Augustus

by John Williams

  He even smiled a little. “If I must,” he said.

  “The state is very near to being bankrupt. Of the few taxes that Lepidus can collect, a trickle goes into the treasury; the rest goes to Lepidus himself and, it is said, to Fulvia, who, it is also said, is preparing to raise independent legions, in addition to those that rightfully belong to Antonius. I have no proof of this, but I imagine it is true. . . . So it would seem that you got the lesser bargain in Rome.”

  “I would prefer the weakness of Rome to all the power of the East,” he said, “though I am sure this is not what Antonius had in mind. He expects that if I do not die, I will go under with the problems here. But I will not die, and we will not go under.” He raised himself a little. “We have much to do.”

  And the next day, in his weakness, he arose from his bed, and put his illness aside as if it were of no moment and no account.

  We had much to do, he said. . . . My dear Livy, that admirable history of yours—how might it evoke the bustles and delays, the triumphs and defeats, the joys and despairs of the years following Philippi? It cannot do so, and no doubt it should not. But I must not digress, even to praise you; for you will scold me again.

  You have asked me to be more particular about the duties I performed for our Emperor, as if I were worthy of a place in your history. You honor me beyond my merits. Yet I am pleased that I am remembered, even in my retirement from public affairs.

  The duties that I performed for our Emperor . . .I must confess that some of them seem to me now ludicrous, though of course they did not seem so then. The marriages, for example. Through the influence and by the edicts of our Emperor, it is now possible for a man of substance and ambition to contract a marriage on grounds that are rational—if “rational” is not too contradictory a word to describe such an odd and (I sometimes think) unnatural relationship. Such was not possible in the days of which I speak—in Rome, at least, and to those of public involvement. One married for advantage and political necessity—as, indeed, I myself did, though my Terentia was on occasion an amusing companion.

  I must say, I was rather good at such arrangements—and I must also confess that as it turned out none were advantageous or even necessary. I have always suspected that it was that knowledge which led Octavius, some years later, to institute those not altogether successful marriage laws, rather than the kind of “morality” imputed to them. He has often chided me about my advice in those early days. For it was invariably wrong.

  For example: The first marriage I contracted for him was in the very early days, before the formation of the triumvirate. The girl was Servilia, the daughter of that P. Servilius Isauricus who, when Cicero opposed Octavius after Mutina, agreed to stand for senior consul with Octavius against Cicero—and the marriage to his daughter was to be our surety that he would be supported by the power of our arms, if that became necessary. As it turned out, Servilius was impotent in his dealings with Cicero and was of no help to us; the marriage never took place.

  The second was even more ludicrous than the first. It was to Clodia, daughter of Fulvia and stepdaughter to Marcus Antonius, and it was a part of the compact that formed the triumvirate; the soldiers wanted it, and we saw no reason to deny them their whim, however meaningless it was. The girl was thirteen years old, and as ugly as her mother. Octavius saw her twice, I believe, and she never set foot in his house. As you know, the marriage did nothing to quiet Fulvia or Antonius; they continued their plotting and their treason, so that after Philippi, when Antonius was in the East and Fulvia was openly threatening another civil war against Octavius, we had to make our position clear by effecting a divorce.

  It was, however, my responsibility for the third contract which Octavius most nearly resented, I think; it was with Scribonia, and it was accomplished within the year after his divorce from Clodia, during our most desperate months, when it seemed that we would either be crushed by the Antonian uprisings in Italy, or by the encroachment of Sextus Pompeius from the south. In what seems now a too desperate effort at conciliation, I went to Sicily to negotiate with Sextus Pompeius—an impossible task, for Pompeius was an impossible man. He was a bit mad, I think— more like an animal than a human. He was an outlaw, and that in more than the legal sense; he is one of the few men with whom I have had converse who so repelled me that I had difficulty in dealing with him. I know, my dear Livy, that you admired his father; but you never met either of them, and you certainly did not know his son. . . . In any event, I talked to Pompeius, and extracted what I thought was an agreement— and sealed the compact with an arrangement of marriage with that Scribonia, who was the younger sister of Pompeius’s father-in-law. Scribonia, Scribonia. . . . She has always seemed to me the epitome of womankind: coldly suspicious, politely ill-tempered, and narrowly selfish. It is a wonder that my friend ever did forgive me for that arrangement. Perhaps it was because from that marriage came the one thing that my friend loves as much as he loves Rome—his daughter, his Julia. He divorced Scribonia on the day of his daughter’s birth, and it is a wonder that he ever married again. But he did marry again, and it was an arrangement in which I had no part. . . . As it turned out, the marriage to Scribonia was fraudulent to begin with; for as I was negotiating with Pompeius, he himself was already deep in negotiations with Antonius, and the marriage contract was a mere ruse to lull our suspicions. Such, my dear Livy, was the nature of politics in those days. But I must say (though I would not repeat it to our Emperor), looking back on it all, these affairs did have their humorous side.

  For my responsibility in arranging only one marriage have I ever felt any shame; even now, I cannot take it as lightly as I ought to be able to do—though I suppose no great harm was done.

  At about the time I was negotiating with Pompeius and arranging the marriage with Scribonia, the barbarian Moors, aroused by Fulvia and Lucius Antonius, rose up against our governor in Outer Spain; our generals in Africa, again at the instigation of Fulvia and Lucius, began to war with each other; Lucius pretended that his life had been threatened, and marched with his (and Fulvia’s) legions on Rome. They were repulsed there by our friend Agrippa, and surrounded in the town of Perusia, whose inhabitants (Pompeians and Republicans, mostly) aided them with vigor and enthusiasm. We really didn’t know how much a part in all this Marcus Antonius had, though we suspected; therefore we did not dare destroy his brother, for fear that if he were guilty, Marcus Antonius would use this as a pretext to attack us from the east; and that if he were innocent, he would misunderstand our action, and take revenge upon us. We did not punish Lucius, but we showed little mercy to those who had aided him, putting the most treacherous to death and exiling the less dangerous—though we let the ordinary citizens go free, and even recompensed them for the property we destroyed. Among those exiled (and this, my dear Livy, will appeal to your perhaps overdeveloped sense of irony) was one Tiberius Claudius Nero, who was allowed to make his way to Sicily with his newborn son, Tiberius, and his very young wife, Livia.

  During all the months of the turmoil in Italy, we had written often to Antonius, trying to describe the activities of his wife and brother and trying to ascertain his part in the disturbances; and though we received letters from Antonius, none of them replied to those we had sent, as if he had not received them. It was winter, of course, when we wrote most urgently; and few of the sea lanes were open; it is possible that he did not receive them. In any event, the spring and part of the summer passed without clear word from him; and then we got an urgent message from Brindisi that Antonius’s fleet was sailing toward the harbor, and that the navy of Pompeius was coming up from the north to join him. And we learned that some months earlier, Fulvia had sailed to Athens to meet her husband.

  We did not know what to expect, and yet we had no choice. Weak as we were, with our legions scattered against the various troubles on our borders and in our nation, we marched toward Brindisi, fearful that Antonius had landed and was leading his soldiers to meet us. But we learned that the city of Brin
disi had refused to let Antonius through the harbor gates, and so we encamped and awaited what would happen. Had Antonius attacked in full force, we no doubt could not have survived.

  But he did not attack, nor did we. Our own soldiers were famished and ill-equipped; the soldiers of Antonius were weary with their travels and wanted only to see their families in Italy. Had either side been foolish enough to press the issue, we probably would have had a mutiny.

  And then an agent that we slipped among the Antonian forces returned with some startling news. Antonius and Fulvia had quarreled bitterly at Athens; Antonius had left in a rage; and now Fulvia, suddenly and inexplicably, was dead.

  We encouraged some of our trusted soldiers to fraternize with the troops of Antonius; and soon deputations from both sides approached their respective leaders and demanded that Antonius and Octavius once more reconcile their differences, so that not again would Roman be pitted against Roman.

  And thus the two leaders met, and another war was averted. Antonius protested that Fulvia and his brother had acted without his authority, and Octavius pointed out that he had taken no revenge on either of them for their actions, out of regard for their relationship to Antonius. A pact was signed; a general amnesty for all previous enemies of Rome was declared; and a marriage was arranged.

  The marriage was negotiated by me; and it was between Antonius and Octavia, the older sister of our Emperor, who had been widowed only a few months ago, and left with her infant son, Marcellus.

  My dear Livy, you know my tastes—but I almost believe I could have loved women, had many of them been like Octavia. I admired her then as I do now—she was very gentle and without guile, she was quite beautiful, and she was one of the two women I have ever known who had both an extensive knowledge and deep understanding of philosophy and poetry, the other being Octavius’s own daughter, Julia. Octavia was not a plaything, you understand. My old friend Athenodorus used to say that had she been a man, and less intelligent, she could have become a great philosopher.

  I was with Octavius when he explained the necessity to his sister—of whom he was very fond, as you know. He could not look her in the eye when he spoke. But Octavia merely smiled at him and said: “If it must be done, my brother, it must be done; I shall try to be a good wife to Antonius and remain a good sister to you.”

  “It is for Rome,” Octavius said.

  “It is for us all,” his sister said.

  It was necessary, I suppose; we hoped that such a marriage might lead us to a lasting peace; we knew that it would give us a few years. But I must say, I still feel that twinge of regret and sorrow; Octavia must have had some rather bad times.

  Though, as it turned out, Antonius was a rather intermittent husband. That might have made it more endurable for her. Yet she never spoke harshly of Marcus Antonius, even in later years.

  5

  I. Letter: Marcus Antonius to Octavius Caesar; from Athens (39 B.C.)

  Antonius to Octavius, greetings. I do not know what you expect of me. I renounced my late wife and ruined my brother’s career, because their actions had displeased you. To cement our joint rule, I married your sister, who, though a good woman, is not to my taste. To assure you of my good faith, I sent Sextus Pompeius and his navy back to his Sicily, though (as you well know) he would have joined me against you. To augment your power, I agreed to strip Lepidus of all the provinces he held, save Africa. I agreed, even, after my marriage to your sister, to be designated Priest to the deified Julius—though it seemed odd to be priest to an old friend, a man with whom I have whored and drunk, and though my acceptance of the priesthood was more advantageous to your name than to mine. Finally, I have absented myself from my homeland, so that I may raise the money in the East that will insure our future authority, and to make some order out of the chaos into which our Eastern provinces have fallen. As I said, I do not know what you expect of me.

  If I have allowed the Greeks to pretend to themselves that I am the revived Bacchus (or do you prefer Dionysus?), it is so that their love for me will give me some control over them. You criticize me for “playing the Greek” and for assuming the role of the Incarnate Bacchus at the Festival of Athena; and yet you must know that when I agreed to do so, I insisted that the Celestial Athena bring me a dowry—and that by that insistence, I have enriched our treasury by more than I could have done by levying taxes, and have also escaped the resentment that would have inevitably resulted from such a levy.

  As for the Egyptian matters that you so delicately raise: first, it is true that I have accepted certain of the Queen’s subjects as my aides. This is both helpful to my task, and necessary to my diplomacy. But even if all this were merely for my own pleasure, I see no reason why you should object: Ammonius you know yourself, for he was a friend of your late uncle (or “father,” as you now may call him)—and he serves me as faithfully as he served Julius and as he served his Queen. As for Epimachos, whom you call a mere “soothsayer,” such a designation reveals (if you will forgive me) a profound ignorance about these Eastern matters. This “mere soothsayer” is an extraordinarily important man: he is the High Priest of Heliopolis, the Incarnation of Thoth, and the Keeper of the Book of Magic. He is a good deal more important than any of our own “priests,” and he is useful to me; and besides, he is an amusing fellow.

  Second, there was never any secret about my connection with the Queen two years ago in Alexandria. But I recall to you that that was two years ago, before either of us had any notion that I might one day become your brother-in-law. And you need not bring up the matter of the twins with which Cleopatra has presented me; they may or may not be my own; whether they are or not is no matter. I have not made secret, either, that I have left children all over the world; these new ones would mean neither more nor less to me than the others. When I have time from my duties, I take my pleasure, and I take it where I can find it. I shall continue to do so. At least, my dear brother, I do not hide my propensities; I am no hypocrite; and your own affairs, I should point out, are not so well hidden as you imagine.

  You should know me better than to think (if, indeed, you do think it, as you pretend) that my liaison with Cleopatra had anything to do with my confirmation of her sovereignty in Egypt. For if this confirmation is to my advantage, so it is to yours. Egypt is the richest of the Eastern nations, and its treasury will be open to us, if we need it. And it is the only Eastern nation that has any semblance of an army, and at least a part of this army will be at our disposal. Finally, it is easier to deal with a single strong monarch who feels some security in his (or her) position than with half a dozen weak ones who feel none.

  These things, and many others, should be clear to you, who are no fool.

  I will not accept the terms of whatever game it is you think you are playing.

  II. Letter: Marcus Antonius to Gaius Sentius Tavus (38 B.C.)

  That bloody and outrageous little hypocrite! I am stretched between laughter and anger—laughter at the hypocrisy, and anger at what his hypocrisy might conceal.

  Does he imagine that I am without my sources of information here in Athens? I am not shocked by anything he does, and I do not take that high moral tone that he loves to affect. He may divorce as many a Scribonia as he likes, even on the day that she gives birth to a daughter that (given Scribonia) must be his; he may even take within the week another wife, who is already pregnant by her former husband. He may perform this public scandal (and even the more private ones that you report to me), and he will get no remonstrances from me; he may be as bizarre as he likes in his private preferences.

  But I know my recent “brother”; and I know that he does nothing from passion or whim. He is such a cold-blooded fish that I must almost admire him.

  It must be clear to everyone that his divorce of Scribonia signifies that we no longer have an understanding with her kinsman, Sextus Pompeius. What can I make of this? Why was I not consulted? Does it mean that we are to make war on Sextus? Or will Octavius go it alone?

&nb
sp; And what of his new wife, this Livia? You tell me that Octavius once exiled her husband from Italy, because he was a Republican and opposed him at Perusia. Does the new marriage mean that he is again trying to find favor with the remnants of the Republican Party? I do not know what all of this means. . . . You must write often, Sentius; I must be kept informed, and I can trust few, nowadays. I wish I were in Rome; but I cannot leave my task here.

  I have been trying to persuade myself that the kind of life I am now leading is worth the trouble. My present wife is as cold and proper in fact as her brother is in pretense. And though I can find my pleasure here and there, I have to be so discreet that the pleasure is reduced almost to nothing. Daily, I am tempted to send her packing; but I have no cause, she is with child, and to divorce her now would cause a breach with her brother that I cannot afford.

  III. Extracts from Reports: Epimachos, High Priest of Heliopolis, to Cleopatra, the Incarnate Isis and Queen of the Worlds of Egypt (40–37 B.C.)

  Greetings, Revered Queen. This day, at first for amusement and then from desperation, Marcus Antonius diced with Octavius Caesar. For nearly three hours they played, and Antonius lost consistently, winning perhaps one out of four throws. Octavius is well pleased, Antonius annoyed. I cast the sands, and went into a trance, from which I told the story of Eurystheus and that Heracles who became his servant because of the perfidy of the gods. Suggest that in your next letter to him, you refer to some demeaning task you dreamed he had to perform for someone weaker and less worthy than himself. I was grave and portentous; you must be humorous and light.