my legs a little, as if in distracted carelessness. Julius Antonius moved across the room and sat beside me. I pretended confusion, and let my breath come a little faster. I waited for the touch, and prepared a little speech about how fond I was of Marcella.
'My dear Julia,' Julius said, 'however attractive I find you, I must tell you at once that I do not intend to become another stallion in your stable of horses.'
I believe that I was so startled that I sat upright on my couch. I must have been startled, for I said the most banal thing I can imagine: 'What do you mean?'
Julius smiled. 'Sempronius Gracchus. Quinctius Crispinus. Appius Pulcher. Cornelius Scipio. Your stable.'
'They are my friends,' I said.
'They are my associates,' Julius said, 'and they have been of service to me from time to time. But they are horses I would not run with. And they are unworthy of you.'
'You are as disapproving,' I said, 'as my father.'
'Do you hate your father so much, then, that you will not attend him?'
'No,' I said quickly. 'No. I do not hate him.'
Then Julius looked at me intently. His eyes were dark, almost black; my father's were a pale blue; but Julius's eyes had that same intense and searching light, as if something were burning behind them.
He said: 'If we become lovers, we shall do so in my own time and at terms more advantageous to us both.'
And he touched me on the cheek, and he rose, and he left my room.
I sat where he left me for a long while, and I did not move.
I cannot remember my emotions at being so refused; it had not happened to me before. I must have been angry; and yet I believe that there must have been a part of me that was relieved, and grateful. I had, I suppose, begun to be bored.
For the next several days, I saw none of my friends. I refused invitations to parties, and once when Sempronius Gracchus called upon me unexpectedly, I had my maidservant, Phoebe, tell him that I was ill, and was receiving no visitors. And I did not see Julius Antonius-whether out of shame or anger, I did not know.
I did not see him for nearly two weeks. Then, late one afternoon, after a leisurely bath, I called for Phoebe to bring my oils and fresh clothing. She did not answer. I drew a large towel about me, and stepped into the courtyard. It was deserted. I called again. After a moment, I crossed the courtyard and entered my bedroom.
Julius Antonius stood in the room, his tunic bright in the shaft of late afternoon sunlight that slanted through the window, his face dark in the dimness above that light. For several moments neither of us moved. I shut the door behind me, and came a little into the room. Still Julius did not speak.
Then, very slowly, he came toward me. He took the large towel that I had wrapped around me and slowly unwound it from my body. Very gently he toweled my body dry, as if he were a slave of the bath. Still I did not move, or speak.
Then he moved back from me, and looked at me where I stood, as if I were a statue. I believe I was trembling. Then he stepped forward, and touched me with his hands.
Before that afternoon, I had not known the pleasures of love, though I thought I had. And in the months that came that pleasure fed upon itself, and multiplied; and I came to know the flesh of Julius Antonius as I had known nothing else in my life.
Even now, after these many years, I can taste the bitter sweetness of that body, and feel beneath me the firm warmth. It is odd that I can do so, for I know that the flesh of Julius Antonius now is smoke, and is dispersed into the air. That body is no more, and my body remains upon this earth. It is odd to know that.
No other man has touched me since that afternoon. No man shall touch me for as long as I shall live.
V. Letter: Paullus Fabius Maximus to Octavius Caesar (2 B. c.)
I do not know whether I write you now as a consular of Rome who is your friend, or as your friend who is consular. But write you I must, though we see each other almost daily; for I cannot bring myself to speak to you of this matter, and I cannot put what I have to say in one of the official reports that I give you regularly.
For what I must reveal to you touches upon both your public and your private self, and in such a way that I fear they cannot be separated, one from the other.
When at first you commissioned me to investigate those rumors which you judged to be so persistent as to be disturbing, I must confess that I thought you overly concerned; rumor has become a way of life in Rome, and if one spent his time investigating all that he hears, he would have not a moment for any other business that ought to occupy him.
So, as you know, I began the investigation with a great deal of skepticism. Now I am grieved to tell you that your apprehensions were right, and that my skepticism was mistaken. The matter is even more alarming than you initially suspected, or could imagine.
There is a conspiracy; it is a serious one; and it has gone a long way toward its completion.
I shall report my findings as impersonally as I can, though you must understand that my feelings protest against the coldness of my words.
Some seven or eight years ago-the year that he was consul -I relinquished to the service of Julius Antonius, as a librarian, a slave whom I had some time earlier freed, one Alexas Athenaeus. Alexas was and is an intelligent man, and he has remained loyal to me through the years; he is, I am sure, a friend. When he learned of the investigation that I was conducting, he came to me in a highly distraught state, bringing with him certain documents removed from the secret files of Julius Antonius, and a most disturbing series of revelations.
There is, incontrovertibly, a plot against the life of Tiberius. The conspirators have enlisted the support of certain factions around Tiberius in his retirement on Rhodes. He is to be murdered in the manner that Julius Caesar was murdered, and it is to be made to appear that it is an authentic uprising against the authority of Rome. Upon this pretext of danger it is planned that an army will be raised under the auspices of the senator and exconsul Quinctius Crispinus, an army whose ostensible purpose is to protect Rome, but whose actual purpose is to assume power for that faction of conspirators. If you oppose the raising of this army, you will be made to seem either cowardly or indifferent; if you do not oppose it, your position and your person may be in danger, to say nothing of the orderly future of Rome.
For there is strong evidence that a direct attempt will be made upon your life at the same time that the plan against Tiberius is carried out.
The conspirators are: Sempronius Gracchus, Quinctius Crispinus, Appius Pulcher, Cornelius Scipio-and Julius Antonius. I know that the last name will cause you particular pain. I thought that Julius was my friend, and I thought that he was yours. He is not.
But this is not the end of my report.
Alexas Athenaeus also informs me that, unknown to Julius Antonius, there has been insinuated into his household a slave who is in actuality an agent of Tiberius. This agent is privy to the conspiracy; indeed, it was something that Tiberius's agent let drop that first aroused Alexas's suspicions. And the agent has been reporting directly to Tiberius about this affair. And from all that I can gather, Tiberius has a plan, too.
He apparently has as much proof of the conspiracy as I have; and he intends to use that proof. He intends to expose the plot in the Senate, using as his spokesman the senator and his former co-consul, Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso. Calpurnius will insist upon a trial for high treason; the Senate will be forced to accede; and Tiberius will then raise an army in Rhodes and return to Rome, ostensibly to protect you and the Republic. He will be a popular hero; and you will be made to seem a fool. Your power will be lessened; Tiberius's will be increased.
And there is yet one other thing-and this is the most painful-that I must report.
I am sure that for the past several years, since the absence of Tiberius Claudius Nero, you have not been wholly unaware of the activities of your daughter. I am sure that, out of pity for her condition and affection for her person, you have, as it were, looked the other way-as have most of your friends and even some of your enemies. But it becomes clear from the documents that I have in my possession that Julia has been intimate with each of the conspirators; and her lover of the past year has been Julius Antonius.
If this matter becomes public, it will almost certainly be made to seem that Julia herself is a part of the conspiracy; and Tiberius may well have in his possession papers more damaging even than we imagine.
In any public disclosure of the plot, she will inevitably be implicated; and she is likely to be implicated so deeply that she will be found as guilty of treason as any of the conspirators. It is no secret that she hates Tiberius, and it is no secret that she loves Julius Antonius.
