Cornelia- the First Woman of Rome

by Dan Armstrong

  “Tryphaena, you and I should find some time to talk alone. I often advise women about to be married.”

  “What about masturbation?” asked Laelia, barely able to contain herself. “There’s no harm in it. Is that right?”

  “That’s correct, Laelia. In fact, it’s one way for a woman to learn about her body and what positions will enable her to climax. But let’s slow down. Cornelia asked about my poems, and she is my host.” She turned to Cornelia. “We have several days together. Let me read a few poems right now. We can return to this other material as we have the opportunity.”

  “Yes, I think that makes a lot of sense,” said Cornelia. “I’m fascinated by your work with women”—her voice did not convey that—“but let’s take our time getting there.”

  Claudia came to me after the evening meal and told me she had something to show me. She got behind my chair and pushed me across the atrium to the room where she kept her loom. She had learned to cope with her grief by spending more time spinning and weaving. “This is cotton,” she said proudly, as she positioned my chair before her two-beam loom. “What do you think of the design?”

  “It’s beautiful,” I said, totally captured by the intricate pattern she had woven and its bright colors.

  “It’s for you, Sempronia. It’s a tube dress. It will be all of one piece with no seam. I hope to have it done later this year.”

  “I can hardly wait. Thank you. You’ve gotten imaginative with your weaving. I’m impressed.”

  Claudia glimmered a smile. “Cornelia’s been helping. She makes a good teacher.”

  Claudia rolled me out to the garden to enjoy the last of the daylight. The sun had sunken below the horizon. The ocean was a deep green; the sky a brilliant orange, bleeding upward from the edge of the sea.

  “What did you think of Elephantis?” I asked.

  “She seems quite remarkable,” said Claudia, bringing the chair to a stop before a bench. She sat down facing me. “Were you aware of what she would be talking about?”

  “No, I don’t think Cornelia was either.”

  Claudia laughed. “Are you shocked?”

  “Yes, but I try to think of it as science. I don’t think sexual positions will be that useful to me.” I gave her a forlorn smile. “But it is interesting.”

  Claudia looked over her shoulder, back toward the atrium.

  “Is someone coming?”

  “No.” She faced me. “I want to talk to you in private.”

  “You mean about something other than Elephantis?” I asked, trying to be funny.

  Her answer was a leaden, “Yes.” She looked at her lap then up at me. “You’re a good one to talk to, Sempronia.”

  “I try to be. Is something wrong?”

  “I want to remarry.”

  “Has someone proposed?”

  “No. And I have no one in mind. But I’m only thirty years old. If I return to Rome, I will have my father’s villa. I’ll be considered wealthy and will attract suitors.” She looked away from me then back. “I don’t know. I’m just thinking about it. What do you think? Do I sound silly?”

  “Was this prompted by Elephantis?”

  “No, not at all. I’ve been thinking about it for a while.”

  “Cornelia would be disappointed.”

  She nodded knowingly.

  “But you might not want to live the rest of your life with her. You’ll never free yourself from Tiberius’ memory living here.”

  Claudia hung her head.

  “Cornelia might distance herself from you. Be prepared for that.”

  She looked up at me. “If she ever mentions it to you, for any reason, help her see it my way.”

  “Is that why you’re making me a dress?” I asked trying to lighten things up.

  “Of course not,” she said seriously, then realizing I had been teasing her, laughed. “But maybe it will help inspire you.”

  “I’m happy to say whatever I can to help, Claudia. Perhaps Elephantis is going to open all of our minds to new things before the week is over. Even Cornelia’s.”

  Claudia’s smile was hopeful.

  I lay in bed that night wondering if Laelia would come to my room again. I had mixed feelings about it, but the more time that passed, the more I wanted her to be there. It was warm and cozy beneath the covers with her. I had no such thing in my life. I had no child to nurse, no man to hold.

  I was asleep when Laelia slipped into my bed. I accepted her embrace and thought how nice it was. But Laelia did not want to sleep. She allowed her gown to rise above her waist, then took my hand and pressed it into her maidenhair. She held my finger and used it to rub the top of her vagina. I was barely part of the act, but she grew very excited. She gripped my hand tightly and pushed my finger into her vagina. I found her moaning pleasure embarrassing at first, then it began to arouse me.

  When she finally let go of my hand, she asked me if I would like her to do the same to me. Even though my body called for it, I was a deeply introverted person. With my ankle I was damaged goods and not quite ready to allow that kind of intimacy. “No, that was enough.”

  “Did I do something wrong? You saw how it transported me.”

  “No, no. It was fine. But a little new for me.”

  When I awoke in the morning, she was gone.

  CHAPTER 65

  There was a large heated bath at Cornelia’s villa. The fourth day of the gathering Elephantis convened her talk in the bath. Of course Cornelia, Claudia, and I entered the water clothed in light gowns. Tryphaena was even more modest. She wore a linen tunic. Laelia wore nothing, and Elephantis did the same.

  We arranged ourselves in a small circle, all of us squatting so that the water came up to our shoulders. After we had been in the water awhile, and had a chance to allow its warmth to relax us, Elephantis asked those of us wearing clothing to take it off. “If you are modest, stay below the water. But remember. If there’s one thing I want to communicate to you this week, it’s know your body. Most women don’t.”

  She continued to talk as we reluctantly removed our gowns.

  “Doesn’t it feel better?” asked Elephantis when all of us were naked, squatting beneath the water so that only our heads were visible. “But don’t just crouch there. Feel the water. Extend your arms and legs. It’s hard to imagine a feeling nicer than this warm water, warm like a womb, warm like a memory we all retain but have forgotten.”

  Elephantis stood up in the water. From the navel down she was underwater. Her breasts were long and narrow with especially wide areolas around the nipples. She put her hands on her breasts. “Learn to feel your breasts.” She looked around the circle. “Do what I’m doing. Get used to the feeling.”

  Laelia did this immediately. The rest of us were hesitant.

  “Come now, ladies,” said Elephantis. “There is no shame in touching yourself.” She gave us a moment to get comfortable with this, then said, “Now use your fingertips to feel for lumps in the soft tissue. Often there are tumors that become cancerous. Though I don’t know the technique, I have learned that they can be removed.”

  Except for Laelia, all of us were doing this below the water line. Elephantis pressed us for more. “All of you, stand up. Let me watch how you use your hands. Forget your modesty. This is not a sexual exercise. It’s for your health.”

  It was awkward at first. Tryphaena seemed even more uncomfortable than Cornelia as Elephantis led us all over our bodies, leaving no nook or cranny unexplored. Our ages spanned fifty years. All the various shapes of a woman’s body, other than overly fat, were there to be seen. Tryphaena had few curves at all. Small breasts with tiny nipples and no hips. Cornelia’s body had been lovely as a younger woman, but now it sagged in all the obvious places. With my limited mobility I had lost my muscle tone. All the firmness in my body was gone. Laelia was beautiful without clothing. Her body was lithe and athletic like a Greek statue. I thought of her in my bed that second night and wondered if she felt I had rejected her. It was mo
re complicated than that for me, but the experience in the bath helped, and I hoped she would visit me again before the week was over.

  The six-day circle with Elephantis stood out as perhaps the most educational of all that I had ever attended. But only Laelia seemed ready for the sexual openness the midwife promoted. Cornelia struggled with it the most. She saw that it was correct intellectually, but she was too settled in her ways to completely let go.

  No one benefited from the circle more than Tryphaena. One afternoon she took a long walk with Elephantis down the garden’s stone stairway to the edge of the bay, where they talked as they strolled along the shore. She would not go into marriage the way I had, frightened of the act of intercourse and unsure how to touch a penis—or how it acted when you did.

  I spoke once with the young queen to be. I asked her about her home in Egypt. “I have lived almost all my life in Alexandria, Sempronia, until last year. Everything is political.” Her voice was soft and small, like a bird. But her Greek was sharp and so was her mind. “My marriage is no different. It’s my royal duty and will provide troops for my father—troops that might bring an end to the war. Or so my father hopes.

  “I have never met my husband,” she confided. “I’m frightened. He’s known as fierce warrior, and I don’t know if I’m capable of what Elephantis has been teaching us. But I certainly feel less apprehensive than I did before this circle.”

  The last night of the gathering I was feeling badly about Laelia. She had not come back to my bed. Superficially it was fine. Nothing had changed. We spoke, but about other things, and I felt that I needed to explain myself to her somehow. I decided to go to her bedroom. It was on the ground floor of another wing of the villa. I was not really certain if I would let her touch me or if I just wanted to talk.

  Only a sliver of the moon lit the night, but the stars were aplenty. Using my crutch, I quietly crept across the atrium to the adjoining wing. I heard them before I got there. The light limited what I could see. Elephantis and Laelia were lying side by side in bed with the face of one in the groin of the other. The tangle of arms and legs wound in and out in the shadowy darkness like a nest of restless snakes. Their inverted position and wet slurping sounds unsettled me. I stared in spite of myself as they chirped and moaned in clear ecstatic pleasure. It seemed like a graphic demonstration of what the entire week had been—both alluring and uncomfortable.

  When I returned to my room, I wondered if they had been together other nights. I had been too slow and reluctant. Laelia wanted a more sophisticated partner. Now I was the one with hurt feelings—over something I was not even sure I wanted.

  CHAPTER 66

  Physcon’s entourage came as scheduled on the morning of the seventh day to pick up Tryphaena. Physcon was not part of it. I know Cornelia was relieved that he had kept his promise, but the truth was she did like the man.

  Tryphaena expressed her gratitude to Cornelia before climbing into the carriage. “Thank you for allowing me to take part in your circle, Cornelia. I feel like a different woman than the one who arrived seven days ago. I’m ready to be a queen and a wife.”

  Cornelia wrapped the little woman in her arms. “Please stay in contact. You are welcome to attend any circle I hold.”

  Elephantis also thanked Cornelia for inviting her. “I know that I tested you, Cornelia,” said the poet and midwife. “I hope you realize that all I sought to do was introduce openness to matters of the female body.”

  “Had I known what you were going to talk about, I would not have invited you, but I would have been wrong.” Cornelia smiled, then embraced Elephantis with warmth. “I’m an older women, well set in my ways, but I know that all women, of any age, could benefit from your teachings. As I said to Tryphaena, please come back any time.”

  “Perhaps next time we should include men. It will make the topic a little more difficult, but they need this information as well.”

  Elephantis embraced each of us before climbing into the carriage. She included a kiss with Laelia, adding to my turmoil. Elephantis was an elegant and engaging woman. I was damaged goods. Whether I sought intimacy with a man or a woman, I would always be disadvantaged.

  I found a few moments alone with Cornelia prior to leaving. Despite all that had gone on, my main purpose for visiting had been to talk to Cornelia about her letter to Gaius. Neither of us had mentioned it since our talk the day I arrived. We were in the garden the morning of my last day. The sky was gray with winter clouds. The usually blue bay was a turgid green. Vesuvius’ crater, an open mouth to the sky, stood out with a white collar of snow.

  “What did you think of the circle, Sempronia?” Cornelia stood. I sat in my wheelchair.

  “It was difficult, Mother. Much of what Elephantis spoke about I needed to know quite a while ago.”

  She nodded. “And for all my regrets about not giving you a better idea of what to expect in marriage, I could not have told you what she did. I’m sure you saw how uncomfortable some of the discussions were for me.”

  “You did well, Mother. I was impressed by your composure when she described the various sexual positions to us.”

  She smiled hesitantly. “It wasn’t easy. And you did well yourself, especially when she noted how some of those positions might enhance the chance of getting pregnant.”

  “It was good for the other women, but to think that I might have been able to do something differently was painful.”

  She knelt beside me and stroked my hair. “Do you forgive me for the life I gave you?”

  I took her hand in both of mine. “There’s nothing to forgive. My life has been full. Difficult times make us stronger.”

  She squeezed my hands. “We’ve known some difficult times, Sempronia. Thank you for being my daughter.”

  “Do you have a message I might pass on to Gaius?”

  She bowed her head then looked up at me. “I’m still against his running for the tribunate. I cry every time I think about it. I cannot give him my support.”

  “Can you accept it though? Can you distance yourself enough from his decision to not take it personally? To understand that he’s doing it to honor Tiberius, not hurt you or our family’s name or the state?”

  “I need more time.”

  “But can I tell him that you know he’s not doing this to hurt you?”

  She let go of my hands and stood. She gazed out at the bay for a long time before facing me. “If you can say it in a way that doesn’t give him any sense that I support his decision.”

  “Yes, I can do that. Thank you.”

  CHAPTER 67

  This second conversation with Cornelia brought back the memory of an even more difficult conversation from our past. To some extent it foreshadowed the candor of all the ensuing discussions she and I would have. I was twenty-two. After one miscarriage and a stillborn, I delivered a tiny baby girl. Aemilianus and I named her Cornelia, and though not a son, she did bring a measure of joy to our generally joyless household for a while.

  Cornelia was very skinny and small. Almost any infant’s first year is a delicate time, and I held her to my breast each day hoping the milk from my body would help her put on weight. I remember thinking how much I wanted a daughter to educate, who would look up to me the way I did to Cornelia. But it was not to be. Cornelia remained little and weak. Before six months had passed she caught the fever that was running through Rome that fall. I found her little body one morning completely still in her crib.

  As much as Tiberius’ murder had grieved me, losing my baby daughter was worse. I fell into a deep depression. Already a woman uncertain of her value, I struggled badly for many months with no support from Aemilianus.

  Cornelia got me through it. Living close by, she came to my house every day for weeks on end. Some days we would talk. Some days she simply sat beside me and held me. Of course, her central piece of wisdom was that I was young and would have other children. Had I known then that this would not be so, I suspect I might have sought out hemlock long
before I did.

  Maybe six months after the infant’s passing, Cornelia came to visit. We sat in the peristyle, as was our custom, on a warm spring morning. The garden had broken free of winter with brilliant green shoots and swelling blossoms. Instead of lifting me with its natural beauty, I was filled with the perversion that everything was coming to life, except that which I brought into the world. This idea had settled down on me like a huge animal, and I confessed to Cornelia that I felt little reason to go on. I asked her what I had asked her before and would ask her again. “Why did you decide to nurture a child who you knew could only have a difficult life?”

  Cornelia had always answered this dreadful question with the compassion of a mother for her child, repeating her desire to educate me in the same way that she had been. On this occasion, I got a different answer.

  “You must know, Sempronia, how much it hurts me to hear you ask this question. I know it’s a way of revealing how badly you’re hurting. I appreciate that. But please remember, Cornelia was also my grandchild, my first lovely granddaughter.” She was crying now, when before she had hidden her tears from me. “Although I have tried to share my strength with you, I am also suffering. And it’s extremely difficult when you express your frustration in a way that feels like an attack on me. This is a time when we both need each other, when we both need to trust each other.”

  She wiped her eyes with the edge of her palla. “I once said that I nurtured you so that I could have a daughter to educate. I imagine you hoped to do the same with little Cornelia. I also commented on how much I wanted to be able to talk with you about art and literature. Which we have, and which I believe is, in itself, enough to warrant my decision to preserve your life. I do. But there’s something in an education that is more than high art and subtle turns of a phrase. It’s in this conversation we’re having now—one of utmost gravity, not airy aesthetics—when sad events have left us both exposed and sensitive—you to the point that even the fragrances of spring”—she breathed in—“cause you to avoid the light and dwell in darkness. This is when our ability to articulate our thoughts is the most important, allowing us an opportunity to heal each other by exchanging our deepest emotions with conviction and feeling. We often praise the man who can capture an audience in the forum with his words, but this one-on-one exchange is where life is deepest and the most meaningful, where this thing that animates us can be shared with words.”