I Am Livia

by Phyllis T. Smith

  “Do people talk much about the fire brigades?” I asked one day. We sat in my garden. I had my boys visiting that afternoon. Tiberius, Drusus, Julia, and Secunda’s little girl, Decimia, were all at play around us—or rather, Drusus and the girls played. Tiberius had a stack of child-sized javelins and had set up a target near the rosebushes, fifteen feet away. As serious as an adult, he practiced his javelin throw.

  “Oh, yes, everyone praises them,” Secunda said. “But…”

  “But what?”

  “Well, I’ve heard some people say they’re like your private army.”

  “My army? Not Caesar’s, mine?”

  Secunda smiled faintly. She took a certain pleasure in bringing me bad news. “Why, practically every time a building catches on fire, you’re there with the fire brigades, aren’t you?”

  I did often go to watch the brigades fight fires in the tenements. I would bring gifts of money, clothes, and food to people who lost their homes. Women and children, especially, would crowd around me, as eager for a kind word as for the coins or material goods I could give them. Tavius could not go out to fires himself, because he could not take the smoke. But I wanted people to feel that he cared about them.

  “I have a special sympathy for anyone who has to flee from fire, because I was in that situation myself,” I said.

  Secunda pursed her lips. “I’ve heard you even give speeches to the fire brigades.”

  “I just say a few words sometimes to encourage them.” A recent memory came to mind: standing on a pile of rubble, surrounded by burly men with soot-stained faces who cheered as I praised them for extinguishing a raging fire. Gods above, was I turning into Fulvia? “Secunda, what do people say about me? Not about Caesar, but about me?”

  “Oh, some say you’re good and generous…”

  “And others disagree?”

  She shrugged. I could tell she was enjoying my discomfort.

  “Secunda, tell me what they say!”

  She leaned forward so her face was only inches from mine. “If you must know, they say you’re cold and power-hungry, and you give commands and Caesar obeys. That before he goes to talk to you, he writes down questions and then he writes down your answers. That your marriage is no true marriage but like an alliance between two men.”

  I kept my expression impassive, not wanting to show I was hurt. Tavius did write notes before and after some of our discussions, as he did with his other advisors. It was for the sake of clarity and order, and to make good use of his time and mine. But he certainly did not obey my commands—though truthfully he did little politically without asking me what I thought. It dismayed me that people should think ill of me for this, though knowing Rome I might have expected it.

  Was I cold? Maybe at times I appeared so. For if I sometimes granted people’s requests, at other times I had to turn them down; and I cultivated a contained, authoritative manner.

  “When I first married Tavius, do you know what I was afraid of? That people would remember the circumstances under which we wed and make up salacious stories about me, which would besmirch my husband. So I have been careful about how I dress, and I never so much as glance at an attractive man in public.” My voice trembled. “And so people say I’m made of ice, my marriage is not even a marriage, and I only love power.”

  A look of sympathy crossed Secunda’s face, just for a moment. “For heaven’s sake, don’t get upset. What does it matter what people say or think? They have to bow to you anyway.”

  “I do a great deal for the people’s welfare,” I said. “Is it peculiar that I’d like some appreciation?”

  “Appreciation from the Roman people? Don’t you remember Father saying that the people never appreciate their benefactors?”

  I looked away and watched as Tiberius hurled a javelin and hit the target dead center. “Very good, darling,” I called. “You have wonderful aim.” He did not even glance in my direction, just shrugged and picked up another javelin. What a grim little man he was.

  “Do you ever remember Father and Mother?” Secunda asked me.

  “Of course I do. What a strange question.”

  “You never mention them.”

  “I mourn for them always, in my heart.”

  “Do you?”

  “Of course. How can you ask?”

  “I just wonder sometimes.”

  I could taste unshed tears in the back of my throat. It was as if a trapdoor under my feet had opened up. It had taken so little to open it. All Secunda had had to do was say, Do you remember Father and Mother?

  Can they see me now? I wondered. And if they do, what do they see? A daughter who betrayed them, a power-hungry woman made of ice?

  Drusus came and climbed into my lap. “Are you sad, Mama?” he asked, looking at me with his beautiful dark eyes.

  Would my parents recoil at the sight of me now? Maybe they would only be amazed by the shape my life had taken and wonder how they had come to have such an unlikely creature for a daughter. I gazed at my two sons, and I could not account for either one of them—not Tiberius, who silently gravitated to the tools of war; not Drusus, who was so gentle.

  I tossed my head, said, “Mama’s not the least bit sad,” and kissed my little boy.

  On his flight to the east, Sextus Pompey had taken enough gold with him to raise three legions. He offered the services of this army to the Parthian king against whom Antony was about to embark on war. One of Antony’s generals marched against Sextus, captured and executed him, on Antony’s orders. He deserved a better fate, and I pitied him. But I was relieved he no longer constituted even a remote threat.

  Sextus left one child, a small daughter in the care of relatives in Rome. I resolved that, from a distance, I would watch over this little girl, and insofar as I could, smooth her path in life. I did this for the same reason that I aided the people of Sparta who had once helped Tiberius Nero and me. Under Tavius, Rome treated Sparta with special benevolence. It was a matter of repaying my old debts.

  Here I was a young woman who just a few years before had cowered in a cave, but I never thought that Rome’s dealings with Sparta might be none of my business. The moment when I almost wept in my sister’s presence—that was rare. For I loved what I was doing, loved who I had become. I did not pause often to look behind at where I had been. The role I played in Tavius’s government felt completely natural to me. It was the limitations imposed upon me as a woman that seemed unnatural. When I met senators, I felt myself their equal in mind and heart. I even thought I would have made a far better senator than some of them—but of course that was a laughable notion. Even in the private sphere, I felt myself hemmed in. The little inconvenience of not being able to independently administer my own dower property continued to irk me. Why must my husband be my guardian?

  Of course I had far more important concerns. I worried that Antony, if he conquered Parthia, would be much more powerful than Tavius. He might seek to diminish Tavius’s role in the government of the empire. I also feared a growing menace on Italy’s northern border, a savage people called the Illyrians who raided our towns. The thought of another war brewing—even war against barbarian tribes, not other Romans—put my teeth on edge.

  From time to time, I worried also about keeping my husband’s adoration. One evening at the theater I noticed Tavius looking at a pretty young woman. She turned toward him, and they exchanged smiles. I had the feeling they were not strangers. And Tavius was always noticeably friendly with Maecenas’s wife, Terentilla. Then too, sometimes at dinner parties, he and a certain senator’s wife would talk in voices no one else could hear.

  When we returned from the theater or the dinner, I would turn over in my mind what I should do. I imagined a conversation. Why were you talking to her? I would ask Tavius. Or, Why did you smile the way you did? He would stare at me. What do you mean, why did I smile? I would lose dignity, just b
y raising the subject. For no wife could ensure her husband’s fidelity, even if he were a peasant. How, if he governed Rome?

  Probably I could have numbered on one hand all the high-ranking Roman men who coupled only with their wives. Could Tavius be counted in that number? Truthfully, I did not know. I did remarkably well at banishing that question from my mind. I sensed if I went down the other path, if I demanded assurances, I could only do my marriage harm, and so I held my peace.

  Tavius came home to me each night, that was certain. We hardly ever even dined apart. He made love to me as passionately as ever. And he did not reproach me for my slowness in conceiving a child.

  I watched Octavia’s body swell with Antony’s baby, while my courses continued, regular and unfailing. I asked the gods why she was fruitful when I was not. When Octavia gave birth to another daughter, she showed some disappointment, for she had wanted to give Antony a son. Still, here was another child, pretty and thriving, to bind her and her husband together; and Antony had male heirs already. Did I only imagine that a wistful look crossed Tavius’s face when he saw Antony’s two sons?

  Octavia and I were so different—not only because at this time fortune favored her in the matter of children. At heart she had as little taste for politics as my own sister did, but she could not follow Secunda’s example and keep her distance. She was Tavius’s sister and Antony’s wife. Now that she was in Rome, she appeared with Tavius and me on public occasions. People would always shout her name. Her role in securing the peace won Roman hearts.

  While people watched, we formed a happy threesome. In private moments, strains surfaced. I recall a dinner—just Tavius, Octavia, and me at my villa at Prima Porta. “My villa”—Tavius smiled when I used those words. “It’s so kind of you to let me visit your villa,” he would joke.

  I had decided we needed a country home near the city and had discovered this place. The location was perfect—a few miles from Rome, conveniently close but still far enough away to offer us some privacy as well as relief from the city noise and smells. I carried through the negotiation with the owner and paid for the villa with funds from my dowry. I hired and supervised contractors to improve the building and grounds. So naturally I felt the villa was mine.

  “I was very annoyed today,” I said, my mind on renovations. “The painter—the one who is doing the murals for the summer dining room—is a genius, so there’s no question of replacing him. But he said he wanted approval from my husband before he would seal the contract.”

  “What effrontery,” Tavius said, the corners of his mouth twitching.

  We were in the winter dining room, already fully furnished. It was in the warmest part of the house. I had kept in mind Tavius’s sensitivity to temperature while setting out a new arrangement for the rooms, for my chief concerns in renovating the villa were his ease and pleasure. Here, out of the public eye, we could allow ourselves the luxury we avoided in Rome. Though Tavius never sought out luxury, he liked it well enough if you offered it to him. Now he sprawled comfortably on a couch outfitted with soft cushions of red silk.

  I knew he would love the summer dining room when it was finished. The artist had an uncanny ability to paint flowers, trees, and birds so they all looked real and alive, especially the birds. He would give us a dining room that looked like a fantastic garden aviary. Unfortunately, he was not only brilliantly talented but boorish.

  “Yes, I would call it effrontery,” I said.

  “Take my seal and seal the contract, and tell the painter I looked at it,” Tavius said.

  “I will do that,” I said, “but I find it rather sickening. If I were going to pay him with your money, it would be another matter, but it’s my money that’s involved.”

  Tavius clucked his tongue.

  I felt a prickle of anger run down my spine. “Do you know what I want you to do for me?” I said. “Pass a law releasing me from any man’s financial guardianship. After all, Vestal Virgins are free of guardianship. If they can be, why can’t I?” The virgins who tended the sacred fire in the temple of the goddess Vesta had many special privileges.

  Tavius munched a bit of cheese.

  If a voice in my mind whispered that I was verging toward hubris, the very hubris I had once warned Tavius about, I ignored it. For I had been slighted, and it seemed so unfair that I—I, who helped to administer an empire—could not put my own seal on a simple contract. Oh, looking back now I see I was full of myself at that moment, full of myself as the young can often be. Even my sister’s words to me about how I was regarded had gone right out of my head. “I am serious,” I said. “I would like you to pass a law. In return for all I do for you, and for Rome. All the load of work I carry. That’s what I want. Is it so much to ask?”

  Tavius drank some wine.

  “You aren’t in earnest?” Octavia said. “You’re not asking my brother to pass a law for your exclusive benefit?”

  “Forgive me, I was leaving you out, wasn’t I?” I looked at Tavius. “It would be better if you included your sister in the law. After all, we are both wives of Rome’s rulers and equal in rank.”

  “I would never want a law passed to set me above other women,” Octavia said.

  I tossed my head and did not reply. Her selfless virtue irritated me. I felt myself judged by her and had a perverse desire to live up to her bad opinion. Truly, Octavia had a talent for bringing out the worst in me.

  “This is an academic discussion, because I am not passing any such law.” Tavius leaned over the space in between our couches and kissed me. “I can’t do it because it would make me look ridiculous. Just keep using my seal.”

  Our eyes met and held.

  “Can you imagine what men would think if I passed a special law for my wife?” he demanded. “So she can buy and sell property without my permission?” A sarcastic edge in his voice, he added, “Forgive me, dear, I don’t plan to make myself a laughingstock.”

  I said nothing. We went on staring at each other for a few more moments. Then I glanced away.

  Octavia looked gratified to see me thwarted. “We need to discuss the legions for Antony,” she said to Tavius. My foolishness had been dismissed, and now we would turn to important matters—her husband and what he wanted. “In his last letter to me, he asked when he could expect more troops.”

  “I sent him a thousand men.”

  “But you promised him twenty thousand,” Octavia said.

  “The situation has changed,” Tavius said.

  “But Tavius, dear, one must always keep a promise.” Octavia spoke in the gentle, reproving tone she used to chide her children.

  I laughed.

  My sister-in-law turned toward me. “What do you find amusing?”

  “We’re not in your daughters’ nursery. We’re talking about legions here,” I said. I thought of Perusia, Antony’s double-dealing. A Roman city destroyed by Romans—because of the conflict Antony provoked and yet would not own up to. I remembered fleeing in terror from that city, carrying my baby son. Octavia had always been safe, everyone’s cosseted darling, but had she closed her eyes, stopped up her ears? Where had she been these last years, if she thought nursery rules applied to Roman politics?

  I feared that Tavius might actually accede to her wishes and act to his detriment just to please her. He all but worshipped his sister.

  She looked at Tavius, her face tight. “You gave your word.”

  “I’ll keep my word. Antony will have his twenty thousand soldiers. Eventually.”

  “But he is waging war against Parthia now.”

  “He sends constant reports of his victories to the Senate,” Tavius said. “What does he need my soldiers for? He has enormous resources in the east. And the trouble in the north keeps getting worse. I’ll soon be at war myself against the Illyrians.”

  “You expect me to write him that you said no?” Octavia looked as if s
he might weep. “If you don’t honor your pledge, Antony will think you are hostile to him.”

  “I can’t spare any legions now,” Tavius said. He spoke in a strained voice.

  “I think the Illyrians are only an excuse for refusing to keep your word,” Octavia said. “And if you and Antony are not friends, where does that leave me and my little girls? Are we to be torn between the two of you? Antony is still my husband. I am his wife. That has not changed.”

  Tavius compressed his lips.

  When Antony had dispatched Octavia and the children to Rome, it had seemed like a kindness. Tavius had thanked him for it—and been made to feel a fool. For it now appeared Antony had only wished to clear the way for his mistress. Before launching his invasion of Parthia, Antony had thrown himself back into the arms of Cleopatra. They made no attempt to hide the fact that they had resumed their love affair, and by the time he left for war she, who had previously borne him two children, had conceived again. Just days ago, we had heard of the birth of their new son, to whom Cleopatra gave the royal name Ptolemy.

  Antony might have taken any number of mistresses, and Tavius would have shrugged so long as he did it quietly. In Velitrae, where Tavius’s soul had been formed, wives were faithful and men sought their pleasures where they would. But seemliness mattered. No respectable man flaunted his concubines. He might look after his illegitimate children, but there would be no public noise about them; that would be an insult to his wife. This was decency, in Tavius’s view. Contrast that to Cleopatra bearing her third child by Antony in sight of the whole world, a few months after Tavius’s sister gave him a daughter.

  In a shaking voice, Octavia said, “So you are saying you’ll deliberately break your word. You won’t give him those legions?” She turned toward me. “I blame you for this.”