by Allan Massie
I have a cold in the head, and have coughed, sneezed and spluttered my way through the darkness. My legs are leaden and my shoulders ache. I am troubled by the sharp-stabbing pains of gout, and my stomach is disordered. If I close my eyes, I am assailed by nightmare images of slaughter: I hear Roman voices shriek in terror and despair through the limitless forests; I smell sweat and fear and the reek of horse-flesh, blood, sour marsh vapours and the ordure of panic. I am an old man, nearing my end, trapped in a corner between the walls of achievement and death… and what, I ask, does it signify? In some cities of Asia, in defiance of my expressed wishes, they worship me as a God. Who ever heard of a God with gout and a cold in the head?
This disaster, the gravest I have known, leads me to question what I have achieved. There was a little yellow-haired girl, about six or seven, who ran beside the marching legions for some fifty paces, trying to grab hold of her father's hand, and crying 'Daddy, Daddy'; he, not daring to break step, looked down on her with a countenance into which I read love, anguish and embarrassment. But if I were to send for that little girl, what could I do for her that would heal the wound cut open by my policies and by Varus' criminal carelessness? Deprived by cruel fate of my own children I grow ever more tender towards other people's; old man's tears again.
It was Livia who brought me the news. No one else dared. That thought also distresses me. It makes me feel like a monarch, even a tyrant, whereas I call the Gods, in whom my faith tremblingly rests, to bear witness that I have never sought to be more than the First Citizen of Rome, the Father of my Country – that title the Senate was pleased to grant me, in which I had delighted. But now only Livia would approach me with the news that Varus had led the legions into a trap and that they had all been swallowed up and destroyed. They were lured into the forest, obstructed by felled trees, swamps and undergrowth, cut down in a rain-storm. Varus, the reports said, killed himself – that Roman death that is no better than an abandonment of faith, the last resort of cold egoists like Brutus; (and I am not forgetting that I was once tempted to it myself). Captured legionaries were crucified, or beheaded and eviscerated as offerings to the savage and unknown gods of these northern forests. I looked into the familiar landscape of Livia's face, and could read nothing there, as, sparing me nothing, she spat out the facts to me in short brutal sentences. Her very laconicism made it impossible for me to find any refuge from the truth. But when I began to lament my legions, she stopped me.
'There may be time for tears later. But now we must be vigilant. Military disaster can be the seedbed of revolution. You can't doubt, my dear, that those who hate your regime will even now be rejoicing at what has befallen Rome. They will be saying that their hour has come. If you take my advice, which I know you are loth to do nowadays, ever since I first gave you advice that tasted like bitter medicine, you will at once round up fellows like Lucius Arruntius, Asinius Gallus and Marcus Lepidus, and clap them under house arrest – at the very least…'
I nodded, disregarding the call for illegality. I submitted to what was expedient. Anyway, I could sympathize with her fear; she looked on my old age and weakness and hoped to make the world safe for Tiberius.
So now, I listen to the tramp of the Praetorians and my heart cries, 'Varus, give me back my legions…"
***
Livia's promptitude prevented any open display of disaffection. We were able to release the detainees in a couple of months. Though I was relieved to be rid of the fear of civil disorder, I was also dismayed by the way in which Roman nobles acquiesced in this disaster. I was indeed the only man in the city who let his beard and hair grow uncut in token of my mourning for the lost legions. When the nobility saw that nothing had changed, they shrugged their shoulders and got on with their hunting and dicing, their love affairs, business matters, theatres and games; 'like so many capons' I found myself muttering. Did Romans no longer care when Rome suffered defeat and disgrace? Was the indifference to be my legacy?
I should have liked to consult Tiberius, who, with all his faults, is a man of the old style, but I had sent him directly to the Rhine to guard against any German incursion. Nobody understands the Germans of course, but Tiberius has a great virtue which renders him the ideal commander against barbarians; he is never impressed by them. Yet, because he is the most prudent and careful of men, he never relaxes his vigilance and would never commit the error of despising any enemy. I have come to rely on Tiberius; it is ironical, and Livia's triumph. I have been making up my accounts. In the nature of things I am unlikely to live much longer, and my body has become a repository of disease – a doctors' delight, if doctors were less ignorant than they are. I deposited my will with the Vestals some years ago, and have no reason to change it. It will demonstrate my love and high regard for Livia. It is a public tribute to my marriage. Our marriage, I should say, for we have indeed been partners. My mausoleum is in the course of construction. It lies within sight of the Altar of Peace which will for ever be the memorial of what I have done for Rome. Yet I feel the need for something more explicit; not this memoir, which is a personal testament, but a public statement which will spell out my achievement. I am therefore causing to be prepared a record of what I have done and this will be inscribed on two bronze pillars to be set up before my tomb. It will be a statement to challenge the corruption of future historians, for I know only too well how historians can distort a man's life and deprive it of its true significance.
And yet, as I view what I am writing for this record, I find myself conceding that there is justice in the historians' suspicions. Words mislead as much as they inform; after all, I knew Cicero well. What a master of rhetoric he was; every sentence in his letters, essays and speeches cries out for interpretation; he was godly in eloquence and twisted as a corkscrew. Article I: 'At the age of nineteen and on my own initiative and at my own expense, I raised an army by means of which I liberated the Republic which was oppressed by the tyranny of a faction. For which reason, the Senate, with honorific decrees, made me a member of its order in the consulship of Gaius Pansa and Aulus Hirtius, giving me at the same time consular rank in voting, and granted me the imperium. It ordered me a propraetor, together with the consuls, to see to it that the State suffered no harm. Moreover, in the same year, when both consuls had fallen in the war, the people elected me consul and a triumvir for the settlement of the Republic.'
There is no lie here. But anyone who has read the first Book of these memoirs knows that it is less than the whole truth. You will note that I eschew names, save for the consuls used to date the year. Names in this context can only breed dissension. My life has been devoted to stilling this spirit, to the act of reconciliation. Yet here, in the privacy of my secret memoir I may pause. I cannot even yet bring myself to be honest about Antony, the tyrant whose faction oppressed the Republic that year. I told some of the truth in that first volume of memoirs which abruptly halted in the year of my Triumph. Now let me dwell on that word 'faction' which lexicographers define as 'a company of persons associated or acting together, mostly used in a bad sense; a contentious party in a state or society'. Certainly, in the second sense, the word might as well be applied to me and my supporters as to Antony and his. Will historians see in my victory only the success of my own faction? Certainly, again when I recall our landing at Brindisi, three young men -myself, Maecenas and Agrippa – come to claim my inheritance and ready to impose ourselves on the Republic and seize it by the throat, I can't deny that the word 'faction' applies equally to us. Weren't we indeed young and unscrupulous gangsters? 'At my own expense' is disingenuous. Ultimately true of course, but when I think how I crawled before Balbus and Atticus, begging for loans, of how I was granted them with nothing but my name, my ardour and my determination as collateral, well… yet I could hardly say 'with bankers' money', could I? Some may also think the claim that the people elected me a triumvir a bit on the rich side. We imposed the triumvirate after all by force of arms. Gangsterism again. Nevertheless the essence of this first
Article in my Res Gestae is fair: I did liberate the Republic from the domination of faction; ultimately any power I have exercised has derived from the General Will. Article II: 'Those who assassinated my father I drove into exile, avenging their crimes by due process of law; and afterwards when they waged war against the State, I conquered them twice upon the battlefield.'
I see Cicero in the Senate, his hands flapping like great crow's wings as his eloquence soared, crying out in that seductive voice, from which all the skill of elocution teachers never quite removed the accent of Arpinum, that 'no one but Antony and a few like him regretted Caesar's death'. But I avenged it, and destroyed those who called themselves 'Liberators'. Yet had Caesar lived, what would have become of me? Would I have remained his heir? Suppose he had had his Parthian War, and suppose he had triumphed there – and he might well have done, for only Caesar had military genius enough to make that a possibility (a view I remember expressing to Antony's fury when I was trying to dissuade him from his Parthian War), suppose then he had done so… he would have wintered in Alexandria, with Cleopatra. He was already dictator for life. That Parthian victory would have completed the divorce from reality which all remarked in his last months. Would he then have acknowledged Caesarion as his son? I fear he would. He would have accepted the crown he had so reluctantly declined on the Lupercal, and installed Cleopatra as Queen. Besides, Caesar was never comfortable with me. He suspected mockery; he once threatened to deprive me of Maecenas: he 'would despatch that scented dandy to the galleys', he snapped, though who was Caesar to speak against dandies, or scent for that matter? When he died, I was horrified, chilled by fear and the manner of his death; but when I fully realized that he had been removed, my heart expanded, I felt elated, I saw the world open before me. Yes, like Cicero, I rejoiced, though I had the good sense to do so in secret. Caesar dazzled me. I never liked him. I would have feared him if there had not been always something a little absurd, something theatrical in his manner.
My cat, black, long-furred, yellow-eyed, closest friend of my old age, whose love for me is untainted by thought of possession, who acknowledges obligations for no more than their due, has just leapt on to my lap, digging her claws lightly into my shoulder, thrusting her face into mine, purring with the deep pleasure of intimate contact. My cat, who is my equal as she is the equal of Gods, who neither fears nor resents me, demands no more than I am happy to give. I had such a cat as a child. Then, for all my long middle years of struggle and violence and the search for power, no cat. Now, old, I resume the perfect love one can share with an animal. How delicate and refined her beauty; how noble and independent her spirit; how remarkable her ability to combine liberty with conditional dependence. My perfect companion has four feet and no scolding or complaining tongue. Article III tells of my wars; Article IV of my dusty triumphs and ovations, of how there were led before my chariot nine kings or children of kings. It is both rash and salutary thus to debase greatness. Article V recounts how I declined the dictatorship offered me by the Senate and the People. That was in the year when Lucius Arruntius and Marcus Marcellus were consuls. I had been in Sicily, settling colonies of retired soldiers, when word was brought of riots in Rome. The Tiber had flooded the low-lying quarters of the Field of Mars. The corn supply had failed. Speculators, a tribe I abominate, were holding on to such corn as there was, to drive the price up. The mob threatened to burn down the Senate House unless I was made dictator. Lucius Arruntius always disliked me; he was one of those aristocrats who felt he should rule the State and sighed for the old days before the Wars. Nor was he appeased by the consulship I had arranged for him. Unlike some of the well-born boobies, he had sense enough to realize the office had become largely honorific. But when he heard the mob caterwauling round the Curia, and began to feel his limbs loose in his sockets, he squawked loudly enough for my help and endorsed their cry that I should be dictator. He promised them with trembling lips that he would urge it on me, and when I declined broke into degrading sobs. But I wasn't having it. I had seen the effect of Julius' perpetual dictatorship, and I wasn't going to be caught the same way. Instead, I said loftily that it wasn't necessary. I would however take over the supervision of the grain supply. I identified the speculators and gave them a choice which didn't appeal to them: they could relinquish their hoards voluntarily, or they could prepare for confiscation and a long sojourn on a lonely island. They then co-operated in exemplary fashion and the crisis was over.
The nobility several times tried to cajole me into accepting great and open powers. I was too wary for them. I knew that the appearance of power is more deeply resented than its actuality. So Article VI informs the People that I three times declined to be named 'sole guardian of laws and morals with supreme authority'. Naturally I wasn't going to fall into that trap. I told them I couldn't accept an office 'contrary to the traditions of our ancestors'. You can always defeat conservatives by an appeal to tradition. Article VII lists my honours and membership of sacred orders. I allowed Lepidus to retain the office of Pontifex Maximus till his death, when I assumed it myself. It has its uses. Subsequent Articles VIII, IX, X, XI and XII tell of the honours paid me by the Senate and the Roman People, of my reforms of the Senate and of the Censuses I took. At the last census there were almost five million Roman citizens. Unlike Julius I have thought it wise not to cheapen this distinction by granting it indiscriminately to provincials. Of these honours I am proudest of the Senate's decree that an altar of the Augustan Peace should be inaugurated. Let Article XIII speak for itself: 'The temple of Janus Quirinus, which our ancestors desired to be closed whenever peace with victory was secured by sea and by land throughout the entire empire of the Roman People, and which before I was born is recorded to have been closed only twice since the founding of the city, was during my principate three times ordered by the Senate to be closed.' I cannot bring myself to write of Article XIV. It tells of my sons Gaius and Lucius, for whom the first volume of these memoirs was written… Article XV records the sums I have given as donations to the Roman plebs. No man has given more money to more people than I. Article XVI records how I reimbursed municipalities for lands I assigned to colonies of soldiers. No one before me thought to do this, not Sulla, not Pompey, nor Julius. I am surprised that Pompey did not. Articles XVII and XVIII tell how on several occasions I came to the assistance of the Treasury with my own money. I defy historians to impugn this record. Subsequent Articles XIX, XX andXXI record my building works. My vaunt is that I found Rome of brick and left it of marble. I am not however proud of what I record in the next two Articles: the gladiatorial shows I presented. These have become, alas, an inescapable feature of Roman life. The princeps who neglects to provide them will invite disaffection. Article XXIV records that after the war with Antony, 'I replaced in the temples of all the communities of Asia the ornaments which my opponent in the war had seized for his private use after despoiling the temples.' That was typical of Antony of course; he couldn't see anything pretty or precious without wanting to lay his hands on it. He had no sense of his own dignity, and, what was worse, no sense of what we owe the provincials. That can be put quite simply. We owe them respect. We must respect their traditions and cults as we respect our own. It is right and proper in itself; it is also the only way to reconcile them to our empire. On the other hand, 'eighty silver statues of myself, represented on foot, on horseback, or in a chariot, stood in the city; these I myself removed, and out of the money therefrom I set up golden offerings in the temple of Apollo in my own name and in the name of those who had honoured me with the statues.' This action appeared to me so obviously demanded by common sense that there is really nothing to be proud of in having performed it. Yet, again, I learned from the deplorable example set me by Julius. It pleased his vanity to have Asiatics worship him as a God. What tushery. Men are not Gods; though I have been solemnly religious it has sometimes crossed my mind that Gods may not be Gods either. Yet that is not quite true. It is a matter I discussed often with Virgil, the mos
t profoundly religious man of my acquaintance… He said to me, I remember, 'Do not let doubts and discrepancies perturb you. No man who has reflected wisely on these matters can doubt that the world is formed, guided, in some mysterious way governed, by potent and immortal spirits. We, in our human ignorance, choose to identify particular elements of these spirits, and give them names, and even human attributes. There may be no Apollo; there is a life-giving and life-enhancing force which our Apollo nevertheless well represents. It is in our nature to endow the Apollonian or Dianic spirit with personality, to make up stories about the Gods we have partly invented, partly perhaps, in dim and shadowy manner, recalled from the past adventures of our immortal souls. When you are in doubt, my friend' – and in memory I dwell lovingly on the tender note which Virgil gave that simple form of address – 'turn back to Plato. Read "The Phaedo" and ponder on the great argument for immortality there given to Socrates. Read "The Republic" too, and particularly the myth of the cave. Our knowledge of the Divine can only be shadowy, an imperfect recollection of its reality.' How could I, who heard and believed what my poet told me, have permitted my own statue to be worshipped? It would have been blasphemous. Besides, it was politically inexpedient. A man-God is exposed to the ridicule of both the wise and irreverent. Article XXV: 'I brought back peace to the sea by suppressing the pirates. In that war I turned over to their masters for punishment nearly 30,000 slaves who had run away from their masters and taken up arms against the State. The whole of Italy voluntarily took an oath of allegiance to me and demanded me as its leader in the war in which I was victorious against Actium. The same oath was taken by the provinces of the Gauls, the Spains, Africa, Sicily and Sardinia. More than 700 senators served at that time under my standards: of that number 83 attained the consulship and about 170 obtained priesthoods either before that date or subsequently, up to the date on which this document was written'.
