I Am Livia

by Phyllis T. Smith

  I gazed at her in amazement. “Me?”

  “You are so selfish.” Her mouth twisted with contempt. “ ‘My villa!’ ‘My money!’ I know the kind of advice you give my brother.”

  “Good advice. That’s why he keeps taking it,” I said. She was attacking me—for what? Not taking her childish view of the world? Distrusting Antony, a man who had amply earned my distrust?

  Tavius broke in. “Octavia—”

  Looking at him, she said in a hoarse voice, “Did it never trouble you, how easily she shed her husband and her children? Didn’t that tell you what she was?”

  Tavius said, “You need to remember you’re talking about my wife.”

  “And I’m your sister. And when I beg you to keep your word to my husband—”

  “I can’t do it,” Tavius said.

  Octavia turned from him and gazed at me again. “You’ve alienated him from me.”

  “What a silly child you are,” I said.

  Her chin began to quiver. Her eyes were on Tavius. Maybe she wanted him to reproach me for calling her a silly child. When he did not, she began to weep, then rose and fled from the dining room. Tavius looked after her, pained.

  “You’re doing the right thing,” I said to him. “You’re about to go to war yourself. Antony will have all the power and wealth of Parthia soon, and he could never be trusted to be loyal even to his blood kin. Only a fool would send him more legions.”

  Tavius nodded, drawing in a deep breath. After a moment, he said, “He is not going to have all the power and wealth of Parthia.”

  “No?” I said.

  “I’ve gotten reports his Parthian campaign has been one disaster after another. His dispatches to the Senate have been full of lies.”

  “Truly?” In the circumstances, that was good news. I rose and went to sit on Tavius’s couch. “You’re sure?”

  He nodded. Then he said, “Of all the things I’ve had to do for Rome, marrying my sister to Antony is the one that turns my stomach.”

  I stroked his cheek. “I know. But you did it for the sake of peace. And she seems fond enough of him, doesn’t she?” I might have alluded to the fact that Octavia’s first loyalty was to Antony these days, not to Tavius, but I restrained myself.

  “She is fond enough of him,” Tavius agreed in a grim voice.

  “Beloved, must you lead the army against the Illyrians yourself? Can’t Agrippa do it without you?”

  “You know the answer to that,” Tavius said.

  “You must be seen bravely leading your forces into battle,” I said.

  He pulled me down beside him, and kissed me, gently and almost tentatively. In a moment he was covering my throat with passionate kisses.

  I caressed the back of his neck. It felt fragile, vulnerable. He would go to war again soon. That was a painful thought.

  He cursed softly.

  “What is it?” I said.

  “I wish—”

  “What?”

  He shook his head. He had gone away from me. Maybe he was brooding over the situation with Octavia and Antony, or he was thinking of the coming war. I touched his hair. Come back, come back.

  I looked into his remote eyes, and a question nudged me: Does he love me as much as he once did? Perhaps I wanted a proof of love, or a proof that I counted. What infants we can be, sometimes, wishing to be special.

  “Tavius…I want charge of my own property. I can’t explain to you why it matters, but it matters terribly. I know it’s not easy, but don’t you think we could find a way—?”

  “It’s impossible. I said no. What are you, a child who has to be taught the meaning of the word no?”

  It was like crashing into a wall. I heard anger in his voice and dropped my eyes. “Forget I spoke,” I said. When I looked up again, he was staring at me, his expression cold.

  I knew I had been a fool, harrying him when he was already upset. I kissed him and sensed for a moment that he wished to push me away, but finally he yielded to my kiss and all was well again.

  Oh, I did not give up the idea of independently handling my own property. I just had to think of how to do it without making Tavius look ridiculous in the public eye. It took the better part of a month, but a scheme finally popped into my head—a series of actions that would not only accomplish my goal but serve purposes close to Tavius’s heart. His own standing and that of his beloved sister would be enhanced. The popularity Antony still had with the Roman people would be undermined. Also, a heroine whose memory I revered—Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi—would receive an added measure of glory.

  I had learned that sometimes it was better to talk over matters with Tavius in bed. “Octavia plays such an important role in maintaining Rome’s peace,” I whispered into his ear as we lay together in sweet darkness. “She is so well loved. Everyone would praise you if you gave her a special honor. That new portico near the Forum that you and Agrippa are building—I think you should call it the Portico of Octavia. It would be a touching gesture. When the portico is finished, you might make a speech saying she is just what a Roman woman should be—a selfless and virtuous wife and mother. People would be moved.”

  “My love,” Tavius said, “we both know you have no fondness for my sister. So why are you saying this?”

  “I respect how much she cares about peace between you and Antony. She deserves to be honored for that. The statue of Cornelia—the one that you are going to have restored—”

  “The one you’ve been after me to have restored,” Tavius said.

  “I hate to see it looking shabby. If you had it repaired and put it in Octavia’s portico, it would join the two together in a vision of ideal Roman womanhood.”

  “Yes? Go on.”

  “And then, after you make the speech at the opening of the portico, you could pass a law conferring the rights and protections of a Vestal Virgin upon Octavia. No one would mind. After all, everyone makes way for her, and she gets the best seats in the theater as it is. So people would say, What’s the difference? But it would exalt her in everyone’s eyes.”

  As soon as I had said the words “Vestal Virgin” I had felt Tavius shift on the bed. But I had gone on talking in the same easy tone. Now I could feel his breath, warm on my cheek. “You are relentless,” he said.

  “If I am, then I’m like you, aren’t I?”

  He said nothing.

  I said, “Beloved, I’m only relentless about a very few things, the ones that matter.”

  He was leaning over me, silent. He ran his fingertip over each feature of my face, my nose, my lips, my chin, as if in the absence of light he needed to remind himself of what I looked like—as if he was trying to comprehend who and what I was. He said, “I wonder sometimes why I put up with you.” The strange thing was that he said this lovingly.

  I smiled into the darkness. “Why do you put up with me?”

  “Well, you are beautiful. But you also have such an interesting mind.”

  I felt a thrill of pleasure. Nothing delighted me more than when he praised my mind. “It’s a good plan, isn’t it?”

  “The more I build up my sister as Cornelia reborn,” Tavius said, “the more people will despise Antony for mistreating her by flaunting his relationship with his Egyptian whore.”

  “Yes. Here you are, her loyal, devoted brother, and there he is, having children with a foreign queen.”

  “A foreign queen,” Tavius repeated, and all his dislike for Antony was there in his voice. In a different tone, light, knowing, he asked, “What do you get out of this?”

  “What do you think?”

  “You’re her equal in rank. No one will much notice while I speechify about my sister that the law will give you the rights of a Vestal Virgin too.”

  Including freedom from financial guardianship. “That would only be fair,” I said. “And I want
that. But Tavius—the people will love you for honoring your sister. For honoring Cornelia, who lives in their hearts and their memory. And that’s what I desire most.” Popularity with Rome’s citizens was one of the pillars of his rule, a guarantee of his security. I saw it as absolutely necessary that he be loved—certainly loved more than Antony.

  Not long after this, Tavius made a well-received speech in which he praised his sister as if she were the goddess of peace. The implicit question—how could any decent man prefer an alien like Cleopatra to this pearl of Roman womanhood?—did not even have to be stated. No one quibbled when Octavia got the sacrosanct status of a Vestal or seemed to care that I received it too.

  Tavius took my suggestions and went further with them than I would have thought of doing. The chance to make Antony look bad was honey to him. Julius Caesar, while in the grip of passion for Cleopatra, had placed a statue of her in the Temple of Venus. Decked out in Egyptian finery, with her beaked nose, and her full, sensuous lips curved in a hint of a smile, she looked like what she was—an exotic foreigner. Tavius disliked the statue intensely, but did not remove it. However, on either side of the statue of Cornelia that he moved to Octavia’s portico, he put up two more statues—one of his sister and one of me. Because Cornelia’s statue showed her seated, we sat too. We held our backs rigidly straight and our chins high, just as she did. Octavia and I both found posing for the sculptor wearying, but the result was worth it. We were depicted in extremely modest Roman dress, shawls covering most of our hair, our expressions like Cornelia’s, grave and noble. The sculptures were flattering, but what mattered was the political message. We were Cornelia’s spiritual daughters, as no Egyptian queen could ever be. This is what a good Roman woman looks like—that was the message.

  How strange it felt to be portrayed in a public statue. Little boys in Rome dream of being important enough that a statue will be raised to them. No girl has such dreams. The first time I looked at my statue it made me feel odd, as if it were only a figment of my mind, or as if it were not made of marble but of vapor and might dissolve at any moment. But I got used to people telling me it was a wonderful likeness, so true to life. And I was touched that Tavius had set up a statue in my honor.

  I found that the right to handle my own finances gave me new confidence. The properties I would acquire in the future would be truly mine. No man could tell me what I could or could not do with them. My knack for business fully flowered only after I was freed from guardianship.

  I remembered with distaste the self-righteousness in my sister-in-law’s voice when she said, I would never want a law passed to set me above other women. In fact, the statues and the public reverence Tavius accorded Octavia and me enhanced the respect paid to women generally. Some years later, in order to increase the number of little citizens born, Rome offered freedom from financial guardianship to all mothers of four or more children. I doubt that would have been done if I hadn’t led the way. I can say before the gods that the privileges granted to me certainly never did other women any harm.

  Of course I knew that however much liberty I grasped at, however high I flew, everything rested on my bond with one man.

  I must not become too lost in my memories. Some of the younger members of my family have come to my villa to visit me during the Saturnalia. I feel almost startled to see them, as if their presence is an intrusion. The people from the past seem more real than these youthful men and women who murmur solicitous words in my ear, always speaking in the respectful tones one uses to an ancient. I notice how my young relatives resemble the people I am writing about, though the bloodlines are so convoluted and intertwined, it is sometimes an effort to remember who is related to whom.

  My grandson Claudius arrived here yesterday. He is of course Mark Antony’s grandson too, as well as Octavia’s. My love naturally goes out to all my grandchildren and great-grandchildren, but Claudius has never been a favorite of mine.

  I do not dislike him for his crippled leg or his twitching or his stammering, whatever some people may think. He cannot help all that, poor boy. But his loud, raucous laugh grates on me. I see Antony in him, especially when he drinks. And he drinks a great deal.

  He rarely visits me without a special reason. “G-Grandmother,” he said to me this morning. “I h-have a g-great favor to ask of you.”

  I cocked my head, waiting.

  “There are b-books. In your l-library.”

  It turned out he meant certain books in the Etruscan language, which hardly anybody knows anymore. But Claudius has taught himself this language and plans to write a multi-volume history of the Etruscans. He desperately wanted those books of mine, which it seems concern certain obscure Etruscan kings. I let him have them. Why not? Army service has been impossible for him, and he has stayed clear of politics. He barely gets around, dragging his leg as he does. Writing about the long-dead past is a harmless activity for him.

  “Oh, thank you, G-Grandmother,” he said, when I told him he could have the volumes to keep. He looked overjoyed. “If I can ever do something for you, you can r-rely on me.”

  Historian that he aspires to be, I wonder what he would think of this account of the past I am writing.

  Another parting came. I ought to have been used to it. But I never was. “Please,” I said to Tavius, before he left to make war on the Illyrians, “don’t take any extraordinary physical risks this time.”

  Tavius smiled, but I saw a clouded look in his eyes. “Many people would find it amusing that you say that to me.”

  I gazed at him questioningly.

  “Philippi. The final battle for Sicily. There are people who say I specialize in not taking physical risks. You do know, don’t you, what my enemies whisper about me?”

  They whispered that he had been absent from those battles because he was a coward. “You walked into Lepidus’s camp barehanded. You are the bravest man I know.” I saw a tiny smudge on his bronze breastplate and rubbed it with my finger until it disappeared.

  “Sweet Livia,” he said. “I wish I could see myself through your eyes. It would be pleasant, I think, but I wonder if I would even recognize myself.” He tipped up my chin so he could kiss me.

  I wound my arms around his neck and kissed him hungrily, as though for the last time. He drew away a little, as if my passionate kisses perturbed him. But then he put his arms around me, and stood holding me as gently as one would a child.

  “Tell me,” I said, “why is Maecenas going with you? And that gaggle of poets?”

  “They wanted a change from their usual dull lives.”

  “That sounds likely.” I knew that the war would have two aims. To pacify the Illyrian savages, and to fortify what Maecenas persisted in calling Tavius’s “legend.” “Oh, Tavius, I want you to be careful.”

  Tavius nuzzled my cheek. “Usually I can talk to you the way I would another man. And then you turn all womanish on me. It’s always a surprise.”

  “What are you planning?”

  “Well…it would be a novelty if when we go into battle, I actually make an appearance.”

  He laughed as he took leave of me. As if war were a lark.

  “Why do men love warfare so much?” I asked this question of Tiberius Nero not long after Tavius left for Illyria.

  “It allows us to test our mettle,” he said.

  He had come to pay me a visit at my villa at Prima Porta. He thought he might buy a villa in the vicinity, and wanted to see how I had laid out the grounds. As we went strolling through the gardens, he remarked on the beauty of the marble fountains and the variety of flowers. It is always enjoyable to impress an old friend.

  “That is quite lovely,” he said, nodding at a statue of Diana, wielding her bow. “You still give her worship above all other deities?”

  “I’ve always believed she was the one who saved me from the forest fire,” I said.

  “Oh, yes, t
he forest fire.” He shook his head, remembering. “That almost seems like another lifetime.”

  It was on the tip of my tongue to ask him: Are you happy? And do you forgive me for leaving you? But there were things we did not say to each other.

  We needed to discuss our son. “Little Tiberius—well, speaking of loving warfare, all he wants to do is practice with weapons.”

  Tiberius Nero grinned. “He’s a natural soldier, isn’t he?”

  I gritted my teeth. “Yes. But the other day he hit one of my house slaves with his javelin.”

  “No one has perfect aim.”

  “He has excellent aim for a boy his age. And I have a feeling he did it on purpose.”

  “He didn’t kill the fellow, did he?”

  “No, but he wounded him. And he didn’t seem sorry, even after I smacked him.”

  “Well, if I see him aiming at any of my slaves, I’ll give him a whipping.” Tiberius Nero smiled. “You have to admit he certainly has the makings of a soldier.”

  “I want him to be more than just a soldier,” I said. “He needs softening and refinement. Next November, he will be seven years old. Will you let me engage a tutor for him? It has to be the right sort of person—someone who can open his eyes to philosophy, art, and poetry.”

  “Go ahead. But I don’t think you’ll soften him up much.” Tiberius Nero’s eyes glowed. “That’s my boy.”

  My beloved Livia, I would chortle except it hurts so much. Everything hurts. But I am happy. We besieged the Illyrian capital, Metulum, raised wooden gangways, and readied our assault. I stood on a temporary tower, supervising from above as a general ought. But did I stay up there? No. At the critical moment of the assault, overcome by fierce martial spirit, I rushed down from the tower and grabbed a shield from one of my soldiers, who held back, hesitating. I yelled, “Follow me!” and climbed up the gangway.