boys rods and scourges to whip the traitor back home. Wasn't that magnificent?' In reading this story I had pictured the schoolmaster as Cato, the boys as Postumus and myself, and so my enthusiasm for Camillus was a little mixed. But Medullinus was pleased.
When Germanicus was asked for his approval of our marriage he gave it gladly, for I had told him of my love for Camilla; and my uncle Tiberius raised no objection; and my grandmother Livia hid her anger as usual and congratulated Augustus on having been so quick to take Medullinua at his word--he must have been drunk, she said, to havf approved the match, though indeed the dowry was small «nd the honour of the alliance great for a man of his family. The house of Camillas had bred no men of outstanding capacity or reputation for many generations.
Germanicus told me that everything had been arranged and that the betrothal ceremony was to take place on the next lucky day--we Romans are very superstitious [A.D. 3] about days; nobody would dream, for instance, of fighting a battle or marrying or buying' a house on July i6th, the day of the Allia disaster in Camillus' time. I could hardly believe my good fortune.
I too had feared that I would be made to marry ^Emilia, an ill-tempered affected little girl who copied my sister Livilla in teasing and making a fool of me whenever she came to us on a visit, which was often. The betrothal ceremony, Livia insisted, was to be as private as possible, because she could not trust me not to make a fool of myself if there was a crowd. I preferred it that way; I hated ceremonies. Only the necessary witnesses would attend, and there would be no feast, merely the usual ritual sacrifice of a ram whose entrails would then be examined to see whether the auspices were favourable. Of course they would be; Augustus, officiating as priest, in compliment to Livia, would see to that. Then a contract would be signed for the second ceremony to take place as soon as 1 came of age, with stipulations about the dowry. Camilla and I would join hands and kiss and then I would give her a gold ring and she would return to her grandfather's house--quietly, as she had come, without any train of singing attendants.
It hurts me even now to write about that day. I stood, very nervously, in my chaplet and clean robe waiting with Germanicus by the family altar for Camilla to appear. She was late. She was very late. The witnesses began to grow impatient and criticise the bad manners of old Medullinus in keeping them waiting on a ceremonial occasion like this. At last the porter announced Camilla's uncle Furius and he came in, ashy-white and wearing mourning garments. After a short speech of greeting and apology to Aueustus and the rest of the company for his tardiness and ill-omened appearance he said: 'A great calamity has happened. My niece is dead.'
'Dead!' cried Augustus. 'What joke is this? We had W] a message only half an hour ago that she was already on her way here.'
'She died by poison. A crowd gathered at the door, as crowds will, when they heard that the daughter of the house was about to go to her betrothal. When my niece came out, the women all pressed admiringly around her.
She gave a little cry as if someone had trod on her foot, but nobody thought anything of it, and she stepped into the sedan. We had not gone the length of the street before my wife, Sulpicia, who was with her, saw her lose colour and asked whether she felt frightened. 'Oh, aunt,' she said, 'that woman stuck a needle into my arm and I feel taint.'
Those were her last words, my friends. She died a few minutes later. I hurried here as soon as I Had changed my clothes. You will forgive me.'
I burst into tears and began to sob hysterically. My mother, furious at my disgraceful conduct, told one of the freedmen to lead me away to my room; where I remained for days, in a nervous fever, unable to eat or sleep. But for the comfort that dear Postumus gave me, I believe I should have lost my wits altogether. The murderess was never found and nobody was able to explain what motive she could have had. Livia reported to A'ugustus a few days later that according to reports which seemed reliable one of the women in the crowd had been a Greek girl who considered herself, no doubt groundlessly, to have been wronged by the girl's uncle and may have decided to revenge herself in this monstrous way.
When I was well again, or no iller than usual, Livia complained to Augustus that the death of young Medullina Camilla had happened most unfortunately. In spite of Augustus' pardonable sentiment against such a match, she feared that young ^Emilia would, after all now, have to be betrothed to her impossible grandson: everybody, she said, had been surprised that she had not been matched with him before. So, as usual, Livia had her way. I was betrothed to Emilia a few weeks later; and went through the ceremony without disgrace, because grief for Camilla had made me quite indifferent. But -Emilia's eyes were red when she arrived, from tears not of grief but of rage.
Now as to Postumus, poor fellow, he was in love with my sister Livilla, of whom he saw much because she had gone to live in the Palace when she married his brother Gaius, and was still there. It was generally expected that he would marry her, to renew the family connexion broken by his brother's death. Livilla was flattered by his passionate devotion. She flirted with him constantly, but had no love for him. Castor was her choice--a cruel, dissolute, hand--some fellow who seemed made for her. I knew of the understanding between Livilla and Castor, which I had discovered accidentally, and this made me very unhappy on Postumus'
behalf, the more so because Postumus had no suspicion of her character and I did not dare to tell him of it. Whenever Livilla and I and he were together she used to show me pretended affection, which touched Postumus as much as it angered me.
I knew that as soon as he had gone she would begin her spiteful tricks again. Livia got wind of the intrigue between Livilla and Castor and kept a careful watch on them: one night she was rewarded by a message from a trusted servant that Castor had just climbed in at Livilla's window by the balcony. She put an armed guard on the balcony and then knocked at Livilla's door, calling her by name. After a minute or so Livilla opened the door, pretending to have been sound asleep; but Livia went inside and found Castor behind the curtain. She talked very plainly to them and appears to have made them understand that the matter would not be reported to Augustus, who would certainly banish them if it was, only on certain conditions; and that if these same conditions were strictly observed she would even arrange that they should marry. Not long after my betrothal to ^Emilia, Livia so settled matters with Augustus that Postumus was betrothed, much to his grief, to a girl called Domitia, a first-cousin of mine on my mother's [A.D. 4] side; and Castor married Livilla. This was the year that Tiberius and Postumus were adopted as Augustus' sons.
Livia considered Julilla and her husband /Emilius as a possible obstacle to her designs. She was lucky enough to get evidence that ^Emilius and Cornelius, a grandson of Pompey the Great, were plotting to remove Augustus from power and to divide up Bis offices between themselves and [99] certain ex-Consuls, among them Tiberius, though Tiberius had not yet been sounded for his opinion. The plot never gathered much way, because the first ex- Consul whom jEmilius and Cornelius approached refused to have anything to do with it. Augustus did not punish either ^Emilius or Cornelius by death or banishment. It had been welcome proof of the strength of his own position that they could get so little support for their plot, and by sparing them he proved it still stronger. He merely called them to his presence and lectured them on their folly and ingratitude. Cornelius fell at his feet and thanked him abjectly for his clemency; and Augustus begged him not to make a further fool of himself. He was not a tyrant, he said, either to conspire against, or to worship for showing a tyrant's clemency: he was merely a State-official of the Roman Republic who had been temporarily granted wide powers for the better maintenance of order. ^Emilias had evidently led him astray by misrepresentations. The best cure for this nonsense was for Cornelius to become Consul next year in due course and so satisfy his ambitions by attaining equal honour with himself; for there was no higher rank than Consul in Rome.
[Theoretically this was true.]
^Emilius was proud and remained standing; and Augustus told him that as his relative by marriage he ought to have shown more decency, and as an exConsul he ought to have shown more sense. He thereupon deprived him of all his honours.
An amusing feature of this case was that Livia won all the credit for Augustus' clemency by claiming to have pleaded, with a woman's tenderness, for the lives of the two conspirators; of whom, she said, Augustus had practically decided to make an example. She got his consent to the publication of a little book which she had written called A Pillow Debate on Force and Gentleness, full of intimate touches. Augustus is represented as restless and worried and unable to sleep. Livia begs him prettily to speak his mind and they go together over the question of the proper treatment of /Emilius and Cornelius.
Augustus explains that he does not wish to put them to death, yet he fears that he must do so, for if he lets them off it will be thought that he is afraid of them, and others will be tempted to conspire against him. 'To be
