Cleopatra’s Daughter

“Then you remember the civil wars!” a senator shouted.

“Yes,” Octavian conceded. “But I also remember my father,” he said harshly, “stabbed to death for attempting to build an empire!”

There was pandemonium in the Senate. A young boy in the doorway repeated Octavian’s words for those standing in the courtyard, and the frenzy outside soon matched the turmoil within.

Octavian raised his arms, and again the senators fell silent. “Having done what I can for Rome,” he went on, “I now lay down my office in its entirety. To you, the esteemed senators of Rome, I return authority over the army, the laws, and the provinces. You are free to govern not just those territories which you entrusted to me, but also those which I fought and won for you.”

Seneca leapt violently from his seat. “This is not acceptable!” he cried. “You fought against Antony, you crushed the kingdom of Egypt, you rebuilt our city and sent forces to police our dangerous hills. You took a republic in chaos and made it into an empire, and we will never allow you to resign!”

Vitruvius turned to Octavia. “Is he paying Seneca?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“He doesn’t have to pay him,” Livia snapped. “The senators don’t want a return to civil war. Without Octavian’s leadership, the clans will go back to fighting and tearing each other apart like wolves.”

“Let us take a vote!” one of the senators shouted.

There were hums of approval, and Octavian raised his hands. “Then I submit my departure to you,” he acquiesced.

Seneca addressed the chamber. “We are voting on the future of Rome,” he said. “There is not a man here who doesn’t know what Octavian has done for this city, for this empire, for all of you! Do you want to return to the days of anarchy? The days of civil war?” he threatened. “Octavian is not another Julius Caesar. He is something different. This is something different. We can share power, and for the first time in the history of Rome, create a joint way of ruling. So let us give him a name in honor of his difference, of his victories, and his sacrifices to build a better Rome. Let us call Gaius Octavius … Augustus.”

There was a roar of approval from the senators, and only a few men remained seated on the benches. From the platform, Octavian bent his head humbly.

Livia looked toward the sky. “He’s done it,” she murmured. The gods seemed to have been watching over her. “He’s made himself emperor.”

The senators resumed their seats, and only Seneca remained standing. “As for leaving office,” he continued, and a chorus of protests met the words, “we shall have a vote as to whether Augustus shall be allowed to resign.”

It was a grand piece of theater, and when all of it was done, we watched as Octavian reluctantly accepted control over the provinces of Syria, Iberia, and Gaul for ten years. Egypt would still belong to him, and the command of more than twenty legions was his as well. But the rest of the provinces and their comparatively small legions would be governed by the Senate, and they would be allowed to choose which praetors would oversee them. The celebration in the streets that followed was as loud and wild as any military Triumph. It was as if Augustus were coming home again victorious from battle.

In Octavia’s villa that afternoon, we prepared for a celebratory feast. Gallia arranged my curls into a loose bun and slipped pearl-tipped pins into my hair. I imagined how beautiful the pins would have looked with my mother’s necklace, then commanded myself not to think about it. Gallia’s freedom and happiness was worth any number of necklaces, and no necklace could bring my mother back. Gallia swept the slightest hint of malachite across my lids, then allowed me to wear a pair of pearl earrings Julia had given to me for Saturnalia. When Alexander saw me, he hummed with appreciation.

“Be careful,” he teased. “All of those senators will be here tonight, and they’re probably tired of looking at Octavian.”

“Did you even hear what was happening?” I asked critically. “Or did you spend the entire time talking with Lucius?”

“Of course I heard! He’s kept his power for ten more years, and we’re all to call him Augustus.”

I looked up at Gallia. “Is it true? Will even Octavia call him that?”

“Yes. Romans are always changing their names.”

I thought of the mausoleum that Vitruvius had already started to build, and all of the inscriptions that would have to be changed.

“So do you think he planned this?” Alexander asked, seating himself next to me at the mirror while Gallia perfumed my neck.

“Julia says he did.”

“So does Lucius.”

“And what does Lucius know?” I demanded. “He lives with his aunt.”

My brother raised his brows. “Not anymore. He’s been talking to his father. Octavia has said he can come and live here.”

“He’s quite the charmer.”

We sat together in silence for a moment. Then I glanced in the mirror. “Do you really think I look pretty?”

“Enough to turn every head in the triclinium,” he promised. “And me?”

I laughed. “You’re always handsome. And what does it matter? There’s no one you have your eye on.”

He smiled uneasily.

“Is there?”

“No,” he confirmed. “It would be foolish to begin anything. We don’t know what Octavian—Augustus—has in mind for us. He could give you to a senator as old as Zeus and me to a witch like Livia.”

“Don’t say that,” I whispered.

“It’s true. That’s why Lucius won’t stay with his aunt. She thinks she’s found a wife for him. Some horrible hag with a villa in Capri. And he’s only a year older than we are.”

“When will he come here?” I asked.

“This evening.”

“So quickly?”

“The more time he spends with her,” my brother said, “the more time she has to bring women home to meet him.”

“But Vitruvius has to approve any marriage.”

“Lucius says Vitruvius trusts his sister’s judgment.”

“So does he think he’ll escape marriage by coming here?”

“Perhaps. Not every man marries, you know. Maecenas didn’t have a wife for years. And Vergil’s in his forties and has never married.”

“They are poets, Alexander. And probably Ganymedes.”

But my brother didn’t seem bothered by the reference to the handsome Trojan boy who was abducted to Olympus to become the lover of Zeus. He simply shrugged. “Maybe.”

For the rest of the night, I studied Alexander. Even when Marcellus poured my wine and complimented me on my earrings, I watched the way my brother talked, how Julia laughed at everything he said, and how Alexander’s eyes never left Lucius. The only time their gazes were parted was when Augustus stood from his couch in the triclinium and declared that tomorrow, another startling announcement would be made.

Julia shook her head. “If my father weren’t consul, he’d be an actor.”

“Is there a difference?” Marcellus asked, and I detected a note of bitterness in his voice. He said he had forgiven his uncle for accusing him of treachery, but I wondered whether he could forgive him for sending guards to pull him out of the fornices.

“What do you think he’ll announce?” I whispered. I looked to Julia and Marcellus, but it was Lucius who spoke.

“War.” When everyone turned to him, he added, “My father says that Augustus wants a new triumphal arch. When he was asked what it was for, he said his continued battle against Gaul, and war in Asturias and Cantabria.”

“Vitruvius never told this to me,” I said, hurt.