But Athenodorus, who gave me my first vision of a world outside myself, my family, and even of Rome, was a stern and unrelenting master. His students were few-the sons of Octavia, both adopted and natural; Livia's sons, Drusus and Tiberius; and the sons of various relatives of my father. I was the only girl among them, and I was the youngest. It was made clear to all of us by my father that Athenodorus was the master; and despite whatever name and power the parents of his students might have, Athenodorus's word in all matters was final, and that there was no recourse beyond him.
We were made to arise before dawn and to assemble at the first hour at Athenodorus's home, where we recited the lines from Homer or Hesiod or Aeschylus that we had been assigned the day before; we attempted compositions of our own in the styles of those poets; and at noon we had a light lunch. In the afternoon, the boys devoted themselves to exercises in rhetoric and declamation, and to the study of law; such subjects being deemed inappropriate for me, I was allowed to use my time otherwise, in the study of philosophy, and in the elucidation of whatever poems, Latin or Greek, that I chose, and in composition upon whatever matters struck my fancy. Late in the afternoon, I was allowed to return to my home, so that I might perform my household duties under the tutelage of Livia. It was a release that became increasingly irksome to me.
For as within my body there had begun to work the changes that led me to womanhood, there began to work also in my mind the beginnings of a vision that I had not suspected before. Later, when we became friends, Athenodorus and I used to talk about the Roman distaste for any learning that did not lead to a practical end; and he told me that once, more than a hundred years before my birth, all teachers of literature and philosophy were, by a decree of the Senate, expelled from Rome, though it was a decree that could not be enforced.
It seems to me that I was happy, then, perhaps as happy as I have been in my life; but within three years that life was over, and it became necessary for me to become a woman. It was an exile from a world that I had just begun to see.
III. Letter: Quintus Homtius Flaccus to Albius Tibullus (25 B. c.)
My dear Tibullus, you are a good poet and my friend, but you are a fool.
I will say it as plainly as possible: you are not to write a poem celebrating the marriage of young Marcellus and the Emperor's daughter. You have asked me for my advice, I have given it as strongly as I might give a command, and for the several reasons that I shall proceed to enumerate.
First: Octavius Caesar has made it clear, even to me and Vergil, who are among his closest friends, that he would be most unhappy if we ever alluded, directly or indirectly, to the personal affairs of any member of his family in one of our own poems. It is a principle upon which he stands firm, and it is a principle which I understand. Despite your hints to the contrary, he is deeply attached both to his wife and his daughter; he does not wish to condemn the bad poem which offers them praise, nor does he wish to praise the good poem which might offer them offense. Moreover, his life with his family is nearly his only respite from the burdensome and difficult task he has in attempting to run this chaotic world that he has inherited. He does not wish that respite endangered.
Second: your natural talent does not lie in the direction that you describe, and you are unlikely to write a good poem upon this subject. I have admired your poems upon your lady friends; I have not admired your poems upon your friend and commander in chief, Messalla. To write an indifferent poem upon a dangerous topic is to choose to behave foolishly.
And third: even if you were able to somehow turn the natural bent of your talent in another direction, the few attitudes you hint at in your letter convince me that you had better not try what you propose. For no man may write a good poem the worth of whose subject he doubts; and no poet can will away his misgivings. I say this not in recrimination of your uncertainties, my friend; I say it merely as a fact. Were I to engage myself in the composition of such a poem as you propose, I might discover that I had the same ones.
And yet I believe that I would not. You hint that you suspect a coldness in the Emperor's feelings toward his daughter, and that in the marriage he is 'using' her for purposes of state. The latter may be true; the former is not.
I have known Octavius Caesar for more than ten years; he is my friend, and we are on truly equal terms. As any friend might do, I have praised him when in my judgment he deserved praise, I have doubted him when I judged he merited doubt, and I have criticized him when I believed that he deserved criticism. I have done these publicly, and with utter freedom. Our friendship has not suffered.
Thus, when I speak to you now of this matter, you will understand that I speak as freely as I ever have, and as I ever will.
Octavius Caesar loves his daughter more than you understand; if he has a fault, it is that his feeling for her is too deep. He has overseen her education with more care than many a less busy father has given to that of a son; nor has he been content to limit her learning to the weaving and sewing and singing and lute-playing and the usual smattering of letters that most women get in school. Julia's Greek is now better than her father's; her knowledge of literature is impressive; and she has studied both rhetoric and philosophy with Athenodorus, a man whose wisdom and learning could augment even our own, my dear Tibullus.
During these years when he so often has had to be absent from Rome, not a week has gone by that his daughter has not received in the mail a packet of letters from her father; I have seen some of them, and they display a concern and kindness that is indeed touching.
And upon those welcome occasions when his duties allowed him the freedom of his family and his home, he spent what might seem to some an inordinate amount of time with his daughter, behaving with the utmost simplicity and joy in her presence. I have seen him roll hoops with her as if he, too, were a child, and let her ride upon his shoulders as if he were a horse, and play blindman's buff; I have seen them fish together from the banks of the Tiber, laughing in delight when their hooks snagged a tiny sunfish; and I have seen them walk in perfect companionship in the fields beyond their home, picking wild flowers for the dinner table.
But if you have doubts in that part of your soul which is the poet's, I know that I cannot allay them, though I might erase them from that part of your mind that is a man's. You know that if another father chose for his daughter a husband as rich and promising as young Marcellus, you would applaud his foresight and his concern. You know, too, that the 'youth' of Julia in this matter would, in another instance, be cause for another kind of concern. How old was that lady (whom you have chosen to disguise as Delia) when first you began your campaign against her virtue? Sixteen? Seventeen? Younger?
No, my dear Tibullus, you are well advised not to write this poem. There are many other subjects, and many other places to find them. If you wish to retain the admiration of your Emperor, stick to those poems about your Delias, which you do so well. I assure you that Octavius reads them and admires them; hard as it may be for you to believe, when he reads a poem he admires good writing more than praise.
IV The Journal of Julia, Pandateria (A.D. 4)
In my life, I had three husbands, none of whom I loved…
Yesterday morning, not knowing what I wished to say, I wrote those words; and I have been pondering what they might mean. I do not know what they mean. I only know that the question occurred to me late in my life, at a time when it no longer mattered.
The poets say that youth is the day of the fevered blood, the hour of love, the moment of passion; and that with age come the cooling baths of wisdom, whereby the fever is cured. The poets are wrong. I did not know love until late in my life, when I could no longer grasp it. Youth is ignorant, and its passion is abstract.
I was betrothed first when I was fourteen years of age to my cousin, Marcellus, who was the son of my father's sister Octavia. It was perhaps a measure of my ignorance, and the ignorance of all women, that such a marriage seemed to me perfectly ordinary at the time. Ever since I could remember, Marcellus had been a familiar part of our household, along with the other children of Octavia and Livia; I had grown up with him, but I did not know him. Now, after nearly thirty years, I have hardly a memory of what he was like or even of his physical appearance. He was tall, I believe, and blond in the Octavian way.
But I remember the letter my father sent informing me of the betrothal. I remember the tone of it. It was almost as if he were writing to a stranger; his tone was pompous and stiff, and that was unlike him. He wrote from Spain, where for nearly a year he had been engaged in putting down the border insurrections, a mission upon which Marcellus, though only seventeen years of age, had accompanied him. Persuaded (he said) by Marcellus's fortitude and loyalty, and concerned that his daughter be placed in the care of one whose worth was beyond dispute, he had determined that this marriage was in the best interests of myself and of our family. He wished me happiness, regretted that he would not be in Rome to take his proper part in the ceremony, and said that he was asking his friend Marcus Agrippa to take his place; and told me that Livia would inform me further upon what was expected of
