I Am Livia Page 2

  People said that of all the Olympians, Diana had the most tender love for the people of Rome. She never seemed as remote and out of reach to me as other gods and goddesses.

  I glanced around to make sure that I was alone in the garden, then approached Diana’s statue and held out my hands, palms up in supplication. I whispered, “Goddess, I have no sacrifice to give you. But I promise you a gift—soon, very soon. I beg you, whatever happens to Caesar, please, please keep my father safe from harm. And please make it so I don’t have to marry Tiberius Nero.”

  A moment later, a slave came looking for me, sent by my mother to fetch me to dinner. I knew Mother would be angry if I did not hurry, and so I went inside and paused only to wash my hands in the copper bowl at the entrance to the dining room. The first course had been set on the central table. My mother and father reclined on couches, already eating. My eleven-year-old sister, Secunda, perched on the dining room’s third couch. I sat down beside her.

  Mother, as always, was impeccably dressed for dinner. She wore an emerald necklace that my father had bought her at great cost, and she had her flame-colored hair piled on her head in a crown of ringlets. She possessed a natural poise and a gift for always arranging her body in an attractive way when she reclined, so her stola fell in elegant folds. People said I looked like her, though only our coloring was the same. I certainly had not inherited her grace.

  “Well, daughter,” she said, “your father says he has told you the news.”

  I glanced at Father. His jaw tightened, and he gave me a meaningful look. I felt he was silently reminding me of my promise not to speak of the plot to kill Caesar.

  I understood that Mother referred to my coming betrothal, nothing else. Returning her gaze, I said, “Father has told me that I must marry.” I could not keep myself from adding, “But I hope he will change his mind.” I spoke in a mild voice and looked down at my plate, into which a slave was ladling fish stew.

  “And why do you hope he will change his mind?” Mother asked.

  “Because I do not like Tiberius Nero,” I said.

  Beside me, my sister gave an uneasy giggle.

  “Alfidia,” my father began, addressing Mother.

  “No, please, Marcus, why not let Livia talk? Usually her chatter pleases you. Livia, I’m sorry to hear that you do not like your future husband. Can you tell me how he has fallen short?”

  “I don’t think he is a man of character,” I said. “He switched sides, and that doesn’t speak well for his loyalty. And he talks like a coward.”

  “You misjudge him,” Father said. “To see one’s error and come to follow better counsel in politics is not disloyalty but wisdom. You are right that Tiberius Nero is cautious, but who can blame him in these times? He is a courageous man, a fine soldier.”

  “I don’t believe it.” I kept my eyes lowered, but I was contradicting Father on the basis of no knowledge at all.

  “Why, Caesar has repeatedly commended him for his bravery in battle. And Caesar—whatever else we might say of him—knows how to judge men.”

  “Does he?” I raised my eyes. “Is that why he keeps Brutus at his right hand?”

  Father looked stricken. Probably for an instant he thought I was about to speak of Brutus’s involvement in the plan to kill Caesar. Mother saw his dismay but did not understand its cause. “You see?” she said to my father. “This is what comes of spoiling her. Forgive me, but you have only yourself to blame. You talk to her of great matters and puff up her pride. And you make excuses when she disobeys me. Is it any wonder that she feels she can even speak rudely to her father at the dinner table?”

  “Father,” I said, “you taught me that without honesty there can be no honor. I’m only speaking the truth.” I added, with more humility, “What seems to me to be the truth.”

  “Go to bed,” Mother said. “You don’t deserve dinner.”

  I looked at my father in appeal. I didn’t care about dinner. Food would have sat in my stomach like a stone. But I wanted him to defend me.

  He said nothing.

  “Go,” Mother said.

  I rose and ran to my bedchamber, where I threw myself across my sleeping couch and wept.

  Gradually, the sunlight entering from the small window in my chamber faded. By the time night came, I had stopped crying. I sat on my bed and looked out the window at the crescent moon, wondering how long I would be able to live at home before I had to marry Tiberius Nero. I hoped our betrothal would be lengthy, but I doubted that it would be. Many girls married at just my age.

  The idea of marriage was not in itself frightening. But nothing about Tiberius Nero appealed to me, and I dreaded marrying him. I asked myself if there was a way for me to escape. What if at the wedding I raved like a madwoman or fell to the ground and began frothing at the mouth as if I had the falling sickness? Surely Tiberius Nero would not want to marry me then. Or suppose I refused to say the words of consent at the ceremony, or spat the consecrated cake out of my mouth? Then there could be no marriage. I thought of these possibilities to comfort myself, and tried to convince myself that the marriage was not inevitable. Then I lay down and cried myself to sleep.

  I had a very strange dream.

  I climbed up steps of polished red stone and heard, of all things, a chicken clucking. At my feet was a hen that gazed up at me with bright, curious eyes. Though she had blood on her feathers, she seemed unhurt. She disappeared, and I found myself walking down a curving path into an enormous, lush garden filled with flowers in full bloom. In the center of the garden stood a huge statue of Diana. As I watched, the statue turned into a being of flesh and blood and leaped down from its pedestal, moving with the grace and strength of a lioness.

  Diana’s living face was far more beautiful than any sculpture, and it shone like a lantern. “I am the protector of the Roman people,” the goddess said. “You promised me a gift. Do you know what it will be?”

  I shook my head. “Perhaps a lamb?”

  She stroked my hair. “Wait. In time you will know.”

  The next evening my parents attended a dinner party at the home of friends, and my sister and I ate alone. I picked at my food. Even the oysters I ordinarily loved had lost all flavor. Seeing how miserable I was, Secunda said, “Think, when you marry you’ll be in charge of your own house just as Mother is. You’ll like that.”

  “I won’t like being married to Tiberius Nero,” I said.

  Later in my bedchamber, I reviewed part of Aristotle’s Politics, which I had begun to study with my tutor. I lay down the parchment scroll on my little writing table only after I heard Mother and Father arrive home. Mother always scolded me if I stayed up late reading by the light of an oil lamp. Thinking of what Secunda had said, I imagined being a married woman, able to read until dawn if I wanted. But no, I would have to go to bed with my husband, wouldn’t I?

  I was not ignorant about the physical part of marriage. In fact, I had once walked in on our steward and one of the slave girls as they copulated standing up in the kitchen, their clothes bunched up to their waists. I remembered how their legs looked, hers pale and slim, his dark and hairy. The girl had been bent over a table, and the man grunted with pleasure. I was repelled. What I saw was like the coupling of two animals. I did not want to believe it had anything to do with me, that I could ever be in the girl’s place.

  My own longings were different, shrouded in a dreamy mist. I imagined a young man’s face, beautiful as if sculpted by Phidias, the outward sign of spiritual perfection. He and I would share the union of two pure souls, the kind of virtuous love Plato wrote about.

  Foolishly, I had imagined one day marrying a paragon and experiencing an exalted love. Now I knew I never would. Instead I would marry Tiberius Nero.

  Just as I was about to blow out the lamp’s small flame and get into bed, I heard a knock on my bedchamber door. Father entered. “Come
to the atrium with me,” he said.

  I draped a shawl over my sleeping tunica and obeyed him. Only one tiny lamp illuminated the atrium. It was set on the altar near the entranceway, before the statuette of the Lar, the god protector of our family.

  Father walked to the tall, wide cabinet next to the altar and threw open its door. Shelves held wax portrait masks—rows of stern male faces.

  “You know whose portraits these are, don’t you, Livia?”

  “They’re of your ancestors.”

  “And yours,” Father said. “Generation after generation, they held high office. Some even led armies that fought for Rome. Their blood flows in your veins.”

  Father often spoke to me of the history of Rome and the roles our own forebears had played in it. His stories always stirred me and made me feel as if I knew the men who had come before us and shaped our destiny. I would wish it were possible for me to join the line of heroes he told me about. But how could a female perform great deeds for Rome?

  “Livia, ever since you were small, I have known you were unusual.” Father touched my head, and I could see the glint of his teeth in the lamplight as, for a moment, he smiled. “Some people would say I have given you a rather odd upbringing, but it never seemed wrong to treat you as a reasonable being like myself, or to encourage you to think. It is possible that one day you will be a very wise woman. See that you are good as well as wise, will you?”

  “Yes, Father,” I said, warmed by his words.

  “Perhaps Tiberius Nero is not the man you deserve,” he said.

  “Then—” I was about to throw my arms around Father, to shower him with thanks for setting me free.

  “I do not say he is not a good man. I say it is possible—possible—he is not the man I would pick for you if my hands were untied. Listen to me, my daughter. I will not command you but talk to you as if you were my equal. These are not normal times. We must strike for liberty now. Nothing less than Rome’s future is at stake. It’s necessary to bind Tiberius Nero close. He is one of Caesar’s most admired officers, with many friends among the soldiers. His allegiance matters. Do you understand?”

  I pressed my lips together and, looking down, nodded.

  “If you were my son, and I asked you to pick up a sword and fight for Rome even if it might cost you your life, would you say no to me?”

  I shook my head.

  Father put his hand under my chin and raised my face. He stroked a lock of my hair back from my forehead where it had tumbled. “I think you would ride off to battle very bravely. Wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “What you can do for our cause is marry this man.”

  “I would rather die in battle,” I said.

  As soon as I had spoken those words, I knew they were a lie. Fight in battle? I would do that willingly. But die? Even a heroic death did not appeal to me.

  Father smiled sadly.

  A thought pierced me: I would never die in battle, but he might. Young as I was, I perceived that the death of Caesar, the man who held the state together, might unleash chaos. All sorts of unknown perils lay ahead. If marrying Tiberius Nero could help keep the ground firm under Father’s feet, I would do it.

  “I will marry Tiberius Nero,” I said. I made myself add, “If it’s for the liberty of Rome, I’ll do it gladly.”

  Father bent and kissed me. After a moment, he said, “You must not only marry him but be a good influence on him. His allegiance has been doubtful in the past. But if he cares for you—if you serve him and are a loving wife to him and bind him to you with ties of true affection—he may ask your opinion at a moment when it matters. Never be overbearing, but be his confidante and friend. Gently, gently. Do you understand what I am saying?”

  “Yes, Father.”

  Father gazed at me with pride and tenderness. “You will be the mother of noble sons.”

  On the morning of the Ides of March, my sister and I sat reading a Greek play with Xeno, our tutor. Antigone was about to be sealed alive inside her tomb. On the fourth finger of my left hand I wore a gold band—the betrothal ring that Tiberius Nero had sent me, in token of our coming marriage.

  A slave entered the schoolroom and said that our father wished to speak to us at once, that an event of great importance had taken place. He added that our tutor was free to leave for the day. Xeno looked amazed to be dismissed in this abrupt fashion by a slave. Secunda, too, was astonished. Father never called us away from our lessons.

  I felt sure that the event could only be an attempt to assassinate Caesar. My mouth went dry. Was Caesar dead? Or could the plot have failed? Might he still be alive, and ready to avenge himself on his enemies, including my father?

  Mother stood with Father in his study. Father’s hand rested on her shoulder. Mother looked as if the earth had split open beneath her feet.

  “This is a great day, my daughters,” Father said. “Word has come that Caesar is dead. The tyrant—the man who would be king—” Father’s lip curled as he spoke that last word, anathema to Romans. “He has been put to death by members of the Senate.” Dispassionately, he told us some of the details of Caesar’s death, then glanced round at my mother, my sister, and me. “You three must stay inside. There may be upheaval. I’ll go down to the Forum and see how matters stand.”

  “You should stay inside too,” Mother said.

  Father shook his head. “My place is at Marcus Brutus’s side.” Without another word, he left us.

  Mother said there was no point in being idle while we waited for news, and she led my sister and me into the spinning room. All three of us got busy spinning wool. Even as I worked, fear gripped me. “I wish Father hadn’t gone out,” I said. “There will surely be uproar. The common people loved Caesar.” They admired him, I knew, for his military victories, and he had wooed them with public games and festivals and with largesse. In particular, he was the hero of the poor. By contrast, the Senate—six hundred men appointed for life, mostly aristocrats—had little claim on the people’s love.

  “If the rabble riot, I hope the Senate will deal firmly with them,” Mother said. “They require an iron hand.”

  “If they riot, will they come up the Palatine?” Secunda asked.

  “I don’t know,” Mother said.

  We lived on the Palatine Hill, the premier dwelling of Rome’s aristocratic families, and our house was on the north side, overlooking the Forum. If the common people sought to avenge Caesar, they might surge up the Palatine’s slope, into our neighborhood. I imagined them breaking into the house to vent their fury on us.

  “Mother,” I said, “if I go outside and stand on the doorstep and look down the hill, maybe I’ll see something. I won’t be in danger if I just slip out for a moment and look.”

  “Didn’t you hear your father say we must all stay inside?”

  “But if only we could know what is happening!”

  Mother forbade me to go out, but she dispatched our steward, Statius, to go to the Forum and gather news. After he had gone, she said, “Livia, your father’s friends killed no one but Caesar. They did not harm Mark Antony. Why do you think they let him live?”

  “They did it to show that they are just and not vengeful.”

  “But Antony was Caesar’s right-hand man, was he not?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your father is a wise and learned man,” Mother said, “but he can be too noble for his own good.” Her face tightened. “Gods above, the rest of them—the leaders—what if they are all too noble?”

  I knew—as all Rome did—that Caesar had carried on a love affair and fathered a son by the queen of Egypt, Cleopatra. He continued to live with his Roman wife, Calpurnia, a plump matron I had seen carried through the streets in her litter. On the eve of his assassination, Calpurnia had a nightmare. She awoke in terror, convinced that her husband would not return from the next day�
��s Senate session alive. She begged Caesar to stay home, and he agreed. But the next morning Decimus Brutus—Marcus Brutus’s co-conspirator and distant cousin—arrived to escort Caesar to the Senate meeting. The assassins planned to strike that day, and Decimus feared that the plot would be discovered if there was a delay. So he pricked Caesar’s pride. How, he asked, could the ruler of Rome cower in his house because his wife had a bad dream?

  In the end, Caesar went to the Senate session, held in Pompey’s theater. Inside the theater, a senator fell at Caesar’s feet and clutched at the folds of his toga like a desperate supplicant. Caesar tried to pull away, but before he could, the other conspirators set upon him. More than fifty men stabbed him, wounding each other in their frenzy. Many of them had fought against him in the last civil war and afterward received his mercy.

  When Caesar lay dead, the assassins raced to the Forum. They held up their bloody knives and shouted, “Rome is free! Rome is free!”

  People fled from them. Fear, not rejoicing, was the reaction of most of Rome’s citizens. And we—my mother, sister, and I—felt fear, too.

  “Oh, Mistress, Pompey’s theater was set afire, and there are looters all over the market district,” Statius told my mother when he returned home. “They are smashing their way into houses and shops.”

  “Board up our windows and nail the door shut!” Mother cried.

  For a long time, the whole house reverberated with hammer blows. Mother, Secunda, and I stood near the entranceway. Four of the slaves nailed planks over the windows. I looked at Secunda. My sister’s face had turned a milky white.

  Anything could happen to us. The savage rabble might break into our home, and Father was not there to protect us. Who would? The slaves? They would flee. Law and order had broken down. We might be raped, murdered.