Augustus

by Allan Massie

  Then that much-praised first sentence: 'All Gaul is divided into three parts', has really only the single virtue of lucidity. It is far from accurate, for the divisions of Gaul are more numerous and much deeper than he suggests.

  In fact the book is fundamentally untruthful. Not surprising; it was written for an immediate political purpose - when did a manifesto ever speak the truth? The Triumvirate formed by Caesar, Pompey and Crassus had broken up. Caesar's enemies in Rome were baying for his blood and demanding his recall. He appealed to public opinion with this vainglorious account of his Gallic conquests: he would show them what he had done for Rome. It worked. Even the dullness of which you complained was deliberate; many had thought Caesar flashy; now they should be soothed by the impressive sobriety of his prose.

  So, my dear Gaius, and Lucius, too, (for I cannot imagine your tender imagination responded to Caesar's prose, though you would be too mild and mannerly to complain) your early criticism was justified. 'On the spot', as you would say yourself.

  It has always seemed to me an example of how not to write your memoirs. There is no personal voice. What you hear is an actor. Of course it's also true that Julius Caesar was always acting: the real Caesar, if he existed by the time I knew him, was buried deep beneath layers of artifice. Still, most of the parts he chose to play were livelier and wittier than the role he wrote for himself in his 'Gallic War'.

  All the same, now that I bring myself to write this account of my own life, for you - for your instruction and, I hope, pleasure - I confess that the pompous tone is hard to avoid. Autobiography sets out to recapture experience, but the business of writing it requires the author to abstract himself from the self that lived these experiences, and to construct a figure that can hardly fail to be, as it were, theatrical. To put it another way: the self you write is never quite the self that lived. (I hope you don't find that concept too difficult. It's a modern idea of course which you certainly won't find in the authors you have studied and I am only too sadly aware of the inadequacy of my attempts at philosophical exposition.) I was anyway struck with this when I wrote a first sketch of my life about twenty years ago when I was stuck in a small town in the Pyrenees recovering from an illness. I found it heavy going, I assure you. It began, if I recall, with a genealogical chapter. Everyone is interested in his ancestry of course, but I could not bring mine to life. It was profoundly unsatisfactory.

  So, engaging on this book for you, my boys, I propose to imitate Homer or follow his advice at least. He recommends you start in the middle of action.

  Therefore: here we are: Greece, late March, blustery and cold, snow on the mountains, in my nineteenth year.

  * * *

  As we lay in the rest-room after our baths Maecenas ran his hand over my thigh.

  'You see, my dear, I was quite right. Red-hot walnut shells are absolutely it. You have such pretty legs, ducky, it's a shame to spoil them with fuzz.'

  And then, with his hand still stroking me just above the knee, and Agrippa snorting something about bloody effeminate dirt from the next couch - then - it is a scene I hold clear as a vase-painting - the curtain was thrown aside, and a slave burst in, with no ceremony at all.

  'Which of you is Gaius Octavius Thurinus?' he cried.

  'This one is,' Maecenas said, not moving his hand. But I sat up, shaking him off. When slaves forget their manners, all the more reason to behave decently. The man thrust a letter into my outstretched hand, and disappeared without waiting for a reward. (I know why he did that; he was aware he was the bearer of bad news - slaves always know what their missives contain, I suppose they check with the secretaries and it is passed down the line - but in this case of course he could hardly have failed to know what the whole world would ring of - and he had all the Greek superstitious fear of the fate that waits the bringer of evil tidings.)

  I turned it over. 'It's from my mother,' I said.

  'Oh God,' Maecenas said, 'mothers.'

  'That's no way to talk,' Agrippa said.

  'Well, who's little Miss Good Citizen now?'

  Their bickering is memory's sour accompaniment to the solo of my mother's letter. It was short enough for something that shook the world:

  My son, your uncle Julius was this day murdered in the Senate House by his enemies. I write that bluntly because there is no way to prepare such news. And I say merely 'his enemies' because all here is uncertainty. No one knows what may happen, whether this is the beginning of new wars or not. Therefore, my child, be careful. Nevertheless the time has come when you must play the man, decide and act, for no one knows or can tell what things may now come forth.

  I let the letter drop. (One of the others picked it up and what they read silenced them.) I let my fingers play over my smooth legs and bare chin, and wondered if I was going to cry. I have always cried easily, but I had no tears for Julius either then or later.

  Very soon there was a clamour without. We dressed hurriedly in some apprehension. One does in such circumstances. No one likes to be caught naked when there is danger of sword-play. My mind was full of all that I had heard and read of the proscriptions in the struggle between Sulla and Marius; how Julius himself had nearly lost his life then, for, said Sulla, 'in that young man there are many Mariuses.' I could not be certain that the slave who had brought the message was not the precursor of those who had constituted themselves my enemies as well as Julius's. I was his next-of-kin; it would make sense to dispose of me. I was indeed prudent to have such fears, for my death would have been an act of prudence on their part.

  They should have killed me. I wonder when they realized that themselves. It is known that they regretted not putting Antony to death at the same time as my uncle. Cassius, wise man, wished to do so. The ostentatiously virtuous Marcus Brutus over-ruled him. The truth is, there was never so thoughtless a conspiracy. They imagined, these self-styled Liberators, these besotted idealists, these disgruntled fools, that if they killed Julius, the Republic would resume its old stability of its own accord. They were futile men, without foresight.

  That night in Illyria Agrippa organized a guard for me, alert to our peril. I had gone out before the crowd and stilled their tumult. To express grief for Julius, I tore my clothes (Maecenas having first thoughtfully run a knife along the seam). I begged the crowd, whose grief I knew to be as great as mine - they liked that assurance - to go home and leave me to mourn. To my surprise it worked. They were a poor lot and even more confused than I was myself.

  'Well,' I said to Maecenas when we were alone.

  He stopped plucking his eyebrows, a task he would normally have left to a slave.

  'Well,' I said, 'I am head of the family. Julius had no other heir. I am almost his adopted son.'

  'You are only eighteen,' he said. 'There are other leaders of the Popular Party. Mark Antony and his brother Lucius.'

  'They may have killed Antony too,' I said. 'Why shouldn't they? It's five days since Julius was murdered. Anything could have happened. My mother tells me to act the man. But how?'

  'We must go to Italy,' he said. 'You are in no more danger there than here. And whatever you do, nobody will believe you plan to do nothing. So you might as well act with decision. The Gods,' his tongue flickered on his lips, 'have thrown the dice for you. You must pick them up, and roll again. Tell Agrippa to see to a ship, employ his vast administrative talent. As for me, well, Nikos tells me he has a new consignment from Asia. He has promised me a Phrygian boy with a bottom like a peach. It would be a shame not to pluck it before we sail. Nothing, my dear, is sadder than the remembrance of lost fucks.'

  * * *

  You will wonder, I am sure, why I tolerated Maecenas; he is hardly the type you would find around me now, is he? Of course I have grown staid and respectable with years, but even then your natural father Agrippa could not understand it. He often rebuked me for this friendship and inveighed against Maecenas, of whom he was intensely jealous, and whom he would call 'a pansy whoremaster'. You will wonder too why I record
the light nonsense of Maecenas' lascivious conversation, that quip about my legs for instance. To tell the truth, I am surprised to find myself doing so. I can only say that nothing brings back those last moments of boyish irresponsibility so keenly to me as the echo in my memory of that affected drawl.

  And to answer the first question: no one in my life ever gave me more consistently good advice.

  Agrippa couldn't stand that knowledge either.

  * * *

  Certainly not my mother's husband Philippus.

  We had arrived in Brindisi in an April dawn. The sun was just touching the mountains of Basilicata. Even this early though, the port was in a ferment. It swarmed with disbanded or disorganized legionaries - we were told that a ship bringing back some of the last remnants of Pompey's men had docked the day before, and the streets round the fishmarket were thronged with these veterans who had no idea what to do with themselves. Ours seemed an unpropitious arrival.

  Then, so quickly does news get about, a century of legionaries in good marching order wheeled round the corner of the harbour offices, the crowd falling back. Their centurion halted them on the quayside, as if they constituted a guard of honour; or possibly, as I remarked to Maecenas, a prisoner's escort.

  The centurion boarded the ship, followed by a couple of his men. He called out in a loud voice:

  'I have information that Gaius Octavius Thurinus is on board.'

  I saw the captain of the vessel hesitate. I drew back the cloak with which I was covering my face, and stepped forward.

  'I am he.'

  The centurion saluted with a great flourish.

  'Publius Clodius Maco, centurion of the fifth cohort of the twelfth legion, served in Gaul, fought at Pharsalus and Munda, wounded and decorated in the latter battle, at your service, sir. I have brought my century as your escort, sir.'

  I advanced towards him.

  'Welcome, friend. I am happy to see you.' Then I raised my voice so that I could be heard by the troops drawn up on the quay. 'You are all Caesar's soldiers and colleagues. I am Caesar's adopted son. You wish to avenge your general, I seek to avenge my father. You offer me your protection on the road to Rome. I offer you my name and my father's name as a talisman, and I grant you my protection in all you do. Caesar living brought us first together. Caesar's blood, shed in most foul murder, has united us to death or victory . . .'

  They gave a great cheer, without breaking ranks, a good sign. The two soldiers who had boarded the ship behind Maco hoisted me to their shoulders and bore me to the quay. I bade them set me down, and, taking a risk, announced that I would inspect the guard, my first command. It was a risk worth taking. If they had shrunk from that assertion of my authority, they would have been useless for my purpose. But they didn't. They drew themselves up, set their shoulders back. I was relieved and impressed. They were serious men, and their leather was polished, their brass and weapons shining. Maco was a good centurion to have seen to it that his men were in such fine condition in a world that was crumbling into uncertainty. 'Where now?' asked Agrippa.

  'To the magistrates,' I said. 'It is important that they realize why we are here.'

  'What's all this about being Caesar's adopted son?' - Agrippa was full of naive questions when we were young - 'First I've heard of it.'

  'It must be in the will. If I'm not that, we're sunk.'

  * * *

  'My dear boy, nobody admires your spirit more than I do.' My stepfather leant back in his arbour overlooking the Campagna and toyed with a mug of his own yellow wine; the fingers of his left hand played little drumming tunes on his swollen paunch; the mug almost vanished in the fat of his face. 'Nobody, not even your dear mother, who dotes on you and who has been in tears, floods, I assure you, since it happened. But, dear boy, consider the facts. Look at yourself. You're scarcely more than a child. I don't want to be rude, but there simply are times when a chap must tell the truth. How old are you? Sixteen?' 'Eighteen,' I said.

  'Well, eighteen, eighteen, and you want to set yourself up against chaps like Gaius Cassius. To say nothing of Mark Antony. Oh I know he's meant to be a Caesarean, but Caesar's dead, my dear. And I know you think I'm an old fogey, but still even you must admit that old fogeys have seen a thing or two. And I know Antony, know him well. He has beardless boys for breakfast. And, take my word for it, what Antony is now is an Antonian, nothing less . . . no,' he sighed deeply before resuming his wearying unwearied flow of counsel, 'take the money old Jules left you. Take that like a shot naturally, but waive the political inheritance. Just say you're too young and inexperienced. Let them look elsewhere. They'll be relieved as like as not. I don't expect either Cassius or Antony really wants to cut your throat.'

  'There's that danger,' I said, 'I'm not too inexperienced to recognize that. There was a cohort sent south to arrest me, you know. I turned them round and they're on my side now, but it shows . . .'

  'Only,' he sighed, 'because you will insist on drawing attention to yourself. Once announce that all you want is a quiet life, and no one will trouble you. Chaps don't come trying to clap irons on me, you know. . . Besides, you must admit, the whole Julian connection is fortuitous. A bit thin, what? I mean, if your mother's father hadn't married his sister Julia, what would you be? Nothing. Nothing significant. Decent folk of course, but small town worthies. That's all. Your own dad was the first of your family to enter the Senate, you know, and only because of the connection. What do you think all the really top families make of that? You know they sneer at Cicero as a parvenu, and he's a man of genius. You're only a boy, and your grandfather was a moneylender.'

  'Let's say banker.' I kept a smile in my voice. 'Do you think my banking blood should be potent enough to persuade me to take the money and do nothing else? Do you think anyone would believe I was satisfied with that? What do you think my own soldiers would say?'

  'Your own soldiers?' He sighed and poured himself wine. 'It's a fantasy, child, a boy's game, but it will end in blood, your blood, I fear. Well, your mother can't say I didn't try to dissuade you.'

  * * *

  It is hard to make you, my beloved boys, who have been brought up in peace and order, understand the mood of a crumbling state, of an incipient revolution. If I talk of fear and uncertainty, what can these be but words to you children of sunshine? In the same way, you know me as a man on the verge of old age; you can hardly remember your natural father Agrippa. You, Gaius, were only eight when he died; you, my dear Lucius, an infant of five. I myself could never imagine Julius young, and yet I saw him in dangerous action. And you have been brought up in the Republic which I restored; how can you imagine a world that was falling apart, where no man knew his friend?

  I trusted Agrippa and Maecenas of course. Apart from affection, they had nowhere else to go. But I trusted no other man above the rank of centurion, and not always them either. Even Maco said to me, 'You know, sir, my brother's with Antony. I could get him to let us know the feeling in his camp . . .' I assented of course, but how could I be sure of the honesty of any answer? And it wasn't really true either that Agrippa and Maecenas were bound to me; traitors are always welcome, for a time at least. Yet I had to act as if their affection, of which I was sure, could continue to determine their interest; which was more doubtful.

  There were at least five parties or factions in the State, including my own.

  Antony had inherited part of Caesar's following. He was consul which assured him direct command of at least five legions, and, even more important, gave him legitimate authority.

  The chief of the self-styled Liberators, Marcus Brutus and Gaius Cassius, still posing as true friends of the Republic, had withdrawn in panic from the city which had vociferously rejected their gift of blood. Though they had only been assigned in the previous elections the unimportant provinces of Crete and Cyrene respectively, within a few weeks it was known that Brutus had gone to Macedonia, Cassius to Syria, where they were raising rebellious armies in the name of Liberty and Republican virtue.
<
br />   Lurking in Sicily was Sextus Pompey, unworthy son of an over-rated father. Pompey the Great had cleared the sea of pirates; Sextus was little better than a pirate himself. Yet he had attracted to him the most irreconcilable remnants of the old Optimate party, those who, unlike the Liberators, had never made their peace with Caesar.

  In Rome itself you could find the constitutionalists; their chief was Cicero. He was at least a voice, a marvellous and fecund organ.

  And then, myself. I had got the nucleus of an army. It burned to revenge Caesar, and would continue to burn as long as I could pay it.

  'Money,' Maecenas said, 'money is how it is done.'

  Agrippa snorted, but I knew Maecenas was right. To this extent anyway; without money it couldn't be done.

  * * *

  Mark Antony had grown. That was the first surprise. I have since seen other men contract in office, as if the possession of authority revealed their deficiencies to them. His manner too had changed. He had treated me before like a younger brother. I had disliked his assumption of intimacy; he had had a habit of putting his arm round my shoulders and hugging me towards him which I found particularly offensive. Now he lay back on a couch, with two greyhounds resting beside him, and, having dismissed the slaves, looked me straight in the face.

  ‘You're making trouble,' he said. He spoke as if I was a defaulter, and didn't ask me to sit down. Nevertheless I took the other couch. (Perhaps he regretted not having had it removed.) In the silence the babble of the morning forum rose up to us.