Chapter XX #3
I knew Augustus resented his dependency upon me, just as I resented mine upon him.
But by now, not only was his daughter married to me; my daughter Agrippina was married to his stepson Tiberius.
We were locked in a familial embrace of iron from which escape was unthinkable, and so, like siblings who bicker and irritate one another from time to time, we were obliged always to make up again.
When Augustus’s proconsular powers were renewed for a further five years, so were mine.
I possessed the same tribunician rights to introduce laws and summon public assemblies as he did.
We met two or three times each week and divided the tasks between us.
He concentrated on civil administration, the appointment of governors, treaties with foreign rulers, trade and financial matters.
He had become even richer than before – Spain alone, now that it was pacified, produced seven tons of gold a year that went straight into his treasury.
I meanwhile took charge of the legions, both in Italy and in the main provinces.
All promotions, from the highest grades to the lowest, passed through my office.
I set the rates of pay, supplied the equipment, issued the manuals for training and tactics, built ships, raised fresh recruits and arranged the settlement of veterans on their retirement.
We enacted a new law. If a young man wished to embark on a public career, he was obliged first to do a period of service in the army, either as a military tribune or as a prefect in the auxiliary cavalry.
Only then did he become eligible to stand for election as a magistrate.
As Augustus and I appointed these young officers, in this way we controlled who was admitted to the Senate, and so ensured that it became ever more loyal to our regime.
In theory, we were equals. But as Augustus was Caesar’s legitimate heir, providing the dynastic link that held the state together, he was always the dominant partner.
I took comfort from two facts: the first, private, that I was Caesar’s true son, whatever might be the legal case; and the second, public, that I was the father of Augustus’s grandson, Gaius, who was widely expected one day to succeed him.
I loved that boy and was bringing him up with a tenderness that had never been shown to me by my so-called father, to be brave and honourable and fitted for the life of service that lay ahead of him.
Thus, I reasoned, whatever my current subservience, I would be victorious in the end.
And then, at the beginning of the year following my return to Rome, Julia announced she was pregnant again.
Delighted at the news and awash with money, Augustus proposed that he and I should resurrect the Century Games, traditionally held every hundred and ten years, but abandoned during the civil wars.
The festival would acknowledge the blessing of Julia’s fertility by honouring the goddesses of childbirth, Ilythiae, and of motherhood, Terra Mater.
It would also celebrate the enduring peace since the death of Antony and strengthen Augustus’s popularity with the public.
Because no one was left alive who had ever witnessed the ceremonies, or even heard about them from their parents, Augustus consulted the Sibylline Books to devise the spectacle – the sort of arcane superstitious ritual in which he delighted.
Beneath a full moon, as darkness fell on the last day of May, a huge crowd gathered beside the Tiber on the Field of Mars.
The river was lit by a thousand torches.
Attended by the College of Priests, Augustus sacrificed three lambs to the Fates and sprinkled their blood upon the altars.
A giant bonfire was lit. The priests sang a hymn.
By the light of the flickering flames, one hundred and ten matrons served a sacred banquet.
The following day, on the Capitol, my main part in proceedings began.
I sacrificed two bulls to Jupiter, and on the next day, two cows to Juno.
That night, Augustus offered the blood of a pregnant sow to appease the Great Mother.
Twenty-seven boys and twenty-seven girls, whose parents were still living, formed a choir to sing the ‘Century Hymn’, specially composed by Maecenas’s pet poet, Horatius, calling on the gods to ‘prolong the glorious life of Rome’. And with that the ceremonies concluded.
Whether all this helped Julia in her pregnancy, I cannot say, but her health was blooming as she approached her full term – so much so that when in June I staged chariot races in the Circus Maximus, Augustus suggested that she should appear in his box.
She was very heavy by this time, and uncomfortable in the summer heat, but it was in her nature to relish public adulation, and so she readily agreed.
Augustus was already seated alongside Livia, Tiberius, Agrippina and other members of his family when we entered the stadium to a blast of trumpets.
A quarter of a million spectators jumped up from their benches to roar their approval as we made our way to the front of the box.
I remember how each time Julia waved, she set them off again.
And I remember how Livia, staring straight ahead, refused even to look at her, and clapped as slowly and softly as was humanly possible.
Four weeks later, Julia gave birth to our third baby – another boy.
Augustus attended the lustral ceremony without Livia. We named the infant Lucius, in honour of my supposed father, and it amused me to think of what that rabid old Republican would have made of the notion that another Lucius Vipsanius would one day be second in line to an imperial dynasty.
But I was not amused for long.
After the amulet had been presented, Augustus took Julia and me aside and informed us that he had made up his mind to adopt Lucius, and his elder brother Gaius, who was now an energetic three-year-old, as his own sons.
– Naturally they will continue to live in your household, but in this way the world will be in no doubt that Gaius is my heir, and if anything should happen to him, Lucius will take his place.
I ask only to be consulted about their education and general upbringing.
And of course, they will take the name Caesar.
Can you imagine the blow this was to me, the proud father of two healthy sons, to be told that legally they would no longer be mine?
That my boys, the only things I had that Augustus did not, were to be taken from me by him?
That he might make such a demand had never occurred to me.
I was briefly struck dumb. It was Julia who, after a brief glance at me, forestalled my angry reply and said that we would be honoured by such a mark of favour.
After Augustus had gone, I reproached her bitterly for giving away our sons without discussing it with me or putting up a fight. She laid her hand on my arm.
– Well then go to him, Agrippa, and tell him you refuse.
But you and I both know you cannot do that.
He would never forget such an insult. You might even risk a civil war, which you would lose, and the only people who would benefit would be Livia and Tiberius.
Does it really matter so much if they are known as Gaius and Lucius Caesar?
They will still be your flesh and blood.
She was right. I could not refuse, for the sake of both my family and the country, and over the following days I managed to swallow my pride.
But the day of the adoption ceremony was a humiliation for me.
A praetor officiated, and the boys were legally transferred to Augustus for the price of a copper coin, which he touched symbolically three times on a pair of scales.
Lucius was a babe in arms, but Gaius was old enough to know that something strange was going on and asked me what was happening.
I told him he would understand when he was older.
Not long after it was done, I went to see Augustus and said I wished to leave Rome for a couple of years.
It was an unexceptional proposal. To administer the empire, one or other of us had to reside in either the western or the eastern provinces for an extended period.
Having lately been in Gaul and Spain, I suggested I travel with Julia and our children to the east, where I could attend to his interests in Syria.
He agreed that such a visit was necessary.
His only reservation was that he did not want his sons to be away from Italy for so long.
But I flatly denied his request that I should leave them behind, and after a brief discussion, and seeing that I was not to be persuaded, he reluctantly gave his blessing.