I Am Livia (4 page)

“Yes,” I said, though I didn’t really. To me, it seemed all the world’s great matters were in men’s hands.

Mother brushed a loose lock of hair back from my face, no tenderness in the gesture. “Just look how messy your hair is. Do you even bother to glance in the mirror? And you almost a wife.” She grimaced. “I’ve never liked it that your father talks about politics with you. It’s a man’s game.
Why you want to fill your head with it, I can’t imagine.”

“It’s important,” I said.
When I talked to Father it was as if I were brought up to a mountaintop and looked out at an endless vista. By contrast, Mother oversaw the cooking of meals, the spinning of wool, and the sweeping of floors.
Where was the excitement and the challenge in any of tha
t
? “Politics matters.”

“Does i
t
? I think it’s mostly fools’ posturing.” Mother shifted her shoulders. “I’m sure Caesar was a terrible man, just as your father says. He wanted all the power in his own hands. Imagine, noblemen having to bow to another man, as if they were his slaves. Still—for him to have been slaughtered at a Senate session was very strange and unsettling. And now—why would Brutus let his main henchman address the people?” Her face tensed. “What is he thinking o
f
?” She looked at me as if she expected me to pierce Brutus’s mind for her.

Father rarely discussed politics with Mother. She had never much wanted him to, as far as I could tell. Yet I think it rankled that I, not she, should share a part of her husband’s mind. Now feeling a threat coming toward her family from this sphere, she turned to me.

“Mother, there are men in politics whose greatest aim is to look exalted in their own eyes. It could be that Brutus is like that. To let Antony speak in public, with Caesar’s blood still wet, makes no sense. I think a man who cared for Rome’s good, rather than his own reputation, would at least exile Antony. Allowing Antony to speak makes Brutus look magnanimous, but I am afraid it is reckless.”

Mother sat listening with her hands gripping her knees.

“There has already been rioting over Caesar’s death,” I said. “I’m afraid Antony, if he is at all clever, will excite more and worse.”

Mother gave an almost imperceptible nod of her head. She had been looking to me for comfort, but I had only confirmed her fears.

The whole world knows what happened that day in the Forum. Antony held up Caesar’s bloody toga and moved the crowd to pity. He read Caesar’s will, which contained a bequest to each and every Roman citizen, moving the people to gratitude. He aroused in the multitude a fierce hatred for Caesar’s assassins.

My father came home, grim-faced. He gave terse orders. An hour later, he, Mother, Secunda, and I, with a few of our most trusty servants, left Rome.
We traveled by cart until the sun sank in the west. Father wanted us as far from the city as possible before night fell.
We stayed in a roadside inn that night—Secunda and I shared a cramped bedchamber overrun with mice—and the next morning traveled on.
We eventually reached Father’s estate in Tuscany.

We learned later that the common people searched for Caesar’s assassins all through the city that night, carrying torches, vowing to burn them alive. They came upon a man who had the same name as one of the assassins. Disbelieving his protestations of innocence, they tore him limb from limb. They found none of the actual plotters. Marcus Brutus, Decimus Brutus, and the rest had fled the city. So had my betrothed, Tiberius Nero, who like Father had played no part in the actual assassination but was rumored to be allied with the killers.

In our country villa, we waited to see what would happen next in Rome. I had always loved our Tuscan estate—being able to breathe sweet country air, wander among the olive groves, and watch ponies gambol in the fields. Now, with fear as my companion, I took pleasure in little. A month passed. Then Caesar’s killers reached an agreement with Antony. The men who had stabbed Caesar would be left unmolested. Antony would be named consul. He and the assassins would share in the government of Rome.

As part of the accommodation, my father was made a senator. His birth and the governmental offices he had held would have qualified him for the Senate in ordinary times. Tiberius Nero—who, like my father, could claim descent from one of Rome’s noblest families, the Claudians—became a senator too.

All would be well, Father assured us, as we ate dinner together in the villa’s well-appointed dining room.

“I think we should stay in Tuscany,” Mother said.

Father shook his head. “There will be a political struggle in the Forum and in the Senate for the fate of the Republic. I must be part of it.”

“But Marcus—”

“If things go badly, don’t you think they will hunt me down here?”

Mother winced and said nothing.

Father looked at me. “Livia, when we return to Rome, you will be married immediately.”

I didn’t need to ask why.
With matters in flux as they were, and danger all around, it had become doubly important for Father to bind Tiberius Nero to him.

As we rode the cart back into Rome, I tried to gather my courage. I would become Tiberius Nero’s wife in a matter of days. After the wedding, if my father’s and husband’s political fortunes dipped…well, perhaps this unwanted marriage would not last very long.

What had the plebeians wanted to do to Caesar’s killers? Immolate them. I prayed we were not going back to Rome to be murdered.

M
y wedding took place soon after we returned to the city. It was early summer, the month of Junius. I remember the sticky heat. The atrium was crowded with dining couches and packed with friends of my father and of my husband-to-be.

On awakening that morning, I had removed my bulla, the lucky amulet meant to keep me safe through my childhood, for from today on I was accounted a grown woman. I had bathed in rose water. For the first time in my life, my lips were rouged and my eyelids touched with kohl. My hair had been arranged in six locks tied with ribbons in the manner of a Vestal Virgin. My long tunica was of fine white muslin, my sandals of soft white leather trimmed with gold. I had on ruby earrings and a heavy gold necklace, gifts sent to me by my betrothed. I wore a diaphanous red silk veil and saw everything tinted scarlet.

As I waited for Tiberius Nero’s arrival, I sat on a couch beside my mother and father, accepting good wishes from guests. Meanwhile, I could not keep from hoping Tiberius Nero would trip on his way to me and break his neck. I pictured this vividly: his toe catching on a paving stone, his cry as he fell, his friends looking sadly down at him as he lay stretched out dead. More kindly, I wished for him to simply decide he did not want to marry me after all.

But there were boisterous shouts of “
Feliciter!
” at the entranceway, and Father rose to greet his future son-in-law.

Gazing at Tiberius Nero through the red film of my veil, I tried with all my heart to find something to like about the man. His toga was carefully draped. His black hair showed no strands of gray. He had the weathered skin soldiers often do, but I told myself that he looked the part of a high-ranking military officer, and that ought to please me.

I would have liked him to have a proud military bearing. But his manner was that of a happy shopkeeper who had negotiated a good deal.

A priest of Ceres carried forward a pig, which did not have the sense to struggle. However, when the priest put it on the floor, it gave a startled squeal. That was not a good sign—the sacrifice had come protesting. I glanced hopefully at Father. Might the wedding be postponed?

He looked away.

The priest bent down and swiftly cut the pig’s throat before it could squeal again. It weaved like a drunken man, then its legs buckled. The puddle of its blood that formed on the floor looked black to me as I peered through my veil. The priest cut the pig’s belly open with one practiced move. A sickening stench filled the air, as he bent over and studied the animal’s guts.

I hoped he would find some awful anomaly and temporarily call off the wedding. I clenched my fists, bit my lip, and inwardly prayed. But the priest straightened up and cried, “The signs are good!”

Slaves mopped up the blood and carried away the pig carcass. Father and Tiberius Nero exchanged copies of the wedding contract. I knew that it mainly concerned my dowry—land holdings outside Rome, worth a substantial sum.

I stood between the two men. Again, my eyes sought Father’s. Again, he refused to look at me. He took my hand and placed it in Tiberius Nero’s tight, warm grip. He had given me away.

A desperate voice in my mind told me I still had the power to escape.
Do not say the words of consent.
What can they do to you? Kill you? Only Father has the right to kill you, and he won’t.

“Where thou art Gaius, I am Gaia,” I said to Tiberius Nero, proclaiming we were one person. Everyone cried, “
Feliciter!
”

During the wedding feast, my bridegroom and I reclined together on a dining couch. I felt a tickling on my forearm, looked down, and saw Tiberius’s hand, a square hand with stubby fingers, lightly stroking me from my wrist to my elbow. He gave me a small smile. I quickly pulled my arm away, then wondered if I had offended him and glanced at his face to see. He looked approving. I was a well-brought-up virgin, exactly the kind of bride he wanted.

The wedding feast ended too quickly. I stood entwined in my mother’s arms, and Tiberius Nero made the traditional show of dragging me away. Then he led me outside. Children threw nuts that fell around us like a shower of hail.
We watched as the wedding torch was lit. I was led to my new husband’s house by two little boys who each had two living parents—walking symbols of good fortune and fruitfulness. People in the roadway sang old songs with obscene lyrics as overhead the sky darkened and stars appeared. A smoke-colored cloud devoured the moon.

When we reached Tiberius Nero’s house, a maidservant came forward with a bowl of sheep fat. As I had been coached to do, I took a piece of it in my hands and rubbed it on each of the two doorposts. Two husky young men lifted me over the doorstep with great care. No one stumbled; there was no ill omen.

The house had colorful murals on the walls and artfully done floor mosaics. It was the house of a wealthy nobleman, though smaller than the house I had grown up in.

The sounds of merrymakers outside faded as a servant led me to a room off the atrium. Soon my husband and I were alone. Garlands of flowers bedecked our bedchamber. The wedding couch was covered in red silk. A candle flickered.

I turned my head and gazed at the pale yellow wall as Tiberius Nero undressed me. Then I felt his greedy mouth, sucking my breast. I reminded myself that he was my husband and I must endeavor to please him. Heat filled the room. I touched his neck with my fingertips. His skin felt moist, and I could smell his sweat.

He pushed me back on the bed and pawed at my thighs. I thought of what my father had said as we stood before our ancestors’ portrait masks; this was like laying down one’s life in battle. I wanted to push Tiberius Nero away, but I forced myself to go limp. I could feel a battering, but then he withdrew and cursed under his breath.

“What is wrong?”

He laughed. “Nothing. It’s because you’re young and small, and so innocent.”

He shoved a pillow under my buttocks. I looked up at him for a moment, saw his wide shoulders and his hairy chest. I turned my head and watched the shadows on the wall. His shadow rose and fell, rose and fell.

Tiberius Nero gasped. I felt a sharp pain and clenched my teeth. He heaved himself down beside me, his head on the pillow. I stared up at the ceiling. There was a tiny crack, barely visible in the dim light of the candle, shaped like a bird in flight.

“How beautiful you are.” He gave a low chuckle. “Wife.”

“Husband,” I murmured.

After a while, he said, “Turn over on your belly.”

I remembered seeing the steward and the maid in the kitchen, and understood. I didn’t look at the shadows on the wall this time. I kept my eyes closed. I told myself that there was a part of me Tiberius Nero could not touch, that my mind was safe from him.

So I became a married woman. I was mistress of a mansion on the Palatine Hill, attended by well-trained and obedient servants, and given every material thing I asked for. I asked for books—a great many. I asked for a huge oil lamp with gold fittings, so that I could sit up late at night and read sometimes, while Tiberius Nero snored. I asked for some expensive jewelry too, just to prove my power.

In bed, I early developed the knack of removing mind and spirit, while my body mimed passion. I, who had been prone to blurt out uncomfortable truths, learned to playact adroitly. I think that Tiberius Nero believed that every night he held a loving wife in his arms, a creature of mind and spirit as well as flesh.

Frequently, in the throes of passion, my husband told me I was beautiful. This did not warm me so much as perplex me. No one had ever called me beautiful before. As my maid dressed my hair in the morning, I sometimes would gaze in the mirror and wonder if there was any truth in what my husband said. My eyes were big and a lustrous dark brown, my hair the color of flame. Perhaps there was something arresting about my features. The stola, which I as a married woman wore, flattered me. Belted beneath my breasts, it made me look more voluptuous and mature than my girl’s tunica had. I was not particularly tall, but the long, straight linen folds falling to my ankles gave me some added height. I looked more like a woman now, less like a mere child.

At times, when my husband took me, my flesh responded and I felt the beginnings of pleasure. But my mind soon drifted away, and the sensation faded. I suppose the trouble was that deep down I rebelled against the use my body was put to. And yet, because it was my duty as a wife and as my father’s daughter, I gave myself to Tiberius Nero whenever he wanted me, always with pleasant words and outward warmth. I pretended that his desire was a source of joy to me. He was, I believe, perfectly content. “I can’t keep my hands off you,” he said more than once when he pulled me to him. I would smile.

I began to take a perverse pleasure in pretense. If I could not be truthful, then I would be the best liar in the world. If I couldn’t banish Tiberius Nero from my bed, I would try to make him completely besotted with me. It was a kind of game, really, and deep at the core of it was anger and mockery.

Compared to many others, my lot was enviable. But some part of me cried out that what happened in our marriage bed was a violation. There were times when I lay there, as he spent his passion, and I wanted to scream. I did not want him.
I did not want him.

Once he bought me a pretty silver bracelet when I had not even asked for it. “It is beautiful,” I said as I put it on, and I kissed him.

The happiness in his face hurt me. It made me despise myself because I was deceiving him. If I could have made myself truly care for him by an act of will, I would have done it. But that was beyond me.

When we had been married a couple of months, he said, “I call you ‘dearest’ and ‘darling,’ but you always call me ‘husband,’ or else by my name.
Why are you so formal, my little dove?”

“Love is so new to me,” I said. “You must forgive me.”

He laughed at what he took to be my innocence.

“What do you wish me to call you?” I asked.

“In our bedchamber, when we’re alone? Call me ‘my love.’ ”

Afterward, that was what I called him, when we lay together. And that, more than anything, did something to my soul.

The summer of my marriage was the time of Julius Caesar’s funeral games. It was a rare thing to hold funeral games—a way of honoring an extremely prominent person, and a way for the giver to ingratiate himself with the common people, who loved to be entertained. These games were given by Caesar’s great-nephew, whom he had adopted in his will as his son and heir.

This young man had been studying in Rhodes. He arrived in Rome to claim his inheritance. Mark Antony, now consul, had found some excuse to keep back part of the money that he held in trust for him, and the two squabbled over this. There was a bequest to the soldiers of Caesar’s army that had also not been paid. The boy—he had been called Gaius Octavius at birth but now bore the name Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus—paid the soldiers out of his own funds. Some people found this disturbing. My father, for one, did not like it that as a result the boy stood high with the army. But my husband saw no harm in young Caesar’s gesture. “So what if he wastes his money, behaving like a show-off and a fool?”