by Allan Massie
I have condensed her discourse of course. She went on like that and like that for three hours. Then she dismissed me with instructions to return in half an hour. Agrippa was waiting for me with a jug of wine. 'I reckon you are going to need this, boy,' he said. He was, as so often, quite right. When I returned, fortified, she was sitting up in bed with a night-cap on. I’ve told my women we are on no account to be disturbed,' she said, and blew the candle out. She seized me vigorously, like one who has waited too long. I set myself to other imaginings. Not even images of twining tawny slavegirls' limbs helped me much.
She was a horrible woman, but she gave me Julia. I suppose, on reflection, she may have been congenitally unhappy. Certainly I never knew her other than discontented. When I came to divorce her I explained that I did so because I could not bear the way she nagged at me.
* * *
Of all the noble families of Rome, none is more remarkable than the Claudians. According to a popular song the Claudian family tree is like an apple tree which bears two kinds of fruit: sweet apples, that are delightful to eat and of great culinary value, and crab apples that are sour and distasteful. Certainly popular history divides them into good and bad Claudians. People still delight to tell of that Claudius Pulcher who took the auspices before a naval battle and found that the sacred chickens would not eat. 'If they will not eat,' he cried, 'then let them drink,' and threw them into the sea where they drowned. (The subsequent battle was, not surprisingly, lost.) Publius Clodius, the gangster who had been Fulvia's first husband, was another wild one; you know of some of his outrageous acts. He burned one of his mistresses in her bed too. Fulvia's half-insane violence was, I always felt, a reflection of his. There was also Appius Claudius Superbus who, in the early days of Rome, tried to enslave a free-born girl called Virginia whom he had already raped. On the other hand there were great servants of the State like Claudius Claudex, who expelled the Carthaginians from Sicily, and that Claudius Nero (I am told that 'Nero' means 'strong' in the old Sabine dialect, though some say it means 'black') who defeated Hasdrubal. The Claudian women are reputed equally to be of the same two types.
No family has been more important to me, but I think that the man who pretends to understand a Claudian is a fool. One reason why my love for Livia has never diminished, but has grown steadily deeper and more powerfully pervasive through the long years of our marriage, rests in her unfathomable Claudian nature. The man who fully understands his wife soon reaches the end of his marriage.
Nothing is harder to understand than the condition of marriage. Politics, that deep mystery, is child's play in comparison. We enter on marriage lightly; it becomes the deepest thing in life. That is a paradox perhaps; there is a sense in which my memoirs will be a sustained commentary on it.
I say 'lightly', for we usually marry for political or family reasons. The woman herself is the least important element; we choose her because she will cement our political connections, or simply because she brings us some desirable property. Most marriages then start thus. Many never advance beyond this point. They remain a convenience. Even you, my dear boys, must have observed how few husbands and wives live in and for each other. Self-styled wits indeed regard marriage as a joke, the marriage-bond simply as providing spice for adultery. I find this shocking, yet easy to understand. Most marriages are empty affairs. Yet there are some, among which I count myself blessed of the Gods to number my own, which nourish both husband and wife, which provide unfailing delight, and which enable both man and woman to grow in sympathy and understanding. Marriage is first a legal contract, but some few are fortunate enough to find in wedlock a profound communion which, to revert to Platonic theories again, seems to offer the substance rather than the shadow of some ultimate God-given reality. We mock the uxorious man; yet only he whose marriage is profound and true can know the deepest happiness of which human beings are capable. Inasmuch as the philosophical concept of divided souls has any significance, its resolution can only be found in marriage. Nevertheless this deep understanding is based on a residual mystery. One's beloved wife is at the heart of existence, the union is complete, and yet one cannot ever fully know her, or escape consciousness of her other and separate being.
Livia herself is descended from that Appius Claudius Pulcher who advised the Senate not to ally the Republic with King Pyrrhus of Epirus, and so gained a reputation for wisdom. She was, when I first knew her, married to a cousin, Tiberius Claudius Nero; and they were my enemies. Her husband, who knew nothing of her nature, was a shiftless fellow, who had gone through the Civil Wars like a man playing dice. He had supported my father, then abandoned him. He had urged the Senate to honour Caesar's murderers, and then drifted to Antony's camp. At Bononia we had named him praetor for 42. He had adhered to Lucius and Fulvia, and had survived the terrible siege of Perusia during which your stepfather Tiberius was an infant. He then fled to Sicily and made terms with Sextus Pompey, that indiscriminate man. In 39 we concluded peace with Pompey at Misenum, and, after a brief skirmish in Campania, Tiberius Claudius Nero presented himself in my camp.
This irresolute man, consistent only in failure, was still haughty. Why? He was a Claudian. That being so, all was permitted him. Claudians survive any disgrace: they are not only better born; in their own estimation they are born better. His young wife was no different. She approached me as a great lady might a client, not as the partner of a vanquished and discredited man.
She approached, and stopped my heart. She is, as you know, the same height as I, or perhaps an inch taller. She wore a white gown fringed with pink, and no jewels; she has always disdained any jewels but her eyes. I said to myself: so Helen must have looked when Paris saw her in Menelaus' house. And then I saw that she was angry. Those liquid eyes, which in my fond imaginings - by distant camp-fires, on cold unfriendly shores are ever tender, were hard and scornful. Was the scorn for me, or for her husband? I could not tell, but I felt, all at once, guilty. She has never lost the power to make me feel guilty, to make me ashamed.
She would not speak. She stood a little aside in an attitude which, simply because it was not at all provocative, aroused in me a most terrible lust, such as I had never experienced before. I say simply, but there has never been anything about Livia properly called simple. I believe that if she had even for a moment given me some sign of desire, if she had played the coquette even that instant, my lust would have abated, and I would have been able to listen to what her husband said. That might have freed me into anger, for he too, though I knew his feebleness, assumed a superiority to which nothing but his Claudian-consciousness entitled him. But I could not attend; Livia's restraint conquered me.
SIX
My sister Octavia was a pearl among women: chaste, intelligent, devout, loving, faithful; grey-eyed, modest and comely as apple-blossom. I sacrificed her happiness to the needs of the Republic (for Marcellus had opportunely died, and though Octavia grieved, I could not regret the opportunity thus given . . . )
* * *
Fulvia died, snarling. Even with her last breath she hissed poison in Antony's ear; I had cast him, she said, as Pompey to my Caesar.
'Antony won't have listened,' Salvidienus Rufus assured me. 'He has other interests.' 'Other interests?' 'Cleopatra.'
'Politics,' I said. 'The co-operation of the Queen of Egypt is necessary if he is to make a successful invasion of Parthia. As you know, I am against that. I think the first rule of Roman generalship should be: don't invade Parthia.' (Make a note of that, my sons. I believe it even more firmly now than I did then.) 'But Antony is wedded to the policy. I can't dissuade him. And he needs Egypt's help. He needs Egypt's subsidy. Politics.'
'This sounds like politics?' Rufus said. 'Antony was waiting for her as she voyaged up the Cydnus. She travelled in a barge the like of which you've never seen. It was quite indescribable, all purple and gold and with scented sails. She reclined on a throne with a single circle of gold on her head and a single golden chain round her neck and no other jewellery bu
t her eyes. Her cheeks were touched the palest of pink rose and her mouth -have you heard of her mouth? - it's beyond compare, it is the dream-kiss of all eternity. And her eyes were violet and slightly damp. Flute music sounded lulling and languid airs and four Cupids, beautiful half-caste boys, half-Greek half-Syrian, wafted fans over her. Antony saw this vision swan towards him and Fulvia was forgotten. He loves Cleopatra and lived with her all winter, and you say politics. How young you are, Octavian, to know nothing of love!'
That was last winter, before I met Livia. My mind darts over those months like a swallow, forward and back.
Antony objected to my confiscation of Gaul. He wrote to me in angry terms. I suppose the letter exists somewhere, but I cannot be troubled to unearth it. The sequel however was dangerous.
He acted with his usual impetuosity and lack of scruple. Instead of waiting for my reply, he patched up an agreement with Sextus Pompey and Ahenobarbus (one of Caesar's killers who had a pirate fleet), and the three of them sailed to Italy. Naturally I commanded my garrison at Brindisi to forbid them the harbour. His response was to blockade the port and land his legions at Sipontum a few miles up the coast. I hastened south, heavy-hearted at the thought that Antony's folly should once again expose Italy to war.
Maco said to me, 'The men don't like it. Their hearts won't be in any battle.'
'Nor will mine. I don't like it either.'
That night I wandered through the camp. There was a straw summer moon and the mountains of Apulia loomed over us like jagged and angry bears. I had pulled a rough woollen cloak round me and half over my head and when I crouched down beside a group of legionaries (keeping in the shadows, just out of the firelight), none recognized me. Their mood was sullen and nervous.
One said, 'You, Gaius, like all the rest of old Caesar's soldiers, can't think of anything but the next bloody battle. You're hooked on it, you're drugged by war . . .'
'That's what you think,' was the reply, 'you don't know a thing. Old sweats like me like war least of all. It's one thing bashing up Gauls, there's some sense and satisfaction in that, but I've been a soldier now twenty years, I've been decorated ten times, I've fought in more than fifty battles and skirmishes and I've wounds to show for it, and I never knew any good come from fighting other Romans.'
'Why do we do it then? Why do we let the bosses muck us about? Why don't we bloody tell them to get on with it hand-to-hand, if they're so effing keen?'
That raised a laugh.
'Can you see our wee general get in the arena with Antony?'
'It would be . . .' the speaker left the outcome open and shut in one sentence.
'He's too fly for that, is our wee Caesar.'
I said, 'Well, what do you think he wants? Nothing but power and blood, would you say?'
'Friend,' said the veteran called Gaius, 'I don't know who you effing are but you know eff all about the world.'
'Come off it,' I said, 'these politicians are all the same. They don't care what happens to their men as long as it helps them to power. And, if you ask me, young Octavian's the worst.'
'Friend,' Gaius said, 'would you like a taste of my sword for an early breakfast?'
'Just saying what I think,' I said: 'You tell me why I'm wrong.'
'In the first place,' Gaius said, 'have you any idea how much land he has already handed out to the boys?'
'Oh, that,' I said, 'that don't signify anything to me. That's just a politician building up a group of clients, if you ask me.'
'Nobody's asking you. You're too effing ignorant to ask. I'm telling you,' Gaius said.
'If you're so clever,' I said, 'tell me why you think we're here. Tell me why we're lined up to fight Antony, when just a few months ago we were all bosom chums engaged in common butchery. Tell me that, you grey-bearded know-all.'
'Listen, shithead,' he said, 'we don't want to fight Antony.'
'Too bloody right we don't,' said another.
'Hear, hear, I've got two brothers with Antony.'
'I only like to fight when I'm sure of winning,' said a fourth, 'and I'd never back our boy against Antony.'
'Oh, generalship,' I said, 'generals don't matter that much.
All this talk of generalship is horse-piss. It's how us men feel that counts. What they call morale.'
'I don't know who the hell you effing are,' Gaius said, 'and indeed I'm beginning to wonder if you're a spy sent in to our camp by Antony, in which case I'll hand you over to the senior centurion and volunteer to nail you to a cross myself . . .'
'Thought you said old sweats never volunteered . . .'
'This time it would be a pleasure. Still, what you say is true enough, up to a point. It's what men feel that decides battles, decides whether they stand their ground or run away. But you see, one of the things that decides which they do, is what they feel about their general. Not just about their general but about the legion and the whole army. If they don't trust them, they run away. It's that simple, it's why Julius won all his battles . . . we would always stand our ground for him . . .'
'And what about the cause?' I said.
His voice had grown gentler in the last speech, as he began to think. I have often noticed how the crudity of the spontaneous and regular speech of soldiers gives way to something more admirable when they begin to reflect.
'You always say it doesn't matter,' he said. 'That you fight for pay, because you're told to, because the centurion will flay you if you don't, and because you're afraid not to, and it is all true. And yet, underneath it all, there is something more. Men fight better when they are fighting for what they believe in. I'm old enough to remember Vercingetorix at Alesia. That was a battle of battles because the Gauls were fighting for everything that was theirs that we were going to take from them and change.'
His voice dropped. Someone threw a branch on the fire and flame spurted up, illuminating his set, scarred face. A flask was passed round. I was included in the circle as if the altered tenor of the conversation, the sense that we were all being made free of everything Gaius had come to know in his life of soldiering, dissipated the suspicion with which I had been viewed and made me part of the group.
Gaius waved the wine aside. He said, 'Our boy's cause is right. He stands for Italy and homes and farmlands and public order.'
'But this time,' another said, 'what is there to fight Antony about. . . ?'
'Maybe nothing,' Gaius said, 'except that he's here. And it's got to be finished. If Antony insists, we have to stand our ground.'
I threw the hood back off my head and stepped forward so that they might see who I was.
'You are quite right, Gaius,' I said . . . 'No,' I smiled, seeing his consternation, 'don't apologize for having threatened to nail me to a cross. I have no wish for this battle, but, if it has to be, it has to be. You know what my father said after Pharsalus when he looked on the faces of the dead Pompeians. "They wanted it this way", those were his words. And you are quite right too in saying what I stand for. I stand for the Republic, for farms for my soldiers, for decency and peace. We have come a long way and cannot hide from our destiny . . .'
'That's all right, General,' said one man, a thin-faced boy with a cauliflower ear, 'but destiny's a big word for us boys. I reckon destiny belongs to the likes of you.'
'What is your name?' I said, and sat down beside him.
'Septimus,' he said, 'being the seventh son, you understand.'
'Well, Septimus,' I said, 'if a seventh son doesn't understand destiny, who can? But you're wrong, you know, we all have a fate to work out. And let me tell you, I know, whether we have to fight Antony now or later or not at all, that my star is fixed. I shall achieve for you and all Italians just what Gaius has said I'm aiming at. Trust me in that. We're here, not just for ourselves, but for our children.'
'Don't have any,' said Septimus.
'You will have.'
