Augustus i-1

by Allan Massie

  ***

  When Antony promised me safety if I delivered my legions to him, there was mockery in his voice. There was an even harsher note: contempt. He believed I would indeed be ready to buy safety. 'You, boy,' he would say, 'with your banker's blood, who owe everything to a name…' Such an assumption on his part hardly caused me to respect his intelligence: did he truly fail to realize that I too had let the dice fly high when I chose to accept Julius' legacy and acknowledged Maco's salute at Brindisi?

  Cicero praised me in the Senate. His words would have overwhelmed me if my vanity had approached his own. Agrippa was hugely impressed. He repeated over and over again that we had really arrived: 'I don't see that they can now deny you legitimate authority. Not after such advocacy.' Maecenas I saw smirking. 'You don't agree, do you?' I said. 'Oh,' he said, 'who am I to speak? Remember I am not a true Roman. I don't understand your Senates and Assemblies. My ancestors were Kings in Etruria. So it is hard for me to estimate the effect of oratory on a body like the Senate. But we have a saying in my family: beware the man who speaks well of you. Besides, haven't you heard the story that's going about? Someone said to Cicero, "Why on earth do you praise that young man?" The old boy looked over his shoulder to see who might overhear, and replied, "The young man must be praised." "Must be?" asks his chum. "Must be," says Cicero, "he must be praised, decorated and… disposed of…" What we mustn't forget, my dears, is that Cicero was cheating serpents before our daddies were weaned.' I looked at Maecenas. 'We must never let Cicero suspect that we guess what he has in mind. He is our dearest friend and essential ally.'

  ***

  It was a spring of the utmost delicacy. The wild weather of the March of Julius' murder was scattered by a sun that promised more than we could find time to enjoy. I had got myself an army, but hesitated whether to use it or disband it for the moment. Antony returned to Rome about 20 May, bringing with him a bodyguard of thugs ready to control any vote in the popular assembly. With money that was rightfully mine he bought the alliance of Cicero's son-in-law Dolabella. At the beginning of June he staged a plebiscite to prolong his own provincial command for three years.

  We met again in a house that had once belonged to Pompey; whether he or Antony was responsible for its vulgarity, I could not tell. But I had time enough to study it, for Antony had the insolence to keep me waiting. No doubt he thought to disturb me. When he at last granted me an interview his insolence continued. He again absolutely refused to disgorge Julius' money.

  I accepted his insolence in silence. Do not, my children, ever underestimate the value of silence. It disconcerts bluster and distorts judgement.

  When I left his presence I let it be known that I would pay all Julius' legacies; 'If it costs me my last penny,' I asserted. I wrote to my friends in the legions in Macedonia complaining that Antony was refusing to avenge Caesar.

  This was not strictly true, for by midsummer Antony was actually besieging Decimus Brutus in Mutina. This disturbed Agrippa. 'It seems to me wrong that we're not working with Antony,' he kept saying. 'I tell you our centurions don't understand what you're up to. They don't like it. They joined us to avenge Caesar and here you are fucking about with the Senate and that old woman Cicero.'

  'Run away and practise your sword-play, ducky,' Maecenas said. 'We do have heads on our shoulders. We're not just blundering about.'

  'Well,' Agrippa glowered at me, 'that's what it fucking well looks like. If you've got a plan, perhaps you'd be kind enough to tell me what it is?' I thought about that.

  'There you go again,' he said. 'You just sit there like a little owl, and let him make fun of me. You don't tell me anything, but it's me as has to go out and find you soldiers, and then try to keep 'em happy. But they're not happy, they're bleeding not. So what's your naming plan?'

  'I don't have one,' I said, 'not the sort of plan you could write down.'

  And this was true. I have talked to you about this, Gaius and Lucius, but I have never put it in writing for you. The value of planning diminishes in accordance with the complexity of the state of affairs. Believe me: this is true. It may seem paradoxical. You may think that the more complicated a situation is, the more necessary a plan to deal with it. I shall grant you the theory. But practice is different. No plan can be equal to the complexities and casualties of political life. Hence, adherence to a plan deprives you of the flexibility which you need if you are to ride the course of events; for a moment's reflection should enable you to see that it is impossible (even with the help of the wisest soothsayers and mathematicians) to predict what will happen; and it is folly to pretend that you can control the actions of other men with any certainty. Therefore a plan is only suitable for the simple operations of life; you can plan a journey to your country house, but you cannot plan a battle or a political campaign in any detail. You must have a goal, my sons, but to achieve it, nothing is more important than that you retain fluidity of thought. Improvisation is the secret of success in politics, for most political action is in fact and of necessity reaction.

  So I said now to Agrippa, 'I have no plan but I have purposes. I intend to avenge Caesar and to restore the Republic. And first I intend to safeguard our position. All my manoeuvring is directed towards these aims. You ask about Antony? You call for a reunion of the Caesareans. Well, so do I. But does Antony? As far as he is concerned, Caesar is dead and Antony is his successor. He must be persuaded that it is not so, and that he, Antony, is less than half our party.'

  ***

  Meanwhile, as Maecenas was quick to tell me, Antony was doing all he could to destroy my reputation. He spread many rumours about me. I shall set them down, because I am not ashamed to have been slandered.

  He let it be known that I had played the role of catamite to Caesar to encourage him to adopt me. He added that, subsequently, I had submitted to the lusts of Aulus Hirtius, Procurator of Spain, in return for 3000 gold pieces: The boy lends out his body at interest,' he said, 'it's his banker's blood, no doubt.' He accused me of effeminacy and sent agents among my troops to ask why they let themselves be commanded by a boy-whore.

  The accusations were false of course; it was ridiculous to suppose that Caesar would so reward a boy who behaved in such a disgusting way. As for Aulus Hirtius, he was so repulsive that one of his slave-boys hanged himself rather than endure his embraces. (The boy was a Gaul too, and everyone knows that Gallic boys think it no shame to sleep with mature men; the Druid religion encourages youths to prostitute themselves to the priests, and Gallic warriors are accustomed to choose the boys who look after their war-horses for their good looks.) Besides, it was absurd to suppose that 3000 gold pieces would attract a young man of my fortune.

  Curiously these allegations did me no harm with the troops. They didn't believe them. Even if they had, Antony should have known that soldiers take pleasure in the vices of their commanders. Caesar's legionaries had delighted in the story of their general's seduction by King Nicomedes. They had even sung a dirty song about it, which I shall not repeat to you.

  Agrippa of course was furious. He told me I was bound to have such stories made up about me as long as I associated with a pansy like Maecenas. He said that even if my men chose not to believe them, the senators whose support I was seeking would hardly like it to be thought that they were associating with a tart.

  'Don't be so silly,' I said, 'there's nothing to worry about. Everyone knows Antony is a liar.'

  All the same I was displeased myself, though my displeasure was mixed with the satisfaction that the circulation of such absurd and malicious rumours showed that Antony was taking my rivalry seriously. Nevertheless, I thought it as well to do what I could to disprove the lies. I stopped shaving my legs for one thing, and grew a beard too; and I took care to let pretty slave-girls be seen round my quarters. Maecenas introduced me to one Toranius, a dealer who was able to supply me with the most delectable fruits of the market.

  I tell you these things, my sons, not for any pleasure I feel in the memory –
to speak the truth I look back on them with a mixture of amusement and distaste – but for two reasons: first, that you may learn from my own lips what manner of man I have been, and so be able to discount the malicious and disreputable rumours with which I am sure you will be fed; and, second, because you may learn in this way how much prudence, self-control and decision are necessary to manipulate public opinion. I was careful to arrange that Maco should see a Circassian girl slip shiftless from my tent as he awaited an interview. I knew he would go back and say, 'He's a right boy, our general, you should have seen the bit of fluff he had last night…'

  Antony was fighting only for himself; but I had a vision of Rome. No one knows how ideas are formed, what influences operate on the mind, to what extent a man creates a world-view for himself. These are deep matters which I have discussed with philosophers, and, as the poet says, 'evermore came out, by that same door wherein I went'; and with Virgil, who was something more profound than a philosopher, a true poet. Here let me say a word on the subject of poets. Most of them are no more than versifiers. Any gentleman should of course be able to turn a verse; you, Lucius, have written elegiacs that please me. Beyond that, when it becomes a profession, there is too often something despicable in the craft. It encourages conceit and extravagant behaviour, monkey-tricks. True poetry has a moral value, most verse none; some is frankly immoral. Occasionally however you find a poet who offers more even than that. He is a man possessed of insight, a man through whom the Gods have chosen to speak. (By the way, I am glad that I have never heard you mock the Gods; only those with no rudder, men who trust complacently to their own natural buoyancy, do that. I fear the man who does not fear the Gods, for he lacks proportion.) I am fortunate to have known one such poet, Virgil. The spirit of Rome inhabited him; he saw what was hidden from other men. There is no man I have more deeply revered. I am sometimes tempted to believe that the core of my political thought derives from Virgil. And yet this is false. I was moving in that direction before I ever talked with him. Is it possible that ideas can exist, as it were, in the air?

  Caesar was naturally an inspiration. Yet, speaking under my breath to you, my sons, let me confess I never cared for Julius. There was something meretricious in him, something rotten. He revealed the full decadence of the Republic; when he led his legions across the Rubicon in that winter dawn, it was as if he tore a veil away from a shrine and discovered to all that the God had abandoned it. He was a great general; his conquest of Gaul and defeat of Pompey were imperishable feats. But what did he do then? He was tempted by monarchy – I have it on good authority that when Antony three times presented him with a kingly crown on the occasion of the Feast of the Lupercal, both Caesar and Antony expected that the crowd would hail him as king, and thus allow him to accept the crown. Inept politicians! Not to have arranged that the wind would blow that way! There was a vanity to him; he wore the high red boots of the old kings of Alba Longa; can you imagine me behaving so absurdly? But there was room for such vanity – it filled a vacancy at the heart of his imagination. Having achieved supreme power, he did not see that he was only at the beginning of his labours.

  I often talked of Julius with Cicero that long summer ago. When he sensed – oh he had the sharp intuition of the great cross-examiner he was – that I too had my doubts about my father, Cicero let slip the cloak of discretion which he always wore as if it chafed him. He ran his hand through his grey hair, leaned forward and thrust his scraggy neck towards me:

  The truth is,' he said, he was an adventurer, a gambler. He had no purpose beyond the immediate. He had no sense of history, no sense of the relationship that must exist between the past, the present and the future. He had never analysed the causes of his own elevation because he believed it had been achieved by fortune and his own merit; his genius in short. Such nonsense!'

  'Do you think,' I said – I made a habit of seeking Cicero's opinion even when I had no need of it – 'do you think that there was any deep purpose behind his admission of Gauls to the Senate?'

  Cicero flushed: 'There was certainly a purpose, but it was simply to insult the senators by making us associate with barbarians. Can you imagine anything more contemptuous?'

  'No, sir,' I said, shaking my head and keeping my face straight, 'but tell me how in your view, garnered from your life's distinguished harvest, the Free State can be restored.'

  Cicero sighed: 'I had almost come to believe it impossible. Perhaps, my dear boy, you have been sent by the gods to make it possible. What is needed is resolution, and the agreement of all good men throughout society to work together, and obey the laws. There is no fault in our laws. The fault, Octavius, lies in our own natures. Let me give you two examples. Have you ever heard of Verres?'

  'Who, thanks to your sublime oratory, has not heard of Verres?'

  'Well, yes, my prosecution made some stir in its time. I am glad it is still read. You remember what I said? Let me at any rate refresh your memory. I dislike quoting myself, but I know no other way to make my present point…'

  And he did; it lasted half an hour (all from memory of course) and he was (as I guessed) hardly half-way through when he was suddenly taken by old man's weakness and had to leave me to empty his bladder. I shan't weary you with his speech: suffice to say that Verres was a dishonest and extortionate Governor of Sicily, whom Cicero had very properly prosecuted (nowadays of course a modern Verres would not be able to commit even a quarter of the offences of the original, and we have more efficient ways of dealing with such malpractice than by public trial).

  I had thought the interruption might spare me the rest of the speech. Not a bit of it; he was in full flow before he was properly back in the room, doubtless lest I should change the subject.

  Eventually he paused a moment. 'My peroration,' he said, 'has been called sublime.' And he gave it to me elaborate and fortissimo. (I would never advise anyone to copy his magniloquent and excessively mannered style of oratory. It was, I suppose, superb or sublime, if you like; but prolix and too carefully prepared to convince. All right in its time I daresay, but terribly dated and disgustingly florid in my view. However, I applauded as was only polite.)

  Then he said: 'Now look on the other side. I myself have been a Governor too. In Cilicia, a province lamentably looted by my predecessors. I refused to follow their example. No expense was imposed on the wretched provincials during my government, and when I say no expense, I do not speak hyperbolically. I mean, none, not a farthing. Imagine that. I refused to billet my troops on them. I made the soldiers sleep under canvas. I refused all bribes. My dear boy, the natives regarded my conduct with speechless admiration and astonishment. I tell you it was all I could do to prevent them from erecting temples in my honour. Innumerable babies were named Marcus, I could hardly object to that. When I took slaves in my campaigns I deposited in the Treasury the 12 million sesterces I received for their sale. That's how to govern; that's the way it should be done. Not like Verres, not like Marcus Brutus.' He broke off to giggle. 'Do you know, dear boy, what interest he charged the wretched Cypriots under his care? No? You won't believe it. Forty-eight per cent. That's right, it's true. Forty-eight per cent. Imagine. But, dear boy, you see what I mean? There is nothing wrong with the Republic that a change of heart and a return to the stern morality of our ancestors will not put right. Meanwhile though, we have this wild beast Antony to account for. The stories he has spread about you! It's shameful. An old man like myself can stand slander; it must always hurt the young.' Such optimism, such naivety, in one who had seen so much!

  TWO

  By late summer Antony had hardly advanced in his aim to dominate the State. In August Cicero returned from the seaside, invigorated by the benign climate and other delights of the Bay of Naples, and attacked Antony in the Senate. I did not of course hear the speech. My brother-in-law Gaius Marcellus told me it had been 'the usual thing, wind, wind, wind'. For all that, it goaded Antony. He had been thinking himself into the role of proconsul; it irritated him to have the
old man remind everyone of his patchy history and moral insufficiency. The Senate may indeed have emptied during Cicero's speech ('the younger men call him the dinner-gong, you know,' Marcellus said), but the speech was copied out and went round the forum. It made an impression People saw Antony could not be trusted. They sought a man they could rely on. Cicero was too old, the consuls Pansa and Hirtius too obscure, the self-styled Liberators could never hope to overcome the antipathy of Caesar's legions: the way was opening before me.

  Antony blundered. Early in September Agrippa came to me, sweating with agitation. 'We're done for,' he said. 'We'd better pack our bags.' 'What is it?' I said.

  I sat down and called on Agrippa to do likewise. This is invariably the wisest and most effective response to signs of incipient panic. Either sit down yourself, or tell others to do so, or both. Why, I once quelled a mutinous cohort by snapping out the order to sit down. You can have no idea till you see it how effective such a command can be. A crowd on its feet feels its corporate strength. Make them sit down and you restore their sense of being individuals. You make them conscious of themselves. 'Antony has sent a letter to the Pontifex Maximus.' 'Much good may that do him. Lepidus is nothing but a bag of wind.'

  'You don't understand. He's published the letter, and he accuses you of plotting his murder. He requests your arrest and immediate trial.' I rang the bell for a slave.

  'Find Maecenas and ask him to come here. And bring some wine. You look as if you could do with a drink, Grippa,' I said.

  'Well,' I said to Maecenas when he appeared. 'Have we planned many murders lately?' 'Not many.' 'Not even the consul's?' 'Not that I know of. I hope you didn't disturb me from a very interesting couch just to play the fool. What is this?' 'Tell him, Grippa.'