Below the writing was his seal, the sign of the sphinx, pressed into a dab of wax.
Reading this letter, I felt just for a moment as if Father held me in his arms.
I rolled up the papyrus. I would keep it as I kept all his letters to me. There was a tightness in my throat. “Then Agrippa will give me away?”
“That is your father’s wish.”
“It’s hard to talk to Agrippa.” He had been my father’s close friend since boyhood, and I had been taught to look upon him almost as an uncle. But he was a quiet man who treated me with formal courtesy.
“He is Rome’s leading general. If anyone but he stood in your father’s place, he would feel insulted. We can’t afford to slight him.”
I tossed my head. “Do you think he’ll revolt against Father if someone else presides at my wedding?”
I intended these words as nothing more than a jest. But Livia gave me a long, serious look. “I think it is wrong to slight a man we rely on,” she said, “and must depend on especially in your father’s absence.”
A little jolt of fear went through me. “Father will recover from his illness soon, won’t he?” As soon as these words were out, I knew how silly and childish they were. How could Livia know how sick Father was at this moment in far-off Spain? He might have died since dispatching the messenger who had brought my letter. Livia could not predict the course of his illness any more than I could.
But she looked at me with an expression of grave certainty. “Yes, he will recover soon. I am sure of it. Your father has much he wishes to do. He won’t let illness hold him back for long.”
We were silent for a few moments. “Well, may I at least have my mother at my wedding? Is she to be invited?” I suppose I spoke less politely than I intended. I was still upset that Father would not be home.
There was no flicker of emotion in Livia’s face, no sign that she had heard anything but the most courteously framed request. “Yes, of course, Julia,” she said. “Of course we will invite your mother to the wedding.”
Then she made a small dismissing motion with her hand. She had had enough of me.
I flushed and rose. I am Caesar Augustus’s daughter, I wanted to tell her. His only child. I know who you are. Do not forget who I am.
I did not have the nerve to say this. I just walked out of the room.
On the day I was born, my father divorced my mother. Some suspected this was because he was angry that his first child was a girl, but that was not it. Passion for another woman gripped him. Livia was six months pregnant by her husband at that time, but it did not matter. He, acting out of fear and political prudence, speedily divorced her. Father married her immediately. He was twenty-four; Livia was nineteen. They married for love.
I was reared in my father’s household, as is usual. But though he had no fondness for my mother, Father did not bar her from visiting me. She came quite often, I understand, when I was a baby. Then the visits tapered off. I always imagined that once she had determined that I was well cared for and thriving—that Livia did not mean to smother me in my cradle—she lost most of her interest in me.
My aunt Octavia lived in a house adjacent to ours that Father had bestowed on her, and I spent much more time with her than with my mother. She would look at me sometimes with an appraising frown. Marcellus, my betrothed, was her only son, the child of the husband who had died before she married Mark Antony.
Throughout my childhood, I was never free to go into the street on my own. Attendants accompanied me everywhere. I was strictly forbidden to talk with strangers. There was a sense that Father—despite his power—still had hidden enemies in Rome, that these enemies might try to harm me.
The only time Father was truly furious at me during my childhood was when at the age of ten, I evaded my attendants and went outside alone. I did not get far before I was caught, but Father had to be told. He did not strike me. He did not even raise his voice. He just said I had done a wrong and dangerous thing, and added in an emphatic tone that it must never be repeated. But the look on his face was so terrible that I trembled. For an instant, I thought he might murder me.
Though I wanted to, I never sneaked out again.
In truth, my childhood world consisted of two adjoining households—one presided over by Livia, one by my aunt. It was such a constrained world.
Is it a wonder that deep inside myself, I longed to be free?
I emerged from Livia’s study into the atrium of our house. Ostentatious plainness was the motif of this receiving hall where Father welcomed important visitors when he was home. The couches looked well worn, the cushions flattened by years of use. The frescoes on the walls—painted by mediocre artists—showed everyday Roman street scenes. On one panel, a woman sat under an arch, a baby in her arms; in another, children played with a hoop. A bust of Julius Caesar—Father’s great-uncle who had adopted him—had been set on a marble pedestal and was the only good piece of art in evidence. Our house was no bigger than that of a typical senator, and no more luxurious. This was all calculated for political effect. I much preferred it when we stayed at our private villa at Prima Porta, where we could relax in opulent style.
I knew why we presented a modest face in public. Envy brought with it hatred; envy had gotten Father’s great-uncle killed. I understood this, but I can’t say the danger ever felt real to me. Father seemed to exist in a golden circle of adulation and glory. Two years ago, the Senate had given him the title Augustus, the revered one. No one had challenged him. I did not think anyone ever would.
To my surprise I found Cleopatra Selene—Selene as we called her—waiting in the atrium. Despite her natural grace, she looked at this moment out of place and ill at ease.
I had been told to treat Selene as my cousin, though she was not my real kin. I had been ordered to be kind to her, and this I found easy enough to do. Most people turn away from a young bird that has fallen from a nest. Others like to throw stones at it. I have always felt an odd tenderness for such pitiful, lost creatures. I could never forget the first time I had seen Selene, at my father’s triumph. She was Antony and Cleopatra’s daughter—the little girl bound in chains.
No one looking at Selene now would have found her pitiful. She was clothed as richly as I, in a tunica of fine linen that fell to her ankles. A large gold bulla hung from her neck. She wore ruby earrings and sandals trimmed with gold. She was neither a captive nor a slave but, by decree, a free Roman citizen. My father had given her to Aunt Octavia to raise as her own daughter.
She stood in the atrium now, grim-faced. “Are you waiting for someone?” I asked her.
“Lady Livia has sent for me.” She tried to speak nonchalantly, but I heard fear in her voice.
“Oh? Well, don’t worry. She won’t eat you.”
Selene said nothing. Did she know why Livia wanted her? If so, she did not tell me.
A silence hung between us.
“My father will not be home for my wedding,” I finally said. “He won’t be here to give me away.” I had some silly notion that speaking of my unhappiness might distract her from her own misery.
“What a pity. I am sorry to hear that.” Her voice had become cool and remote.
It struck me that when she married, her father would not attend the wedding—because my father had killed him. Killed him not with his own hands, but by defeating him in battle, making it necessary for him to take his own life.
She knew what I was thinking; I was sure she did. A little smile flickered across her face, so quickly I almost did not see it.
I do not know what that smile meant, but I hoped it was a sign of friendly feeling and understanding of my discomfort.
After a moment, she said, “I wonder if I will ever marry.”
“I’m sure my father and Aunt Octavia will arrange a fine marriage for you.”
She gave me a look that was not precisely mocking, but not kind either. Plainly she did not assume the benevolent intent of the adults who had her in their power. But s
he had heard the ring of sincerity in my voice and saw that I truly assumed she would be handed a bright future. I think she believed I was a fool.
I walked out to the garden. It was only a small patch of flowered greenery, as most city gardens were, separated from the outside world by high walls. I liked to come out here sometimes to look at the sky. Today it was a deep azure and contained no clouds. In a little over a month, I will be a married woman.
Everything would change with my marriage; I would be accounted an adult. Yet I felt strangely little excitement. I clutched Father’s letter in my hand. My wedding day would be shadowed by his absence.
I thought of Marcellus, my betrothed, of his slender build, his boyish face. I neither feared nor adored him. He was nineteen years old and always seemed to be rushing off somewhere when I met him. I could remember only a single time he had showed any special interest in me. Three years ago when I was visiting at my aunt’s villa outside Rome, I had gotten a splinter in my palm. Marcellus had fetched a needle and, trying to hurt me as little as possible, had bit by bit worked the splinter out of my flesh. I noticed how intent he was, how serious and competent. I also noticed his hands. He had large, beautifully shaped hands.
My cousin Marcellus had always been part of my life, and I felt a certain fondness for him. I supposed we would be happy.
There was a time, after the Battle of Actium, when I let myself hope that we were safe. My husband had defeated Antony and Cleopatra, his greatest foes, and then he returned to me. He forgave me for what he considered my lack of faith in his cause—the fact that I had tried to hold him back from waging civil war. I forgave him for his marital infidelities, and also for the Roman blood he had copiously spilt—for I hated the thought of my countrymen killing each other. We discussed frankly my failure to bear him an heir and accepted that I probably never would—our shared misfortune. My husband loved me; he wanted me for his wife even if I never gave him a child. And I loved him, despite the disappointments the years had brought.
I imagined for a brief moment that we—our family—had reached a secure harbor, that his Julia and my own boys would live easier lives than my husband and I had, and that the blood price for power had been paid. How I wanted to believe all this were true.
One autumn day, I sat in my study, my nails biting into my palms, listening as my stepdaughter pleaded for her marriage to be delayed until her father was home to give her away. A part of me understood—what girl does not want her father at her side on that day of all days, her marriage day? But I found it hard to be patient with Julia at that moment.
My husband—Caesar Augustus, Tavius to those who knew and loved him best—was in Spain, defending the empire’s boundaries against savage invaders. The war was all but won, yet there remained delicate diplomacy to be conducted to bring about true peace. Tavius was living, I knew, in conditions of great hardship. And he was sick. He always minimized his illnesses. That he mentioned it at all in his letter to me meant that this illness was serious.
I could read his state of mind between the lines of his letter. He wished his daughter married in his absence because he was thinking of her security; he wanted her safely wed to the man of his choice. And though Tavius was not yet forty, he was contemplating his own mortality. If he died—I could hardly bear to think of the world without him, but I must—if he died, aspirants to imperial rule would be seeking to marry Julia to give themselves legitimacy. Tavius wanted to be succeeded by his only nephew—a natural choice, this boy who shared his bloodline. But it was plain to me that whatever he hoped, Marcellus could never hold the empire together. He was too inexperienced, too young. Tavius had been a like age when he began his climb to imperial rule, but the climb had taken twelve years. And he was Tavius.
If he died now, the empire would be plunged into renewed civil war. The gods alone knew what would happen then to Julia or any of us.
I did not tell Julia about this, for I knew it would terrify her, and I could not afford to be swept away by emotion, hers or mine. Of course I wished to rush to Tavius’s side. But my role now was to hold Italy for him. Tavius wanted his daughter and Marcellus immediately wed, and I would see to that. I would bolster our security in every other way I could. And I would wait and pray for my husband to come home.
After Julia left my study, I sat at my writing table for a few moments with my eyes shut. I was thirty-three years old, and at that moment I felt much older.
Now, after my talk with my stepdaughter, I had to have a conversation with another woman-child, a conversation that might prove difficult. That did not lift my spirits. But after a moment, I told the slave who stood outside my study door to show in Cleopatra Selene.
I received her seated, gestured for her to sit on the couch. I did not pretend an affection I did not feel. Not that I had any personal dislike for this girl; up to this point I had had little to do with her.
“Good afternoon, Selene,” I said.
She averted her eyes. “Good afternoon, Lady Livia.”
“Aunt Livia,” I corrected her. “You should call me Aunt, as you do Octavia.”
“Aunt.”
Maybe men who write histories will give my husband credit for this someday; maybe the gods will. When his worst enemies’ young children fell into his hands, he let them live. He did not kill them, as any Eastern potentate—Cleopatra included—would have done. He did not cage or enslave them. He accepted them into his own family, an extraordinary act of mercy.
His mercy was not indiscriminate. Antony and Cleopatra each had a son old enough to bear arms. These two young men—Selene’s half brothers—Tavius executed. The threat they posed was obvious. The question that seared Tavius’s soul was what to do with the three children born of Antony and Cleopatra’s union. Their very existence was in a sense an insult, a reminder that Antony had deserted Tavius’s sister, Octavia, for their mother. They also represented a danger, because of who their parents were. The allure of that couple persisted even after they lay in their shared tomb, and the disaffected within the empire might rally around their children.
Tavius told me he had spared the youngsters for my sake—for I had long counseled clemency as a general policy. So perhaps I was in some sense responsible for Selene’s continued existence.
The two little boys—frail transplanted saplings—had died within a couple of years of their arrival in Rome. There was no foul play; young children often die in ordinary circumstances, and it is possible the great changes in their lives affected their health. Selene, however, had survived. And she alone carried on the line of Antony and Cleopatra.
I had seen statues of her mother, and the resemblance was strong—the aquiline nose, the full lips. I had known her father, and he had given me cause to hate him. She was Antony’s daughter too. Her dark hair was unruly like his. She also had his jutting chin, not a lovely feature on a young woman. I compared Selene in my mind to Julia, who, a short while before, had been sitting on that same couch—Julia with her fair hair and fine features. Set these two girls side by side and Julia would draw all eyes, not Cleopatra’s daughter. But Cleopatra had not been beautiful by Roman standards, and that had not detracted from her appeal. I wondered if this child would develop her mother’s magnetism.
“Has Octavia told you that you are to come to live in my household, Selene?” I asked.
“Yes.” Her voice was empty of emotion.
“Do you know why?”
She shook her head.
“I wish to know you better. It will help me to correctly advise my husband about your future.”
“I am most honored that you wish to . . . know me.” Her face had tensed, but she spoke in a level voice.
How careful she was being.
One would have to be made of stone not to pity this young girl’s losses, and I was not made of stone. I thought of what had befallen her in her brief life. Both parents and four brothers dead. She had been brought to live with the family of the man who had driven her parents to suicide and
killed two of her brothers. She lived by that man’s sufferance.
“You will have a new tutor,” I said. One who will watch you.
“I hope I will please him . . . and you.”
I imagined Selene running off and marrying some ambitious fool—the two of them vying for supreme power the way her parents had. I envisioned the result—the return of the terror and bloody chaos I had lived through as a girl. “You are to behave with discretion, so as to reflect credit on our house. You are to defer to my judgment as a daughter would,” I said. “I expect obedience from you. If I do not receive it, I will be very angry. Is that clear?”
“Yes, I understand.”
Truly? Do you understand that your life hangs by a thread, and I will cut it if I have to?
“When I was sixteen, my father’s side was defeated in war,” I said. “Do you know by whom?”
“By Augustus.”
“And by your father, Mark Antony,” I said.
Selene’s chin rose a little at the mention of her father’s name.
“My father fought for the Republic,” I continued. “After the Battle of Philippi, he took his own life. My mother did the same. As I said, I was sixteen.”
Selene stared at me, as if my speaking of this amazed her. I too was surprised by my words.
I leaned toward her, met and held her eyes with mine. “The world in which we live is a very dangerous place. You realize this?”
“Yes.”
“I mean the world as it exists for people like us. Those who move within the circles that we do, close to great power. It is as if we spend our whole lives in a gladiatorial arena, visible to all and always under threat. Few people around us can be trusted. Very few.”
“I know,” Selene said. And perhaps she did know. Her mother had executed her own sister, who seemed to pose a danger. Surely the girl had drawn some conclusions from this fact. One could only hope she had drawn the right ones.
The Daughters of Palatine Hill: A Novel Page 2
