The Daughters of Palatine Hill: A Novel

by Phyllis T. Smith

  My only real delight was my children. The boys, Gaius and Lucius, occupied themselves with their studies, taught by exacting tutors my father had selected. The knowledge of who they were and what was expected of them had already begun to weigh on their young shoulders. Their sister Julilla was quite different. She liked to laugh; she liked to read poetry. She reminded me of myself.

  Our youngest child, little Agrippina, was unusually self-possessed, even as a toddler, carrying herself like a little judge. Agrippa fully accepted that she was his child—luckily there was a resemblance. He often would boast about how precocious she was.

  When I looked back on the last few years, I saw that I was lucky to have skirted complete disaster. And so for months, I lived a quiet life in the country with my husband and my children. I was not happy, but I was tamed.

  There was an outbreak of rebellion among the fierce Illyrian tribes in the Balkans. My stepbrother Drusus was fighting in Germania by that time; Tiberius was on his way to Gaul. My father’s life could not be risked on campaign. Letters were exchanged. It was decided that Agrippa would go and quell the uprising.

  I argued. For all my failings as a wife, I felt protective of Agrippa, who had recently been so ill. It was absurd, I said, for him to go to the Balkans—could no Roman but a member of our own family lead an army? Was there not another competent general in all our legions? Why should Agrippa of all men go to quell the rebellion when not long ago he had been barely able to walk?

  “Have you never heard of duty?” he asked me curtly.

  He went off to war once again. He went because he was Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa. He went because it would have been impossible for him to do anything else.

  I, as soon as he had gone, escaped my bucolic life as though it were a dungeon cell and the door had suddenly been unlocked. I returned to Rome, where my old friends welcomed me.

  I too acted in accord with my own nature.

  Sempronius Gracchus understood our time as lovers had passed. As we reclined together on a dinner couch one night, he said, “I’ve always thought you were searching for something. And it wasn’t me.”

  “Something?” I said.

  “Well, no, someone.” He smiled. “A great love. The sort Catullus writes about in his poetry.”

  I stroked his cheek. “You truly think that?”

  “Actually I know it.”

  I shook my head. “Catullus was a very unhappy man. And he died young.”

  “What is it that you want really? Have you asked yourself that?”

  “I want pleasure, as anyone does. And I want to feel . . . oh, I just want to feel. I want to be alive.”

  “Has it been terrible to you, being married to Agrippa? I’ve always thought he was a decent man.”

  “He is—he is very decent. At least, his flaws are no worse than that of most men in his position. But being married to him has been a kind of death.”

  I had been a captive, it seemed, for ages. And now with my husband gone, I broke free. I feared word of my actions reaching Agrippa or my father. But the fear was not enough to restrain me. I was so hungry—for life. There were men. More than one. High-ranking members of old Roman families. I took care, as always, to see they did not get me with child. But we gave each other pleasure. And I will say this—I never told them lies or made false promises. We always parted as friends.

  I thought sometimes of what Gracchus said. Was I searching? Perhaps he was right. There was an emptiness inside me. And even at the pinnacle of pleasure, entwined in a man’s arms, I felt some greater thing was forever out of reach. I did not even know the name of what I yearned for.

  There is an old tale that we of the Julian line are descended from the goddess of love. I doubt there is any truth to it. I have also heard Greek stories of women who incurred Aphrodite’s wrath by some awful trespass, and whom she therefore inflicted with inappeasable longing.

  Was I one of these women? And if so, what had been my sin?

  On a spring day I waited to welcome my brother Jullus and his family to Mauretania. It had been more than five years since I had seen him in Rome. The greatest disappointments those years had brought me were three miscarriages. My son, Ptolemy, was tall and thriving, but Juba and I had no other children; the daughter I longed for—who in my imagination had a name, Drusilla, and even a face—remained a hope and nothing more. And the hope was waning. I had begun to think I would never have another child.

  The people shouted our praises when Juba and I rode through the streets of our capital city of Caesarea. The city itself was beautiful—thriving with commerce, graced by stately marble buildings and statues of the finest workmanship. It was moreover a magnet for scholars. Juba had acquired great fame throughout the Roman Empire not only as a patron of learning but for the books he himself authored.

  Once he had merely funded geographical expeditions and compiled and published the information explorers brought back. But as time went on, he felt an itch to wander. I had gotten used to seeing him sail off to explore unknown territories. I missed him, but when he returned from these geographical expeditions, he was always exhilarated. “Do you know what it feels like to be the first man to look at an island that no human eye has ever seen before?” he asked me once. Of course I did not. I did not even fully understand the appeal.

  Heaven had surely meant him to be an explorer. He did not relish the mundane duties that went with being a king. I, on the other hand, liked them very much. Some people say a woman is not meant to be a ruler. But I was a daughter of the royal house of Egypt.

  I often distributed bread to the poor. I also looked into the eyes of murderers and rapists and sentenced them to death—I who had feared the executioner’s blade myself did this, never with pleasure, but with the understanding that this was required of me. For it is a ruler’s place to stand between the people and danger, and sometimes even to take life in order to protect life. I learned to make hard choices. I was a queen. And as a queen, I knew I had no more important task than to guard against hubris, particularly when I dealt with Rome.

  One question recurred again and again: Could we in Mauretania govern our own land, or must we bow to Rome? A delicate diplomatic dance continued year after year. My personal relationship with Livia and our frequent exchange of letters played a crucial part in maintaining our independence. Because I had Livia’s ear, Rome’s representatives treated us with more respect than they might have otherwise. Several times I appealed to her for help when our latest “minder” impeded my actions. On each occasion she swept the stumbling block from my path.

  Naturally, I was overjoyed when my brother Jullus ascended to the praetorship in Rome. This lifted him to an exalted rank in the Senate, second only to men who had held the consulship itself. His reply to my congratulatory letter struck me as rather restrained and dry. He had never yet been given the military command he had always longed for. Still, the praetorship was a great office, not an empty honor. He had become a highly influential senator. Of course his advancement had depended on his close family relationship to Augustus.

  For some time, I had been inviting him to visit my family and me in Mauretania. Shortly after he completed his term as praetor, he accepted the invitation.

  On a sunny day, Juba and I, in our robes of state, waited in our throne room to welcome this high Roman personage, my brother. He entered, accompanied by Marcella and their two half-grown boys and small daughter, as well as by a host of soldiers and retainers. Formal words of welcome were spoken, while my heart leaped with joy.

  I remember Mark Antony, Jullus’s father and mine, as a tall, laughing, boisterous figure who always seemed to be walking out the door. Revered Father, I told his shade, take satisfaction from this at least—that your children live, that we remember you, that we have somehow each succeeded in living fruitful lives. And that we are here today, united.

  Juba and I held a great festive dinner that night to welcome my brother and his family. Marcella looked around the banquet room, a
t the tables with their gold fittings, the dining couches with their ivory frames and silk cushions. “Very fine,” she said in a supercilious tone. “Why, we could almost be in Rome.”

  My brother said coldly, “I doubt there is a dining room in Rome as fine as this.”

  “Oh, dear husband, you are probably right. Except of course for the summer dining room at my uncle Augustus’s villa. The murals there are extraordinary works of art. I doubt there is anything like them here.”

  The emphasis in her voice when she mentioned her uncle Augustus might have struck me as comical in another context. But I saw tension in my brother’s face. How often, I wondered, did his wife speak of “my uncle Augustus”? How often did she remind him of all he owed to her and her kin?

  I looked at my brother’s two fine, handsome sons and lovely little daughter. I looked at his toga, with the broad purple stripe that marked him out as a former praetor. I tried to convince myself he was a fortunate man. Then I gazed again at his face, the tight set of his mouth. I knew he was not fortunate.

  “Yes, I well remember Augustus’s dining room murals,” my husband said. Then he smoothly changed the subject.

  My brother gave me a bleak smile.

  He knew I had seen what his life was.

  The next day we spent some time alone in the private garden where I received my most special guests.

  “You will be consul before many more years,” I said at one point to cheer him.

  “Yes. And if I can help you in any way, please rely on me,” he said. “But I think you have a better advocate in Livia, back in Rome. Whatever my position, I am kept on a tight leash.”

  Was he exaggerating the weakness of his situation so I would not expect great favors from him? I did not think so. But I was not sure.

  He caught my look of doubt. “Believe me, little moon, I do not have Augustus’s trust. What I have is his benevolence. And that is something quite different.”

  “I’ve heard that you are prominent in the Senate.”

  He brightened a little at that. “Really, that’s come to your ears? Well, it’s true I have many friends there. Younger men who are not so enamored of Augustus as their fathers were come to me with their grievances. I help them when I can.”

  “They come to you with grievances?” Something in that made me uneasy.

  “Oh, sweet Sister, you needn’t worry. We all know the bounds of free speech in the Senate. I for one would never be stupid enough to exceed those bounds.”

  There was a metallic taste in my mouth. I sensed danger. My brother was unhappy. He had attracted a coterie of unhappy friends. I told myself it was not as if he were speaking of a revolutionary cabal. Yet—yet—I did not like this at all.

  “You must be careful, Jullus.”

  “Oh, please.” He laughed. “I’m married to Augustus’s niece. And you can see how we adore each other. No one’s more secure than I am.”

  You ought to have left Rome, I thought. You ought to have come to Mauretania with Juba and me.

  “I like the East, little moon,” he said. “There’s a pleasant scent in the air when you get this far from Rome. It is like the smell of freedom to me.”

  “The freedom is never complete. But there is much beauty here.”

  “You are content?”

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t think of what might have been? Our father was once ruler of the whole eastern empire, with your mother as his queen. He hoped to conquer Parthia and equal Alexander. If one sea battle had gone a different way, he would have taken Rome. Don’t you think of that?”

  “Not often.”

  “It was because the crews on our father’s galleys took ill. It wasn’t better seamanship on Augustus and Agrippa’s parts, certainly not because they were more brave. A strange trick of fortune—a sudden illness struck Father’s sailors. They were all vomiting over the sides of their boats. And Augustus got the empire, and Father got a cold tomb.” He gave me a mirthless smile. “Don’t you find that funny?”

  “I have heard that story many times, and it has never once made me smile.”

  “It rends your heart?”

  I nodded.

  “It rends my heart too.”

  The sense of our common kinship was palpable. I thought of my parents; I thought of my dead brothers. At that moment, I was no longer a queen but a child who had suffered incalculable loss.

  “Oh, little moon,” Jullus said tenderly.

  I shook my head, lowering my gaze. I was close to weeping.

  “And if not for that day at Actium, that woeful toss of the dice, I would not be who I am,” Jullus said. “I would not have spent my whole life eating the bread of charity. I would be a great satrap in the East, I think—an emperor’s son. And you would not be reduced to ruling over this small kingdom while your husband collects insects and samples of rock.”

  My head jerked up. I stared into my brother’s eyes. “I do not consider Mauretania small. I consider it a bright jewel set in a sea of darkness. The people here are as happy and as free as Juba and I can make them. Learned men flock to us from every corner of the earth. And the knowledge my husband has garnered will be of great value to people in ages to come. His books will still be read when you and I are dust.”

  Jullus stiffened. “I am sorry,” he said softly. “I have no wish to offend you. I have nothing but respect for what you and your husband have achieved. But do you know how quickly this jewel of a kingdom you have created could be destroyed, absorbed into Rome, governed like any conquered territory? Augustus would only need to snap his fingers.”

  “I hope that will never happen.”

  “You hope.”

  “In the end we may go down. But for as long as Juba and I can make it so, we will be what we are. We are a light, my brother. We glow like the sun.”

  “He does not know who you are,” Juba said to me after Jullus and his family had taken leave of us and returned to Rome.

  “What do you mean?”

  We lay beneath a sheet of fine yellow linen. The shutters had been left open, for the night was hot. There was a faint breeze that smelled of lemons and hyacinths. My husband brushed my hair with his lips. “He forgets you are the descendant of the Ptolemies, a god-queen. I on the other hand am never so foolish as to forget that.”

  “You dislike Jullus?”

  “I could do without him calling you little moon.”

  “It was his nickname for me, when I was a child. When I had no one else to rely on, he protected me.”

  “That speaks well for him. Still, I think he underestimates you. The little girl in need of his protection is now a great queen. A wiser man would recognize that.” He leaned over me so our foreheads touched. “You are formidable, my love. If Jullus can’t see that, he’s blind.”

  When my aunt Octavia died, we all mourned. Father praised her in a public eulogy, lauding her as a model of womanly virtue. I am sure every word he said was sincere, but again and again he alluded to days far in the past. The pressures of ruling an empire had created a fissure between him and his sister. He had lost her, I think, long before she died.

  The needs of the empire impacted all our lives. Tiberius had been in Rome for a time, serving as consul and garnering praise for how he performed his duties. During this time, Vipsania gave him a son. Within days of acknowledging the child—he named him after his brother—he was off to combat tribes in the Alps. Meanwhile Drusus fought along the frontier of Germania, beating back invaders who had forged across the Rhine.

  I am sure Livia was proud at how Drusus in particular covered himself with glory. We heard that of their own accord, his troops gathered around his tent one day to cheer and acclaim him, and dub him an imperator. It was an extraordinary thing. He was only twenty-six years old. But looking at my own small sons, I imagined what her true feelings were. She was the mother of two fighting generals, one the young hero that all Rome idolized. But I suspected that given a choice she would have preferred both her sons sa
fe at home.

  My husband had been away fighting other battles. But a letter came from him saying he was returning to our villa in the south of Italy, that I should take the children and meet him there. Apparently just the sound of his name was enough to cow the Illyrian rebels. Their resistance collapsed as soon as his army entered their territory. He restored order with his usual efficiency and saw no need to stay in the province.

  When I arrived, I found my husband sitting in a chair in the library. The little ones rushed to happily embrace him. I stood apart, stricken at how sick he looked. He had gotten very lean, his face almost skull-like. I asked him how he was, and he shrugged. “My feet are acting up again. And I’ve had some trouble keeping food down—there’s a pain in my guts.”

  He wanted to couple with me that night. This surprised me since he hardly seemed strong enough for that. It was different from our usual lovemaking. He was slow, gentle, his hands lingering on my body. I thought of how one might dawdle, looking carefully at a familiar place one expected never to visit again, and spend time fixing it in memory. I somehow sensed that he was saying farewell.

  In the following days, physicians danced attendance on him, but the pain in his abdomen only grew worse. “Write to your father,” he said. “Tell him I want to see him.”

  I wrote, Come to us here, Father. Please come immediately. Agrippa is desperately ill and asking for you.

  As Agrippa dozed, I sat at his bedside, wishing we had been able to love each other.

  Two days passed. I knew Father would make haste. I wondered if he would be in time. Finally, he stood in the entranceway, flushed, his clothes splattered with mud from his journey. “I came the moment I saw your letter. Is he still alive?”

  “He died not much more than an hour ago,” I said.

  Father let out a terrible groan. “Where is he?”

  I showed him into the bedchamber. Agrippa’s body lay stretched out on the bed.