I Am Livia (19 page)

“What does Caesar shaving off his beard have to do with me?”

“People say that you told him at a dinner party that you hated his beard, so he is shaving it off to please you,” Secunda said. “Are you telling me that’s not true?”

My behavior with Caesar when he dined at my home had given rise to gossip. I knew the other guests had been talking. “I just gave him my opinion when he asked for it. For heaven’s sake, that doesn’t mean I’m having a love affair with him.”

My sister peered at my face, then nodded. “I’m glad,” she said. “Of all the men you could have a love affair with—not that you should have one with anybody, of course—he would be by far the worst choice.
Why, he’s a tyrant, isn’t he, as bad as his great-uncle? Oh, Livia, what would Father and Mother say?”

It was not uncommon for married women to have love affairs, but I had always been chaste. Some men tolerated unfaithful wives; some divorced them for adultery. I believed if I strayed, Tiberius Nero would be extremely upset and angry. I wondered if any of the talk Secunda referred to had come to my husband’s ears. After she left, I had the impulse to broach the subject with him, but in the end I could not bring myself to. Ever since the dinner party that Caesar had attended, he had been cool to me. I had thought that he blamed me for not being pleasant enough to Caesar. Now I asked myself if he suspected me of being altogether too pleasant to him.

But the next day Tiberius Nero came home from the Senate smiling. “Caesar has invited us to celebrate the shaving of his beard!” he announced.

“He has invited the whole city,” I said.

“He asked us to the private party he is giving at his home. Livia, we are part of a very select group!”

I felt sad, seeing how happy my husband was. It seemed a bit pathetic. I remembered how brave he had been at Perusia. Truly, he had always shown exemplary valor in war. But he had no more taste for playing the bloody game of Roman politics. All he wanted was to live quietly in Rome, enjoy what was left of his possessions, and feel safe. The invitation delighted him because he considered it a sign of Caesar’s goodwill. I don’t think there was anything he desired more at this point than to be regarded with benevolent eyes by Caesar Octavianus.

I dressed with care for Caesar’s celebration. But if anyone had dared ask if I wished to make myself beautiful for him, I would have said no. After all, I felt obliged to dress well; I was a senator’s wife, and this was the social event of the year. I wore a pale green stola, green being becoming to me with my red hair. I disliked the look of women weighted down with gold and jewels, and I wore only an emerald necklace and plain gold earrings, no bracelets or brooches. The locks of my hair that had been singed in the woods outside of Sparta had, of course, long since been cut away. My hair was still shorter than usual, but Pelia, who had developed into a skilled
ornatrix,
arranged it becomingly in soft curls around my face. She applied rouge to my lips and touched my eyelids with kohl.

Pelia held up a silver mirror, and I studied myself for a moment. Fortunately, pregnancy did not cause my face to become puffy, as it did with some women. I had prominent cheekbones, my complexion was clear, and my cheeks had a natural blush. I was nineteen years old, and except for my swollen figure, I was as beautiful as I would ever be at any time in my life.

As I rode down the Palatine Hill to Caesar’s house, Tiberius Nero, who felt like stretching his legs, walked beside my litter.
We heard singing and laughter on every street we passed. The air was full of the odors of spiced wine and sweet cakes. The celebration Caesar had sponsored already engulfed the whole city.

It struck me as odd that someone as rich as Caesar did not live on the Palatine Hill but in the commercial district near the Forum.
Was he trying to pose as a man of the people? His house stood at the end of a lane of shops selling signet rings. A throng of Caesar’s supporters had gathered outside. Half of them were drunk, but their mood was amiable. My bearers had no difficulty getting through the crowd and carrying me right up to Caesar’s threshold.

Tiberius Nero helped me from the litter, and we approached the solid oak door. As soon as we knocked, the door was opened by an extremely well-dressed slave.
We stepped inside, and Caesar and his wife, Scribonia, came forward to welcome us. Caesar was clean-shaven. Scribonia looked old enough to be his mother and was heavily pregnant.

Tiberius Nero congratulated Caesar on his first shave and on his birthday.

“I’m so glad to meet you, my dear,” Scribonia said to me. She seemed to be looking over my shoulder, as if someone more interesting had come in behind me. But there was no one there.

I assured her that I was glad to meet her too. As the four of us exchanged pleasantries, I was struck by how young Caesar looked without his beard. A certain boyishness softened his features. I gazed at his smooth skin, blue eyes, and golden hair and could almost imagine people saying,
What a pretty young man.
But I doubted they ever said it—not if they noticed the tense energy that animated his whole being and the way he seemed to be probing your defenses even when he smiled.

Other guests were arriving, and we were shown to a dining couch inside. The atrium was crowded with couches on which guests already reclined—distinguished men in purple-trimmed togas, with their bejeweled wives. From what I could see of it, the house was nothing special, no larger than most senators’ dwellings. But the harpist, who played during the first course of the meal, was first rate. The food and wine were abundant and very good—Caesar had not imposed his health regimen on his guests.
We ate thrushes on asparagus, roast peacock, mussels and eels in a delicate onion sauce, and ham boiled in honey. Caesar, I noticed, did not recline and enjoy his meal but kept circulating among his many guests, talking to them and making them feel important, as a public man should.

Shortly after the second course was served, Tiberius Nero caught sight of an old friend, an officer he had served with in Gaul, across the room. “I haven’t seen Vitellus for ten years,” he said. “Excuse me, Livia. I must greet him.”

As soon as he walked away, Caesar—so quickly that I almost gave a start—came and sat down on the couch on which I was reclining.

The dining couch was narrow. If I had moved my leg a few inches, we would have been touching. “What do you think?” he asked, rubbing his chin.

“I approve,” I said.

He leaned closer and whispered in my ear, “I did it for you, you know.”

“No you didn’t,” I said.

He laughed. “I didn’
t
?”

We were both now talking in low voices not meant to be overheard by the other guests. “Why would you shave off your beard for me?”

“That’s a good question. What do you think the answer is?”

I did not say a word.

“Tell me to do something else,” Caesar said. “I’ll do it. What else would you like me to do?”

“Don’t be silly.”

“All right, I won’t be silly. The truth is I was probably going to shave off my beard eventually, but I wasn’t in any hurry. I didn’t want to look like a savage to you. Is it really an improvemen
t
?”

“Yes.”

“I’m glad you think so.” He looked into my eyes. “Now wha
t
?”

“There is no ‘now what.’ I’m a married woman, and you’re a married man.”

“I’ll soon be divorced. I told you that already.”

“I’m a married woman.”

“Shall I tell you how it has been for you? You were fourteen, fifteen years old, and your father said, ‘Marry this man.’ So of course you did, and ever since then you’ve been trying to feel more for your husband than what—tolerance? Friendship? Maybe you are friends. You don’t want to injure him; he’s the father of your son. That’s admirable. But are you planning to pass the rest of your life without ever experiencing passion?”

This conversation was taking place in the middle of a party attended by the most prominent members of the city’s elite, with people reclining across the table from me and surrounding me on all sides. My husband stood in my line of vision, across the room sharing a toast with his friend from the Gallic war.

“I’m pregnant,” I said.

“You won’t be forever.”

“I don’t indulge in adulterous affairs.”

“Of course not,” Caesar said.

My eyes darted around the crowded atrium. Everywhere I saw people on couches, laughing and talking. My mouth felt dry. I took a sip of wine. I put down the wine cup, and smoothed back a lock of my hair.

“Your hair is fine,” Caesar said.

“Everyone is watching us.”

“No one is paying attention.”

“Yes they are.” I felt as if my body, every inch of skin, were stripped bare.

“No one hears us,” Caesar said. “I’m having a perfectly proper conversation with one of my honored guests. There’s not a thing in the world wrong with that.”

“There will be gossip,” I said. “There is gossip already.”

How could I feel what I did for him? It would have been easy to tell myself I simply experienced physical desire for a handsome man. That would make it almost impersonal, as if I looked at Caesar as I might have gazed at a statue by Phidias, approved the symmetry of his features, and decided that yes, he was beautiful. But when I was in his presence, I felt an emotion deeper than lust. That was what was most awful—that I felt inexplicable tenderness for a man who had helped to kill my father.

Caesar went on talking in a voice barely above a whisper. “I’ve been married twice, but I feel as if I’ve never been married at all. It’s because my marriages have been nothing more than political arrangements, which could be ended whenever the wind shifted. The way most of the Roman nobility marries these days—the countless divorces—has never seemed natural or right to me. Because out in Velitrae, where I grew up, people marry for life.”

“Maybe when your baby is born,” I said, “you ought to stay with its mother, and not divorce her after all, since you have such proper views about marriage.”

He recoiled a little, as if he had been lightly slapped. “No, I can’t stay with her. You see, I don’t like her.”

You liked her enough to beget a child on her.
I imagine that if I said that, he would look puzzled. He would say,
What does that have to do with liking her?

He went on talking. “And I’m in love with another woman. I think I’ve been in love with her for—what is i
t
?—close to five years.”

My heart pounded. For one moment, I melted, and he saw me melt. All I felt for him was surely in my expression. But then I became fearful and said, “You must take me for a fool.”

“No,” he said. “I don’t.”

“You’ve been in love with me for five years, and you married twice in the interim—and you just discovered this great love you’ve been nurturing in your heart for me?”

“You make it sound absurd. But I’ve been focused on survival—and still, I always remembered you. It’s only lately that I’ve been able to breathe, let alone give any thought to personal happiness or love.”

“I suppose you expect me to believe any nonsense you tell me,” I said.

“Evidently a love affair with me has no attraction for you,” he said.

“That’s right. It has none.” For that was not what I wanted—something quick and tawdry. To be used and discarded. I wanted more than that.

His eyes went cold. “You could at least have said that a little more kindly.”

It struck me then that I was talking to the absolute ruler of Rome. I thought,
What have I just done?

What words could I speak, to make it righ
t
? To ensure that I had at least not done some terrible injury to myself, to my family?
Yes, I will have a love affair with you. As soon as my husband’s child is born, I will run straight to your arms.

What I said was ridiculous. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

“Oh, thank you for that,” he said. “I profess love for you, and you mock me and then you say, ‘I never meant to hurt your feelings.’ ” He shook his head and looked so comical suddenly, so disappointed and amazed, that the trepidation I felt disappeared. “Livia, are you telling me you don’t feel anything for me? Was I so wrong to think…?”