I have not done so yet, but within a few years I shall have reached the age when it will no longer be seemly for me to marry again. Give me these few years; for I do not wish to marry, and I shall not regret not having done so, even when I am old. That which we call our world of marriage is, as you know, a world of necessary bondage; and I sometimes think that the meanest slave has had more freedom than we women have known. I wish to spend the remainder of my life here; I shall welcome my children and grandchildren to visit me. There may be a kind of wisdom somewhere in myself, or in my books, that I shall find in the quiet years that lie ahead.
CHAPTER THREE
I. The Journal of Julia, Pandateria (A.D. 4)
Of all the women I have known, I have admired Livia the most. I was never fond of her, nor she of me; yet she behaved toward me always with honesty and civility; we got along well, despite the fact that my mere existence thwarted her ambitions, and despite the fact that she made no secret of her impersonal animosity toward me. Livia knew herself thoroughly, and had no illusions about her own nature; she was beautiful, and used her beauty without vanity; she was cold, and thus could feign warmth with utter success; she was ambitious, and employed her considerable intelligence exclusively to further her ambition's end. Had she been a man, I do not doubt that she would have been more ruthless than my father, and would have been troubled by fewer compunctions. Within her nature she was an altogether admirable woman.
Though I was only fourteen years of age at the time and could not understand the reason for it, I knew that Livia opposed my marriage to Marcellus, seeing it as a nearly absolute impediment to her son Tiberius's succession to power. And when Marcellus died so quickly after our marriage, she must have felt the possibility of her ambition urgently renewed. For even before the obligatory months of mourning had elapsed, Livia approached me. My father, having been offered the dictatorship of Italy in the wake of a famine, and having refused, had some weeks before prudently removed himself from Rome upon the pretext of business in Syria, so that he might not have further to exacerbate the frustrations of the Senate and the people by the presence of his refusal. It was a tactic that he employed often in his life.
As was her habit, Livia came at once to the point.
'Your time of mourning will be ended soon,' she said.
'Yes,' I replied.
'And you will be free to marry again.'
'Yes.'
'It is not appropriate that a young widow should remain long unmarried,' she said. 'It is not the custom.'
I believe I did not reply. I must have thought even then that my widowhood was as much a matter of form as my marriage had been.
Livia continued. 'Is your grief such that the prospect of marriage offends you?'
I remembered that I was my father's daughter. 'I shall do my duty,' I said.
Livia nodded as if she had expected the answer. 'Of course,' she said. 'It is the way… Did your father speak to you of this matter? Or has he written?'
'No,' I said.
'I am sure that he has been considering it.' She paused. 'You must understand that I speak now for myself, not your father. But were he here, I would have his permission.'
'Yes,' I said.
'I have behaved toward you as if you were my daughter,' Livia said. 'Insofar as it has been possible, I have not acted against your interests.'
I waited.
She said slowly, 'Do you find my son at all to your liking?'
I still did not understand. 'Your son?'
She made a little impatient gesture. 'Tiberius, of course.'
I did not find Tiberius to my liking, and I never had; I did not know why. Later I came to understand that it was because he discovered in all others those vices he would not recognize in himself. I said: 'He has never been fond of me. He thinks me flighty and unstable.'
'That is no matter, even if it is true,' Livia said.
'And he is betrothed to Vipsania,' I said. Vipsania was the daughter of Marcus Agrippa; and though younger than I, she was almost my friend.
'Nor does that matter,' Livia said, still impatiently. 'You understand such things.'
'Yes,' I said, and did not speak further. I did not know what to say.
'You know that your father is fond of you,' Livia said. 'Some have thought him too fond of you, but that is of no substance here. At issue is the fact, which you know, that he will listen to you more attentively than most fathers will listen to their daughters, and that he would hesitate to go against your wishes. Your wishes carry great weight with him. Therefore, if you find the idea of marriage to Tiberius not disagreeable to you, it would be appropriate for you to let your father know that.'
I did not speak.
'On the other hand,' Livia said, 'if you find the idea wholly disagreeable, you would do me a service now to let me know. I have never dissembled with you.'
My head was whirling. I did not know what to say. I said: 'I must obey my father. I do not wish to displease you. I do not know.'
Livia nodded. 'I understand your position. I am grateful to you. I shall not trouble you more with this.'
… Poor Livia. I believe that she thought then that everything was arranged, and that her will would prevail. But it did not, on that occasion. It was perhaps the bitterest blow of her life.
II Letter: Livia to Octavius Caesar, at Samos (21 B.C.)
I have been in all things obedient to your will. I have been your wife, and faithful to my duty; I have been your friend, and faithful to your interests. So far as I can determine, I have failed you in only one regard, and I grant that that is an important one: I have not been able to give you a son, or even a child. If that is a fault, it is one which is beyond my control; I have offered divorce, which, out of what I believed to be affection for my person, you have often refused. Now I cannot be sure of that affection, and I am bitterly troubled.
Though I had reasonable cause to believe that you should have thought my Tiberius to be more nearly your own son than was Marcellus, who was only your nephew, I forgave your choice upon the grounds of your illness and upon the grounds of your plea that Marcellus carried the blood of the Claudian, the Octavian, and the Julian lines, while Tiberius carried only the Claudian. I even forgave what I must see now as your insults to my son; if in the extreme youth in which you judged him he displayed what appeared to be some instability of character and excess of behavior, I might suggest that the character of a boy is not the character of a man.
But now your course is clear, and I cannot conceal from you my bitterness. You have refused my son, and thus you have refused a part of me. And you have given your daughter a father rather than a husband.
Marcus Agrippa is a good man, and I know that he has been your friend; I bear no ill will for his person. But he bears no name, and whatever virtues he may possess are merely his own. It may have been amusing to the world that a man with such a lack of breeding might hold so much power as a subordinate of the Emperor; it will not be amusing to the world that now he is the designated successor, and thus nearly equal to the Emperor himself.
I trust you understand that my position has become nearly impossible; all Rome expected that Tiberius should become betrothed to your daughter, and that in the normal course of affairs he should have had some part in your life. Now you have refused him that.
And you remain abroad upon the occasion of this marriage of your daughter, as you did upon the first- whether out of necessity or choice, I do not know. And I do not care.
I shall continue in my duty toward you. My house will remain your house, and open to you and your friends. We have been too close in our common endeavors for it to be otherwise. I shall, indeed, attempt to continue to
