I Am Livia
Authors: Phyllis T. Smith
This is a work of historical fiction. Apart from the well-known people, events, and locales that figure in the narrative, all incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to current events or locales, or to living persons, is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2014 Phyllis T. Smith
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Lake Union Publishing, Seattle
ISBN-13: 9781477848821
ISBN-10: 1477848827
Cover design by Cyanotype Book Architects
Library of Congress Control Number: 2013914534
In memory of my mother
Contents
A woman preeminent among women, and who in all things resembled the gods more than mankind, whose power no one felt except for the alleviation of trouble…
—Velleius Paterculus
Leading Characters
Livia Drusilla
Marcus Livius Drusus Claudianus, her father
Alfidia, her mother
Secunda, her sister
Marcus Brutus, leader of the assassins of Julius Caesar
Marcus Cicero, Rome’s elder statesman, allied with the assassins
Caesar Octavianus, Julius Caesar’s posthumously adopted son
Tiberius Claudius Nero, a prominent military officer who marries Livia
Little Tiberius and Drusus, Livia’s sons
Julia, Caesar Octavianus’s daughter
Rubria, wet nurse in Livia Drusilla’s household
Mark Antony, Julius Caesar’s right-hand man
Octavia, Caesar Octavianus’s sister
Cleopatra, queen of Egypt
Sextus Pompey, ruler of Sicily
Marcus Agrippa, Caesar Octavianus’s friend and leading general
Caecilia, Agrippa’s wife
Gaius Maecenas, Caesar Octavianus’s friend and advisor, patron of the arts
I
wonder sometimes how I will be remembered. As mother
of my country, as men call me to my face, or as a monster? I know the rumors none dare speak aloud. Some believe I am a murderess many times over. They envy me, and they hate my power. In Rome, a woman’s power, however circumspectly exercised, arouses revulsion.
Every death in my family circle has been laid at my door. People claim I am adept in the use of poisons. Oh, I have transgressed. But not in the way they think. It is when I remember my youth that I find myself recoiling. Do I recoil when I think of him, my beloved? No. But I paid a price in my soul, for loving him.
Old age can be a deceiver. My knees ache when I walk, but if I sit still, I do not feel so different from the girl I was. I tell myself I am the same. Then I glance down at my hands resting on the saffron folds of my stola, and I see blue veins under skin that is almost translucent. I cannot evade physical reality. And yet I believe I remain, in some essential way, the person I was at fifteen or twenty. Today I am called by the honorific Julia Augusta, but inside of me the girl Livia Drusilla still lives. Certainly, the decisions that girl made long ago shaped who I am now.
The time is approaching when I must move aside to make room for other guests at the banquet of life. It is necessary that I prepare to explain myself before the gods. Above all, I must be ready to account for the young woman I was.
My beloved wrote a record of his deeds for others to read. Of course he obscured distasteful truths. But I will write the story of my youth in a cipher only I know. I will be honest. There is no point in lying to the gods.
It will take courage to remember the days when I was Livia Drusilla. I wonder if I can do it without flinching.
The murder that shook the ground on which we walked, the murder all Rome remembers—I knew about it days before it happened.
I saw three men disappear into my father’s study, and then I heard nothing, not even a bee buzz of conversation.
What could they be doing in there if not talking?
I was borne forward by burning curiosity. Not the random inquisitiveness of a child; I had passed my fourteenth birthday. I wanted to learn every bit I could about the world in which my father moved, that of men who wielded power. I knew I could never enter that world, but it drew me as the sky draws a young bird.
Father’s study was separated from the atrium by only a long curtain of heavy wool, dyed the color of raspberries. I tiptoed toward the curtain, so close that my face almost touched the rough fabric. I stood still, listening, and to my amazement heard not a sound.
I was used to hearing men’s boisterous conversations coming from the study
.
W
hy would they be so quiet now? Were they telling secrets inside? My sister and I would whisper to each other. Our servants often whispered too
.
W
hispering was something girls and slaves did, not men like my father.
I stood still, straining my ears to hear. At first, there was silence. Then a voice came, low but audible. “Not just him.”
Another voice: “How many deaths would satisfy you, Tiberius Nero?”
The first voice, again: “As many as it takes to make us safe. I assure you I’m not bloodthirsty, but we’re staking our lives here. Let’s not behave like fools.”
“Proscriptions again?”
Proscriptions. Before I was born, in the dictator Sulla’s time, men’s names had been posted on a wall—names of those who opposed him, or whose relatives or friends did, as well as those who had amassed enough wealth to arouse envy, or did anything else to draw suspicion or hostility from Sulla and his circle. Once their names went on the wall, these men were hunted down like wild beasts.
Father’s voice rose, full of resolve and so much distaste he forgot to speak softly. “I won’t have it. And Brutus won’t have it. It’s bad enough that we must put one man to death without trial.” The voices dropped again.
A shiver ran through me. Because already I knew almost everything. I knew there was to be an assassination, and who was to die, and that my father was part of the plot.
Father lacked a son, and I was the elder of his two daughters. He had always shared much more of his mind with me than might have been expected with a girl child. He would speak about distant wars and kingdoms, and I would see the farthest reaches of the empire through his eyes. Or he would tell me his assessment of one public figure or another. He often voiced his discontent. He had been born into one wealthy and powerful noble family, adopted into another, and had always expected to serve in public office. In the past he had held important military and governmental posts. But under Julius Caesar’s rule, he could play no role in Rome’s government, at least none in accord with his principles.
When I was small, he spoke to me of political matters just to ease himself, I think. Sometimes when I asked him a question, he would give me a surprised smile, as if he was astonished that I absorbed everything he said. As I grew older, he came to expect my questions.
Father talked often of liberty and the right form of government. Caesar, he said, was not just a dictator—that was an honorable office, circumscribed by law—but a tyrant. Five years ago he had ignited a civil war, and seized power. He had overturned the supremacy of the Senate and done just as he pleased. In his arrogance, Caesar had even renamed one of the months of the year—the most beautiful summer month—Julius, after himself. Lately his supporters, at his instigation, had begun demanding he don a crown and call himself king. I knew that Father believed that the Republic was being destroyed by this one man. He had not, however, intimated to me that he and his friends intended to act.
I see myself staring at the curtain, straining to hear more, a slender, red-haired girl with dark eyes too large for my face—a face now drained of color. The fact that Caesar was to die did not appall me. I had been taught to regard him as Rome’s enemy, and I had never met him. I had only watched him from a distance as he rode down the Sacred Way in triumph, wearing a faint, ironic smile as he listened to the people’s cheers. But I understood my father’s danger. Caesar would not forgive an attempt on his life.
Perhaps I made some small noise without realizing it, or touched the curtain and caused it to move. One of the men in the study sensed my presence and ripped the curtain aside. My heart jumped. Father’s friends stared at me with horrified expressions.
Father looked startled and embarrassed but said hastily, “Don’t be concerned about the child. She will tell no one.”
“Gods above!”
This from Tiberius Nero, the youngest man present. “We’re babbling to too many people. Now your daughter knows? This is absurd.”
Another of the men, a white-haired senator, his toga trimmed with purple, gazed into my eyes. “Child, what did you hear?”
The gravity with which he spoke terrified me. I could not swallow and barely managed to whisper, “I think…you are going to kill Caesar.”
The senator’s face hardened. He looked as if he wished to strike me dead to assure my silence.
“Be easy, my friends,” my father said. “It will go no further.
Will it, Livia Drusilla?”
I stood hunched with fear and shame, but his addressing me so formally, by my full name, made me straighten my spine. “I will say nothing,” I said.
“If she should talk—”
Tiberius Nero began.
“But she won’t,” Father said. “She has given us her word. I assure you my daughter is neither a liar nor a fool.”
Tiberius Nero looked at me the way men do at slaves offered for sale. “Is this—?”
“Yes, my firstborn,” Father said.
“Ah,”
Tiberius Nero said.
I disliked his eyes on me. I stared back, my chin raised. After a moment, he glanced away.
He was a tall man with a sharp nose and watery eyes. At that time he was thirty-eight years old. I had never seen him before. The other two men present were longtime friends of my father. They gazed at me searchingly, trying, I suppose, to guess if I had sense enough to keep their secret.
All three left with uneasy expressions.
When they were gone, my father put an arm around me. “Now, daughter, it’s wrong to eavesdrop on men’s conversations. Haven’t your mother and I raised you better than tha
t
?”
Close to tears, I turned my head and pressed my face against his shoulder. I hated it when he rebuked me, though he always did it gently. “Oh, Father—”
“Shhh.”
I lowered my voice. “I’m afraid for you.”
“You needn’t be.” Father spoke in a whisper. “I won’t strike a blow. Only senators will take part. I merely stand ready, as several others do, to assume a post of official authority when the way is cleared. That’s not very heroic or dangerous, is i
t
?”
I whispered back, “But you’re part of a plot to kill the most powerful man in Rome. If it fails, you’ll be in great danger.” Horrible imaginings filled my mind: Caesar ordering Father’s execution or, because our family was a noble one, sending him a dagger and a note,
Salvage your honor.
“The plot won’t fail,” Father said.
“I think you will be in danger even if it doesn’t fail. Haven’t I heard you say the people love Caesar? Surely he has friends who will want to avenge him?”
“Just see that you don’t speak of this, and all will be well.” He squeezed my shoulder. “Tiberius Nero…”
“Yes, Father?”
“He was Caesar’s officer. But he has come over to our side. A fine fellow, of excellent birth. He is actually a second cousin of mine.”
I said nothing.
“You will marry him.”
In the course of things, Father was bound to find me a husband in the next year or two, so an announcement of this kind was to be expected. Yet a wave of dismay swept over me. I blurted out my first thought. “You are giving me to him to induce him to turn traitor to Caesar?”
“Of course not.
What a thing to say!” Father avoided meeting my gaze.
I knew what I surmised was true, at least to a degree. I was part of the inducement—that is, my dowry was, and the privilege of an alliance with my father. But to say outright that he would wed me to a man as a bribe for abandoning his loyalty—that was wrong. It was crude and stupid of me to speak of such a matter with blunt honesty.
In those days, I often uttered foolish truths. My mother struggled in vain to break me of this habit, with a birch rod. Father was far more lenient. He would chuckle sometimes at what I said and suggest that I give a matter more thought. He even seemed delighted when some words of mine could make him pause and think.
The study was a special place for me; it was where Father and I had our best talks. It always smelled faintly of the preservative oil used on the parchment scrolls. Two of the walls held shelves of Father’s favorite books—volumes of history and political philosophy and accounts of the lives of men who had fought for the Republic. On another wall was a magnificent mural, depicting the Battle of Zama. A corner niche held a bust of Cincinnatus, that selfless patriot who saved Rome from invaders, then immediately gave up power. In this study, I always felt so valued, so close to my father.
My stomach tightened because I had displeased him, the one person in the world I most wanted to please. “Are you angry at me?” I asked.