I Am Livia Page 7

  I clutched Tiberius Nero’s arm.

  “No, dearest, he doesn’t mean the mere accomplices, just the men who actually wielded the knives. They’ve all left Rome anyway. There’ll be one-day tribunals, which will return a directed verdict—‘guilty, guilty, guilty.’ Brutus and the others will be condemned in absentia.”

  “Not you and my father?”

  “No, certainly not. Didn’t I say how reasonable Caesar is? He asked us to allocate public funds for a statue of his great-uncle, to be built in the Forum, but only if we—the Senate, that is—thought it fitting. That statue will be built, believe me, posthaste.” Tiberius patted my hand. “The day after tomorrow, Caesar will march off, with his army—he’s up to eleven legions now, he happened to mention. He will defend the Republic from Antony, who—Caesar informed us—is a considerable threat to its stability. Gods above, we ate gall and wormwood, but Caesar has no plans to kill anybody, and he acted as if he couldn’t wait to leave town.”

  “Who will govern here in Rome?”

  “I’m sure Caesar will have picked men of his own to do that. And Livia, do you know what I found out today? The boy doesn’t shave yet. He’s very fair, and naturally not very hairy, so he’s only now getting much stubble on his chin. And he has new hair on his upper lip, I noticed. But he said he has sworn never to shave until he has avenged his so-called father. It will be a new experience for him—shaving.” My husband averted his face. “How the gods must be laughing at us.”

  I ask myself now, was what I felt then for Caesar pure loathing? Did some part of me thrill to the audacity of what he had done? If so, I did not acknowledge the feeling. Caesar was a threat to all those I loved, and to everything my father had taught me to believe. I had reverence for the vision of the Republic that Father had shown me. In much of the world there were kings, and people bowed to the rule of one man. We in Rome had had a government based on law, in which the people elected magistrates, and from these magistrates senators were selected. The senators were once men who wished to serve the common good. I knew that the government had become corrupt, that over the last hundred years rich and powerful men had resorted to outright violence to subvert the people’s will, that the Senate had become a narrow, despised oligarchy. But, like my father, I had believed the Republic could be purified and once more be what it had been long ago. If Caesar had his way, that would never happen. I tried to consider him in that light, and only that light, not as a man I had felt drawn to but as a problem to be solved.

  The next day, while tribunals met to obediently condemn Brutus and the rest, I summoned Caesar Octavianus into my presence. Oh, not the boy himself, but his phantom image. I sat, leaning against pillows in my bed, and imagined him, resplendent in his purple-edged consular toga, perching on the stool near my feet. I visualized him with his shining good looks, and added the new chin stubble and the hint of a moustache my husband had mentioned.

  What do you want? I asked him.

  He answered, Supreme power.

  What else?

  I want to avenge my father.

  Because you loved him so much?

  They came at him, fifty against one, men who received only good from him. They stabbed him and stabbed him and stabbed him. Do you think I forget that?

  Your great-uncle—

  Young Caesar interrupted me. Kindly do me the courtesy of calling him my father. Julius Caesar was the father I longed for. The father who begat me died before I could well remember him.

  How strange it was. I felt no sympathy for Caesar Octavianus now, or so I believed. Yet there was an odd tie, as if I were able to sense his feelings.

  I saw myself in Julius Caesar just as he saw himself in me, the phantom said. I did love him.

  But it’s not all a matter of love with you. That’s not the only reason you seek revenge.

  No, I have to avenge my father for my own credit. My soldiers will worship me less and hesitate to follow me if I don’t do it.

  You are giving this matter of the tribunals a high priority. You want to appear to be acting within the law.

  The phantom smiled. Exactly.

  You will convict Brutus and the rest, and then rush off to fight…Antony?

  Caesar tilted his head and gaped at me. Now why would I do that?

  You said you would.

  He laughed. But Livia Drusilla, we both know I don’t always do what I say.

  The armies of Caesar and Antony marched toward each other, Caesar coming from Rome, Antony from Gaul. They both stopped at the Lavinius River, and camped on opposite banks. In the middle of the river sat a tiny island, linked to both shores by bridges. Lepidus, a former consul, walked over to the island from Antony’s side of the river. This Lepidus had ranked next to Antony among Julius Caesar’s supporters. Now he dutifully searched for hidden weapons and lurking assassins. When he found nothing, he waved his cloak, the agreed-upon signal. Caesar and Antony, alone and unarmed, crossed the bridges to the island.

  My father came to see me shortly after word reached Rome that Caesar and Antony had forged an alliance. The two of us sat alone in the library, my favorite room of the house I shared with Tiberius Nero. Autumn sunlight streamed through the window and turned Father’s gray hair to gold.

  He told me that forces were coming into alignment for a great battle in Greece, with Caesar and Antony on one side and Brutus on the other. “Now, since I am a senator, some men would argue that I could be of more use by remaining in the city, holding myself in readiness to act politically when the time comes,” he said. “Tiberius Nero has intimated that he’ll stay here. That is an honorable path. But this is a battle in which the destiny of our country will be decided—a battle in which I must personally take part.”

  Desperately, I begged him to remain in Rome. He would not listen and delayed his departure only long enough to see to the marriage of my sister, Secunda. She was just twelve, and in ordinary times Father would never have given her in marriage so early. But he wanted her safely ensconced in a nonpolitical family, shielded from hardship in case his cause went down to defeat.

  I never heard Mother question Father’s decision to join Brutus and fight for the Republic. Whether she did so when they were alone, I do not know. But at the family dinner before Father departed from Rome, her face was full of dread, and there was such love and fear in her eyes when she gazed at him that I ached for her. My mother and I shared the same terror—that Brutus would be defeated and we would never see Father again.

  Kissing him good-bye, I swallowed unshed tears. It was a dreadful parting.

  We heard that Caesar had wed Mark Antony’s stepdaughter, Claudia, a distant cousin of mine. The girl was only ten; the consummation must wait for two years, but the marriage created a familial bond between Caesar and Antony.

  For a while, events slowed to a creep. I brooded about what the last eight decades had been like in my country. Again and again in Rome, men had died for political causes they considered good, and left behind wives and children scratching for survival.

  I didn’t so much dread poverty as I did something worse and less distinct. What I feared—though I had no clear idea of what form it might take—was the utter destruction of my family.

  My menses had always been perfectly regular, and I felt certain of my second pregnancy early on. I calculated that I would bear a child in November, and wondered if the great battle my father had spoken of would take place by then. If the Republic went down, and my father and my husband went down with it, what would I do? How would I care for my child?

  Tiberius Nero never said anything directly, but he carried himself like a man who suspected he had chosen the wrong side. I had the feeling, though, that he was ashamed to fully admit this even in his own thoughts, to say to himself, Well, I have been a fool, and now I must turn tail and run for safety. The sense of shame kept him paralyzed.


  One night, after we coupled, I whispered in his ear, “Dearest, now that Julius Caesar is gone, who do you think is the best general alive?”

  He laughed. “Is that what you call pillow talk?”

  “Who?”

  He answered in the voice of one indulging an inquisitive child. “The best general is Mark Antony, beyond any doubt.”

  “Yet young Caesar’s army defeated him the one time they clashed.”

  “Caesar’s army defeated him not because Antony is not a great general, but because most Roman soldiers, even those who follow Antony, refuse to fight Julius Caesar’s chosen heir.”

  “So Antony is the best general, and young Caesar has the loyalty of the soldiers. Do I have that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And they are allies now?”

  “Again, yes,” Tiberius Nero said, the lightness no longer in his voice.

  “You never raised a hand against Julius Caesar. For years you followed him loyally.”

  “What are you saying, Livia?”

  “Only that it’s not as if you had a long-standing enmity against Caesar. And his friends have no knowledge you were aware of the plot to kill him. They have no special cause to hate you. Young Caesar certainly does not. And Mark Antony—I doubt if he bears you any great personal ill will.”

  “Bears me personal ill will? Why should he? I fought under him in Gaul. He commended me. Apart from that, his brother Lucius is a good friend of mine. Here’s something I don’t like to boast about—in battle I once saved Lucius’s life.”

  “You did? You never told me that.”

  I drew out of him the whole story of how he had warded off a sword blow aimed right at Lucius’s neck. I suppose it is the kind of thing that often happens in war—one soldier saves another. However, Lucius had thanked him in emotional terms.

  I lay with my cheek against Tiberius Nero’s shoulder, and touched my belly, where I was sure the new baby lay asleep. This—this must be my highest loyalty.

  “Why all these questions? What are you trying to suggest?” A wariness had come into Tiberius Nero’s tone.

  I did not answer. Instead I said, “I think I’m carrying your son.”

  “Truly?” He kissed me. “This time nothing must go wrong. I’m practically forty years old—very old for a first son. It’s not as if the years ahead are endless.”

  “You aren’t old,” I said. “And he’ll be here before you turn forty—in November, before next winter comes. Our Tiberius will be born by then.”

  Our son would be named for his father, as custom demanded, but he would be my child, my boy. He must be no orphan, kicked about and scorned, but carefully nurtured and protected as he grew to splendid manhood.

  “Would you feel better—more secure—if I came to some agreement with Antony?” Tiberius Nero asked me.

  “I think it would be prudent. And Antony needs friends in the Senate, doesn’t he? He’s not so powerful that he doesn’t need friends?”

  Is it I who am saying this? I? Father’s Livia Drusilla?

  My husband let out a long sigh. “Still. To go crawling to Mark Antony.”

  “But you wouldn’t have to go to him, would you? Not directly? If you were to contact Lucius, who is your friend and owes you so much…?”

  “Yes, Lucius is a good sort.” Tiberius Nero stroked my hair.

  “There are ways you could get a message to him? To Lucius?”

  “There are ways.”

  Forgive me, Father. Forgive me. Forgive me. Forgive me.

  “If Brutus wins—and yes, yes, O Jupiter Optimus Maximus, let Brutus win!—it won’t matter,” I said. “It won’t even become publicly known, will it?”

  “It still sticks in my craw,” Tiberius Nero said.

  “Of course it does. Because you are good and honorable. But these are awful times. And—look at it this way. Will it add one soldier to Caesar and Antony’s army? Will it take one man away from Brutus? Of course not. You won’t be offering Antony anything more than…future friendship.”

  “But I hate the thought of it. I wouldn’t even consider it except that I don’t want you to be fearful of the future, while you’re carrying our child.”

  “My love,” I said, “I think you would be wrong to offer Antony your loyalty as a free gift. Why should you? You are Tiberius Nero, a great soldier who saved his brother’s life. Make it clear to him you want something in exchange. I know—why not tell him you want the praetorship?”

  Tiberius Nero laughed aloud. “Gods above, with Lucius as my advocate, Mark Antony just might go for it.”

  With this inducement—the possibility of high office—any doubts my husband had were resolved. And so the message was sent, and the bargain sealed.

  Two months later, proscriptions came to Rome. They were carried out by order of Antony, Lepidus, and Caesar, who now formed a triumvirate. It was said that Caesar had agreed to proscriptions reluctantly. But he acquiesced, at the insistence of the other two.

  Names were scrawled on whitewashed wooden boards set up in the Forum. If your name was on the list, you could be killed by anyone, and your killer would receive a share of your property, with the rest of it going to the triumvirs to pay their army. Those named were the political opponents and personal enemies of the triumvirs.

  Many of those killed were wealthy men who lived on the Palatine Hill, as I did. On the very first day of the proscriptions, I walked out of my door and saw a headless man in a toga sprawled in the street. I stood and stared, amazed at how much blood he’d had inside him, how far across the roadway the puddle stretched. Then I turned and walked back inside. I clasped my hands together to still their shaking, feeling as if I had been transported from Rome to a wasteland prowled by ferocious wolves.

  During the proscriptions, about two thousand men were killed. Among the dead was Cicero. His head was cut off, on Antony’s order—and also his right hand, the hand that had written speeches against Antony—and they were displayed in the Forum.

  The killers came after the sun had set, because they wanted their faces hidden. They searched every hiding place, every back alley. I never felt safe, even though my husband was now counted among Antony’s supporters. At night, I lay wakeful, clutching my belly, whispering soothing words to my unborn child.

  My father’s name, of course, appeared on the white boards. All of Father’s property was seized. Mother fled to us when men came to break into the house. She managed to take her jewelry with her but lost everything else. She spoke of how all that had been seized would be returned to her when Brutus and his forces triumphed. But I heard the fear in her voice—fear of losing more than a house and property—and she had the look of a woman who expected to forfeit everything she valued on this earth. Father was constantly in her thoughts, as he was in mine.

  When all of those condemned who had not fled Rome had been killed, the proscriptions ended. Antony, Lepidus, and Caesar left the city to march to Greece, at the head of an army that had swelled to one hundred and twenty thousand men.

  Mother lived with my husband and me, a silent, somber presence. Once, as we sat spinning wool together, I said, just to draw her into conversation, “Oh, Mother, I wish I could know if I’m going to have a boy. November is so far away. It seems such a long time to wait.”

  “There is a way to know, sooner than that.” Mother did not look up from her spindle. “It’s supposed to be very sure. But it’s troublesome. You must get a newly fertilized chicken’s egg, and hold it in your hands to warm it until it hatches. If the chick is a hen, then you are carrying a girl child. But if the chick is a rooster, then the baby will be a boy.”

  In answer to my eager questions, Mother—who had grown up on her father’s farm—told me it took twenty-one days, more or less, for a chick to hatch. My maids could hold the egg when I couldn’t, but it must always be warmed by a
woman’s hands.

  “Then you must wait at least another thirty days after the chick is born, and see if red bumps appear on its head,” Mother said. “You’re not going to ask me what the red bumps mean, are you?”

  “It means it’s growing a comb and is a rooster.”

  Without bothering to say if my guess was right, Mother went back to her spinning.

  I sent a slave to a farm on the outskirts of Rome to get an egg for me—one the farmer swore was newly fertilized. Every day I held the egg cupped in my hands. While I bathed, dressed, ate, or relieved myself, my maid Pelia or Mother held the egg, and while I slept the female servants took turns sitting up in the atrium and holding it.

  To some degree, this hatching of the egg was a thing I did for Mother’s sake, to divert her mind from her troubles. It also distracted me a little from fear for my father. I did my best every day to concentrate on cradling the egg in my hands, and on making sure neither I nor my servants were careless with it for a moment. I yearned to bring a boy into the world—a warrior, not a female who would have to wait at home while distant events decided her fate—and I half convinced myself that if only the egg successfully hatched, the chick would be a rooster and I’d have the son I wanted.

  “Mistress! Mistress!” A little before dawn, I heard Pelia’s cry from the atrium.

  I rose from my bed and in my haste ran out of the bedchamber barefoot. An oil lamp burned in the atrium, and Pelia sat in a chair in the center of a pool of light. She held her hands palms up in her lap, and there lay the egg. Leaning over, I could see a crack in it, and a tiny beak breaking through.

  This was the first time I ever saw any living creature born. I have visited many temples, but I never felt such a true sense of the sacred as I did then, as I stood for nearly an hour, all the women of the household gathered round, watching as the chick slowly emerged in Pelia’s hands.