Augustus

by Allan Massie

  I motioned to Agrippa to sit down and did so myself. 'Don't like this,' Piso grumbled. 'There's a whiff of a triumvirate in the air.'

  'Those days are over,' I said. 'Nothing would distress me more than their return.'

  Piso drank wine. It was very quiet, approaching noon, the sun hot for the time of year.

  I said, 'Did you ever wonder why you escaped my purge of the Senate?'

  'Hmphm,' he said. 'What if I said, "of course not"?'

  'I would be disappointed in my judgement of your intelligence.'

  'Ha!' he said. I found these grunts and ejaculations irritating, but naturally gave no sign of this. I waited for him to continue, but he remained silent, his eyes fixed on the wine.

  I said, 'It was never my purpose to exclude honest men, such as act on principle.'

  'Soft soap, Caesar. What do you want of me?'

  'Marcus Primus . . .’ I said.

  'What of him?'

  'You have followed his case, I take it. What was your judgement?'

  'That he is a man whose own judgement is . . . faulty . . . The kind of man who doesn't know how to adapt to the prevailing wind.'

  'Good,' I said. 'You talk as I thought you would, Piso, as a man of sense.' 'Soft soap again.'

  'Piso,' I said, 'we are old opponents, but I respect you. I won't ask your opinion of me, because, to do so here and now, would be unfair. Nevertheless, I put a question to you, though it is not one that requires an immediate answer. I ask you to consider whether the state of Rome, the condition of the Republic, are not happier now than they were when we were young, even than when our fathers were young. We have peace, justice, and such liberty as is possible without endangering the stability of the State. I merely ask you to ponder this in your mind.'

  Piso said nothing. I might not have spoken. He sat as if deaf to my words. It was possible of course that he was revolving them in his mind, even as he rolled the wine round in his cup.

  Agrippa shifted his buttocks.

  'There's a simple question,' he said. 'If some of your old . . . allies. . . approached you with a view to overturning the present state of things, even at the risk of a new civil war, what would you say?'

  Piso poured more wine.

  'Hmphm,' he said, 'what a question in this company.' 'Very well,' said Agrippa, 'has such an approach been made to you?'

  'No,' I said, 'no, Agrippa, that question is out of order. Had such an approach been made, we could not expect our guest as an honourable man to answer you, for on the one hand he has a well-merited reputation for honesty, while on the other no gentleman would betray a confidence imparted by a former acquaintance.'

  Agrippa stood up: 'Piso questioned my birth,' he said. 'Very well, he won't be surprised if I now say that this conversation is being conducted on lines which are too gentlemanly for my taste. We know there is such a conspiracy . . .' Piso poured himself more wine; his hand was steady as a legion on parade. 'You, Augustus, have a proposition to put to him. Before you do so, it seems to me that we have a right to ask for an answer to my question. To put it another way, in a form you may find more acceptable, Piso, where do you stand politically?'

  Piso scowled: then, in a brutal muttering tone that did no justice to the noble rhythm of the lines, he said:

  'Happy - even too happy, if they knew their bliss -are farmers, who receive, far from the clash of war, an easy livelihood from the just and generous earth . . .

  'When Sextus Pompey turned wolf, he disgusted me. When he fled to Asia, I refused to follow. I returned willingly to my ancestral estates, and have lived quietly there since. I have eschewed public life, since, Caesar, with respect to what you have achieved, I am too deeply steeped in the traditions of my fathers to find a place in your New Order. In my opinion the man who makes two grains of wheat grow where one grew before, "who tends his olives and improves their yield", who makes a better wine - and this Falernian of yours is indeed plaguey thin stuff - deserves better of mankind than lawyers, politicians, rhetoricians, and all the gang of intriguers and spouters of noble-sounding platitudes you find even in your purged Senate. I cultivate my fields and tend my crops and nurse my vines and olive trees. Does that answer satisfy? And I don't know why I'm troubled to give it. Hmphm.'

  'It satisfies me,' I said. 'You speak like the man I took you to be. You asked what I want with you. I want you to become my colleague as consul. . .'

  'That's absurd,' he said. 'For one thing, I've told you where I stand. I'm a simple farmer these days, nothing more. If you want more of the truth, I have come to despise the whole game of politics as a selfish ramp. For another thing you've a consul already, and I would suppose others lined up for the next few years, this being the way things are done nowadays as far as I can see . . .'

  'I told you,' Agrippa said, 'we're wasting our time . . .'

  'Wait,' I said. 'You're right of course. I have a colleague. Unfortunately, he has proved disappointing. In fact, he is planning a coup d'etat. That is why I turn to you.'

  'Is this true? And if so, why me?'

  'It's true,' Agrippa said. 'If Terentius has his way, Rome will be plunged back in the old disorder of assassination, proscriptions and civil war.'

  'Proscription is not a word that drops well from your lips, Vipsanius,' Piso said.

  I beckoned to him to come with me, and led him out of the house on to the terrace from where we could look over the city. 'Look,' I said, 'at the well-ordered, busy and peaceful life of Rome. Listen,' I said, and began to talk at length. I told him what I valued: peace, order, a decent life. I reminded him of how I had restored the Republic. He frowned and I said, 'Yes, Piso, I have indeed restored the Republic. It may not be precisely the Republic our fathers knew. I grant you that. A certain degree of liberty has been curtailed. I do not deny it. No great State can allow absolute liberty, because such liberty in fact threatens to destroy liberty. It breeds fear, dissension, unbridled ambition. Twenty years ago the Republic was sick of a fever that many thought mortal. With the help of the Gods it has been restored to health.'

  He continued to scowl over the city. I took him by the elbow.

  'Listen again,' I said, 'I appeal to your patriotism. I know you are without ambition. As Agrippa said, a conspiracy is being hatched. To show my trust in you, I shall disclose that its chiefs are old associates or connections of yours. Terentius himself, Scaurus, Lucius Primus and Fannius Caepio. They or their families followed Sextus Pompey, as you did yourself. I turn to you because you offer me the best hope of stilling old animosities. There are many men to whom I could offer the consulship who would also be worthy of the office. But many of them are Caesareans. My aim has long been reconciliation. These conspirators are giddy-headed and resentful. They are men of poor judgement. Yet, in any state disaffection exists. I would never crush lawful opposition. In the Senate I encourage men to speak their mind, and if you attended the Senate - to which you would do honour and the debates of which would benefit from your counsel - if you attended it, you would see that liberty survives there. Only last week while I was making a speech someone called out, "It's as well for you you spoke that passage fast. Otherwise even the slow of hearing and slow of wit would have realized what nonsense it was." Is that how men speak to a tyrant? I deny no man his say. But, Piso, conspiracy to murder and insurrection cannot be tolerated.' 'Hmphm,' he said.

  'I am glad you agree. Now, simply because these conspirators are old Pompeians the best security for Rome is that I should join a noble, respected Pompeian with me in the consulship. Then Rome will see that Terentius and his friends represent no worthy cause, and will judge them to be a resentful faction. You have it, Piso, in your power to safeguard Rome from the renewal of that civil strife which so nearly destroyed the Republic. For ponder this well, when the sword of Mars is drawn from the scabbard, none can predict the outcome.'

  I paused.

  'What do you say?'

  'Hmphm. I should require evidence of this conspiracy.'

  'I can
provide that of course, but I might first ask you a question. Would I have any reason to make this offer to one I have so long regarded as an honourable enemy, if the state of Rome and the Republic did not demand it. . . ?'

  He hummed and hawed, swithered and delayed, muttered about old obligations, nodded his head when I observed that obligation to the Republic cancelled out all others, and of course consented. I had been certain he would do so. Piso was rock-hard in his pride. No man of such self-esteem could have resisted me.

  Livia applauded my choice of Piso; she has always been pleased when I have associated one of the old nobility with me in my work. Despite all she has seen she still believes that government of the Empire should remain in the hands of a few

  families, even though she very well knows how degenerate many of the scions of such families are.

  Still, this time she was right, and though I try to refrain from self-admiration, I could not help being pleased with my perspicacity. What Piso chose to call my New Order - a phrase that subsequently became popular - was greatly strengthened by his adhesion. Of more immediate moment, the conspiracy was seen, when revealed, to be precisely as I had described it to Piso: the work of a few malcontents. They were arrested, questioned, tried and put to death. The execution of a consul caused me some trepidation; yet it hardly raised a tremor.

  Paradoxically this distressed me. My fever returned. The night it came on again, Livia and I supped alone (I could hardly eat). I remember talking wildly. I said to her that I feared my enemies were right, that perhaps I had indeed imposed a despotism under which men feared to speak their mind on important matters. 'It must be so,' I said, 'or the execution of Terentius Murena would have aroused protest.'

  'You're talking nonsense,' she said. 'Men knew what had to be done.'

  'Catiline was no consul. His crime was even more brazen, for his conspiracy advanced further. Yet look how Cicero suffered from his suppression of Catiline.'

  'Cicero suffered because he broke the law. He put Roman citizens to death without a trial, and without the authority of the Senate. You took care to obtain that authority. The two cases are quite different.'

  'Oh Livia,' I said, 'how tired of it I am,' and I crossed the room and knelt beside her, laying my head on her breast.

  I remember little of the next weeks. My fever raged. My body alternately shivered and was bathed in sweat. Food was repugnant, and my only nourishment was a little wine, cooled in snow and squeezed from a sponge between my cracked lips. Worse however than the pain and discomfort of my body was the disorder of my mind. I lived between sleep and waking and my imagination, as fevered as my blood, summoned up before me horrid and distorted and frightening images. I was unable to distinguish what was memory and what was fantasy. Things I had thrust down into the depths of my spirit, banished from consciousness, rose, more luridly than the original actions they imitated, to oppress me. I saw again Antony as I had first known him in Spain stumble into my tent, mad with wine, as I lay reading. I felt again his reeking body thrust itself against me, felt his teeth dig into my neck, heard his laugh and shout of anger at my resistance, felt again, with a piercing horror that had lurked deep within me ever since and that time will never still, the last degradation as, calling forth all his strength, he hurled me across the room so that I came to rest bent over a table, and suffered, as he held me there (banging my head on the wood), while he had his way with me. Perhaps I fainted from pain and humiliation. I do not know. I woke while it was still dark, and heard the centurions' cries as the guard changed, but could not move being still clasped in his drunken and manacling embrace. Then he woke too, sighed deeply, as with the fullness of pleasure, and moved his sweaty face against mine. I felt the warmth of his pork-and-stale-wine breath, and I heard his muttered endearments and felt his fingers move, and I... but even now, sixty years after, cannot bring myself to recall more. It oppressed me in that fever, and I woke screaming, but I have never talked of it, and even now wonder that I can bring myself to write it . . . Yet the reality of that night of horror and degradation has never left me. I have never been clean of the defilement. It was never repeated, for I took good care to remain unavailable for the rest of my time in Spain, and Antony never recalled it, though I knew when he made those gibes that I had been Caesar's catamite (which I was never) what he had in mind, and what he could say if . . . Why was he silent? I have never understood that, for he was a man without shame, I would have thought.

  That question rose in my mind when I gazed down on his body in the decorated gloom of Egypt.

  How, with this memory, could I have had Octavia marry Antony? Curiously that did not perturb me at the time of their marriage. Was my tenderness to Marcellus an act of atonement? I do not think so.

  In this illness I was assailed too by images of the horror of war. I recalled a battle in Sicily when some of our auxiliary troops were repulsed and panicked. They tried to flee through the ranks of the legions, whose commander, aware how easily panic might spread and lead to rout, ordered the legions not to let them pass. The wretched men - Balearic slingers for the most part - thus found themselves caught between two resolute enemies. All at once, one of them began to scream, in a high uncanny pitch. The others, infected, joined in, and the air was full of the clash of swords and this unearthly screaming. Not one of the auxiliaries survived; only their screams rang down the years.

  In my memory now they mingle with the cries of Varus' legions, caught in the vile miasma of the German forest, the Teutoburger wood.

  One afternoon, the fever left me for a few hours, though my hands shook, my body shivered and I still saw strange shapes form and re-form themselves before my eyes; but my mind was clear: I knew them for fantasy. Yet my clarity was the clarity of despair. I felt a sense of being beyond everything, which I recognized as an intimation of death. I sipped a cup of Sabine wine, and sent for Livia. She could not be found. They said she was at the Temple of Vesta offering prayers and sacrifice for my life. I despatched slaves to fetch her, and also sent for my fellow-consul Piso, and Agrippa. These two came first, and I was perturbed at Livia's continued absence.

  I raised myself on one elbow, but could not maintain the posture, finding myself weak as a new-born kitten.

  'Piso,' I said, and heard my voice thin, as if it came from a great distance. 'You see me, as I think, in extremity. I have prepared, with Agrippa's help, a detailed statement of the military and financial state of the Republic. I entrust it to you as my colleague and I pray you to deliver it to the Senate. That is the last duty I can carry out for Rome.'

  Piso said nothing in reply, held out his hand for the document which my secretary had ready, and seating himself on a bench in an alcove began to peruse it. Flies buzzed in the afternoon silence; I may have drifted into sleep.

  'Comprehensive,' Piso said at last. 'Well, Caesar, I shall do as you ask, but I observe you make no recommendation to the Senate as to the future governance of the Empire.'

  I could hardly fix my eyes on him; he seemed to sway before me, in half-shadow.

  'How can I?' I said. 'What would it serve? I am no king to hand down the succession.'

  'Very well,' he said, 'in this you have deserved well of Rome. Farewell, Caesar, I fear you will find but a cold welcome in the Shades . . .'

  When I was sure he had gone, I beckoned to Agrippa, and held out my left hand to him.

  'Take my ring,' I said, and felt him draw it from my finger. 'With that ring,' I sighed . . .

  'I know,' he said, 'don't trouble to speak. I can command the legions and provincial governors. Letters patent, under the seal.'

  He held my hand . . .

  'You won't die,' he said, 'your work's but half-done. Nevertheless . . .'

  Livia entered. Even with my vision misty I could see that she immediately grasped what was happening. I knew her gaze had fixed itself on my ring. I heard a sharp intake of breath.

  'Take care of it, Agrippa,' she said. 'My husband despairs too easily. He's not going to
die. I've found a new physician . . .'

  She was though relieved to find Agrippa there and not Marcellus, for though she never fully appreciated Agrippa, being prejudiced against him by her birth and manner, she trusted him. 'A loyal old dog,' was her description, and having said that, she thought she had him satisfactorily placed. Such confidence in her judgement was Livia's strength and her weakness. On the one hand, it meant that both decision and action came easily to her; being never doubtful she was rarely prey to that indecision which can afflict those who realize the subtleties and duality of the world. On the other hand, this speed of judgement and complete self-confidence made it impossible for her to have anything more than a rough-and-ready appreciation of character. She was no politician for she saw everything (and everybody) in black and white. So, for instance, she thought that because Agrippa had always seemed content to serve me, he had reached the summit of his ambition. She did not discern Agrippa's certainty of his own merit, which, in the years since Actium, had smouldered jealously. I knew it even before, without a moment's hesitation or a word of demur, he slipped the ring from my finger and eased it on to his, even while he told me that I wasn't going to die.

  The new physician was a Greek freedman called Antonius Musa, and it was indeed Timotheus who had sought him out and recommended him to Livia. Had Timotheus, I have always wondered, affection for me, or was he merely protecting his position? Probably the latter, for a man such as Timotheus makes powerful enemies who can render transfer from a dead patron to a living one rather difficult.

  'Your fever,' the man said, 'has been wrongly treated. They have wrapped you in rugs and bled you. Both these weaken the body rather than fortifying it.'

  He prescribed a regime of cold baths (four a day) and beef and olives. I have never cared for beef, but very soon, I was eating two sizeable steaks a day.

  'The blood needs fortifying,' he said, and made me drink red wine instead of the white I have always preferred.