The Daughters of Palatine Hill: A Novel

by Phyllis T. Smith

  “Thank you,” I said. “We both know Tiberius doesn’t have the smoothest manners. But I’ll wager you won’t find anything lacking in how he performs his duties.”

  “Marcellus is always grateful for anything I do for him.”

  At all times, Marcellus did exactly what Tavius told him to do, and did it with a smile. Was I wrong to think he lacked some essential inner fire? Sometimes I feared the gods had stinted Tiberius on human feeling. He certainly could not match Marcellus at charming people at dinner parties. But there was iron in his soul. For holding this empire together, I would take Tiberius.

  I could imagine my son maturing into the sort of man who could rule Rome. But Marcellus . . . ?

  Marcellus was Tavius’s choice. Whether you know it or not, my boy is better than your boy. I thought it, but I did not say it.

  I kept my eye on Selene. She had gone back to being shy in Tavius’s presence, and was quiet and meek in mine. Had she learned her lesson? How could I know?

  “What do you call my husband?” I asked her one day.

  “Call him?” She looked confused and stupid. Maybe it was an act. I knew she wasn’t the least bit stupid.

  “How do you address him?”

  “I do not know how to properly address him. Perhaps you could instruct me?” She spoke in a humble voice.

  “You call me Aunt—call him Uncle,” I snapped at her. “That makes sense, doesn’t it?”

  “Uncle, then,” she said, dipping her head.

  Strangely enough, I felt sorry for her.

  The world would be safer for me and mine if you were dead, I thought. Perhaps it would be better for my marriage too. But the heart is a contrary organ. I did not want her dead. It was not just that I believe murder offends the gods—though I do believe that. For her own sake, I wanted no tragic end to Selene’s story.

  That I should feel solicitude for Cleopatra’s daughter, of all people, struck me as distinctly odd. Then one day I realized the cause.

  I had ordered her to spin wool with the maids one hour a day. Julia had once done the same, and I had had this chore assigned to me when I was a girl. It is necessary for a young noblewoman who would eventually run her own household to have some acquaintance with domestic arts—but I think Selene took the imposition of this task as a punishment. One day I stood in the spinning room and watched her work, noting the deft motions of her hands. She had learned to spin well quite quickly. I saw, though, by her face that her thoughts were far away, her agile fingers faster than the revolving spindle. It struck me that I as a girl had been much like her—efficiently doing the domestic tasks my mother insisted on while my mind ranged far and wide.

  Selene had lost so much, so young, just as I had. Like me, she had been forced at an early age to look at the world clear-eyed. She saw her danger. She knew what game she was playing; she knew she was playing for keeps. She would use what weapons life gave her. She intended to survive.

  When we see ourselves reflected in another, we are sometimes repulsed by our own image and moved to hatred. But more often, I think, the recognition of likeness is the foundation of affection.

  I had the sense, watching Selene at her spinning, that my own younger self was sitting there. “Come with me,” I said. “I wish to speak to you.”

  I took her into my private rooms. She walked in looking tense. The last time I had summoned her in such a way I had rebuked and slapped her.

  I gestured to a marble bust that stood on a pedestal. “Do you know who that was?”

  “No, Aunt.”

  “That was my father, Marcus Livius Drusus Claudianus. You see, I keep his bust here. I honor his memory. When I was a girl, he was the person I loved most in the world.”

  Selene thoughtfully took this in. No doubt she wondered why I was speaking of my father.

  “Who did you love most, Selene, when you were a little girl?”

  She stared at me for a moment. Weighing whether to answer truthfully or not, probably. Finally she said, “My mother.”

  I nodded. I had somehow expected this answer. “When my father died I lost everything. Home, safety, my place in the world. But most of all, him.”

  “At six years old, I was a queen,” Selene said. “My mother and father had me crowned queen of Crete in my own right. But that didn’t last long.”

  “It can strengthen you to go through the fire when you are young,” I said.

  “I suppose so, Aunt. If you are not incinerated.”

  I saw my own younger self then indeed—bereft of home and safety, living in a forest, running from a fire that was setting all the trees aflame. “We have certain things in common.”

  “I see that we do.”

  I took her by the shoulders. “Not every choice I have made would strike most people as praiseworthy. But what you should know about me is this. I have never in my life abandoned anyone who gave me true loyalty. Not even a slave. The thought of such a betrayal is profoundly disgusting to me. I repay loyalty in kind, always.”

  “That is an admirable quality.”

  Did she intend mockery? I could not be sure. “You ought to try to trust me. Will you try?”

  “Yes, Aunt.”

  What else could she say?

  I dismissed her then, feeling I had said too much and too little. I doubted that child was capable of trusting anyone.

  There is always another war. My son Tiberius had told me that with a certain amount of relish. Certainly the tribes in Gaul could regularly be counted on to provide bloody work for our army. An uprising occurred soon after he became a quaestor. Tiberius was chosen among those to be dispatched to deal with it.

  One morning, he stood in our entranceway in his armor, the metal shining brightly because every inch of it was expensive and new, a delicate carving of winged victory on his breastplate. He towered over me now, this boy I had once cradled in my arms.

  “I’ll make you proud, Mother,” he said to me when I embraced him in farewell.

  “Come home victorious,” I told him. Meanwhile my heart cried out, Just stay safe!

  He hugged and kissed his brother, Drusus, before he left. They had grown up close, those two. His farewell to Tavius—indeed to everyone but Drusus and me—was so perfunctory as to be almost insulting.

  Tiberius ought to have at least been happy that the gods and Tavius had handed him his dearest wish—a war to fight. The look on his face as he took leave of us showed satisfaction at finally getting his due, but nothing more than that. I tried to think when I had seen Tiberius outwardly joyful and could only remember moments in his early childhood. There were depths to him I did not begin to fathom.

  “He is a fine soldier,” Tavius said to me after my son had gone. He intended the words as comfort.

  Tiberius had undergone the most rigorous training and had excelled in all feats of arms. But of course in every war, fine soldiers die.

  That Marcellus would stay home stirred my resentment. He was too valuable to risk on a petty provincial war, in Tavius’s opinion. Not that my husband had said that. “Those boys are our two great hopes for the future . . . better not to send them both to Gaul,” he had muttered. “And you know Tiberius is so eager to go.”

  And Marcellus, your young hero, is not? I barely restrained myself from asking.

  I wondered if Tavius eventually would see where Marcellus was lacking.

  The fact that Agrippa did not lead the army we dispatched to Gaul troubled me. He preferred to stay home. Tavius did not argue with him, but sent another general. I thanked the gods that at least he did not choose to go himself, for his health would not have stood it. But I did not like Agrippa’s disinterest.

  “Achilles is sulking in his tent,” Tavius said.

  I remembered Agrippa when he had been married to my friend Caecilia. He had been a cheerful man then. She had known how to keep him content with the public role he played, along with everything else. Marcella, from what I heard, treated him as an unwelcome visitor in his own house.


  One day Tavius came into my study, looking upset and drained. I knew he had just met with Agrippa.

  “He is very unhappy,” he said. “He says he’s through. He wants to withdraw from public affairs.”

  “Just leave? And you’ll let him do that?”

  “He is not leading a mutiny, he is not turning against me. He just sees little future for himself, with Marcellus coming into such great prominence.”

  I let out a breath. “It will look bad if he deserts.”

  “I’ll give him a sinecure. He can pretend to oversee Asia Minor—he doesn’t even have to visit there. He’ll go to his country estate and do what he says he wants to do . . . rest.”

  “And you think he’ll actually do that? Not cause trouble, just retire?”

  “He has been my faithful friend since we were children.”

  A thought occurred to me. “Will Marcella go off to the country with him?”

  “He talked about leaving her in his house in Rome.”

  I nodded. The marriage was an utter disaster.

  Agrippa’s retirement represented a huge loss—the loss of a man who had been not only Tavius’s leading general but his right hand in many other ways. He had rebuilt much of Rome from the sewers up—finally erecting a great temple dubbed the Pantheon. Marcellus could not in any way fill his place. And there was another personal aspect to losing Agrippa. The pinnacle of power was no place to make new friends. Everyone curried favor; everyone had an ulterior motive. Tavius had only two close, trusted friends—Agrippa and Maecenas. Now he was in effect losing one.

  This was not a small thing. My husband carried enormous mental burdens. Agrippa, Maecenas, and I were the people he depended on most to make it all bearable.

  As if to justify himself for preferring Marcellus over Agrippa, he told me again and again that Marcellus was the future. I disliked hearing this. “You are the future,” I whispered to him one night. “The only future I want.”

  “To do what I have done—to seize supreme power—is only morally supportable if I exercise power responsibly. I have an obligation to try to shape the world after I am gone. An obligation, Livia. Otherwise, what am I? I wish Agrippa understood. It is not that I love my nephew and have no affection for my friend. It is that I see Rome’s future when I look into that boy’s eyes. You see?”

  “I understand you wish to act for the good of all.”

  But he was melancholy. In a simple, human way, he pined for his old friend.

  That summer a fever swept through Rome. It began in the slums near the market district, but of course it did not stop there. People all over the city died.

  I wanted us to flee, to get as far away from the contagion as we could go. But Tavius would not hear of it. The best I could persuade him to do was to take up residence at our villa at Prima Porta, a half-day’s journey from the city itself. That was close enough to attend to official business. We often stayed there in the summer in any case.

  When the whole household was busy with packing, Selene asked me if she was to come with us. I think she expected me to leave her behind in a city full of contagion. When I said she was to come, she gave me one of her rare smiles.

  Marcellus and Julia came to stay with us, for he too insisted on remaining close to the city. We also had another houseguest, Juba of Numidia. He was the son of a king who had rebelled against Rome and been defeated, but Juba had won Tavius’s high esteem. My husband insisted he not stay in disease-ridden Rome but avail himself of our hospitality.

  “It will be good to have his company,” he said. “He’s brilliant and can talk intelligently about an incredible number of subjects. When it comes to the natural world, he is like a walking compendium of knowledge. Really, he is an extraordinary young man. Completely Roman in his outlook.” This last was the highest praise.

  Tavius had been toying with the idea of giving Juba a throne in North Africa, in compensation for his lost ancestral kingdom of Numidia. Numidia had such high strategic value it had to remain under direct Roman administration, but there were other places where he could play a useful role. He would be a vassal king, in a sense a Roman administrator, but would possess considerable autonomy. The question—always the question when it came to such matters—was whether or not he could be trusted. Tavius leaned to the view that he could be. My guess was that in the near future, this young man would wear a crown.

  It was cool at the villa at Prima Porta, far cooler than in Rome. We lived in the kind of luxury that brought back shimmering memories of how it had been in my mother’s palaces. I saw beautiful murals and statuary wherever I looked and, outside, huge exquisitely cultivated gardens.

  I had my lessons with my tutor in the villa’s vast library, and often we had company. Juba of Numidia would sit quietly in a corner, reading from parchment scrolls and taking notes on waxed tablets.

  One day, after my lessons were ended, I asked him what exactly he was doing.

  He looked up from his work and did not seem irked by the interruption. “I am writing a book,” he said.

  “About what?”

  “The behavior of elephants. Mainly I’m compiling anecdotes from various sources.”

  “Are you fond of elephants particularly?”

  He smiled. “Not exactly fond. But I rode them when I was small. They are among the most intelligent animals that exist—perhaps as intelligent as apes.”

  “Are apes intelligent?”

  “Oh, yes. Great apes are extremely canny. But I have not been able to find much information about them.”

  I liked the way Juba’s eyes sparkled as he talked. He had a quick, lively way of speaking. His eyes were black, his skin light brown. On first impression, I thought he looked rather like an Egyptian.

  “There is a lot of information about elephants, but it’s rather scattered. What I intend to do is bring it together in one book. Elephants are worth knowing about. They care for and protect each other. In many ways they are more civilized than men.”

  “I see.” A prince writing a book about elephants. How odd.

  He read my thoughts. “Does it seem strange to you that I should be spending my time this way? I suppose it must—a king’s son writing a natural philosophy book.”

  “I would not think to judge what you do. I’m sure it’s a very useful occupation.” Some impulse made me add, “You talk just like a Roman, with no accent. And the way you dress, everything about you—you behave like a Roman too.”

  “I could say the same about you.”

  “My father was Roman,” I said, bristling a little. “A great Roman general. Perhaps you have heard the name Mark Antony?”

  “My father was a general too, as well as a king. He was defeated, just like yours, and died by his own hand, just like yours. He was not a Roman like your father, but they ended the same way.”

  “And how do you suppose you will finish your life?” I asked him, an edge in my voice.

  “Not like that, if I can help it.”

  “You’ve accommodated yourself to the world as you find it,” I said.

  “Do you think that wrong?”

  I gave a low chuckle. “Gods above, I am the last one on earth with a right to reproach you.”

  We looked at each other in silence for a few moments, and in those moments, much was said without words. It was as if months of acquaintance were compressed in that short space of time.

  Then Juba spoke in a low voice. “I am Augustus’s friend, and he has discussed giving me a kingdom to rule. Just now he is hesitating, but I believe he will do it in the end. And I won’t act as my father did—I won’t revolt. I know the Romans will always be stronger. I will accept circumscribed power, and that will be enough.” A glow came into his eyes. “I’ll be a good king. In whatever land I’m sent to, I’ll cause commerce and the arts to flourish, just as Augustus has done here. And scholarship too. There is nothing more important for a man to do with his life than to add to the sum of human knowledge. As a king, I will be well situ
ated to do that.”

  I had thought he looked Egyptian. But now another image came into my mind. I had seen Assyrian wall friezes, portraits of their ancient kings, faces fierce and beautiful. He had a face like that, I thought.

  “You have your life all planned,” I said.

  “It’s important to plan.”

  I said almost in a whisper, “And do you never think . . . of vengeance?”

  “Whom should I avenge myself on? Julius Caesar, who defeated my father in war? He is quite dead. As for his adopted son and heir, Augustus—if I were to kill him, would it bring my father back? Would it help anyone on this earth?” He paused, then asked abruptly, “Do you think I’m a coward?”

  He had fought in war—two wars—at Augustus’s side. He had acquitted himself honorably by all accounts. Beyond that, I did not hear a weak man shrinking from danger in the way he spoke. Every word had the ring of conviction.

  “I know you’re not a coward,” I said.

  We were quite alone in the library, but his voice sank to a whisper. “Do you imagine taking vengeance for your parents?” he asked gently.

  If anyone else had asked, I would have denied it. But I said, “Sometimes.” Then I stood aghast at the weapon I had given Juba to use against me if he wished.

  He had been sitting at a writing table all during this talk, but now he stood up. “Don’t be afraid,” he whispered. “I don’t carry tales.” He did something very strange then. He reached out and stroked my cheek.

  “I don’t know why . . . I feel I can trust you,” I said.

  “Sometimes it’s necessary to talk openly with someone. It’s only natural and human. People are not like tigers, who are happy to hunt alone, but more like lions with their prides.” He laughed. “And really, who better for you to confide in than a deposed prince whose head is full of elephant lore?” Then his expression sobered. “You mustn’t think of vengeance, though,” he whispered. “It would accomplish nothing. It would cost you your life—and what a waste that would be.”