The Daughters of Palatine Hill: A Novel

by Phyllis T. Smith

  “How could you do it?” my father burst out suddenly. “My own daughter. How could you?”

  “You never saw me,” I said. “I never mattered to you except as a tool.”

  “Have you lost your reason? I gave you everything.”

  “You gave me nothing I wanted.” I took a breath. “What will happen to Jullus? And the others?”

  “You are like a malignancy,” Father said, “something that grew out of my own body and sought to kill me. You are a cancerous growth, and I must cut you off.”

  I felt he was pronouncing my death sentence. My life was over. I was not afraid, though. Not at all afraid for myself. I remembered being held in Jullus’s arms. What mattered was our love; what mattered was that he should live. “Do what you want to me. I don’t care. But spare Jullus.”

  “That’s who you think of now, Mark Antony’s son? Not your children? Not the shame you have brought upon us all?” He walked to the shut door, opened it. I had a glimpse of glinting armor, of soldiers—the atrium was packed with soldiers, and they all stood stiffly at attention, waiting to do my father’s bidding. “Take her away,” he said.

  Julia was gone now. We were alone, Tavius and I.

  “What will you do with her?” I asked.

  He answered in a flat, emotionless voice. “I will put her to death, and I will put Jullus Antony to death, and Gracchus and the rest of them—everyone who had a part in this treason.”

  “We do not know who is involved,” I said. “Not with any certainty. Gracchus and the other senators should be interrogated.”

  He nodded. “And Julia’s servants. They must tell all they know. Then all those who had a part in this madness must die.”

  His voice was ice-cold, but I knew him too well. I did not believe the coldness.

  “Dead,” he repeated. “I want them dead.”

  “Don’t give the order yet. Wait until we know the full extent of the conspiracy. That is only wise.”

  “I want her expunged from the earth,” he said.

  Not them, all the traitors. Her.

  He took a step back toward the door, I suppose to give some order, and he staggered. I caught him in my arms. For a few moments I felt I was propping him up, that he would collapse if I let him. Then he straightened. We stood still, me with my arms around him. I saw the expression on his face, the look of horror. “Oh, gods above,” he said. “Oh, gods above.”

  “Come sit down.” I led him to a couch, my hand under his elbow as if he were an invalid. He sank down and sat leaning over, his head in his hands.

  I caressed his back and shoulders. The bones felt sharp and fragile under my hand.

  He turned his head and looked at me. “I will make them sorry. I will have their blood.”

  “Yes, yes,” I said.

  My mind was already working out how to limit the destruction. Not for the sake of Julia and the rest, not even so much for Rome’s sake. For Tavius.

  The execution of Gracchus and other senators will only breed more enemies. But that is not the worst of it.

  He will kill his daughter. And then one day he will awake to what he has done, and he will go mad.

  “I must go out—I must be seen to be in charge.”

  “But please, wait with the executions until we have talked again.” I spoke as if this were an ordinary thing, some routine decision I did not want him to make without at least giving my views a hearing.

  He leaned against me for a moment like a little child. Then he rose, and he was not a child and not a tired old man either. He was who he had always been, Caesar Augustus, and he went to take command.

  Julia and Jullus in a sense had many backers—many people who wished them well, even many who would have liked to have seen them seize power. Some were malcontents and paupers; there were always such people who longed for any change, hoping it would better their lot. Others, mainly aristocrats, yearned for what they called our ancestral liberties—in other words, they wished for the Republic to be restored. Finally there were the young libertines who hated Tavius’s moral laws, resented his tax on the unmarried and the childless. All these individuals together added up to—what? A horde of discontented people, not quite discontented enough to bear any real risk. They grumbled and waited for someone else to take the lead and right the world for them. The conspiracy itself was small. It consisted of a few senators, most of them with names redolent of past glory. Gracchus, Scipio, Pulcher. Men whose ambitions had been frustrated, men who dreamed of undoing history.

  The core came down to fewer than a dozen people. Would they truly have seized Tavius when he came to Crisponus’s house for dinner, seized him but not killed him? I did not believe it for a moment. Even if some of them had intended to spare Tavius’s life, wiser heads would have prevailed.

  I could have forgiven the fools who dreamed of restoring lost liberties. Some tiny corner of my heart even sympathized with them. My own father had died for the Republic. I could even have forgiven Julia and Jullus for their unwise passion and their ambition.

  But they had committed acts bound to lead to my husband’s death. That was what I could not forgive.

  As a new day dawned, Tavius and I sat exhausted. A soldier entered the atrium to report on new developments. I noted the tension in this man’s face, and the back of my neck prickled.

  The soldier saluted Tavius, then said, “I regret to tell you, sir—one of the traitors we have in custody managed to hang herself.”

  All the breath was expelled from my lungs. My first thought was that he meant Julia.

  “Who?” Tavius demanded.

  “One of your daughter’s servants. A freedwoman. Her name was Phoebe.”

  Expressionlessly, Tavius said, “She should have been better watched.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Is that all you have to tell me? Then you’re dismissed.”

  The soldier saluted, looking relieved. I supposed he had expected there would be punishment for carelessness, allowing a prisoner to escape our clutches. I wondered why the woman had done it. Fear of a worse fate than hanging? Or did she act out of loyalty to Julia—did she possess secrets she feared she would reveal under torture?

  Interrogators even now were doing what they were expected to do in such cases. There would be pressure applied to get at the truth. No one would lay hands on Julia—but who knew what would happen to the others? I did not want to know.

  “I wish I were Phoebe’s father,” Tavius said. They were the bitterest words he had ever spoken. He wished Julia dead with some scrap of honor. But was he drawing back from the thought of executing her himself? After a moment, he answered the unspoken question in my eyes. “Yes, I am still resolved that they must all die.”

  Once as a young man, he had sat in judgment on those who had taken part in the assassination of Julius Caesar. I had been told of the savagery of his demeanor, how he had pointed to men who begged for mercy and said, You must die. That was long ago. The young man who had slaughtered his enemies had been regarded by many as a brute. The Roman people would have grown to hate that young man. But the wise and merciful ruler he had become—that man they called Father of His Country.

  It would be absurd arrogance for me to claim that wise ruler was my creation. I had merely helped him to bring forth the qualities that were there in him all along. There at his side with a love and a loyalty that never wavered, I had been like a midwife at a birth.

  My love for Tavius and my love for my country had mingled, so I could not separate one from the other. At this moment I saw the wise ruler who was my beloved destroying himself with his own hand. There would be bloody executions—executions of scions of Rome’s foremost families. Worse, he would kill his own daughter. That act, whatever its justification, would leave a black stain on his name through all the ages to come.

  Who would he be after all the killing was done? The man I loved or some other being?

  I said carefully, “It is possible Julia did not foresee any physical ha
rm coming to you.”

  He gave a derisive snort. “She is my daughter. Do you think I bred a fool? She is not stupid. She knew.”

  And maybe he was right. Somewhere, if perhaps not in the forefront of her mind, the knowledge had surely lurked. I could imagine that anger had grown over the years, as again and again her desires for happiness were thwarted. I could imagine her wanting to shed the burden of being this man’s daughter. Perhaps resentment had grown in her like a tumor, eating away at her restraint.

  I could not forgive her. And yet . . . and yet . . . how desperate she must have been to do what she did.

  Maybe some people, situated as they are in life, can never be happy. Perhaps because of this, their doom is preordained. I was enraged at Julia. She had set in motion a conspiracy sure to lead to the death of her own father, the man I loved. But I felt . . . not precisely guilt but responsibility. I had played my role in creating the circumstances of her life.

  I spoke to Tavius in a low, gentle voice. “Do you truly want her dead?”

  “Yes. I want her finished, done with. I want her removed from the world.”

  I had learned some things in the years of our marriage. I knew how great power could work on you, and destroy everything human in you. Always separate and above other people, able to confer great benefits or do great harm with a word, fawned over, you started to believe the false praise. It was easy to imagine yourself as godlike, to regard the common run of humanity with contempt. In such circumstances it took strength not to become a monster. Add to this the responsibility for everything that happened in a vast empire, and one could easily lose one’s reason.

  Something diamond hard in Tavius had until this day kept him sane. But if he killed his daughter, he would be destroyed as a human being.

  I tried to speak in the dispassionate voice of a political advisor. “Please think a moment. Now the people of Rome will be on your side. They will see Julia as a traitor. But if you execute her, the people will blame you. They love her and they will pity her.”

  “Do you think I care what the cursed people think?”

  My self-command broke. “You can’t do it,” I said. “Oh, gods above, we created her, don’t you see?”

  “You are speaking foolishness. You ought to be thanking the gods you are not her mother.”

  “You don’t want her dead. You want her gone, obliterated, never to have been born. But she was born. She is your only child. If you cause her to be put to death, you will never recover.”

  “You think I’ll recover from this now?”

  “No.” My voice shook. “Not entirely. But you’ll be the ruler you were. You’ll move past this for Rome’s sake. But not if you kill her. I know you, beloved. We know each other. You are not the man they think you are, not entirely. They only see the shell of power. I see you. I’ve always seen you and you’ve seen me. Tavius, if I have ever given you reason to trust me, trust me now. Kill her and you will destroy your own soul.”

  “She deserves death. That is justice.”

  “I do not care about justice now. I care about you. You love your daughter. Whatever she has done, you will never stop loving her.”

  He shook his head. I thought he was rejecting my words, that he was intent on executing Julia. But then he began to weep, his body racked by great wrenching sobs.

  I knew that he had battled all his life not to reveal himself in this way, not to weep in front of another. It occurred to me that perhaps I should walk out of the room. I was not sure if he would ever forgive me for seeing him like this.

  “My daughter . . .”

  I took him in my arms. I could not abandon him.

  He had conquered an empire to prove to himself and to the world that he was not small, vulnerable, and sick, not the boy he had been. But who was this trembling being I held in my arms if not that child? I hated Julia in that moment as I had not before then, hated her for what she had done to him.

  I kissed him on the head as I might have my boys when they were small.

  His weeping gradually subsided. He did an unusual and tender thing then. He took my hand and kissed it, a sign of love, and reassurance.

  “Beloved,” I said, “remember who you are. You are Caesar Augustus, Rome’s revered one. Nothing that has happened can touch that. Nothing ever will.”

  After a little while he said, “I will banish her to a far island. I will never see her again.”

  I nodded.

  “That pack of fools—Gracchus and the rest—they are not worth killing. I will exile them to lands across the Mediterranean. They can live out their miserable lives far from Rome, alone and forgotten.”

  “I think that is magnanimous and wise.”

  “But Jullus Antony—he dies.”

  “Let him die by his own hand,” I said, thinking of Selene.

  “If he has the courage for it,” Tavius said, his mouth twisting. “See to it.”

  It was the first time I played a part in ordering a death, and I had a strange vision of the girl I had been watching me with large, grave eyes—the girl who believed in a free Republic, the girl who was so soft. She grew up in a terrible time, saw her parents take their own lives. She learned what civil war was. That girl was my silent witness.

  I wrote the words “Redeem your honor” on a waxed tablet. My hand did not tremble. I ordered a centurion to bring the note and a dagger to Jullus Antony in the cell where he was kept.

  I remembered the intelligent, charming man I had always liked, remembered how he had struggled lifelong with the burden of his father’s name. I remembered also that he had meant to kill Tavius.

  When the centurion had gone, Tavius said, “Mark Antony botched it and was a long time dying.”

  I nodded.

  Jullus did not botch it.

  The centurion returned inside an hour. Tavius had gone to lie down, overwhelmed by fatigue. I had waited to see that the order was carried out.

  “Is it done?” I asked.

  “Yes, my lady,” the centurion replied.

  “He did it himself?”

  “Oh, yes. He smiled when he saw the dagger and read the note. I left him alone. He didn’t waste time. A brave and honorable death, my lady—I’ll give him that much.”

  “Yes, we have to give him that much. You’re dismissed.”

  It was late morning, and all I wanted to do was sleep.

  It was only when I was about to be put aboard a galley at the port at Ostia that I was told my fate. A military officer informed me that I had been exiled for life to a tiny island called Pandateria. “It is less than a mile wide,” he said. “But there is a villa. You will be comfortable.”

  “Will my children be allowed to visit me?” I asked.

  The officer’s face was expressionless. “I very much doubt it.”

  So I had lost my children. Lost them forever. I ached at that moment to hold each of them in my arms, but I would be denied even a chance to say farewell. I said nothing, but inside myself I cried out for my five beautiful little ones.

  “There is something that your father, the First Citizen, wished me to tell you.”

  “What?”

  “That he will accept no communications from you in the future. And he will never set eyes on you again.”

  I almost smiled. “That is no punishment. I lost my father long ago.”

  The officer was silent and stony-eyed.

  I finally forced the words out of my mouth that I hardly dared to speak. “And the men arrested for plotting against my father? What is their punishment?”

  “They are to be exiled.”

  Not death, life. I was amazed. Inwardly I rejoiced. Because Jullus would live. I could bear all else, if only Jullus was allowed to live.

  Then the officer said, “All but one, Jullus Antony.”

  I managed to get out the words, “Has he been condemned to death?”

  “The First Citizen showed him great mercy and let him take his own life.”

  “Jullus Antony i
s dead, then?”

  “Quite dead.”

  Darkness surrounded me. It seemed to me I had been born into darkness and lived in it all my life. Now all would be darkness until the day of my death.

  The boat moves through the water, toward the cursed island of Pandateria. I stand on deck with my mother beside me, my mother, Scribonia, she who bore me in her body. She has volunteered to share my exile and spend her last years on the island for my sake. I cannot begin to grasp yet the full meaning of her sacrifice—to fathom such love.

  I stare out at the gray Mediterranean. One memory comes back again and again. I hold a laurel wreath in my hands, and I look up at a carved head with horns and goat ears. Jullus lifts me in his arms. When I gaze down, I see his beloved face, full of fearless exultation.

  All around me, people are shouting, Liberty! Liberty! Jullus lifts me, higher and higher. I reach up and place the wreath on the statue’s head. The warm sun caresses me. Liberty! I cry.

  I will return home with my children. I will return to Juba, and to our kingdom of Mauretania. I have won the concessions from Rome that we hoped for. Caesar Augustus himself took my hand and told me I have his everlasting gratitude.

  I, daughter of Mark Antony and Cleopatra, had to choose whether Rome would know peace or be plunged into another civil war. It fell to me of all people to ensure that Caesar Augustus, my parents’ great enemy, would continue to rule. I acted as I did to protect the well-being of my family and of my kingdom; I chose peace for the empire. At least for now, Mauretania is safe, and my husband, and my children also. I protected my own.

  There is a scar on my heart. I will carry for the rest of my life the knowledge that I sacrificed my brother, whom I loved.

  I do not know if my mother would approve my decision. But I believe she would understand me. I carry her blood and perhaps some fragment of her spirit. This world is a hard and unforgiving place. She commanded me to live in it. I have obeyed her.

  Juba and I, who were brought to Rome in captive bonds, will leave behind a noble legacy. That is my comfort.