The two of us stood in my study.
“You read it?” he said.
“Of course.”
“I never knew my great-grandfather was a slave.”
I shrugged.
“What he said…about the women…”
“Yes?”
Tavius must have known it was pointless to deny what Antony had said on this score—as pointless to deny as the pedigree tracing his bloodline back to a slave. It is difficult to disprove truth.
“If you understood,” Tavius said in a low, careful voice, “what a small portion of my life that has been. If you understood how trivial it was—a matter of taking, once in a great while, what was freely offered. It had nothing to do with my life with you.”
“Of course,” I said, keeping my voice level. “I know that.”
I felt that saying anything else would be throwing away all my pride. For who but a fool expected a husband to be faithful? Who? Men of our rank always had other women beside their wives. I had known this. And yet somehow I had refused to believe Tavius could share with someone else what he shared with me. How odd that lack of belief was. It amounted to willful ignorance.
A voice inside my mind cried out: But he worked so hard, he was so busy! And we were together so much. When in the world did he have time for other women? But I realized these thoughts were absurd. I would not shame myself by speaking them aloud.
“I never loved any of them,” Tavius said. Perhaps he knew me well enough to see through my composure to what lay underneath. He touched my shoulder. “Livia…”
“Dearest, you’re talking to me about things that are beneath my notice. Really, I prefer not to hear any more about this.” Then, because I feared I would cry, or claw his face with my nails, I walked out of the room.
I sat in the garden alone for a time, thinking that whatever else happened, something had been lost to us forever. I had feared his leaving me for a wife who could bear him a child. Now I saw that our marriage would never be what it could have been, whether or not we stayed together.
I watched a bee circle around a long-stemmed iris. Up in a tree, a blackbird sang.
Perhaps I will take a lover, I thought. But I knew I wouldn’t. Because there was no other man I wanted. I wondered if that meant I loved Tavius, even now. Maybe. At that moment, I felt absolutely no love for him. How strange, how empty I felt.
Later that day, I sat with my husband and Maecenas and tried to plot out strategy in light of new events. Maecenas kept darting uneasy glances at me. I ignored that. “Antony is trying to pass off his liaison with Cleopatra as if it were some frivolous love affair,” I said. “But Rome will see through that. A foreign queen, and he lets her rule him. That is what Rome will not abide.” I looked at Tavius. “Do not even try to answer his slurs. Treat them with cold disdain. That is what Antony deserves. Utter disdain. Denounce him for bowing to Cleopatra, a woman ruler, a foreign queen. You cannot say those two words often enough: foreign queen. She wants to rule him, and he, the imbecile, is so blinded—blinded by lust—that he will let her do it. That is what you must say.”
Tavius nodded, his face looking as if it were carved in stone.
Later, Maecenas sought me out alone. “I want to say I admire you. And you are dealing with this exactly as you should.”
A flame of pure rage rose in me. “Oh, am I? Thank you for saying so, Maecenas. You knew it had begun again between him and Terentilla, didn’t you? Of course you did. And you just smiled at me.”
“Was I supposed to carry tales to you? Please, keep this in perspective. You’re the only woman Caesar has ever truly cared for. Isn’t that what matters?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “And I wonder if it’s even true. Should I believe it is true, just because you say it? As if you would not willingly lie to smooth his way?”
Maecenas shook his head, wounded.
Of course I knew I was being unfair, venting anger at Tavius on poor Maecenas. I did not care. I patted his cheek. “There, there. We are still friends. But I will know how to value your friendship in the future.”
Antony also wrote Octavia a letter. Her eyes were dry when she told me about it.
“It was short. I can quote it to you, in case you’re curious. ‘Octavia, I divorce you. Take what is yours and leave my house.’ Not another word, just his seal.”
We sat alone in the garden of Antony’s house. Inside, slaves were packing Octavia’s things.
We heard a boy’s loud voice. “My turn!”
“That’s Antyllus,” Octavia said. “The children are all so noisy. If one is not shouting, another one is crying. What I would give for a little silence. There was nothing about the children in the letter. I suppose I could send his four to Antony, and he’d have to accept them.”
I stared at her. Send him her own daughters, Antonia and Antonilla, along with Fulvia’s sons?
“I’m joking,” she said. “I’ll take them all with me when I move, my stepsons too. I hope Antony never remembers them.” Her face went stricken. “But they remember him. Antyllus especially. He worships his father.”
“Tavius will look after them all,” I said.
“Yes, I know he will. With a great air of wounded sanctimony.” Her expression grew kind. “I’ve been so full of my own troubles. We never speak of yours.”
We had become friends over the last months, a thing I once would never have believed possible.
I patted back a wisp of my hair that had come loose. “That hero statue of Tavius in the Forum—the one with the gold plating—do you know, when they put it up, I thought it was a close likeness of him? Now, I realize it’s not. It’s good to see things clearly.” Let’s change the subject.
“I still pray there is no war,” Octavia said. We could hear Antyllus, his brother, Jullus, and Octavia’s son, Marcellus, yelling at each other. “They always argue like that, but in the end they work things out. Really, they’re good boys.” She paused. “Why do boys grow up to be such beasts? Is it our fault in some way? After all, we raise them.”
I had no answers to her questions.
“Can you imagine what it is like to watch the whole world dissolve in war, and realize you could have prevented it if only you’d managed to hold on to your husband?”
I put my arm around Octavia’s shoulder. She smelled of floral perfume, a light, clean scent. “I don’t think Tavius has decided yet if he will strike if Antony doesn’t,” I said.
“I believe Tavius will kill Antony in the end,” Octavia said. “Or else Antony will kill Tavius, and how is that better?” Her eyes filled with tears. “All the time I was away from Antony, I wrote him letters. I never reproached him. I gave him news of the children, the little things that would strike him funny. I sweated blood over those letters.”
And while she labored in the writing, he was in another woman’s bed. I whispered, “Did you love him?”
“Not as you love Tavius. More as you love a child. But I will never stop loving him.”
She was a good woman. Better than I was in many ways. Looking at her I had a sorrowful sense of the ineffectuality of her sort of goodness in the world.
Tavius and I spoke to each other from a great distance now. And yet a night soon came when he reached for me with anxious need. I did not turn from him, nor did I lay like a cold statue under his caresses.
He began kissing my feet. As I felt his mouth, moving slowly up my body, I closed my eyes. The pleasure came, without my will. But a part of me seemed to hover over the bed, watching with a cynical half-smile.
In the days that followed, I often thought of how for him I had left my first marriage, giving up my sons. Many would say I had abandoned my honor too. What sacrifice had Tavius ever made for me? Would he be willing to give up anything at all for my sake?
When I managed to banish dark thoughts about my m
arriage, no peaceful musings came to replace them, only fear of what might be coming. Soon Tavius was spending most of his time away from Rome in army camps in Italy, expanding his forces and fortifying their resolve. Agrippa believed in the utility of smaller galleys, which he said could outmaneuver Antony’s warships. Tavius began to build these at a frantic pace. Agrippa oversaw the training of the ships’ crews. None of this could be hidden. Rome braced for war.
I did everything I could to bolster Tavius’s political position at this time, using the ties I had built up over years with senators and senators’ wives. When Tavius was away from Rome, I kept in close touch with my web of informants and guarded his back.
Few senators loved Antony, but some thought he would rule with a looser rein than Tavius did, and preferred that. Others took Antony’s bribes.
When the two consuls, who favored Antony, plotted to arrange a Senate vote censuring Tavius—rebuking him for provoking war—I heard of it. I did not hesitate; I knew these men intended Tavius’s overthrow, and I immediately sent him warning. He came marching back to Rome, at the head of his legions. Indeed, he marched right into a Senate session. His opponents scattered. There was brawling in the streets, two days of uproar, though the outcome was never in doubt. When the dust cleared, one-third of the Senate had raced off to join Antony.
At first I looked around me in disbelief. The harmony I had helped to cultivate had shattered. Then I felt relieved that at least we had held two-thirds of the Senate.
“I must know who is for me and who is against me,” Tavius said. We sat together in his study. His face was set in grim lines.
“Don’t you know by who has fled and who has not?” I said, acid in my voice.
“I want my supporters to take a loyalty oath,” he said. “They must swear to back me in case of war.”
“Dearest, listen to me,” I said. “I don’t think Cleopatra and Antony have any intention of attacking now. It’s too great a risk. If they are looking anywhere for conquest, they are looking east.”
He shifted his shoulders. “Sooner or later they will want it all,” he said.
“Sooner or later? Sooner or later none of us will be alive!” I caught myself and spoke more calmly. “Why rush into a war that may not be necessary? When no one can say which side will win?”
He looked at me, his eyes guarded and opaque. “I have made no final decision.”
Up and down the length of Italy the armies took an oath of allegiance to him. Soon civilians were hustled into town squares, to take the oath too, because Caesar demanded it.
I hid what I thought of this oath-taking business even from my best friends, but not from Tavius. He knew I hated it as he knew I hated the thought of war. I had acted to protect him when the consuls plotted against him, but I could not give him the approval he wanted now.
I saw the horror of civil war coming closer and closer, and it was clear that my beloved husband planned to unleash it. He wished to preempt the possibility of war in the future, when he might be weaker and Antony stronger. He itched to avenge his sister’s wrongs. And most fundamentally, he was possessed by a vision. He believed he was meant to hold all of the Roman empire in his hands.
He and I had never been so separate. When we talked of war and peace, my voice became more and more charged with desperation, his replies more and more curt.
If you are afraid, you will snatch eagerly at anything that might promise rescue. When Octavia suddenly received a letter from Antony, my heart leaped with wild hope. I imagined a contrite missive, saying that he had parted from Cleopatra. But no. The letter concerned his children.
He had remembered he had left two sons in Tavius’s hands. Plainly he feared that in case of war they could be used against him as hostages, or that Tavius might simply murder them. Antony gave permission for his daughters to remain with Octavia, but he wanted his sons sent to him in Alexandria.
Tavius said, “Put them on the first ship out.” But Octavia pleaded that the boys be given a choice.
So, we had another of our grim family gatherings—Tavius, Octavia, and me, in a sitting room in the house in Rome, next to our own, that Tavius had bestowed on his sister. We were joined by Antyllus, then not quite fifteen, and ten-year-old Jullus. They both came from the schoolroom, where they had been at work with their tutor. Jullus had been learning to write Greek letters on papyrus and had ink smeared on his fingers.
Tavius spoke somberly. “You two are not yet men,” he told the boys, “but—there’s no help for it—you each have to make a man’s decision now.”
He wanted them to realize that this was a choice of the gravest kind, that it might determine their whole future. The older boy understood. But little Jullus?
“You must either join your father or stay here with us. If you stay, I’ll treat you as my sister’s sons,” Tavius said. “So long as you’re loyal to me, you’ll be members of my family. It’s up to you.”
“I want to go to my father!” Antyllus cried.
I saw Octavia shut her eyes in pain. But she said not a word.
Tavius turned to Jullus.
Looking at that boy, seeing his whole body tense, his eyes go wide, I pitied him. He shook and opened his mouth, but no words came out. Then he looked at Octavia, who had been a mother to him for as long as he could remember, and said, “I want to stay with you.”
“Traitor!” Antyllus cried.
Jullus flung himself into Octavia’s arms, and she held him while he sobbed.
“Miserable traitor! Father will win, and then you’ll be sorry! You’re siding with the enemy, don’t you know it? You’re not my brother anymore. You—”
“Enough,” Tavius said.
Antyllus clamped his mouth shut.
“Since you are your father’s son,” Tavius said, “I don’t suppose you feel any gratitude toward my sister, who cared for you all these years?”
Antyllus straightened. “I do,” he said with a pained dignity. Looking at Octavia, he said, “I will always say you treated me as kindly as if you were my own mother.” She nodded to him and tried to smile. She still held his brother in her arms. Antyllus turned back to Tavius. He sneered, and I saw a trace of Fulvia in his features. “When can I take ship for Alexandria? It can’t be soon enough.”
A former friend of Antony’s fled to our side, and whispered in Tavius’s ear that something in Antony’s will—which he claimed to have seen—was gravely discrediting. Following traditional practice, Antony had placed his will in the protection of the Vestal Virgins. Tavius said he meant to seize it.
“That would violate all custom,” I said. I almost added that it would violate all decency too.
“Do you love me?”
We were in our bedchamber when this conversation took place. “What a strange question for you to ask,” I said.
I remembered when in the early days of our marriage I had said I liked Sextus Pompey. How warily Tavius had regarded me, and how carefully I had chosen my words to convince him he had my deepest loyalty. He was looking at me now just as he looked at me then.
“Do you love me?” he asked again.
I drew closer to him. I stroked his cheek, and then traced the outline of his lips with my forefinger. He suffered this, an impassive expression on his face. At that moment, I ached with tenderness for him as I had not for a long time. I took his face in my hands and kissed him. “Of course I love you.”
“Then why are you seeking to protect my enemy?”
“I’m not. I’m afraid of war.”
“I have work still to do. I’ll come back and sleep later,” he said and walked out of the room.
I lay down on the bed. A candle flickered on the bedside table. When it died and plunged the room into darkness, he had still not returned.
The next day, he demanded Antony’s will from the Vestal Virgins. They refused to give it t
o him, so he led soldiers into their temple to confiscate it. In the will, Antony had directed that wherever he died, even if it were in Rome, his body was to be given to Cleopatra, and laid to rest not in Rome but in Alexandria.
You cannot say the words “foreign queen” often enough, I had told Tavius. In the attack he made on Antony, standing before the Senate and holding up the will, he spoke those words again and again. His following my advice had a certain irony, for he excoriated Antony for being a woman’s obedient slave. He had been unmanned by Cleopatra! When Cleopatra ruled Rome, as she clearly meant to do, we would be governed not by consuls and generals but by hairdressers and perfumers, not to mention eunuchs. Antony, Tavius said, was a foreign queen’s plaything. He was no man, and he was certainly no patriot if he wanted to be buried away from Rome.
“Civil war again.” I choked on the words.
Tavius was on his feet, leaning back against the writing table in his study. I sat across from him on the couch. We had had so many fruitful discussions in this room, had worked for Rome’s good here. “I won’t declare war on Antony but on Egypt—on Cleopatra,” he said.
As if that mattered. “My love, please don’t do this.”
Tavius sat down beside me and took my hands in his. “Livia, it has to be one empire. Has to be. How can I share rule with a man like Antony? It is unworkable.”
“But what if you lose?”
He looked at me as if he did not understand the language I spoke. He let go of my hands.
“What is all this to you?” I said. “Just another toss of the dice?”
“You know better than that,” he said. “I feel the weight of responsibility every moment of the day. But I have a destiny. I know what I can do for Rome, for the whole empire, how well I can govern.”
“My beloved, you can lose, you know. And even if you don’t—think of the slaughter.”
I Am Livia Page 31
