Chapter XVII #3
As she led me through the villa, she asked me not to tire him by staying too long or to agitate him by relaying unwelcome news. She left me at the door to his room.
It was stiflingly close. The shutters were closed.
The air was thick with the smell of herbal remedies.
A brazier full of coals, tended by a slave, glowed red hot.
The flames of scented candles rose motionless in the still air, emitting threads of black smoke.
As my eyes adjusted to the gloom, I made out a lumpish shape, which I realised was Augustus.
He was lying on a couch, swaddled like a baby in wet woollen blankets that had been soaked in hot olive oil and herbs.
As I moved towards him, he stirred and turned his head towards me. His hair was damp, his face glistening, his voice weak.
– Agrippa, is that you?
He apologised for the stuffiness of the room. He said he was being treated with hot compresses and poultices, which were supposed to draw out the poison from his body, but their only effect so far had been to make him feel worse.
– What is the point of controlling the world if you cannot control your own body?
He told the slave to leave us.
– Open the shutters, for pity’s sake, and get this stuff off me.
I did as he asked. Beneath the blankets he was naked apart from a loincloth. His limbs were thin, his belly distended.
– Did you ever see such an ugly sight? I look like a pregnant spider. Help me sit up.
He started to shiver in the draught from the window.
I draped one of the blankets around his shoulders.
He asked me to mix some wine with water, and drank it from a small bowl, which he held shakily, cupped in both hands.
When he had finished, he gave me the empty bowl and leaned his back against the wall.
– Tell me what is happening in the city.
I started to describe the opening of the Senate, but he interrupted me.
– No, no, I’m not interested in any of that. I want to know about your buildings.
I did my best to paint a picture of it all in words – the bridge, the basilica, the baths, the Pantheon, the voting ground, the frescoes, the statues.
He listened with his eyes closed, nodding, occasionally asking for more detail.
At the end, he expressed his approval, and our exchanges continued roughly as follows:
– You have clearly done great things. I expected no less. And the wedding, how was that?
– It went off well. The people loved it. They turned out in their thousands to watch the couple arrive and waited outside to accompany them home.
– Julia was happy?
– She seemed it.
– And Marcellus?
– The same.
– He is a fine young man.
– If you say so.
He opened his eyes.
– You do not like him?
– I hardly know him.
– I need you to like him, for my sake. He’s the best hope I have.
– Then I shall like him. For your sake.
– I want him in the Senate at the next elections.
– Even though he’ll only be eighteen on polling day?
– That doesn’t matter. I was only nineteen when I was elected consul. The Senate can make an exception in his case, just as it did in mine. We must move things on, Agrippa, and quickly. I intend to make him aedile for next year.
– At eighteen? He has no idea how to run the city!
– True. But you do.
At that moment, I understood why he had been so anxious to summon me.
I was to do the work, and Marcellus, of all people, was to take the credit!
If Augustus had been in good health, I would have refused him, or at least tried to talk him out of it.
But I was mindful of Livia’s injunction not to upset him.
And to see him in such a wretched state, much worse than I had expected, filled me with pity.
I recognised that he had glimpsed his own mortality, lying there helpless – and worse to him than death was the thought that all he had achieved would be lost as soon as he was gone unless he could secure the succession.
I promised I would help.
He sighed and closed his eyes.
– My oldest and most loyal friend. What would I do without you?
The brief conversation had exhausted him. He thanked me for coming and said he needed to rest. I helped him to lie down again and covered him in his blankets. He was asleep by the time I reached the door.
Livia was standing outside in the passage.
I knew she had been listening, and she knew I knew it. She did not care. As she conducted me back through the house, she spoke frankly.
– This obsession of his with Marcellus is beyond all reason. You know Maecenas is encouraging it?
– I wasn’t aware. It doesn’t surprise me.
– Tiberius has his faults, but my son has one great virtue, instilled in him by his mother and vital for a ruler – he is cautious, whereas Marcellus’s arrogance makes him reckless.
He is a young hothead who thinks he can do no wrong.
He will lead us to disaster. You and I both know it. We must work together to stop him.
Despite my reservations about Marcellus, I had no intention of being drawn into her schemes. I made some excuse about being needed urgently back in Rome and left without making any commitment.