Augustus (42 page)

I was so impressed by their conduct in Gaul that I gave them joint command of the north-eastern part of our European frontier. Unrest was seemingly endemic there, especially among the mountain tribes of the Tyrol and Bavaria. The territory was of strategic importance, for only by commanding it could we obtai
n a satisfactory land route to Il
lyria and Macedonia. My stepsons conceived and carried out a brilliant pincer movement, defeating the Rhaeti and Vindelicae and pursuing them through the Alps. They drove forward to the Danube, and won territory for Rome and glory for themselves. I asked Horace to celebrate their achievement, which he did in noble lines. This was a supreme example of the ancient virtue of Rome. Livia burned with justified pride at what her sons had done, and was grateful to me for the confidence I had shown in the boys.

I myself passed two years in Gaul. I inaugurated the building of more than twenty towns, transferring the rude inhabitants of the old hill fortresses of Bibracte and Gergovia (both of which had offered stiff resistance to Julius Caesar) to new cities which they were proud to name in my honour, Augustodonum [Autun] and Augustonemetum [Clermont]. I made Lugdonum [Lyon] the centre of financial administration for the whole of Gaul and established a mint there. I encouraged the use of Latin, built roads and bridges and let it be known that I was always ready to act myself as a judge of appeal. I admired the noble bravery of the Gauls, and found them honest and frank in speech. No provincials appealed more to me. It gave me deep pleasure to foster the spread of civilization there. I had another reason for my tender care for the province. No one can read Julius Caesar's account of his Gallic wars without having his pride in Roman achievement corrupted by the shame he must experience at reading of Caesar's cruelty. I know nothing in the annals of warfare so horrible as his lapidary account of massacres, and I could never forget that Cato had proposed Caesar be handed over to the Gauls to be tried as a war criminal. As Caesar's heir, it was my duty to expunge the memory of these atrocities, to make the sufferings of the Gauls in some way worthwhile. I succeeded. I did not try to suppress local customs or even the Druid religion, of which all civilized men stand in awe, but I held out to them all the riches of Greece and Rome, and, because I did so in a generous and admiring spirit, the Gauls welcomed my gifts. My treatment of Gaul stands second in my estimation to my ending of the civil wars and restoration of the Republic in the catalogue of what I have done for Rome and mankind.

Meanwhile Agrippa was in the East. He established colonies for veterans in Syria. I may say in passing that this sort of colonization is the best means of stabilizing lands of uncertain loyalty. It provides a focus for what, to coin a word, I may call Romanization. He then visited Judaea and wrote to me from there:

You are quite right about the oddity of the Jews. It seems to be true that they worship only one God. I could hardly believe this was possible, and made enquiries, but no, it seems to be the case. It is flying in the face of everyone's experience as well as common sense. What's more, it doesn't seem to do the one thing you might think useful. I mean of course, that there might be something to be said for asserting that there is only one God - monotheism is, Julia reminds me, the Greek word for this, and it's typical of the Greeks to have a word for a foreign concept - if it achieved some sort of tribal unity. I mean, we have our national Gods, don't we, and I could see some point in having a single deity for Rome. But it doesn't work out like that. No fear, not with the Jews. They squabble among themselves the whole time, just as if they were all adherents of different and hostile gods. They are divided into sects, and one thing I have understood quickly is that it is better for us to keep them in that condition, 'divide and rule' as Julia puts it.

I think however I have gained some credit by offering sacrifices to their 'one true god'. They wouldn't allow me in their Temple to do so. It seems they keep some sacred relic there which they call the Ark of the Covenant, and non-Jews may not set eyes on it. Sacrifice doesn't play an important part in their religion, which is odd too. However, they were pleased by my actions, though I am told that some extremists called Zealots thought it an act of what they call blasphemy. These Zealots are a wild bunch who totally reject everything Rome has to offer. Fortunately the dominant sect, who are called Pharisees - sounds Egyptian, doesn't it? And we both know where you can put the Gyppos - fear the Zealots themselves, and are very happy to see us smack them down.

We were invited here by King Herod. I can't remember how well you know him. I met him first years ago. He has an abundance of charm, of a rather slimy sort, but he doesn't improve with age or acquaintance. I don't like the way he keeps sniffing around Julia. Fortunately, his wife (who is his second wife and a cousin too) is what the soldiers call 'a tough cookie or ratbag' and your Jewish Majesty doesn't dare do more than sniff. Needless to say, Julia finds his attentions repulsive, but it would be undiplomatic to choke them off too abruptly.

Julia is in marvellous form and wins hearts wherever she goes. For all that, she is a loving and faithful wife to her middle-aged husband. For we are, alas, middle-aged, you and I. (I suppose Maecenas is still painting his face so as he can look young?) The boys are splendid. Little Lucius had a slight fever last week, but is better again. He keeps asking when is he going to see Grandpa. We would all like to do that, old friend. As for me, my gout is hellish painful. I sometimes wake up screaming with pain. I tried to read Virgil's poem -too deep for me - there was a bit though in the Sixth Book which Julia picked out about the horrors of the Underworld. They sounded a bit like gout. Not bad stuff that bit.

Finally, the good news. Julia is pregnant. The child is due in six months, and now that she is over the morning sickness, we have decided she should sail back to Rome with the boys.

Maybe you can meet them somewhere in the summer. She proposes spending the hot weather at one of my villas on the Bay of Naples . . .

Take care of yourself. Rome could spare me, but not you, old friend. M. Agrippa.

I replied as follows:

My dear Agrippa, I am of course delighted by your news, though as usual my joy is overlaid by worry that Julia will come through all right. How pleased it makes me when you write so lovingly of my child, and how glad I am that this marriage (of which, it amuses me to recall, you were so nervous) should have cemented our old friendship so firmly that nothing but death can break the bonds. I would worry about her fitness to travel in her condition if I were not quite certain that you would never have permitted it without taking the best advice and every precaution. I shall indeed be in Italy this summer, and long to see her and the boys. They must of course come to stay with us.

As for your gout, I feel for you, and have consulted my physician Antonius Musa. He tells me that there is no certain cure, but that you can alleviate the condition by abstaining from red wine and red meat. White wine and cheese is what he recommends. He really is a flibbertigibbet and jack-in-the-box. He takes me off white wine and puts me on red, though I have always preferred white (and actually still drink it on the sly) and now he would have you do the reverse. It seems that our natural preferences are always wrong where doctors are concerned.

Of course I know Herod well, very well indeed. He was in Rome the year before the Secular Games and I saw a lot of him then. Where were you that year? I would have thought he would have boasted to you of his intimacy with me, but of course you wouldn't believe him. You would be right not to. I dislike him extremely. He is a twister and a hypocrite and was originally, as you may have forgotten, a client of Gaius Cassius. Then he made a play at Antony and won his favour by pandering to his vices. He is, I think, unbalanced, the sort of man who shrinks away from a straight path and can't see a belt without hitting below it. He is no true Jew of course -his mother was a sort of degenerate Greek - but he is alas the sort of instrument we need, and you do right to flatter and conciliate him. They say he sacrifices daily in my honour, which is somewhat disgusting, and makes his subjects swear by my name. He doesn't actually give a fig for me. But, with all his faults, and they are legion, he and Rome are linked together. No good Jew would promote our Empire or try to pull his co-religionists into our civilization. Herod is a Hellenist and sympathetic to the wider culture of the Mediterranean world. He has no sympathy with the extremes of Judaism like the Zealots you mention. I have had agents among them for some time. You are quite right. They reject us utterly, and wait for a leader whom they call The Messiah. Their god has promised he will be a new king for the Jews. He is even expected to throw us out. Naturally, the Zealots who hate and despise Herod could never cast him as their Messiah, though he is so twisted that he would play the part if given half a chance. However he is sufficiently intelligent to realize this will never happen, though characteristically he resents the Jews' rejection of his claims for he is quite eaten up with vanity, and only his natural prudence prevents him from letting it destroy his judgement. He therefore knows that he depends on Rome to keep him in power, and so we are, as I say, and as I am sure you know, bound together. Still, in view of Herod's unpopularity, you are quite right to make every effort to please the Jews. They are so cantankerous however that I doubt even your ability to please them for long.

It would distress me if you felt more warmly towards Herod, for, when everything is said and done, he is really a disgusting fellow. I tell you, my dear friend, I would rather be his pig than his son. That's a pun by the way if you translate it into Greek.

Do look after yourself. Rome depends on its greatest general and I on my dearest and oldest friend . . .

The sun shone on the deep blue water and set blood-red behind the islands, leaving the sky a streak of glorious colour that faded like a man's life. That summer was a time of languor and picnic excursions. Livia was as serene and bountiful as the weather. Nothing could quench her good humour: one day she encountered a band of nudists not two miles from the gates of our villa. Her shocked attendants would have cut them down or had them carried off to prison. My wife however, without the hint of a smile, asked them to do nothing. To a woman such as myself,' she said, 'a naked man is no different from a statue.' She maintained her gravity then, but giggled as she told me the story. 'Poor things,' she said, 'their eyes nearly popped out of their heads, when they realized who I was. It was certainly a close shave for them. All the same, you should send someone to tell them to put some clothes on. Not everyone can take the same detached view as I. I suppose they are a bit deranged, and though I know it's the done thing either to mock the mad, or regard them as some sort of portent, for my part I find them insignificant but to be pitied. Do get someone to dress them, my dear. It would distress me if anything happened to them.'

It was an odd family party though, if only because, except for myself, the husbands were all missing, and except for Livia, the women were all with child. Agrippa was of course still in the East, Tiberius on the Danube and Drusus now on the Rhine. . . Of their wives Julia was naturally the resplendent figure. She was in the zenith of her loveliness; her pregnancy gave her the air of a ripe and luscious peach. She reflected the sun, and, with her boys, Gaius and Lucius, by her side, and her baby daughter, little Julia, in her arms, might have posed for a statue representing the fertile bounty of Mother Earth. Her happiness did not dull her quick tongue or teasing manner, and she was especially ready to make a butt of Tiberius' wife Vipsania. The fact that Vipsania was also Julia's stepdaughter amused her greatly, and she delighted in posing as the guardian of her chaste morals. The other wife was my niece Antonia, the daughter of my dear sister Octavia and Mark Antony, whom Livia had selected, to the great joy of my sister, as a suitable bride for her beloved and dashing Drusus. No choice could have been wiser. Antonia inherited nothing but beauty and charm from her father. She was altogether free from the moral aberrations which disfigured his character; in her seemly virtue and modesty she took after her mother. Livia and I both loved and revered her, and indeed continue to do so. I regard Antonia as one of the props of old age, and she has proved as admirable a mother as she was a wife and daughter.

But the chief delight of that summer for me was to be found in my two little grandsons
...
I write these words and know that I can never grow resigned to their loss. Every time I try to describe them, my heart fails. All I can say now is that that summer seemed then to lay open before me a garden of perfect felicity. The boys were so lively, loving and natural as flowers. 'Grandpa,' they would say, pulling at my hands, or climbing on to my knee, 'come and play ball, come and play dice, tell us a story . . .' 'Grandpa,' Gaius would say, 'have you heard the joke about the elephant and the mouse . . .' It was to me that little Lucius would run in tears when he had fallen and cut his knee . . .

I felt a patriarch that summer, and put the cares of state aside. We picnicked in the uplands above Sorrento, and lay in meadows abundant in flowers that only Livia could name. The sea sparkled below, meadow birds called happily about us, and we ate simply, disdaining the elaborate dishes of Roman tables, rough country food: wind-cured hams, red mullet and sardines rushed from the coast that morning in baskets of snow, sprinkled with oregano or fennel or thyme picked in the meadow, and grilled over charcoal, rough bread and salami, the white tangy cheese the shepherds make from their sheep-milk and the dewy and dripping mozzarella brought from the girls who tend the buffalo in the marshlands. Livia always brought a basket of dried figs and apricots for which we both had a passion, and there were strawberries to be picked in the woods that fringed the meadows. How clear and vivid is my picture - as if time was arrested at that moment - of the three girls, all great with child, strolling back from the woods, ankle-deep in the meadow grass, dangling baskets overflowing with the sweet berries from those woods that always had a lingering aftertaste that was fresh and tart. I see too little Lucius, naked as a baby Cupid and his face pink and white with the crushed strawberries and mozzarella.