Chapter XXII
XXII
It had been my intention to end my story there, for I had nothing else to tell, and I cannot abide long books that drag on to no purpose or try to end with some grand philosophical conclusion.
Augustus went off to Greece.
I continued to live with Julia as before and dared to hope the crisis in our marriage was behind us. She even became pregnant for the fifth time, much to her irritation.
Then came the trouble in Illyricum, and the necessity for me to leave her behind in Rome and travel north to deal with it.
The awful scene I witnessed on my return, of her and Tiberius together, I have already mentioned briefly. I shall not revisit it. It robbed me of my desire to live.
I do not repine. I have crammed more into my fifty years than most of the men I have met all put together. I have fought and I have built. I have known love and I will predecease my children, which is the greatest blessing that fate can bestow upon a parent. It is enough.
Yesterday morning, I gathered all the papers that comprise this memoir, set them in order and locked them in my iron-bound chest.
Then I summoned my staff, including my useless doctor, and told them it was my intention to kill myself by starvation, just as Atticus did when he could no longer bear his pain. Given my condition, I doubted it would take very long.
I handed over all the money I keep in the house, gave them a document freeing them from slavery, thanked them for their loyal service and told them to divide the cash as they thought fit. I instructed them not to bring me food or drink, and on no account to admit any visitors.
There were tears and pleas, which I ignored.
I ordered them to lock the door behind them.
I lay on my bed, and soon began to drift into a delirious state between waking and sleeping.
Hours passed.
I thought of my mother, and although I never knew what she looked like, I believed I saw her for the first time, a beautiful ethereal lady standing in the corner watching me.
I thought of my father, and of Octavius when he was young, and of Caesar and Mark Antony, and of Caecilia, my first and greatest love, and of Julia and my eight children, and of some of the men I had fought beside and of some of the men I had killed. The room was filled with them all.
The light faded and it became dark, and then in the morning, when it started to get light again, I saw Livia sitting at the end of my bed, reading. I stirred, and she turned to look at me.
– Ah, so you’re awake.
She seemed more solid than the other phantoms who had visited me, and I asked if she was real. My voice was a croak. I had not taken any water for many hours. She gave me a pitying look.
– Of course I’m real. You wrote to me, remember, and asked me to tell Augustus you were dying. Did you think I would stay away? I was wondering what you had been doing all this time alone.
She continued reading at great speed, running her finger down the columns of writing.
– This is fascinating, Agrippa. I never thought of you as a literary man. I congratulate you.
I struggled to prop myself up on my elbows. I saw that the chest in which I had locked my memoir was open. I ran my tongue around my dry, cracked lips.
– I gave orders that no one was to be admitted.
– Yes, but that hardly applies to me! Don’t distress yourself. Go back to sleep.
I lay down again and closed my eyes. I was weak and bewildered. I must have slept. When I opened them again, there was a breeze on my face. The door to the terrace was open and she was standing just outside. She turned to look at me. Her arms were folded. She was empty-handed.
– I needed some fresh air. Your room stinks.
– Where is my memoir?
– I put it back.
She tossed the key onto my bed.
I asked what would happen to it after I was gone.
– That will be for Augustus to decide. It will certainly come as a great shock to him.
– That I was Caesar’s son?
– Oh no, not that. He always knew that.
– How did he know it?
– Caesar told him before you both went to Apollonia. No, the shock will be learning what you really thought of him.
Did I dream it, this encounter? I must admit the possibility. My mind is a whirl of strange imaginings. I have tried to write down our conversation as best I can recall it. There was more she said before she left, but most of it is hazy. One last remark, though, lingers in my memory.
She was musing on whether I would have made the better ruler if Caesar in his will had adopted me as his son rather than Octavius and left me his estate.
It must have crossed his mind, she said.
It would have caused a sensation – but since when had Caesar bothered about what anyone thought? He believed himself to be a god.
In the end, she was sure he had made the right decision.
– It was a choice between the bear and the fox. And in politics there is no choice. It has to be the fox.