Augustus

by John Williams

  There were literally hundreds of people at the party at Sempronius Gracchus’s villa—really too large a gathering to be very amusing, I suppose, but it was pleasurable in its own way. Despite the numbers of people, I had the chance to meet Julia, and we bantered for a few moments. She is an utterly charming woman, exquisitely beautiful, and really quite intelligent and well-read. She was kind enough to indicate that she had read some of my poems. Knowing her father’s reputation for rectitude (as do you, my poor Sextus), I tried to make a sort of rueful apology for the “naughtiness” of my verse. But she smiled at me in that devastating way she has, and said: “My dear Ovid, if you try to convince me that though your verse is naughty, your life is chaste, I shall not speak to you again.”

  And I said, “My dear lady, if that is the condition, I shall attempt to convince you otherwise.”

  And she laughed and moved away from me. Though it was a pleasant interlude, it did not occur to me that she would give me another thought, let alone remember my existence for two whole weeks. And yet she did; and yesterday I found myself in her company once more, following the circumstance which I have described.

  Outside my door, attended by bearers, there were perhaps half a dozen litters, canopied with silk of purple and gold; they teemed with the movements of their occupants, and laughter shook the street. I stood, not knowing where to turn; my castrate chaperon had wandered away and was haranguing some of the lesser slaves. Then someone stepped from a litter, and I saw at once that it was she, the Julia who had so kindly interrupted my tedious morning. Then another stepped from the litter and joined her. It was Sempronius Gracchus. He smiled at me. I went toward them.

  “You have saved me from a death by boredom,” I said to Julia. “What now will you do with that life which belongs to you?”

  “I shall use it frivolously,” she said. “Today is my father’s birthday, and he has given me permission to invite some of my friends to sit with him in his box at the Circus. We shall watch the games, and gamble away our money.”

  “The games,” I said. “How charming.” I intended my remark to be neutral, but Julia took it as irony. She laughed.

  “One does not have that much concern for the games,” she said. “One goes to see, and to be seen, and to discover less common amusements.” She glanced at Sempronius. “You will learn, perhaps.” She turned from me then, and called to the others, some of whom had stepped out of their litters to stretch their legs. “Who would share his seat with Ovid, the poet of love, who writes of those things to which you have dedicated your lives?”

  Arms waved from litters, my name was shouted: “Here, Ovid, ride with us—my girl needs your advice!” “No, I need your advice!” And there was much laughter. I finally chose a litter in which there was room for me, the bearers hoisted their burdens, and we made our way slowly through the crowded streets toward the Circus Maximus.

  We arrived at noon, just as the hordes of people were streaming out of the stands for a hasty lunch before the resumption of the games. I must say, it gave me an odd feeling to see those masses, recognizing the colors of our litters, part before our advance, as the earth parts before the advance of a plow. Yet they were gay, and waved to us and shouted in the most friendly manner.

  We debarked from our litters; and with Julia, Sempronius Gracchus, and another whom I did not know leading our band, we made our way among those arcades that honeycomb the Circus toward the stairs. Occasionally from the doorway of one of these arcades, an astrologer would beckon and call to us, whereupon someone in our party would shout: “We know our future, old man!” and throw him a coin. Or a prostitute would show herself and beckon enticingly to one who seemed unattached, whereupon one of the ladies might call to her in mock terror, “Oh, no! Don’t steal him from us. He might never return!”

  We mounted the stairs; and as we approached the Imperial box there were shushings and calls for quiet, out of deference for the presence of Octavius Caesar. But he was not in the box when we arrived; and I must say that, despite the pleasure I was having in the company of this most delightful troop, I found myself a little disappointed.

  For as you know, Sextus, unlike you—not being an intimate of Maecenas, as you are, nor needing that intimacy—I have never met Octavius Caesar. I have seen him from afar, of course, as has everyone in Rome: but I know of him only that which you have told me.

  “The Emperor is not here?” I asked.

  Julia said, “There are certain kinds of bloodshed that my father does not enjoy.” She pointed down at the open space of the course. “He usually comes late, after the animal hunt is over.”

  I looked to where she was pointing; the attendants were dragging away the slain animals and raking over the earth that was spotted with blood. I saw several tigers, a lion, and even an elephant being dragged across the ground. I had attended one of these hunts before, when I first came to Rome, and had found it extremely dull and common. I suggested as much to Julia.

  She smiled, “My father says that either a fool is killed, or a dumb beast, and he cannot bring himself to care which. And besides, there are no wagers to be made on these contests between hunters and beasts. My father enjoys the wagering.”

  “It’s late,” I said. “He will be here, won’t he?”

  “He must,” she said. “The games honor his birthday; and he would not be discourteous to anyone who so honors him.”

  I nodded, and recalled that the games were being presented to him by one of the new praetors, Jullus Antonius. I started to say something to Julia; but I remembered who Jullus Antonius was, and I checked my speech.

  But Julia must have noticed my intention, for she smiled. “Yes,” she said. “In particular, my father would not be discourteous to the son of an old enemy, whom he has forgiven, and whose son he has preferred to some who are his own kin.”

  Wisely (I think), I nodded, and did not speak more of the matter. But I wondered about this son of Marcus Antonius, whose name, even these many years after his death, still is honored by many of the citizens of Rome.

  Yet there is little time to wonder about things of that sort in such gay company. The servants brought tidbits of food on golden plates, and poured wine into golden cups; and we ate, and drank, and chattered as we watched the crowd straggle back to their seats for the afternoon races.

  By the sixth hour, the stands were filled, and it seemed to me overflowing with a good part of the population of Rome. Then suddenly, above the natural noise of the crowd, a great roar went up; many of the populace were standing, and were pointing toward the box where we reclined. I turned around, glancing over my shoulder. At the rear of the box, in the shadows, stood two figures, one rather tall, the other short. The tall one was dressed in the richly embroidered tunic and the purple-bordered toga of a consul; the shorter wore the plain white tunic and toga of the common citizen.

  The taller of the two was Tiberius, stepson of the Emperor and consul of Rome; and the shorter was, of course, the Emperor Octavius Caesar himself.

  They came into the box; we rose; the Emperor smiled and nodded to us, and indicated that we should seat ourselves. He sat beside his daughter, while Tiberius (a dour-faced young man, who seemed not to want to be where he was) found a seat somewhat removed from the rest of the party, and spoke to no one. For several moments the Emperor and Julia talked together, their heads close; the Emperor glanced at me, and said something to Julia, who smiled, nodded, and then beckoned me to join them.

  I approached, and Julia presented me to her father.

  “I am pleased to meet you,” the Emperor said; his face was lined and weary, his light hair shot with white—but his eyes were bright and piercing and alert. “My friend Horace has spoken of your work.”

  “I hope kindly,” I said, “but I cannot pretend to compete with him. My Muse is smaller and more trivial, I fear.”

  He nodded. “We all obey whatever Muse chooses us. . . . Do you have any favorites today?”

  “What?” I said blankly.
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  “The races,” he said. “Do you have any favorite drivers?”

  “Sir,” I said, “I must confess that I come to the races more nearly for the society than for the horses. I really know very little about them.”

  “Then you don’t wager,” he said. He seemed a little disappointed.

  “On everything but the races,” I said. He nodded and smiled a little, and turned to someone behind him.

  “Which do you pick in the first?”

  But whoever it was to whom he spoke did not have time to answer. At the far end of the race course, gates opened, trumpets sounded, and the procession entered. It was led by Jullus Antonius, the praetor who had financed the games; he was dressed in a scarlet tunic, over which he wore the purple-bordered toga, and carried in his right hand the golden eagle, which seemed almost ready to take flight from the ivory rod which supported it; and upon his head was the golden wreath of laurel. In his chariot drawn by his magnificent white horse, I must say he was an impressive figure, even at the distance from which I saw him.

  Slowly the procession went round the track. Behind Jullus Antonius walked the priests of the rites, who attended the statues, thought by the ignorant to be the literal embodiments of the gods; then came the drivers who were to race, resplendent in their whites and reds, and greens and blues; and at last a crew of dancers and mimes and clowns, who cavorted and tumbled upon the track while the priests relinquished their effigies to the platform around which the racers would drive their chariots.

  And then the procession made its way to the Emperor’s box. Jullus Antonius halted, saluted the Emperor, and gave him the games in dedication of his birthday. I must say, I looked at Jullus with some curiosity. He is an extraordinarily handsome man— his muscular arms brown from the sun, his face dark and slightly heavy, with very white teeth and curling black hair. It is said that he closely resembles his father, though he is less inclined to fat.

  The dedication over, Jullus Antonius came closer to the box and called up to the Emperor:

  “I’ll join you later, when I get them started.”

  The Emperor nodded; he seemed pleased. He turned to me. “Antonius knows the horses, and the riders. Listen to him. You’ll learn a bit about racing.”

  I must confess, Sextus, that the ways of the great are beyond me. The Emperor Octavius Caesar, master of the world, seemed concerned only with the impending races; to the son of a father whom he had defeated in battle and whom he forced to commit suicide, he was warm and friendly and natural; and he spoke to me as if we both were the most common of citizens. I remember that I thought briefly of the possibility of a poem upon the subject; but just as quickly I rejected the idea. I am sure that Horace could have done one, but that is not my (or our) sort of thing.

  Jullus Antonius disappeared into a gate at the far end of the course, and a few moments later reappeared in his enclosure above the starting gate. A roar went up from the crowd; Jullus Antonius waved, and looked down at the racers lined up beneath him. Then he threw down the white flag, the barriers dropped, and in a cloud of dust the chariots set off.

  I stole a glance at the Emperor, and was surprised to see that he seemed hardly interested in the race, now that it had begun. He discerned my glance, and said to me: “One does not bet on the first race, if one is wise. The horses are made so nervous by the procession that they seldom run according to their natures.”

  I nodded, as if what he said made sense to me.

  Before the chariots had completed four of their seven laps, Jullus Antonius joined us. He seemed to know most of the people in the box, for he nodded to them in a friendly manner, and spoke a few of their names. He sat between the Emperor and Julia, and soon the three of them were exchanging wagers and laughing among themselves.

  And so the afternoon went. Servants came with more food and wine, and with damp towels so that we could wipe the dust of the track from our faces. The Emperor wagered on every race, sometimes betting with several persons at once; he lost carelessly, and won with great glee. Just before the beginning of the last race, Jullus Antonius rose to leave, saying that he had some last duties at the starting gate. He bade me good-by, and expressed the hope that we might meet again; he bade good-by to the Emperor; and then bowed with what I took to be an elaborate and private irony to Julia, who threw back her head and laughed.

  The Emperor frowned, but said nothing. Shortly thereafter, when the crowd had streamed out of the Circus, we took our leave. A few of us gathered at Sempronius Gracchus’s home for a while in the evening; and I learned what may have been the source of the little byplay between Jullus Antonius and the Emperor’s daughter. It was Julia herself who told me.

  Julia’s husband, Marcus Agrippa, had once been married to the younger Marcella, daughter of the Emperor’s sister, Octavia; early in Julia’s widowhood, he had been persuaded by the Emperor to divorce Marcella and marry Julia. And only recently had Jullus Antonius married that Marcella who had been Agrippa’s wife.

  “It’s rather confusing,” I said lamely.

  “Not really,” said Julia. And then she laughed. “My father has it all written down, so that one might always know to whom one is married.”

  And that, my dear Sextus, was my afternoon and evening. I saw the new, and I saw the old; and Rome is again becoming a place where one can live.

  IV. The Journal of Julia, Pandateria (A.D. 4)

  I am allowed no wine, and my food is the coarse fare of the peasant—black bread, dried vegetables, and pickled fish. I have even taken on the habits of the poor; at the end of my day, I bathe and take a frugal meal. Sometimes I take this meal with my mother, but I prefer to dine alone at the table before my window, where I can watch the sea roll in on the evening tide.

  I have learned to savor the simple taste of this coarse bread, indifferently baked by my mute servant. There is a grainy taste of earth to it, enhanced by the cold spring water that serves as my wine. Eating it, I think of the hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of the poor and the enslaved who have lived before me— did they learn to savor their simple fare, as I have? Or was the taste of their food spoiled in their mouths by their dreams of the foods they might have eaten? Perhaps one must come to taste as I have done—from the richest and most exotic viands to those of the utmost simplicity. Yesterday evening, sitting at this table where I now write these words, I tried to recall the taste and texture of those foods, and I could not. And in that general effort to recall what I shall never experience again, I remembered an evening at the villa of Sempronius Gracchus.

  I do not know why I remembered that particular evening; but suddenly, in this Pandaterian twilight, the scene sprang before me, as if it were being re-enacted upon the stage of a theater, and the remembering caught me before I could fend it off.

  Marcus Agrippa had returned from the East and joined me in Rome, where he stayed for three months; and I became pregnant with my fourth child. Shortly thereafter, at the beginning of the year, my father sent Agrippa north to Pannonia, where the barbarian tribes were again threatening the Danube frontier. And Sempronius Gracchus, to celebrate my freedom and to herald the arrival of spring, gave a party, the like of which (he promised everyone) Rome had not seen before; all of my friends, from whom I had been separated while my husband was in Rome, would be there.

  Despite the libels that were circulated later, Sempronius Gracchus was not my lover then. He was a libertine, and he treated me (as he treated many women) with an easy familiarity that might give rise to rumors, however false. At that time I was still conscious of the position which my father imagined I ought to occupy; and the time that I had been a goddess at Ilium was like a dream that waited to be fulfilled. I had, for a while, become someone other than myself.

  Early in March, my father assumed the office of pontifex maximus, which had been vacated by the death of Lepidus; and he decreed a day of games to celebrate the event. Sempronious Gracchus said that if the old Rome must have a high priest, the new Rome demanded a high priestess;
so Sempronius had his party at the end of March, and the city chattered with reports of what the guests were to expect. Some said that the guests would be transported from place to place on tamed elephants; some said that a thousand musicians had been brought from the East, and as many dancers; fancy fed upon expectation, and expectation nourished fancy.

  But a week before the date of the party, news reached Rome that Agrippa, having more quickly settled the border uprising than anyone expected, had returned to Italy by way of Brindisi. He proposed to travel across country to our villa near Puteoli, where I was to meet him.

  I did not meet him. Despite the annoyance of my father, I proposed that I join my husband the following week, after he had rested from his journey.

  When I made this proposal, my father looked at me coldly. “I take it that you wish instead to attend that party which Gracchus is giving.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I am to be the guest of honor. It would be rude to refuse, so late.”

  “Your duty is to your husband,” he said.

  “And to you, and to your cause, and to Rome,” I said.

  “These young people that you spend your time with,” he said. “Has it occurred to you to compare their behavior with that of your husband and his friends?”

  “These young people,” I said, “are friends of mine. You may be assured that when I grow old, they will be old, too.”

  He smiled a little then. “You are right,” he said. “One forgets. We all grow old, and we once were young. . . . I will explain to your husband that you have duties that keep you in Rome. But you will join him the week after.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I will join him then.”

  Thus it was that I did not join my husband in the South, and thus it was that I attended Sempronius Gracchus’s party. It became, indeed, the most famous party in Rome for many years, but for reasons that no one could have foreseen.

  There were no tame elephants to transport the guests from place to place, or any of the other wonders that had been rumored; it was simply a gathering of a few more than a hundred guests, attended by nearly as many servants and musicians and dancers. We ate, we drank, we laughed. We watched the dancers dance, and joined them, to their delight and confusion; and to the sound of tambourines and harps and oboes we wandered through the gardens where fountains augmented the music and the torchlight played upon the water in another dance beyond the skill of human bodies.