by Allan Massie
Augustus, how could I wish to challenge an authority which I have served willingly to the best of my poor abilities these twenty years? I am well aware that your authority which I respect is founded in the decrees of the Conscript Fathers, which no good Roman could wish to challenge.
The sincerity of my wish for retirement acquits me of the charge of ambition. It would be a stupid manoeuvre to put myself in this position if I was truly ambitious, for you have only to grant my wish for retirement, to bring my public career to an end.
The charge of vice is absurd. I repeat that I wish to devote the rest of my life to study. My chosen companions in my retreat will be Thrasyllus the astronomer, and other mathematicians. They are hardly the company I should select for an orgy.
I am worn out, disturbed, have never recovered from my brother's death, and there is now a new generation ready to serve Rome. My continued presence at the head of the armies would be likely to cause them embarrassment.
I am ashamed now to say that this letter, which was so dignified, truthful and yet reticent, in no way calmed my anger. I was indeed furious with him, and remained so a long time. I replied asking him what sort of example he thought this selfish abnegation of duty would be for the new generation of which he spoke. 'I have worked longer than you for Rome, and every bit as hard,' I said, 'but I have never thought to indulge in the luxury of retirement. It would be a fine state of affairs if we could all slip off our responsibilities as you are doing. Do you realize how you are hurting your mother and me?'
He did not reply to this letter and I asked Livia to go to plead with him. She returned in tears:
'I humbled myself,' she said, 'I went on my knees to him, and begged him not to forsake his duty. He is very weak from hunger, and could scarcely reply, but he shook his head. Husband, we must give way. I think he is demented, I have already told you that; it wounds my pride now to beg you to let my son desert his post, for I think as badly of his behaviour as you do. But he is my only surviving son, and I can't consent to his death. And he will die. His Claudian pride will not permit him to give way, and then he will for ever be lost to Rome and to me. But if we give way, he may recover. Surely astronomical studies on a little island will not content him long? Perhaps we should think of this as an illness from which he will recover.'
I put my arm round her and kissed her.
'Livia,' I said, 'you know in your heart that I can't pursue a course which will give you such pain as you will suffer if Tiberius dies. Therefore, I have to give way. Let him go to Rhodes. But -and I shall make this clear to him - if he goes there, he can stay. He can stay and rot there, for I shall never forgive him, nor trust him again. Let him go and study the stars with his Thrasyilus. He will read a bleak destiny for himself written there.'
And still not even Livia would tell me why Tiberius ran away from Rome.
His departure left me curiously isolated. I missed him, for his achievement had been such that I had come to think of him as my partner in government, an awkward partner certainly, one whom I could never talk to with the frankness and ease that I had always experienced with Agrippa and Maecenas, but a true one nonetheless. Now I felt deprived of an equal. It was a new position and I did not like it.
I became, for perhaps the first time in my life, introspective, and began to keep an intermittent journal. Some entries reveal more than I can recall, more perhaps than I care to remember:
'What a strange life mine has been and what a strange character I find I have. Now that I can see Death glowering at me, though he has left me so long after he has taken so many of my friends and loved ones, I ask myself whether any man has achieved so much with so few talents. Consider: my education was broken by civil war and, for all the generosity with which Virgil and Horace treated me, I have never been able to regard myself as being more than half-educated. I am only a poor orator and have never been able to rely on my powers to sway an assembly, and indeed many of my speeches have been disastrous failures. I am at best an indifferent general. Inasmuch as military ability can be separated from the quality of an army, I would have to place myself in the second rank. Agrippa, Antony, Sextus Pompey, even Cassius, Tiberius and Drusus have all had talents superior to mine - to say nothing of Julius Caesar. It may be that as a general I am no more distinguished than the wretched Lepidus. And yet consider my achievement. I have brought the Civil War to an end, which was something denied great commanders like Caesar and Sulla, and I have added more to the Empire than Caesar; Pompey and Sulla put together. If you judged by my achievement you would rank me with Alexander . . .
'As for my character I detest cruelty as I loathe deformity. I take no pleasure in the Arena, neither in the animal fights nor the gladiatorial contests, and would, if I thought it feasible, abolish them. Yet historians will, I am quite certain, judge me pitiless and cruel, and when I descend into the Shades I shall meet not only Agrippa and Virgil, but Cicero and those others who died at my command.
'I sometimes think the justification of my life has been my marriage, but yet I have never been certain that Livia so much as likes me. She disapproves of many of my actions and most of my opinions, and, though I am thought by many to be domineering, yet Livia can reduce me to hopelessness by her implacable silences.
'I revere the institution of marriage, and yet I have been cavalier in my making and breaking of the marriages of others. Why do I always know I know best?'
'I have days when I envy Tiberius, when I would fain stretch out the afternoon in a vine-wreathed arbour, while in the bay below the sea flicks its white foam against ancient rocks. This makes me still more bitter towards him. I envy his ability to detach himself from the business of government.'
'There are days when Livia and I do not speak to each other. People talk of the tranquillity of silence. No such thing. The menace of silence.'
'"You know", Maecenas said to me once "people say Livia poisoned Marcellus.'"
(That entry appears on its own, without comment. How, I asked myself when I read it just now, could I have thought to record it starkly, and have added nothing? Yet now, what can I find to say but that it is patently absurd? You might as well say ... oh there is no end of people's willingness to repeat noxious scandal.)
'Perhaps my anger with Tiberius rests not in his defiance of my will, but in his happiness.'
'Have I made a fool of myself, as many hint, with my laws against immorality? Some say that this matter is no business of government, others that governments are powerless against what they call the spirit of the age. I don't give a radish for the spirit of the age which is a meaningless phrase. Nor do I see how any paternal government can avoid trying to correct social vices. Yet, when I speak of these matters in the Senate, the younger members titter.'
'The other day I took a strange whim on myself. I had been thinking, as I often do, of Virgil, and I recalled a conversation in which he spoke of Cincinnatus on the one hand and the priest of Diana at Nemi on the other. It occurred to me that, though I was born so near, I have never seen that temple of Diana, nor that priest who guards the Shrine and is known as the King of the Wood; and then I read again the sixth Book of "The Aeneid", and that noble passage where the Sibyl says to Aeneas:
"Seed of the Blood Divine and Man of Troy, Anchises' son.
The Way down to Avernus is not hard. Black Pluto's gate
Gapes wide, both night and day ..." and proceeds to tell him, that in order to enter the Underworld he must first pluck the Golden Bough from the tree which is sacred to the Juno of the Lower Depths, since Proserpina has decreed that this must be presented to her as a votive offering. Now Avernus is identified by the priestly scholars as being on the shores of the Lake of Aricia or Nemi, and the sacred tree is to be found within the sanctuary of Diana there.
'And so, prompted by piety and curiosity, I made an expedition thither, being carried over the hill from Aricia.
'It was a pale autumn day, being that succeeding the October Ides and so some two months past Diana's
Festival, when her groves are brilliant with a multitude of torches, and from the brow of the hill the lake gloomed stagnant-black, swallowing up the light of the sky. Our early passage was beset and disturbed by hordes of deformed beggars who infest the Arician slopes importuning pilgrims for alms. These are those Manii notorious in these parts. Their misery and the degeneracy of their features pained and disgusted me. Then we moved beyond them into the shade of the trees which had not yet parted with their leaves, and the lake was out of sight. We descended the hillside by a winding track in an intense silence. There was no bird-song and no wind rustled the branches. Even the panting and straining of my bearers seemed an offence. Oaks and chestnuts enfolded us. Once a milk-white hart bounded across the path and once the bronze-grey back of a boar crashed through the undergrowth; but there was no other sign of life in the deep forest.
'As we approached the level of the lake a wailing rose to our ears and we found ourselves in a little clearing before a rude temple. I ordered the bearers to halt and sent Maco* to summon
* My personal bodyguard, the grandson of that Maco who had joined me at Brindisi.
those within the temple. The wailing gave way to a snarl and a yelp and he emerged driving three women before him. Two were very old, the third a girl who had not yet attained the age of puberty. All wore black garments torn in several places, as with knife slashes. I questioned them as to which deity they served, but they replied in a babble and a dialect or antique tongue which I could not understand. I called forth the countryman who acted as our guide and he advanced with the reluctance he had shown all day.
'"Come my man," I said, "you can hardly be frightened of two crones and a little girl."
'My mockery failed to brace him. After muttering to the women, he told me that in his view they were witches.
'"But what do they say themselves?"
"That they worship the spirits of the dead."
'And the old women gave vent to wild laughter.
'"They say this lake is the gateway to the abode of the dead and that therefore Diana the huntress is served by a dead priest."
' "But the priest is a living man, a runaway slave and murderer, but no corpse or ghost."
' "Whoever has murdered has entered the realm of the dead and given himself in the service of the Gods of the nether world," was the reply.
'At this moment the little girl tore her rags apart and threw herself to the ground, arching her back over a fallen tree and offering herself. I told the bearers to cover her with a cloak, and give money to the old women because it seemed prudent to do so.
'The path twisted round the fringes of the lake from which emanated a foul and putrid odour. The bearers stumbled and swore and rocked my litter horribly, and I knew that they were eager to tum back, being infected with the fear of the place. But I felt a pricking of excitement which I knew betokened some revelation.
'Then the track widened, and a meadow stretched before us, covered with little white flowers that had a pungent smell. Though the afternoon sun still shone there was no joy in that place, but an uncanny stillness.
'We crossed the meadow, followed an avenue of trees and saw the grove open before us. It nestled by the lakeside under precipitous cliffs. In one corner stood a round temple, where a holy fire is maintained in honour of Diana in her vestal capacity. The sun had now dropped in the sky and gleamed redly through the trees, so that the leaves, already changing colour, were lit up as if by many thousands of fires. We halted. I disembarked from the litter, stiffly, feeling my rheumatism. The rustic directed my attention with quivering finger to the far corner of the grove where the sacred tree stood alone ... Its branches shone with a deep red-gold, but I could not tell whether this was caused by the setting sun.
'Then a figure emerged from the shadows; grim, with lank grey hair, lean but big-boned, wearing a yellow shift. He carried a naked sword in his left hand. When he saw us he halted, and then backed against the tree. I advanced towards him, and he barked out a challenge. I held out my hands, spread wide, to show I was unarmed.
'I told him I came in peace.
'"Who are you?" His voice creaked as if with disuse, and he spoke in a way that suggested both fear and anger.
"They call me Augustus. I am no runaway slave, but one come to do honour to Diana, and talk to her priest."
'"Stand away," he said. "This tree is sacred, and must not be approached. Who bears its bough commands entry to the world of Death."
'"Are you a Gaul?" I said, for his accent suggested he came from that province.
'He shook his head, as if uncomprehending.
'"How long have you served the Goddess?"
'"Many years. Look," he pulled at his shift, "three times I have been challenged, three times wounded, three times sent my challengers to prepare the way for me below."
'"Do you accept gifts?" I asked.
'He shook his head.
'"How do you live?"
'He gestured towards the temple and I concluded that the priestesses there prepared food for him and laid it out for him to snatch in the few easy moments of his restless vigil.
'When I asked him how he slept a cunning look crossed his face and again he shook his head, as if I was seeking information which could destroy him.
'I asked him why he had undertaken so cruel and dangerous a post, where every instant he must fear for his life, and in which he could find no comfort.
'"I serve the Goddess and do as she commands. She is a jealous Goddess and would punish me had I declined her call."
'"But what do you hope for?" I said.
'He gestured towards the black waters across which lay a single deep-red streak. Then the moon rose behind me and lay on the lake, and it seemed as if the waters opened to disclose a staircase of rough wet stone leading into what was no longer and could never perhaps be visible. The moment passed. The sun sank out of sight and the moon surged higher. The priest rested against the tree and his hand which had been raised to fondle the Golden Bough sank to his side . . .'
And that is all. The account breaks off there, as if my emotion was too great to allow me to continue, or perhaps as if my understanding was so dimmed that I simply did not know what to say further. I cannot now, fifteen - no nearer twenty - years later, even be certain that I did see what I then recorded and that it was not some sort of dream. Dream, vision, revelation, illusion, shadowy representation of some ultimate reality - who is to say? Why, I ask myself in my puzzled decrepitude, was I so enchanted by the cult of Diana in that sacred wood? Was it just because of that use of myth by Virgil, of those few lines in 'The Aeneid'? Was it because, sensing as I have always done, that Virgil saw realities hidden from me, I felt a compulsion to seek evidence to which my senses could afford credence of the mysteries of the Divine? Was I seeking assurance of some future life, or hoping to find its denial?
I do not know. I have been an eminently practical man. My temperament is genial and social. I have put my trust in the visible world and the working of my reason. I have achieved more than I dreamed possible. And yet, something has been lacking.
I made it my business to investigate what happened at Nemi. The worship of Diana there was instituted by that Orestes, who slew Thoas, King of the Tauric Chersonese and then fled with his sister to Italy, carrying with him the image of the Tauric Diana hidden in a bundle of sticks. Now that Tauric Goddess is known to have been a savage and demanding deity; every stranger who landed on these harsh northern shores was sacrificed on her altars. In stealing her image, Orestes no doubt committed a great crime, and perhaps the ritual is intended to expiate this. After his death, his bones were brought from Aricia to Rome and buried in the gateway of the Temple of Saturn on the Capitol. It is said that the flight of the slave represents the flight of Orestes and that the rule of succession by the sword recalls the human sacrifices offered on the Tauric shore.
But for my part I find this unsatisfactory and believe the truth runs deeper. This explanation takes no account of the
presence of the Golden Bough at Nemi; nor does it disclose why the priest also guards the descent to Avernus. I am no scholar, but it seems to me that the cruel ritual enacted at Nemi speaks of the responsibility of man's actions and the implacable justice of the Gods, from which there is neither escape nor mitigation. We are what our actions have made us. I am aware that this flies in the face of what most people believe about our character: that is, that it is immutable; that we are born the persons we become; and that life merely reveals what was already there but hidden. I hesitate, being neither philosopher, scholar nor sage, but only a soldier and administrator, from contradicting wiser men than I, but yet I cannot bring myself to believe this. I am what I feel, and I know in my bones that I have been formed by experience and my own deeds. True, I have been driven on by my native genius; but I have made myself by what I have done, and stand responsible for it.
Considering the matter now, it seems that it was Tiberius who in a strange way led me to Nemi. My anger with him had not abated, but my puzzlement had grown. I could not believe the reason he had given for his retirement to Rhodes, and I could not continue to believe he had done it to spite me. Nor did I believe that he acted - as some suggested - out of Republican leanings. Oh, I have never had any doubt that in many ways Tiberius disliked the form of my restored Republic. As an old-fashioned aristocrat he longed for Rome to be able to return to the days of the Scipios, as did Agrippa, different though his background was. Both, especially Tiberius, suffered from a nostalgia for a lost world. But both were also practical men. Tiberius was, and is, distinguished by a hard sense of political reality. He knew very well there was no other way but mine to manage the Roman Empire. He knew that, given more liberty, it would return to the frightful internecine strife of my youth. He despised his own generation too completely to believe otherwise for he saw how little of civic pride or antique virtue was there.
