The Daughters of Palatine Hill: A Novel

by Phyllis T. Smith

  Father’s face lacked expression. I knew that this did not mean he was indifferent. He had a well-practiced look of contained feeling, a look that gave nothing away. “I see,” he said. “And what exactly do you want from me?”

  “Your permission to divorce and remarry.”

  “Remarry whom?”

  “Jullus Antony.”

  He did not look surprised. “Are you by any chance with child by him?”

  “No.”

  “Well, that’s one small piece of good fortune.”

  I became very still. “I don’t trust Tiberius as guardian for my children. We loathe each other, Father.”

  “Julia, do you understand that if I die tomorrow, your husband must rule this empire, hold it for your sons? Tiberius could do it. Jullus never could.”

  “But that’s not true, Father. Jullus can. And I would trust him to protect my boys.”

  “You would trust him? Mark Antony’s son?”

  “Father, the civil wars are past.”

  “The past lives in us. It’s right here with us in this room today. Julia, the only man prepared to take up my burden is Tiberius. No one else could begin to do it.”

  “If you heard how Tiberius has spoken to me—the vile things he has said—”

  “Perhaps you provoked him.”

  I took a deep breath. “Tiberius is not a good man. I think deep down you know it yourself. You have never had any warm feeling toward him, and there is a reason. He is hard and mean and—”

  “Do you think a soft man can lead armies? He is not charming, I give you that. But he is competent.”

  “He is not to be trusted. Not with my sons’ futures.”

  “Are you thinking of your sons? Or are you thinking of Jullus?”

  “Oh, Father,” I said, “I need a husband I can love. Is that so wrong? But if you would only open your eyes, you would see that Jullus is a better man than Tiberius.”

  Father shook his head impatiently.

  I felt a spurt of anger, of panic too. I wanted desperately to reach this man, my father, and I could not. “Father, Tiberius is Livia’s son. She can’t see him clearly. How could she? She is his mother. And you look at him through her eyes and don’t see him clearly either. He was harsh with my boys. He has no kindness for them. He has no kindness for anyone. How can you trust him to carry on for you, to be a steward for your life’s work and for your grandchildren? He is merciless, Father. Rome should not be in his hands. He doesn’t value liberty. He has no feeling for our best traditions.”

  “But Jullus Antony does,” Father said, his voice ice-cold.

  Had I made a mistake, suggesting that love for Livia had blinded him? Had that mere suggestion closed his eyes to anything else I might say?

  “Tiberius is vicious,” I said.

  “I cannot let your . . . whims injure Rome. Even if Tiberius is vicious as a wild cur—and he isn’t, unless you’ve made him that way—better him to hold an empire together than a man who is weak.”

  “Jullus is not weak!”

  “He has lived off my bounty all his life. He would now like power—and his way to get it is to seduce my foolish daughter. I find it utterly despicable that he stoops to such means. I thought better of him. But now I see he has no moral character at all.”

  “He loves me.”

  “He would like to push Tiberius out of the way and become my son-in-law. Gods above, Julia, open your eyes. He does not love you. He loves what he imagines he will gain if he marries you.”

  “That is not true!” I cried. “Jullus does love me.”

  Father gave me a look of icy contempt. “He wants the power his father sought. You are letting yourself be manipulated by a scoundrel.”

  For a moment I asked myself if Father could be right. I felt the most horrible despair thinking that he might be. I almost hated him for causing me that instant of doubt. “It’s not true! Just because I’m nothing but a tool to you—just because you can’t love me—don’t think Jullus can’t. Don’t judge him by yourself. He is not like you. He is not all cold calculation. He has a heart!”

  “You utter fool,” Father said. “How dare you take that tone with me? How dare you raise your voice in my presence?”

  “You are defaming the man I love.”

  “Love? That is the word you use?”

  “I love him.”

  “You do not know what love is. You know lust. Do you think I have not heard for years of your wildness, your lewdness? Do you think I have not been shamed?”

  I grasped something that I had been blind to before—how angry Father had been at me, how long he had been holding his anger in check. Now what I saw in his eyes was rage. I knew his power, knew that he held my very life in his hands. I wanted to flee. And yet, I had to go on trying to reach him.

  “Oh, Father, please forgive me. How can I make you understand? Jullus is different. We care for each other. When we marry, you will see how we conduct our lives together. I promise I will never give you cause for shame. Never again. Jullus is a strong, honorable man—”

  “If he were honorable, do you think both he and I would still be breathing?”

  I stared at him. “What are you saying?”

  Father spoke in a voice that grated. “When I was a powerless eighteen-year-old, Julius Caesar, whom I called father, was assassinated by a cabal led by Marcus Brutus. Within three years I had gathered an army and fought great battles, and I had Brutus’s head on a spike. If I had acted differently, I would have been unworthy to govern Rome.”

  “You fault Jullus for not killing you?”

  “I understand what sort of man Jullus Antony is!” Father shouted. “Gods above—he thinks he can gain an empire just by seducing one foolish woman. By seducing my daughter!” He took a deep breath and eyed the material on the table. “Do you see all these letters here? They come from all parts of the empire, sent by people who look to me—me!—to hold back violence and chaos, to tame the world for them and make it civilized. The burden I carry crushes me to the ground, but I carry it, the whole miserable world requires that I carry it. And you—when have you given me a bit of help? You have lived a wild life and have consorted with irresponsible fools who hate me, and I have been too fond and done my best to turn a blind eye. But even I have my limits. I warn you—do not push me any further. You have exhausted my patience and my paternal feeling for you. That well is dry.”

  “‘That well is dry,’” I repeated the words, trying to comprehend what he meant. I felt a severance, deep in my being. It was as if Father had already died.

  “Enough of this,” he said. “Enough, you hear me? Stay away from Jullus Antony. I will never let you marry him.”

  Tavius was physically sick after his talk with Julia. Even in his youth, he had been prone to fall ill when the burdens of life proved too great. Now the cough that had troubled him from time to time since his boyhood recurred with a vengeance. I mixed him up a hot medicinal brew that had helped him in the past, but he impatiently told me to take it away. He refused to summon a physician or to rest. He sat in his study, coughing and working.

  I felt great anger toward Julia. War couldn’t kill Tavius. Neither could the great fevers that have swept through Rome, carrying away stronger men. But he may not survive his daughter.

  I was angry at Tiberius too, Tiberius who had deserted us. I had always felt sure he would eventually return to Rome. He was a man of enormous talent for generalship and government. When the gods bestow a great gift on you, they also drive you as with a lash—drive you to use it. But now it seemed he had left the field to another man—and of all men Mark Antony’s son.

  The idea of Jullus Antony ever stepping into Tavius’s shoes was too foolish to seriously contemplate. The only one I could even begin to imagine filling Tavius’s place was my son.

  My father has demonstrated time after time that he has no love for me,” I told Jullus. “But as quickly as I learn the truth, I forget it again. He called me an utter fool, and
I think he is right.”

  The bedchamber in his lodgings was small and devoid of any beautiful decorative touch—decent enough, but to me it looked like it was a place for illicit coupling. I expected Jullus to take me in his arms, to comfort me. Instead he looked at me with a grave, set face and said, “It is not over. We are in a political battle now. I always suspected it would come to this.”

  “A political battle . . .”

  “Do you have the nerve for a fight, Julia? It is the only way we’ll ever be able to marry.”

  “You think there is still hope?”

  “Yes. But do you have courage for this?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I have the courage for anything now.” But after this bold declaration, I pulled back. “When you say fight . . . you don’t intend to use force? You mean to use pressure and influence to get Father to accede to our marrying.”

  “Yes, exactly. No one will be harmed.” Jullus was thoughtful for a moment. Then he asked, “What did he say about me? What reason did he give for rejecting me as your husband?”

  I looked away. “He said you have no love for me, that all I am to you is a means to power.”

  “It is not true.”

  He spoke with such simple sincerity. Surely he was telling me the truth. Surely he did love me? I gazed up into his eyes. “You don’t have to tell me that.”

  He made love to me then. Later, when he was asleep, I gazed at him. The dim candlelight smoothed and burnished his face. He looked decades younger, almost like a boy, and he was beautiful. I stroked curls of his black hair back from his forehead—careful to keep my touch light so I did not wake him. I had feared he would surrender when I told him my father forbade our marrying. I should have known he had more strength than that. And I would be strong too. I would stand by his side.

  A small bitter smile settled on my face.

  I have the courage to fight you, Father. Don’t underestimate me.

  “I have to talk to Augustus myself, put my case to him,” Jullus said the next morning.

  “Don’t,” I said.

  He smiled. “Are you afraid he’ll chop off my head?”

  I did not return his smile. “Yes, I am afraid for you.”

  Despite my remonstrating with him, he did seek an audience with Father, and the audience was granted. Waiting in my house on the Palatine for Jullus to return from this talk, I paced like a caged leopard. Father, you say Jullus lacks honor. It is precisely because he is a man of honor that now he is going to face you. Because it is the decent thing for him to do.

  When I heard Jullus’s voice in the atrium, I sobbed with relief. I ran to him. Then I saw the ravaged look on his face.

  “What did my father say?”

  “Nothing I would repeat. But I tell you this. Up until today I revered him almost as if he were my own parent. In spite of everything, I revered him. That is over.” I saw grief and loss in Jullus’s eyes as well as anger.

  “Did he—”

  “Do you know why Augustus won’t let us marry? What the impediment truly is?” Jullus gave a wild, mirthless laugh. “He can’t forgive me for the fact that he killed my father and my brother.”

  We dined the next evening with one guest—Gracchus.

  Some people might have found this an amazing sight, and even one to provoke lewd suppositions—a woman, still legally married to a distant husband, dining with her former lover and her current one. But I might have been another man, reclining there on my dining couch. There was no flirtatious talk. Our minds were fixed on the politics of Rome.

  “As matters stand, if Augustus were to die, Tiberius would come back from Rhodes and attempt to take his place,” Gracchus said. “If he succeeded, that would mean further erosion of our liberty.”

  “If I were in his place,” Jullus said, “I swear to you I would lead our country in the opposite direction.”

  Gracchus gave Jullus a long, appraising look. “I’m no seer when it comes to the future. I am content to let your role—and the role of Julia’s sons when they come to be men—be determined by the Senate and the people at the appropriate time. I know only this, that the prospect of Tiberius assuming power should make all lovers of liberty shudder. We must prevent that.”

  “Jullus will respect the rights of the Senate and the citizens,” I said. “Oh, Gracchus, you were the one who taught me to revere the liberty that your great-grandfather fought for. It can be reborn. And if my love for Jullus can contribute to that—to a rebirth for Rome—then it is doubly blessed.”

  Gracchus took a sip of wine. “I believe in fairness to Augustus, we must attempt to open his eyes to what Tiberius is.”

  “I doubt that it is possible to open them,” I said.

  Gracchus let out a long breath. “You know, for many years I have dreaded this moment. I feared it, I hoped to avoid it. But it has come.”

  “What moment is that?” Jullus asked.

  “The moment when I finally take a risk. It’s ironic that it should come now. When for the first time I stand responsible for the welfare and happiness of another human being.”

  Several months before, he had astonished all his friends by marrying, a thing he had loudly proclaimed he would never do. Gracchus had long been saying that tax on the unmarried was nearly ruining him, but in the end my father’s law played no part in his decision. It seemed he had glimpsed a girl—a maiden, closely kept by her family—and was smitten. Wedlock was the price of having her. I had doubted he was capable of falling deeply in love, but his little bride had snared him, heart and soul.

  “And now Metella is with child . . . It’s not even that I fear your father so much, Julia. But over the years I have come to know Tiberius a little. I know his autocratic tendencies—and also his venom. If in the end he wins and we lose, I am sure he will remember my name.”

  Once, for Rome’s sake, Gracchus’s great-grandfather had gone out unarmed to face his enemies’ swords. What Gracchus did was write a letter. It was a private letter to my father, though a copy circulated among our friends and was widely read. He coolly dissected Tiberius’s character and said he had the makings of a tyrant. By contrast, he called Jullus a lover of liberty. He said Jullus was the right man to act as protector of my boys, if my father passed away, the right man to lead Rome. Jullus was liked and trusted in the Senate, as Tiberius was not. Gracchus advised that I be permitted, even urged, to divorce Tiberius and marry Jullus. Concluding he wrote, “I ask this because the blood of my ancestors impels me to do it. I appeal to you not out of personal affection or animus, but for Rome’s sake.”

  Tiberius was my son. I recognized that he had faults, as all men do. But he was my son.

  Tavius showed me the letter he had received from Gracchus and sat watching me while I read it. The letter called Tiberius cruel in the treatment of the soldiers he had commanded, contemptuous of the people, and arrogant and rude in his dealings with ranking senators. It said he was dangerously power hungry. I went hot and cold reading it.

  “My son is a patriot,” I said. “He has fought for Rome, bled for Rome. Gracchus is a man who lives only for pleasure. In his entire life he has accomplished precisely nothing. Will you pay heed to his words when he defames my son?”

  “No,” Tavius said. “Of course I will not.”

  He wrote Gracchus a note drenched in sarcasm, thanking him for his kind advice. Another man in his position would have punished Gracchus for his effrontery. But Tavius did not do that. He always said we should let people say what they wished. The moment to intervene was when thoughts became actions.

  The icy indifference with which my Father greeted Gracchus’s letter surprised neither Jullus nor me.

  There was another letter—sent from Father to Jullus. It was brief. It contained no insults and no threats. Yet it chilled me.

  As I made plain to you when we spoke, I regret that you and my niece are now living apart. I do not insist that you and Marcella reconcile, though I would take it as a favor if you did. If you wish to keep
my friendship, you will make no further proposals to my daughter. In the circumstances, it is best that you completely avoid her company. I am sure I can rely on you to respect my feelings as a father.

  “He wants you to go back to Marcella,” I said. “From his point of view, that would solve everything.”

  “I won’t give you up.”

  “We can defy Father,” I said. “But he won’t forgive us. There will be no further governmental posts for you, and don’t tell me it doesn’t matter, because I know it matters terribly to you. And what will happen when Father dies? I think Tiberius will come back to Rome as Father’s heir. Tiberius hates you and he hates me and he will revenge himself on both of us.” Deep fear gripped me. “Oh, Jullus—I don’t want my children at his mercy.”

  “Your father could live a very long time yet.”

  “Even he cannot live forever.” I heard the ice in my own voice.

  “Maybe we should run away,” Jullus said with a sad smile. “Live together in a forest hut. I would hunt game and you could pick berries.”

  “There is no place on earth where Father could not find us if he wanted to,” I said. “Or Tiberius could not find us if he sits in Father’s seat. The only way we can ever marry is if Father were to—” I almost said “die,” but I stopped myself. My thoughts were going in an unspeakable direction.

  “If he were removed from power,” Jullus completed my sentence, his voice level.

  “Yes. Just that. Oh, Jullus, I don’t want harm to befall him. I just want him—removed. And you to take his place, not Tiberius.”

  For a few moments, Jullus did not speak. He seemed far away from me, a man soberly contemplating the possibilities on which his entire future rested. I did not want to interrupt his thoughts. Finally, he said, “If he were removed and I led Rome, then we could be free—and Rome would be free too.”

  “But is it possible to remove him?”