I Am Livia Read online

  I began to take a perverse pleasure in pretense. If I could not be truthful, then I would be the best liar in the world. If I couldn’t banish Tiberius Nero from my bed, I would try to make him completely besotted with me. It was a kind of game, really, and deep at the core of it was anger and mockery.

  Compared to many others, my lot was enviable. But some part of me cried out that what happened in our marriage bed was a violation. There were times when I lay there, as he spent his passion, and I wanted to scream. I did not want him. I did not want him.

  Once he bought me a pretty silver bracelet when I had not even asked for it. “It is beautiful,” I said as I put it on, and I kissed him.

  The happiness in his face hurt me. It made me despise myself because I was deceiving him. If I could have made myself truly care for him by an act of will, I would have done it. But that was beyond me.

  When we had been married a couple of months, he said, “I call you ‘dearest’ and ‘darling,’ but you always call me ‘husband,’ or else by my name. Why are you so formal, my little dove?”

  “Love is so new to me,” I said. “You must forgive me.”

  He laughed at what he took to be my innocence.

  “What do you wish me to call you?” I asked.

  “In our bedchamber, when we’re alone? Call me ‘my love.’ ”

  Afterward, that was what I called him, when we lay together. And that, more than anything, did something to my soul.

  The summer of my marriage was the time of Julius Caesar’s funeral games. It was a rare thing to hold funeral games—a way of honoring an extremely prominent person, and a way for the giver to ingratiate himself with the common people, who loved to be entertained. These games were given by Caesar’s great-nephew, whom he had adopted in his will as his son and heir.

  This young man had been studying in Rhodes. He arrived in Rome to claim his inheritance. Mark Antony, now consul, had found some excuse to keep back part of the money that he held in trust for him, and the two squabbled over this. There was a bequest to the soldiers of Caesar’s army that had also not been paid. The boy—he had been called Gaius Octavius at birth but now bore the name Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus—paid the soldiers out of his own funds. Some people found this disturbing. My father, for one, did not like it that as a result the boy stood high with the army. But my husband saw no harm in young Caesar’s gesture. “So what if he wastes his money, behaving like a show-off and a fool?”

  “Is that how he struck you when you knew him before?” I asked. He had met young Caesar several times when the boy was fourteen or so and he, Tiberius Nero, was an officer in Caesar’s army. “Did he seem foolish or arrogant?”

  “No,” Tiberius Nero said. “He was quiet and studious. No athlete, though, and no budding soldier. Pale and skinny, with a constant cough. And he had to be careful what he ate, or he’d throw up.” He grinned. “Really, I never saw a more pitiful specimen.”

  We were eating dinner alone, informally, at a small table at the edge of the garden. “You find nothing strange about him giving all that money to Caesar’s soldiers?” I said.

  “Well, it’s owed them,” my husband said. “And he was a rich young man even before Caesar died. Now he’s rich as Croesus. I suppose he’ll get reimbursed by Antony eventually.”

  “You think that? I heard Antony has insulted young Caesar to his face. They loathe each other.”

  “Do they? Where do you hear all this, hmmm?”

  “From my father,” I said. “He is glad that young Caesar and Antony don’t get along.”

  Tiberius Nero chewed a piece of fish. “Really? Why does he care?”

  I was amazed that my husband did not know the answer to this question. In the two months we had been married, we had only occasionally discussed politics. He was often at the military training grounds at the Field of Mars or the Forum with his friends. I kept to my womanly sphere, learning to oversee the house and supervise our servants, which presented little difficulty but was a new role for me. In the evenings, Tiberius Nero’s friends and their wives sometimes invited us to dinner parties, but these were not places for much serious talk. I had heard my husband speak knowledgeably of military matters and had seen other men bow to his expertise, and I had imagined he was politically knowledgeable, too.

  “The last thing Father would want, or Brutus would want either,” I said, “is for Antony and young Caesar to be united. Cicero himself has said that the more Caesar’s adherents flock to this boy, instead of rallying to Antony, the better it is for us all.” Cicero, the Senate’s great elder statesman, had not been asked to participate in Caesar’s assassination, because he was physically timorous. After the fact, though, he offered fervent support to the killers.

  My husband chuckled. “You mean to say you’ve been seeing Cicero behind my back? And he’s been confiding in you?” Tiberius Nero considered my interest in politics a great joke. He reached over, twined his hand in my hair, and kissed me. “Do you want to come tomorrow to watch the gladiators?” he asked. “Young Caesar Octavianus is putting on a grand show.”

  I shook my head.

  “You don’t want to go at all? It will be five days running.”

  “I’d rather not, if you don’t mind. It’s not as if we could sit together anyway.”

  “That’s true. Well, I understand if you can’t stand to see blood.”

  “It’s not that,” I said. “It’s just that women have to sit so far back, it’s impossible to see a thing.” Tiberius Nero already had taken me to one gladiator exhibition. I had been terribly bored, sitting back among the women as custom demanded, looking down over rows of men’s heads at the small, distant figures hacking at each other. Men said it was unseemly for women to sit up close to watch such bloody spectacles. But then why allow us in at all? The truth was, when it came to this one form of entertainment they loved the most, they had grasped at an excuse to hog the good seats.

  Two years before, in memory of his one legitimate child, a daughter who had died in childbirth, Julius Caesar had presented not only the usual fights between pairs of gladiators but battles between whole detachments of infantry and between squadrons of cavalry, some mounted on horses, others on elephants. His great-nephew wished to outdo him—and he did, pouring out vast sums of money for wolves, bears, and lions for the gladiators to battle, hundreds of horses and elephants, and cohorts of fighting men.

  While avoiding the gladiator shows, I did attend a lesser event, also part of Caesar’s funeral games—chariot races at the Circus Maximus. Tiberius Nero and I had excellent seats near the finish line, in the front tier reserved for senators and their wives. Even my father had spoken with grudging respect of how Julius Caesar had expanded seating at the racecourse, building tiers of seats along the track’s whole perimeter so there was room for a hundred and fifty thousand spectators. Glancing around, I saw tiers packed with people, the well-dressed in good seats, ragged denizens of the city slums high up in the bleachers. The smell of horse manure mingled with that of close-packed human bodies and of sausages sold by vendors who walked along the tiers.

  My husband and I had a wager on the first race, he on the Greens, I on the Reds. I watched the drivers leaning forward tautly, clutching the reins with both hands, each controlling four horses with practiced ease. They circled the long track seven times. When the charioteer dressed in red crossed the finish line first, cheers came from thousands of throats. Tiberius Nero paid his bet good-naturedly.

  We waited for the second race. Young Caesar sat not far from us, surrounded by a retinue. Courteously, he came over to greet us. “I hope you’re enjoying the games,” he said.

  I had never met him before. From Tiberius Nero’s description, I expected Caesar’s heir to appear frail. He did not. If his face had a certain pallor, it only made him look like someone who had spent more time in a library than outdoors. Nothing else about
him hinted at sickness. He wore a light summer tunic. Though he was barely of medium height, his body was as perfectly proportioned as a Greek statue. He had unusual coloring for a Roman, eyes the blue of the sky on a bright day, hair falling on his forehead in careless golden curls. His features were fine-cut, and he was startlingly handsome.

  Everyone was already speculating about whether he would try to take a political role soon. I gazed at him and thought, No, that’s impossible, he is much too young. I had heard he was still a month or two short of his nineteenth birthday. My husband talked to him the way a man talks to a boy—a fabulously wealthy, well-connected boy, but a boy just the same. “What am I to call you now?” Tiberius Nero asked. “I understand you’ve assumed your adoptive father’s name.”

  The boy moved his shoulders negligently. “You may call me whatever you like.”

  Tiberius Nero persisted. “No, I’m asking what you prefer. What do your friends call you?” He was smiling, the tone of his voice almost avuncular.

  “My friends? Nowadays they call me Caesar.”

  “And you prefer that?”

  Young Caesar moved his shoulders again, not quite in a shrug, as if to say, Why not? “Actually, I do.”

  Did young Caesar know that Tiberius Nero had allied himself with those who had killed his adoptive father? He showed no sign of it if he did. He sat down on the bench next to my husband, and for a while they talked amiably of inconsequential things. It was not politics but something else that caused the atmosphere to change between them.

  “You’re looking very well,” Tiberius Nero said. “I was happy to hear your health is better these days.”

  Young Caesar stiffened, and his eyes went cold. “Yes, much better.”

  Tiberius Nero frowned. I was sure he had not meant to speak of an unpleasant subject, still less to wound, but the boy’s instant reaction suggested his health was an enormously sensitive matter. Young Caesar’s features still betrayed tension as he leaned forward, elbows on knees, looked past Tiberius Nero, and spoke directly to me for the first time. “Who do you like in the next race?”

  “The Whites,” I said.

  “They won’t win.”

  “No?”

  “No,” he said. “Do you want to make a bet?”

  I shook my head. “You sound too sure.”

  He smiled, at ease again. He had a charming smile. “I know the Reds’ charioteer—my family used to own him. You’re wise not to bet against me.”

  For some reason, these words echoed in my mind: You’re wise not to bet against me.

  My husband excused himself. Perhaps he went to relieve himself; perhaps he saw a friend to whom he wished to speak. In any case, he said a couple of conventionally polite words and left me with this boy—this beautiful boy. We watched the next race together.

  The Reds bumped the Whites, who went colliding into a wall near where we sat. Spectators gasped. I pressed my fist against my teeth. The driver had been thrown clear and lay twisting in the sand. He began to drum his fingers on the ground in agony. A horse also lay on its back, kicking its legs and screaming. Another horse tried to stay on its feet but sank on broken legs.

  Slaves came to cart away the broken chariot, the broken horses, and the injured charioteer, while the Reds raced on to victory.

  “Aren’t you glad you didn’t bet?” young Caesar said.

  “Very. I’m sure the Reds’ driver bumped them deliberately. He is a complete ruffian.”

  “All the best charioteers are.”

  I looked into young Caesar’s eyes and felt a tightness in my chest. Surely every woman carries an image in her mind of what perfect masculine beauty is. For me, this boy epitomized it. And yet I had seen other handsome men and felt little. Now there was a prickling in my skin. I was aware of the sun beating down, of how the fabric of my stola clung to my body, of how my hair felt, warm on the back of my neck. I wanted to reach out and stroke young Caesar’s cheek, very gently, to see if it felt as smooth as it looked. I wished I had an amusing story to tell him, so I could watch him laugh.

  He was Julius Caesar’s heir. Maybe somewhere in the city, even now, there were men who were threatened enough by that to try to kill him.

  If I were someone who loved him, I would have advised him to stay in Rhodes and never claim his inheritance, to keep his head down and hope people forget he exists. No one important is on his side. Antony cannot be, for he wants Caesar’s mantle for himself. Those like my father who follow Brutus can only see him as a potential enemy. Yet he walks in here like a shepherd boy striding unarmed into a den of wolves. He smiles at men who betrayed his adoptive father, and his eyes are peaceful.

  “Did you know that you were Caesar’s heir, before he…died?” It surprised me that I was bold enough to ask this question, but curiosity consumed me.

  Young Caesar did not seem disconcerted. He answered me in a serious tone, “It was a complete surprise.”

  “Were you pleased?”

  He glanced away, and then looked back at me, a smile playing around the corners of his mouth. “Overjoyed.”

  “You felt no trepidation?”

  “Only an idiot would feel no trepidation,” he said, his voice serious again.

  “These games are winning you the people’s love. You can have a great political career if you wish to,” I said.

  “You think the people’s love is the key nowadays to a great political career?” he asked in a neutral tone.

  “No, the key is the army’s love. But of course you are buying that too.”

  He looked sharply at me. But he did not blurt out a lie, did not say that he had no intention of ingratiating himself with the army. We gazed at each other with a kind of understanding, odd between strangers. Yes, he would try for power. Soon. I knew it at that moment as if he had told me.

  “I am sorry for you,” I said. It was true. But the words slipped out against my will. I did not intend to speak them.

  “Really? I’m surprised you’re so softhearted.”

  “I’m not the least bit softhearted.”

  “I didn’t mean it as an insult,” he said.

  I was silent. We sat looking at each other for a long time. He tilted his head and studied me. Then all at once he smiled.

  I was a married woman. And my father had helped plot Caesar’s assassination, as had my husband. This boy who sat happily gazing at me was Caesar’s adopted son. We were enemies. Yet I could not keep from smiling back at him.

  I looked down and smoothed the folds of my stola, which did not need smoothing. When I raised my eyes, I asked, “Did you love Caesar?”

  “Very much. And I admired him more than any other man I ever met.”

  And so you will want to avenge him, I thought.

  “He had the falling sickness, you know,” young Caesar said. “He used to speak to me about that, and about the power of a man’s will to overcome physical obstacles.”

  “And he wanted you for his son,” I said. “I can imagine how much that means to you.”

  “Can you? Most people can’t begin to, but I somehow believe you can.” Young Caesar ran his hand through his hair. “I don’t usually talk so openly with people I’ve just met.” He gave an uneasy laugh.

  “Neither do I,” I said.

  He looked puzzled. “What do you mean? I’ve told you a great deal, and you haven’t said much about yourself at all.”

  Haven’t I? I thought. When a married woman looks at another man the way I look at you, hasn’t she said far, far more than she should?

  My husband returned then, and young Caesar and I spoke no more private words.

  That night, I said to Tiberius Nero, as we prepared for bed, “Young Caesar—will someone kill him?”

  “Not unless he does something to ask for it.” He gave a small, contemptuous grimace. “He’s young and has alwa
ys been a weakling.” Tiberius Nero drew me to him. “What are you looking so worried about, my little dove?”

  No longer affected by the charm of Caesar Octavianus’s presence, I did a calculation in my mind. I added up his popularity with the people and especially the army, his vast wealth, and his love for his adoptive father, which surely implied hatred for his killers. I recalled the sense I’d had that he would soon reach for great power. A malign spirit possessed me. I imagined my father, my mother, and all I loved, trod into bloody pulp under young Caesar’s boots. In terror, I said, “I’m afraid he’s dangerous, very dangerous. Perhaps you should kill him.”

  My husband just laughed.

  As summer became autumn, I walked with quick strides through my house, supervising servants who needed little supervision. I would reach for a book, take the scroll from its leather cover, read a few sentences, then roll the parchment up again. What I had felt when I was with Caesar Octavianus was well buried. But I would look at the birds and wish I could rise up into the sky as they did, or else become a nymph or a goddess and be lifted far beyond the claims of marriage and duty. Day after day I brimmed over with energy for which no one had any use.

  Since my husband and father were both senators, I found it easy to keep informed about politics. I learned that every one of the senators who had stabbed Caesar had, in their fear of the common people, abandoned the city of Rome. Marcus Brutus took ship to Athens, there to await events and, of all things, study philosophy. Decimus Brutus went to govern the province of Cisalpine Gaul.

  Meanwhile, Mark Antony took up command of Rome’s legions in Brundisium. The soldiers mocked him for not avenging Julius Caesar. Antony tried to sweeten their mood by offering them a bonus, but they shouted that it was too little, so he had some of the malcontents beaten to death. This reduced the rest to gloomy silence.

  Young Caesar remained in Rome, living with his mother, an ailing widow. He offered much more generous bonuses than Antony had, and raised a private army of three thousand men.