Chapter XVIII #2
– I thought you would see the advantages. But we can’t do it alone. Our next step must be to recruit an ally from the senatorial faction. I believe I have found just the man.
– And who is that?
– Calpurnius Piso.
It struck me as such an outlandish suggestion, I snorted in disbelief. Perhaps she was not as clever as I thought!
– Piso? Who fought with Pompey against Julius Caesar in the civil war? Who applauded the assassins and took up arms against us at Philippi? It’s a miracle he’s still alive! I thought he had retired from public life.
– Patricians like Piso never retire. They bide their time. He has eight consuls in his family tree. He longs to be the ninth. No one is more influential among the Republican old guard.
– But he’ll never agree!
– He already has. I spoke to him yesterday. If we make him consul next year, he’ll support us.
The speed of her manoeuvring left me as usual flailing in her wake. She seemed to take pleasure in watching my slowness to catch up, waiting for me to ask the obvious question: how could we make Piso consul, given that Augustus and Murena had only just been elected?
– We shall create a vacancy and appoint Piso suffect consul.
– You want Augustus to step down?
A pitying look.
– No, that would defeat the whole purpose of the plan. It is Murena who must go.
– And does Augustus approve of this?
– He will.
A few days later, I went to call on Murena.
I went armed and in full military kit, accompanied by twenty legionaries, who pushed past his steward and stationed themselves in his atrium.
Murena emerged half dressed to find out what was going on. He was surprised to see me, and alarmed.
– Agrippa, what is all this?
I came straight to the point.
I said I had come with the authority of Augustus to inform him that unfortunately circumstances had changed. Due to his illness, and in the interests of the stability of the state, it would be necessary for him to have as his consular colleague a figure who carried greater weight in the Senate.
– Accordingly, he must ask you to resign. He sends his apologies. I am sure he will be able to find you some special command overseas as compensation, perhaps even a governorship.
– This is an outrage! On what grounds am I supposed to resign?
– I would suggest ill health.
– But my health is good.
– At the moment it is good. That might change.
I refused to leave with my men until I had his letter of resignation.
The following day, a broken man, he left Rome and retired to his estate in the country, where he died soon afterwards, it was said by suicide.
Politics! As I say – a filthy business.
For the fourth year in a row, Augustus missed the opening session of the Senate.
Piso presided in his place.
He was nearly sixty, one of the few patricians remaining who had been elected under the old Republic, before Caesar crossed the Rubicon.
He treated me with an elaborate politeness that somehow managed at the same time to convey his distaste for everything I represented.
But Livia had judged him shrewdly. He had no ambition except to restore his family’s status by adding their name once more to the roll of consuls. He would give us no trouble.
As soon as Piso had delivered his inaugural speech, the Senate passed a motion at his instigation, pledging their loyalty to Augustus and wishing him a swift recovery.
It then adjourned, and the dozen leading magistrates, who now included Marcellus as aedile, walked solemnly up the Palatine Hill to Augustus’s palatial home.
He had been washed and dressed for the occasion, and propped on a golden couch in the enormous tablinum, where it was his custom to receive official visitors.
Livia welcomed the delegation and showed us to the chairs that had been arranged in front of the couch. With a demure bow – ‘Gentlemen, I shall leave you to your deliberations’ – she withdrew to the atrium, where she was able to listen to the proceedings out of sight.
Piso rose and read out the Senate’s loyal greetings, then sat.
A silence followed.
Augustus cleared his throat. His voice was quiet. We had to lean forward in our chairs to hear it. But it was firm, and clear, and must have cost him some effort.
– Conscript Fathers, I thank you for your kind words. My body is weak, but it pleases me to see the health of the Republic is still strong. It is the greatest comfort to me in my affliction to know that whatever happens, it will continue to flourish in your safe hands.
He gestured to one of his secretaries, who stepped up beside him holding a pile of document cases.
– To you, my noble colleague Calpurnius Piso, in case the worst should happen, I confide these official records, which list the legions under my command, their strength and locations, and the revenues of the provinces over which I have authority. Let there be no secrets between us.
The secretary handed the documents to Piso.
– For my part, I shall return to my duties as soon as my health permits. Until that time, I hereby transfer all the powers that you have granted me to the holder of my signet ring. I give it to the man I know will best safeguard the interests of the Republic.
He paused, and worked the ring off his finger, then held it aloft. Slowly he surveyed the room. His gaze lingered on Marcellus.
– That man is Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa.
Even in the depths of his sickness, he retained his instinct for drama.
He had also retained his cunning.
As I walked away with his ring on my finger, I turned over in my mind what had just happened.
He had still not actually named me as his successor, merely as his surrogate for as long as he was ill.
If he should die, the future would depend upon what was written in his will, and that no one knew – not even Livia, or so she told me.
It was lodged with the Vestal Virgins, under lock and key.
Of course, I had grown yet further in importance.
I could measure that over the following days by the number of senior politicians who suddenly started thronging my house every morning, hoping for my good opinion, and by the bodyguard that was now attached to me, and by the deference I was shown whenever I entered the Senate.
But it was not power I had so much as the potential for it.
Everything depended on the frail figure lying in his bed on the Palatine Hill.
The respect I received was conditional. Beneath the flattery, I could sense their resentment at having to defer to a man of plebeian birth.
Maecenas was jealous of me, and bitter about my removal of his brother-in-law as consul.
And just as I had feared, I soon found myself in conflict with Marcellus.
As aedile, he was now responsible for all Rome’s public works. His first act was to dismiss my old chief engineer, Lucius Auctus, from his office as curator of the city’s aqueducts. Auctus came to me in great distress. I told him to ignore the ignorant young upstart and return to his duties.
Soon afterwards, Marcellus turned up at my house demanding to know by what right I had overruled him.
I showed him Augustus’s signet ring.
– This gives me the right. From now on, I advise you to keep your nose out of affairs you know nothing about.
– You are impertinent, Agrippa, beyond your proper station, and unworthy of my sister. Everyone knows of your ambition. My uncle in his sickness may not be able to see through you, but I can.
– And you owe everything to the accident of your birth. But for that, you’d be selling your arse on the streets.
After that, it was war between us.
He tried to frustrate my projects on the Field of Mars, luring away my best craftsmen to schemes of his own by offering them more money.
But I warned them that if they went, they would never work for me again.
And as I had built more in Rome than any man since Pompey and Julius Caesar, they chose to stay.
He staged elaborate games in April to raise his popularity – theatrical shows and chariot races in honour of the Great Mother, Cybele, so lavish he was plunged heavily into debt, which only made him more desperate.
I retaliated by increasing the number of days my bathhouses were free for public use.
Our enmity was common knowledge, and Claudia found herself torn between her husband and her brother.
She sided with her brother, as she always did, and so the dispute spread from the streets and into my home.
She laid all the blame on me. We argued and did not speak to one another for days on end.
How greatly I missed the gentle Caecilia, who had now remarried and was happy with her new husband!
What sacrifices one must make for power!
Marcellus sought to play the statesman. He rose often in the Senate to speak on matters to do with military and foreign affairs.
Like many young men, he did not allow his ignorance to curb his eloquence.
But the Senate guarded jealously the authority it still possessed over its share of the provinces, and the majority did not take kindly to hearing a nineteen-year-old lecture them on the need for a war in Macedonia.
I saw that with a bit of luck I would not have to try to destroy him. He would do the job himself.
And then a most unexpected development occurred.
Augustus recovered.
The person who deserved the credit was his sister, Octavia.
In despair at his endlessly worsening condition, she had invited to Rome Antonius Musa, a Greek doctor she had known in Athens.
He had acquired a high reputation treating royalty in the east and curing them of chronic ailments.
Livia was suspicious of Octavia’s motives, but reluctantly gave permission for Musa to examine Augustus.
Afterwards, I joined a meeting with her, the doctor and Octavia to hear his diagnosis.