I Am Livia (23 page)

When I left Tavius that day, I did not go directly home but paid a visit to my sister
.
W
e went into the garden of her house and sat on a marble bench. Secunda pursed her lips and waited for me to speak.

“In a few days,” I informed her, “Tiberius Nero and I will divorce, and Caesar and I will marry.”

“Livia!” She wailed my name. “How can you do such a thing?”

I lifted my chin. “Caesar and I have fallen in love.”

Concern for me, dismay, and outrage warred in her expression. Outrage won. “Well, I certainly will not attend the wedding.”

“Did I invite you? I don’t recall it.”

“Not invite your own sister to your wedding?”

“I admit I intended to, but if you will not come, you will not come.
What you must do is this: Tell your husband that he is about to be linked by marriage to Caesar Octavianus, and you’ve decided to deliver this deadly insult, and have refused, on behalf of you both, to go to the wedding. I’m sure he’ll be overjoyed at how well you’re managing his affairs.”

As I walked out of the garden, and out of my sister’s house, I heard her calling after me. I ignored her, and, getting into my litter, ordered the bearers to take me home. Then I cried.

It was not because I did not expect Secunda to attend my wedding. I knew my sister. She was not, fundamentally, a fool. There would be an apology. She would beg to be allowed to come to the wedding, and I would let her come.

I cried because I saw in what she had said a reflection of what my parents’ reaction would have been, if they had lived.
What if, by some miracle, my father had survived, and I had gone to him and told him I intended to marry Caesar? He would have considered me a traitor to the Republic.
Whatever anguish it caused him, he would have turned his back on me forever.

Father, Father,
I called to him in my heart. But there was no answer. There would never be an answer.

I wept all the way home. And then, before I exited the litter and put my foot down once more on the hard ground, I promised myself I would never cry again for this cause. I would not attend anymore to my guilt, or my regrets about the past. I would turn my face away from all that and look toward the future. That was what was required of me as Tavius’s wife.

The day before my wedding, I went to the Temple of Diana on the Aventine Hill. This particular temple, ancient, fortress-like, and associated with the cause of the common people, breathed an awful history. Eighty years before, in front of the temple, senators led by a vicious consul had slaughtered Romans who espoused democratic political reform.

I entered the temple’s bronze doors, which bore scratches and dents, marks of the arrows and spears cast long ago. I promised myself that I would get Tavius to refurbish this place and make it beautiful.
With me I brought a white lamb, which I gave to a priestess. She cut its throat, and as its blood fell on the floor’s ancient, broken tiles, I raised my eyes to the statue of Diana. I silently spoke to her of the boy who had died in Perusia holding my hand.

Here, near the place where many of Rome’s best men had died, slain by their own countrymen, I begged her to end the killing. I asked that no more Romans die in useless civil strife, and I prayed that the marriage of the daughter of Marcus Brutus’s noblest supporter to Julius Caesar’s adopted son would help to bring Rome peace. Stretching forth my arms, my heart full of fervor, I also prayed that she extend her benevolent protection to Tavius.

R
ome may have seen stranger weddings than mine to Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, but people would be hard put to think of one. The role that Tiberius Nero played became a part of our legend—that is, Tavius’s and mine. Some interpreted his giving me away as a deed of patriotic self-sacrifice, some as something much less lofty. But Romans will never forget it.

Early in the morning, long before the wedding guests arrived, Tiberius Nero and I went through the formalities of a mutually consensual divorce. The seven required witnesses arrived at our house, sent by Tavius, who had taken many of the arrangements for the day into his hands. Tiberius Nero and I met them in the atrium, where slaves were dragging in couches for the wedding banquet. I stole a glance at my soon-to-be former husband. How does a man appear when he is about to be incorporated into another man’s legend? Not too happy. But at least he did not look enraged.

Before the seven witnesses, he spoke the traditional words to me. “Take what belongs to you and go.”

“I consent,” I said.

Our marriage was over. Acting as my kinsman and guardian, he glanced at the marriage contract that Tavius had sent him. The main provision transferred my dowry to Tavius’s control. Tiberius Nero pressed his signet ring into the wax seal on the document. “Thank you,” I said. I slipped off my gold betrothal ring and handed it to him. He looked down at it in his palm, closed his fingers around it, gave a little chuckle, and walked out of the room.

An important bond had been severed, and I felt an ache, remembering times of affection and shared joy. I had come to Tiberius Nero a girl and grown into a woman as his wife. I had not wanted him as my husband, but we had come to rely on each other. I told myself I would be a friend to him just as I had promised to be, and there was comfort in that thought.

I went to the nursery, where Rubria was dressing my son. As soon as I saw him, I felt the start of tears. But I had promised myself not to weep anymore about what was already unalterable, and I did not want to act in front of little Tiberius as if some tragedy were befalling us. I blinked away my tears and managed to smile at him.

“I will want to see him tomorrow,” I said to Rubria. “I’ll send the litter, and you’ll bring him to me.”

“Of course,” she said.

“And you will care for him just as you always do.” My son was gazing up at me with puzzled eyes. He was two months short of his third birthday. How could he understand what was happening? I fell silent.

“Of course,” Rubria said again.

I remembered that she had lost her husband and her own child in a tenement fire—a common circumstance in Rome’s slums, one she could certainly not prevent—and I wondered what she thought of me. In her plain, patient face, I could find no clue.

I kissed little Tiberius on the forehead. Then I left him with Rubria and went to prepare for my marriage ceremony.

I have had to pause for a while in my writing. My mind was so full of memories of my son as a small boy. And then I recalled I have yet to reply to a letter he recently sent me.

The waxed tablet stamped with his seal is here on my writing table. He urges me to rest more and to leave my business affairs entirely in the hands of trustworthy servants; he would be glad to suggest able men I could rely on. My holdings are extensive. I have brickyards, a copper mine, granaries. It is too much for me, at my age, he says, to involve myself in overseeing these many ventures. Moreover, I should not go out among the poor, as I still do, and personally distribute largesse. As he has done before, he hints that this activity is hardly suitable even for a woman in the prime of life.

My son’s tone is almost one of entreaty. I will write him back a polite reply, thanking him for his filial concern. But as always, I will refuse to be bound by his efforts to restrict my actions.

My son Tiberius can be harsh and overbearing in his dealings with others.
With me, he at least softens his voice. He takes care to be courteous. But he looks at me—at any woman—with a narrow vision. He is most at home in a military camp, among men.

There were proscriptions in Rome when I was carrying him.
While he was a baby, his father and I fled from place to place with him, often in great fear. Then came my divorce and marriage to Tavius. Did those past events affect who he is today? I wonder.
Sometimes I think he lost some of his ability to trust—in particular, to put faith in any woman—because I abandoned my marriage to his father.

I remember the confusion in my son’s eyes when I took leave of him on that long-ago wedding day, and even now I could weep.

The wedding’s ridiculous aspects were dwarfed for me by joy—Tavius’s as well as my own. He was marrying a woman big with another man’s child who would not be ready for months to be a true wife to him. But he came through Tiberius Nero’s entranceway smiling with happy anticipation. Then he saw me in my wedding finery—the long white tunica, the sheer crimson veil—and his lips parted as if he were gazing at a miracle. In the head wreath of red and yellow flowers he wore for the occasion, he looked young and pure, like a boy who had never seen a bride before.

He embraced Tiberius Nero like a brother. The strain that might have been expected got swallowed up in Tavius’s happiness and goodwill. The moment when the two men exchanged copies of the marriage contract, even the moment when Tiberius Nero placed my hand in Tavius’s, passed quickly and in a civilized way.

We—Tavius and I—stood with our hands linked. I looked through my sheer red silk veil into his eyes and spoke the words of consent.
When I said, “Where thou art Gaius, I am Gaia” to Caesar Octavianus, I meant it.
With him, I would stand or fall. I was a young woman in love, but I also felt like a general who chooses the ground for his battle, knowing, whether he has chosen rightly or not, there can be no retreat, that he will either win or die.

Tavius placed a gold ring on my finger, the same finger from which, only hours ago, I had removed Tiberius Nero’s ring. At that moment, I felt no doubts, but rather a sense that what had come to pass was right and inevitable, because Tavius and I were twin souls, and the love between us was vast.

Shouts of “
Feliciter!
” filled the air.

I lifted my wedding veil.
We reclined together, receiving congratulations from numerous guests. Tiberius Nero lay on a couch in the place of honor to our right, as the bride’s nearest relation normally would. I watched out of the corner of my eye as people approached him. They were respectful, but they groped for words, since it did not seem right to congratulate him.

I thought,
Well, this is my wedding. I must act as if I am enjoying it. But I will be so much happier once this day is over.

I spoke polite words to guests and listened as Tavius responded to their congratulations. He was never at a loss for what to say; in that, he seemed like any seasoned politician. But he did not rattle on and bore people, as public men are prone to do. I asked myself:
If you heard his voice, and did not know him, who would you imagine him to be?

Oh, a well-bred young man, but not a native of the city of Rome; he speaks just a bit too softly and courteously for someone born here. You might think, “I hope Rome is not too rough a place for him.”

My sister and her husband came forward to greet us. She wore a pretty light green stola and her finest jewelry. Her husband beamed. Secunda looked at Tavius as if he were a lion and I were reclining there with him on a leash. Poor thing, she had no talent for masking her thoughts. She said, “May the gods bring luck to your marriage,” and tried to smile. Then she darted an amazed look at Tiberius Nero, who was making short work of the first course of the wedding feast while talking with other guests.

Tavius was convivial with her husband and gentle with her. But Secunda looked relieved when she could go back to her dining couch.

Tavius’s sister could not attend the wedding, since she was far away with Mark Antony, her new husband. But I met two men at the wedding banquet who were as close to Tavius as brothers, Marcus Agrippa and Gaius Maecenas.

Agrippa approached us first. He said, “
Feliciter,
” and Tavius introduced him to me.

He was tall, muscular, and ruddy-faced, good-looking in a rugged way. I knew he’d had operational command of
Tavius’s forces during the siege of Perusia. I pushed thoughts of Perusia away and said, “I’m happy to meet you.”

“And I to finally meet you.”

Tavius had talked to him about me, obviously.

I caught the wariness in Agrippa’s eyes. I did not hold it against him. His future, his whole life, was bound up with serving Tavius. He had never had to take Tavius’s first two wives into account. It would be different with me, and he knew it.

People gossiped about Agrippa’s low birth. His father owned a rich estate near Velitrae, where he, like Tavius, had grown up, but his grandparents had been freed slaves. I was a daughter of the Claudians. I think he feared my scorn.
We exchanged pleasantries, sizing each other up.

Soon afterward, I met Maecenas. Physically he was Agrippa’s opposite—short, dark, and plump. I had heard he had royal Etruscan blood.

“
Feliciter,
my dear,” he said to me. His voice was extremely pleasant, almost musical, but a bit high for a man. He gave me a charming smile. “I won’t keep you now, but I’m looking forward to getting to know you. I’m determined that we’ll be the best of friends.”

“I hope so,” I said.

“Oh, we will be,” he assured me.

He has made a decision,
I thought.
He will befriend Tavius’s new bride, to reinforce his position in Tavius’s innermost circle.

I smiled back at him.
We understood each other.

In the past years, as he jockeyed for power, Tavius had had only two advisors who mattered, not wise graybeards but these friends his own age. The two had certainly served him well, judging by the results. I would therefore never do anything to injure their relationship with my husband. On the contrary, I would make it my business to win their gratitude and loyalty.

Most of the Roman nobility looked down on both of them, of course. Agrippa could never be forgiven his forebears. And Maecenas—well, his royal descent would pass muster even with patricians. But the impression he gave, not only of softness but effeminacy, brought him mockery. These two had been Tavius’s closest friends at school.
Who was he when he first met them but the sick one, the boy who could not endure exercise or military training? It struck me that in that school for the sons of the provincial elite of Velitrae, he, Agrippa, and Maecenas all likely had been, for different reasons, outsiders.