strength seemed to go out of her after that night. She attended no more poetry readings, at Father’s house or elsewhere. From that time on, she was a housebound invalid.

  We sat in a little alcove that looked out at the gardens, Tavius, Maecenas, and I. The garden was not such a pretty sight as it had been only a month before. Many of the flowers had withered; the air had a chill in it.

  We—Tavius and I—had invited Maecenas to Prima Porta ostensibly for a brief, pleasant holiday. In truth, we wanted his services as an advisor and sounding board.

  Our friend Maecenas was a paradoxical man. He was first of all a lover of poetry and of art, and here his taste was unerring. He was plump and unimpressive-looking but always wore clothing of the finest wool or linen, and I never saw him in need of a haircut or a shave. His high voice sounded womanish, and he had soft white hands like a well-bred woman’s, the nails always carefully manicured. He had been very kind to me when I was young and unsure, and I did not forget it. But he had another quality that seemed not to go with the rest of him—a mind that could cut through iron bars. I would not call Maecenas ruthless, but he could look at the worst without blinking, and if he trusted you, he would tell you exactly what he thought. It was this latter quality that Tavius most prized in him.

  Tavius began to talk about Agrippa and how the army loved him. He told Maecenas that it had somehow or other become generally known that when Tavius thought he was about to die he had dubbed Agrippa his successor.

  “It seems the army, as a whole, warmly approved my choice,” Tavius said, a touch of asperity in his voice. “In fact, a good number are mourning the fact that I rose from my sickbed. They love me dearly, so dearly they’d like me in Elysium, and Agrippa leading them on earth.”

  Maecenas nodded as if he knew all this.

  “Now Agrippa is loyal, absolutely loyal,” Tavius said. “But still—I think he is being nudged, pushed in a dangerous direction—he has ambitious friends who say he has not gotten his just rewards from me. I gave him my niece Marcella—that has turned out not to be much of a gift. There’s a tension between Agrippa and me now, and I don’t like it.”

  “The simple solution would be to sweeten Agrippa by letting him divorce Marcella and marry Julia,” I said. “In effect, confirming him as Tavius’s heir. But I think remarriage is far from Julia’s thoughts and may be for some time. And I do not believe this marriage would be at all to her liking.”

  Suggest another way, I almost said. Suggest some agreeable young man we can marry Julia to who won’t vie for power. Suggest how we are to keep Agrippa content and the army content without giving him Julia. I felt for the girl, so young, so recently bereaved. I did not think Julia would be happy with Agrippa, a reserved and phlegmatic much older man.

  Maecenas smiled at me. “My dearest Livia, you are looking at me as if you expect me to pluck pearls from the heavens . . . or perhaps levitate.”

  “Yes,” I said. “A miracle would go over very well with me just now.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t believe in miracles. In my view, we are all subject to natural law and stuck on this hard, obdurate earth.” He looked at Tavius. “Surely you know how I’m going to advise you.”

  “Say it,” Tavius said.

  “It seems to me you must either marry Agrippa to your daughter, as befits your heir, or else you must kill him.”

  Tavius drew in a harsh breath. “Kill the darling of the army? Oh, please, why even talk about my doing that? I could no more bring myself to kill him than I could to kill you.”

  Maecenas smiled faintly. “I personally have always thought that was a splendid quality of yours—not going in for killing your old friends.”

  We had wine served. Maecenas raised his goblet and, looking at Tavius, spoke as though tentatively proposing a toast. “May Julia give Agrippa a fine brace of sons?”

  “May it be so,” I said.

  Finally, Tavius echoed, “May it be so.”

  Tavius was not cruel or indifferent to his daughter’s happiness. He sipped that wine with all the pleasure he would have taken in downing a cup of poison.

  I prayed for Tavius to live many more years. And then for the best eventuality, Rome’s best hope given our world’s imperfections—for him to leave a sturdy grandson, son of Julia and Agrippa, ready to step forward to succeed him.

  On a day in summer a little more than a year after Marcellus’s death I was summoned into my father’s study. Livia was present.

  “There is something I must tell you,” Father said.

  I felt an odd chill. I sat down on one of the couches, near where Livia sat.

  “It is important that you marry soon,” Father said.

  “I am still mourning Marcellus,” I said. “I don’t think I am ready to marry yet.”

  “There are burdens that come with being my daughter.”

  “I just want time, Father.”

  “I’m afraid it’s out of the question.”

  “Then who . . . who is to be my husband?”

  “The only man who could carry on in my place if I were gone—Agrippa.”

  I stared at Father, and then said stupidly, “But he is married. He is married to Marcella.”

  “They will divorce.”

  “But Father . . . he has been like an uncle to me, all my life. He gave me away at my wedding. I could never love Agrippa as I loved Marcellus. I could never . . .”

  “It is what Rome requires of you.”

  I felt as if I were drowning. “After Marcellus, after all we were to each other . . .”

  “Marcellus is dead,” Father said.

  I turned to Livia. Why was she here? Why could Father and I not at least have this conversation alone? She was no ally to me; she was present to bolster Father’s resolve, that was plain. Still, I tried to reach her, to speak to her as one woman to another. “You must understand. You married the man you love. I will never feel any love for Agrippa. Never.”

  She said in a low voice, “This can’t be helped.”

  “The marriage is necessary. That is all,” Father said.

  “That is all?” I don’t think I ever dared to be truly angry at my father until that moment. I felt heat rising from the core of my being and struggled to modulate my voice. “Father, don’t you understand? I will never be happy if I marry Agrippa. I will be unhappy my whole life. Don’t you love me?”

  He flushed. “You are my only child. Of course I love you!”

  I heard my aunt saying that I was a tool to my father, no more than a tool.

  It was shocking to me that Father demanded I wed Agrippa, shocking the way a betrayal is shocking, a terrible betrayal by the person one has always loved and trusted.

  I had grown up knowing I would marry Marcellus. I had accepted it, not truly understanding what marriage was. Since then, I had learned about passion and about the meaning of love. In light of that, marriage to a man I could never love seemed a horror. I kne
w of course that fathers were always marrying off their daughters to suit their convenience, with little thought at all of the daughter’s happiness. But somehow I felt I was different. I was Father’s only child. I was special to him. I had never imagined him forcing me into an unwanted second marriage after Marcellus died. Even after he named Agrippa and not my husband, Marcellus, as his successor, I somehow harbored the belief that we stood apart from other fathers and daughters.

  Despite all that, I should have expected exactly what took place. For I was not ignorant. What I knew of political events, what I knew of the lives of other women, most fundamentally, what I knew about my father—all that should have prepared me for this moment. And yet I was not prepared.

  “Agrippa is a good man,” Father said. “He will protect you, always. You will come to care for him. Believe me, my child, this is for the best. You will be content with him in time.”

  “Father, please, don’t make me do this. Please. Please. If you care for me at all . . .”

  He said nothing. His expression was obdurate.

  “It is as if you are condemning me to death.”

  “In the name of all the gods, Julia!” Suddenly, he was shouting. “I must do my duty and so must you. It’s time for you to grow up. Stop being a child!”

  I felt an awful emptiness. I always had believed until that moment Father loved me.

  A year before I had been bereft of a husband. Now I was bereft of a father also. The difference was I had had Marcellus for a time. I felt now that my loving father had never existed.

  I thought of Iphigenia being sacrificed on an altar by her father, Agamemnon. Had she once imagined she had her father’s love? When she was forced down on the altar, did she hate him? Did she hate him the more because she had been a fool?

  “Julia, if I were a poor man, I might hand you to some sweaty peasant and you would have to accept him and hope he could manage to feed you and the children you would bear. That is life as most people live it. All your life I have showered you with every good thing, and you will marry the greatest man in Rome after myself. And you feel misused?”