The mint actually did help my nausea—certainly it worked better than anything my physician could suggest.
Phoebe became my personal maid and, in time, my friend.
I pictured at times the young woman I ought to be, one truly grateful for the life she had. For I knew that in many ways I was fortunate. I was rich and free, while many others were poor or enslaved. I was the First Citizen’s daughter, married to his foremost general. Some women in my position would surely be happy. I tried to mold myself into the woman I imagined—a proper wife, a proper daughter—to act in the way it seemed all Rome expected me to act, even to feel what I ought to feel.
When I labored to bring forth my first child, I asked for a piece of leather to bite on, so I would not cry out. After all, I was Augustus’s daughter. I told myself I should have no regard for the pain.
I held in my hand an amulet blessed by those who served the temple of Lucina, goddess of childbirth. My mother, Scribonia, was present, wiping my forehead with a wet cloth as I sat on the birthing chair. Marilla, the midwife, crouched at my feet.
I knew messengers were waiting in the atrium to leap on horses’ backs and gallop off, bringing news of the birth to my father and to my husband. I knew also that word that I was in labor would have spread through the city of Rome, that good citizens would be flocking to temples, offering sacrifices to the gods on my behalf. Bringing forth a son was the one thing Rome asked of me—the one important thing I could do in my life.
Afterward, the midwife said I had an easy time of it, for a first birth, though truly it had seemed hard enough to me. “A son,” Marilla said when the child entered the light of this world. Her voice sounded positively reverent. “Oh, my lady, a son.”
Augustus’s grandson, Agrippa’s son. And he will rule Rome.
I do not remember who spoke these words—my mother? Marilla?—or if they just echoed in my mind.
Gaius. He was to be given the same praenomen as my father. Gaius Julius Caesar. My father would legally adopt him as his heir.
When I held the baby in my arms, I felt such intense love—and also such tender pity. I imagined the entire weight of the world one day coming down on this little boy’s shoulders, and I wished I could save him from it.
“I am your mother, Gaius,” I whispered to him, “and what I wish for you is not power or fame. What I wish for you is love and happiness.”
Then I began to weep.
Did I weep for my son or for myself?
On our wedding night, Juba brushed back my hair and went to kiss my neck. Then he stiffened, seeing the mark where I had cut myself. “What is this?” he said.
“It’s nothing. It’s already almost healed.”
“It’s a strange place to come by such an injury. How did it happen?”
I sensed from his voice that he already suspected what had taken place. In any case, I did not wish to lie to him. I told him the truth.
“You would have gone through with it if Livia had not stopped you?”
“Yes.”
He made a groaning sound deep in his chest.
“I thought what I did would move her, as nothing else could. And it was worth the risk to me. I wanted so much to marry you and for us to raise our child together.”
Our lovemaking that night was different than it ever was before. He showed a new gentleness, a care—because I was carrying our child? Or because he realized how close we had come to losing each other?
We were married now, and we had the right to be together and need not fear being discovered. In the bedchamber of Juba’s small house on the Palatine Hill, we truly consummated our marriage. I had thought before that I knew pleasure in Juba’s arms, but now I realized that the acme of joy had eluded me. It did not elude me that night.
Soon we were off to our new home in Mauretania. The residents of Iol, the capital city, greeted us with great enthusiasm. We were carried through the streets in sedan chairs, and crowds shouted our names.
Many of the buildings we passed were made of sand-colored brick and rather shabby-looking. The architectural styles were a mixture of Egyptian and Greek, likewise the public statues. What we saw might be serviceable enough, but nothing was beautiful. I remembered hearing Augustus boast he had transformed Rome from a city of brick to one of marble. Could we do the same for Iol?
The North African sun shone down fiercely on the day of our arrival; I wondered if it was always hotter here than in Rome. I did not care for the heat. I focused on what I did like—the people’s welcome. Everyone seemed so friendly.
“I hope you were not expecting this place to be like Rome,” Juba said to me that night.
“Of course I wasn’t.”
“The people look poorer, don’t they, than the people of Rome? Poorer and hungrier?”
I remembered people in rags and the gaunt faces I had seen among the welcoming throngs, and I nodded. Then I smiled. “They need a good king, and lucky for them, that is precisely what the gods have sent them.”
He did not smile back. “I want to benefit the people of Mauretania and also satisfy Rome,” he said heavily. “It will not be simple.”
A Roman administrator, Porcius, had been sent along with us as an advisor and I suppose also a spy. We understood that Augustus’s trust only extended so far. At a dinner party the evening after our arrival, Porcius suggested that since Juba was so fond of writing books about natural philosophy, he ought to devote himself to that and leave the governing to him.
Juba smiled. “Why, that would be too selfish of me—putting all that labor on your lone shoulders.”
One of his first official acts was to give the city of Iol a new name—Caesarea. It was a gesture of loyalty, to Rome and to Augustus. “Maybe if he trusts me enough, he’ll be willing to withdraw his nursemaid,” Juba said. “One can hope.” In the meantime he was pleasant to Porcius. In fact, he did his best to treat him as a friend.
Sometimes I forgot that Juba was ten years my elder. Indeed, our happiness together was so great that sometimes it seemed we were boy and girl, children together. But then he would do or say something that reminded me that he had seen war and far-off lands, things that I could only imagine. Patience and equanimity in the face of slights did not come naturally to me, especially now that I was a queen. But Juba was imperturbable. In many ways, in those early days in Mauretania, my husband was my teacher.
Time passed. I grew used to being a queen and used to my new home while my pregnancy progressed. When I lay with my newborn son in my arms, I remembered again my mother’s final word to me, Live. And I whispered this to the baby. Juba sat beside us, looking at the child, with wonder in his eyes.
We had not discussed a name before the child was born, for fear of tempting misfortune. But now with the living infant in my arms, I said, “Shall we call him Juba?”
My husband shook his head.
“It’s a royal name,” I said in surprise.
“I would rather my son bear a name from his mother’s line—the royal house of Egypt.”
A little thrill of pleasure went through me. “Alexander, then. After my twin.”
“And after Alexander the Great . . .” Juba grinned. “I wish I could be in Augustus’s presence when he reads my letter announcing the birth.”
“You think . . . he’ll see it as a threat?”
Juba kissed me on the forehead. “No, dear, just as a small reminder of who you are.”
“Well, then he is Alexander.” I felt a sudden sadness. “There are two names I know we must never give our children.”
Juba nodded soberly. “You’re right. Those two names Augustus truly would take exception to.”
Mark Antony and Cleopatra.
I nursed the baby myself. I loved the sense of closeness it fostered with my son and the feeling I was directly nurturing his life. It was something no great Roman lady would do. But I was not a Roman lady. I was a Mauretanian queen.
When Alexander turned his face to seek my breast, the image came
to mind of a flower seeking the sun.
“I think of the girl I was a year ago,” I told Juba, “and I realize I am no longer that person.”
“Of course. You are a wife and a queen.”
And a mother, I thought.
I lay in bed, our child sleeping in my arms. Juba sat beside us. “How do you feel you have changed?” he asked.
“I have become the servant of life,” I said. “I suppose I was without knowing it from the moment I knew I was carrying our child. But now it is much more real. I believe I would not act again as I did. It amazes me that I once held a knife to my own throat, even for so great a purpose as freeing the way for us to marry. When I look at Alexander, I see the value of life, and it is wealth beyond measure.”
“I have often felt the same looking at nature’s wonders,” Juba said.
“You have seen battle. You have killed.”
“Yes. I didn’t much like it.”
“The way my father and mother died has haunted me. I wanted to prove to myself that I had their courage—and I did prove I was ready to die by my own hand. But now, since Alexander’s birth . . . I don’t know if it is a good or a bad thing, but I think I’ve become less brave. I cannot picture myself ever again showing that kind of courage.”
Juba kissed me. “You have me now to stand between you and any danger. I’ll make it my life’s mission to see to it that you never have to show that kind of courage again.”
Tavius and I were in Bithynia, a pleasant Romanized city on the Black Sea, when news came that a child was born who carried on the bloodline of the Caesars. I had rarely seen my husband so unashamedly relieved and happy as when we received news that Julia had given birth to little Gaius.
His daughter was well, the baby thriving.
“She’ll be content now she is a mother,” Tavius said confidently.
I thought of Agrippa, sober, stolid, and that bright flame of a girl. Contentment might be too much to expect.
At this time, our mission in the East was going splendidly, and my son Tiberius deserved much of the credit. He had already made a name for himself fighting in Gaul. He was strict, even harsh with the men under him, and therefore not especially popular with the troops. But he was universally respected for his courage, his skill with arms, and his intelligence. Tavius therefore gave him the huge responsibility of bringing Armenia to heel. He did it with little bloodshed, shrewdly enticing the rebel Armenian king’s enemies to deliver the province into his hands.
My younger son Drusus, now eighteen, had meanwhile been dispatched to Spain with Agrippa. “I think he’ll be hard to hold back,” Tavius said. “He keeps saying there are territories in Germania that would fall easily to Roman arms.”
“Easily!” I could feel my mouth twist. “And what does he know about it, child that he is?”
“He is not a child anymore,” Tavius said. “He is a wonderful young man. Brave as a lion. Gods above, I wish he were my son.”
I felt a prick of old pain, old longing; I would have given almost anything to present Tavius with a son. I also noticed that it was Drusus upon whom he lavished this warm praise, even as he loaded Tiberius with responsibility. This was an old story.
He had little affection for Tiberius, but real fondness for Drusus. It had been so since the two were small, when Drusus had easily taken to Tavius as a second father while Tiberius had treated him as an interloper.
I understood Tavius’s feelings—truly I did. Drusus had a knack for wining hearts, while Tiberius did not. But I wished it were possible for Tavius to love both of my sons.
We lingered in the East for well over a year. Tiberius acted as Tavius’s strong right arm as my husband tinkered with the government of the eastern part of the empire. Tavius grew to respect him more without warming to him much. Meanwhile we were feted by one minor potentate after another. I saw exotic sites, tasted foreign delicacies, and received rich gifts of silk, ivory, and gold.
Then we returned home with a wedding in store. Tiberius was to wed Agrippa’s daughter.
I will be seeing your betrothed. Is there anything you would like me to tell him for you?” I asked the question mischievously.
My stepdaughter, Vipsania, averted her eyes and shook her head.
She had not been included in my invitation to Prima Porta, where Father, Livia, and Tiberius had arrived after their success in the East. Perhaps they did not think of inviting Vipsania, or maybe they considered it improper for Tiberius and the girl to spend time in each other’s company before they married. Agrippa would come back to Rome—though only briefly—for the wedding. But he had not arrived yet. I felt a little sad about leaving Vipsania with just servants.
“Are you looking forward to your wedding?” I asked her curiously, just before I took leave of her.
She pressed her lips together for a moment, then said with a seriousness that belied her years, “I hardly know Tiberius. Why would I be looking forward to marrying him? But I will do my duty and try to be a good wife.”
It was probably the longest statement I had ever heard her make.
I had grown up with her betrothed, and if I had any stories to tell that showed his lovable nature or gentle character, I would certainly have shared them with her. But in fact I had always disliked him intensely, and my most vivid memory of him was anything but sweet. A little dog we kept in the garden had playfully leaped at him one day, and Tiberius, then about eleven, kicked him away so savagely that the poor thing ran off yelping. I might have called my stepbrother a brute—I had done it before, and I don’t think Tiberius much minded. But instead I cried out, “What a coward you are! Did that little dog scare you?”
Tiberius’s face had darkened.
“Coward,” I said again.
He grabbed my hand and twisted my fingers back so pain shot up my arm. “You will never call me that again, or I swear by Almighty Jove I will break your fingers. And don’t tell me you’ll go crying to your father, because I don’t care.”
He meant it. I knew by the look on his face. He let my hand go and walked away, and I watched his receding back, hating him. I never again called him a coward. And truthfully he wasn’t that, but I suspected he was something even worse. I pitied Vipsania, who must marry him.
It was summer, and the sky was bright as an azure jewel. I rode all the way to Prima Porta in an open litter, holding little Gaius in my arms. People who saw us stopped and waved, and I waved back at them.
For two years, I had not set eyes on my father, and we had communicated only in brief, rather formal letters. I still felt bitterness about my marriage, and yet my heart raced at the thought of showing Father his grandson.
I walked into the entrance hall of the villa, holding Gaius by the hand, and Father and Livia came forward to greet me. Father looked fitter and younger than when last I had seen him—bringing the eastern empire to heel evidently had improved his health. Livia too was glowing. Father embraced and kissed me, then swooped down and lifted Gaius in his arms, held him up as if he were some prize, his eyes glittering. Gaius kicked his little legs and cried, “Let me down!” Father laughed and lowered him to the floor.
“What a fine boy you have,” he said to me. Then he and Livia began to talk about whether Gaius looked more like him, Father, or more like Agrippa.
“He has his father’s eyes,” Father said.
“Yes, but otherwise he could be you at that age,” Livia asserted. Then she turned toward me and spoke kindly. “He favors you, Julia. You have a wonderful son.”
Later, at dinner, I saw Tiberius. I had to admit that time had improved him. The cruel little boy seemed to have vanished. In his place I saw a well-built, self-assured man. Barely in his midtwenties, he already had a record of accomplishment behind him, and it showed in his bearing.
He was quiet, though. He said little to me in greeting, little to Father and Livia’s other guests.
He and I reclined on adjoining dining couches. People around us were chatting. Tiberius sipped f
rom his wine cup and ate a helping of the appetizer, not saying a word.
“The mullet is very good, isn’t it?” I said.
“I prefer it with sauce.”
We were silent for a while. Finally I made an attempt at conversation. “Our lives have taken an odd twist. I was your sister and soon I’m to be your mother-in-law.”
“You’re only my stepsister,” he said. “And you will become my stepmother-in-law. That makes it a little less peculiar, I think.”
“If you say so. Do you think we can be friends now?”
His expression became opaque. “Why wouldn’t we be?”
“Well, we weren’t friends growing up. Surely you remember that.”
“I remember a haughty little girl who used to tease me.”
I tilted my head, looking up at him. “Really? Was I haughty? As I remember it, you were the arrogant one. You seemed to think that because you were a boy, I should practically bow down to you.”
“My memories are different. You were Augustus’s daughter, and I the orphan graciously permitted to live in your house. You never let me forget it.”
“Did it really seem that way to you?”
“Oh, no. After my father died, when my brother and I were taken into Augustus’s house, you were the soul of kindness to us. You could not have been more welcoming to a boy in mourning.”
I gave a little start, hearing the real bitterness in his voice. “Was that how it was?”
“It was exactly like that,” he said.
I could have told him how it had been for me—feeling I already had so little of my father, and now must share him. I remembered the sense I had had that boys—even stepsons—could matter to Father in a way I never could. But it would be pointless to revive childhood grievances. “I am sorry,” I said. “It seems I was even more foolish and selfish as a child than I recall.”
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