wait to be in the city. To visit the baths and the theatre. I've heard there's a sensational new dancer from Spain, a real yum-yum, only sixteen and not an ounce of puppy fat, hard as a camp-bed (to coin a phrase). Give me another glass of that muck, ducky, I can hardly wait…' 'What the hell are we waiting for anyway?' Agrippa said.
'Things must be done properly,' Marcellus said. 'We are not entering the city as conquerors. We must arrange the right sort of reception. It takes time.'
I experienced a curious peace as I listened to them, a peace such as I had indeed not known before. It was as if we had rolled the whole last year of struggle into one ball, which was now hanging on the lip of the hole as in a game of marbles. For the moment there was no need of decision, no further struggle. I have known the same feeling since; it comes when the flood of events has taken direction of one's life out of one's hands. No doubt despair can affect one similarly. I have never known despair.
Now all I said was: 'Besides I must first go to see that all is well with my mother and sister.'
Octavia was confused.
'You look the same,' she said, 'when I look at you properly, but I would hardly have recognized you. Why haven't you brought Marcellus?' 'Staff duties,' I said. 'Pig.'
'Besides,' I said, 'if you think I've changed, well, it seems to me that marriage has changed you. I don't really feel you are my sister when I see you playing his wife. That's really why I found him staff duties to-day, I'm jealous. How's Mother?' 'Preparing the banquet.'
'You should have stopped her. I can't eat banquet food. You know that. Anyway I haven't time.' 'Just you try stopping her. How's our stepfather?'
'Prosy, apprehensive and a damned bore. This time tomorrow I'll be consul. You know that, don't you? But he's still afraid we'll get our throats cut. It's incredible. Still, he's been very useful, that's got to be said.' 'Him useful? I make a rude gesture to that.'
'It's true, sis. You see he's invaluable in council. Nobody wants to be associated with him, so I've only to invite him to speak first, which I invariably do of course out of my respect for our relationship and his grey hairs…' 'And his fat belly.'
'Yes of course, and his fat belly – how could I forget the famous belly – well, I've only to do that to make quite certain that everyone else proposes more or less what 1 want, since that's bound to be the exact opposite of what old Flutter-fingers has advocated. Oh yes, I'll be able to tell Mamma her man has been invaluable.'
'She won't care, she'll know you're mocking him and pulling her leg, but she won't care. She's really proud, you know. She keeps saying you've proved you're a true Julian.'
I looked out into the summer sky where a hawk hovered, then dropped sheer on its prey. 'No,' I said, 'she's wrong there. I shall never be a real Julian.'
I couldn't avoid the banquet, though I managed to excuse myself from eating the lake fish on the grounds that it would make me bilious in the hot weather. Before I left my mother said to me: 'Remember, Brutus and Cassius live.'
Cicero met me at the gates of the city. There had come first a crowd of senators few of whom I knew even by sight. Most of them tried to smile; sullenness and fear showed through however. I used Philippus and Marcellus to mingle among them. 'Be affable,' I said. I plucked Salvidienus by the sleeve. 'There are some of your family here, aren't there?' 'My two brothers'; he flushed as if my question indicated distrust of his absolute loyalty. 'Do pray introduce me,' I said. He complied with an ill grace, and his brothers looked sheepish as men do who have backed the defeated side. I urged them to regard me as their friend, but I could see they were enviously counting the years between us.
A hush fell on the assembly, broken only by a high-pitched giggle – Maecenas of course. I looked round for explanation. An ornate purple-canopied litter was emerging from the shadow of a narrow street into the full sun of the piazza. It was carried by half a dozen slaves, mountaineers from Anatolia by the look of them. It halted before the dais on which I was standing. The curtains were withdrawn to reveal Cicero.
I have been much criticized – both at the time and later – for what happened next. I can only say it seemed the most natural thing in the world to me. I leapt from the dais and advanced towards the litter. For a moment I thought the old man was going to lie there, even extend his hand to me as if I had been a client or supplicant. I am sure the thought crossed his mind. He must however have calculated that the satisfaction to be obtained from such a gesture would be no more than momentary, for, with a visible effort and an arthritic groan he stuck out his scrawny neck, heaved his legs round, and disembarked from the litter. I resumed my advance and embraced him (he smelled of old yellow papyrus) with the words: 'Ah, the last of all my friends.' I am not ashamed of the words, which were well and deliberately chosen. If he had been more prominent and constant in friendship, this point would never have been reached. All the same, as I spoke, I felt him stiffen. He kissed my cheek, and held me a moment in a grip like a vulture's talons.
The next day I was elected consul. I chose as my colleague an obscure cousin, Quintus Pedius, recommended by my mother as a man who would hinder me in nothing. (Unfortunately she exaggerated his amiability; he was a damned nuisance.) I paused in the act of taking the auspices for the first time, and directed my gaze to the heavens. Naturally the crowd did the same, and there was a moment of awed silence before they broke out in loud huzzas at the sight of a dozen vultures winging in the direction of the Janiculum. Of course I had known what to expect; Marcellus had reminded us that a similar flight had greeted Romulus when he first performed that ceremony, and Maecenas had undertaken to obtain the birds through his theatrical connections ('I don't suppose buzzards would do? So much cheaper'). But I was impressed by his staff-work which had seen to it that a sufficient number of the crowd were aware of the precedent. Such manipulation of the emotions of the public may seem cynical to you, and I can indeed hardly deny the imputation. Nevertheless there are times when such manipulation is necessary. It was poetically right that vultures should make an appearance to link me to Romulus, first Father of Our Country, but the workings of nature are inclined to be capricious. Besides, vultures are much rarer in Italy now than they were in his day – 'I daresay they were common as crows then', as Maecenas said; it is permissible to give fate a nudge from time to time. I must tell you however that the occasional fabrication of omens in no way invalidates those that appear spontaneously. I was not of course impressed by the birds, but the crowd were. That was the great thing: they accepted the flight as confirmation of my authority. There was only one uncomfortable moment. A pair of the birds suddenly lost height; for a ghastly moment it looked as if they were about to plummet into the Tiber. I held my breath, wondering if we had been too clever by half. However – and here is substantial evidence of how hard it is to disentangle the human from the divine – they recovered more abruptly than they had fallen, and were soon lost in the pine trees of Janiculum. The crowd had been silenced by the fall and Maecenas seized the chance to improve the situation: 'See how the Gods favour the consul,' he cried, 'if he stumbles Jupiter himself lifts him to safe triumph.' The crowd broke out in renewed cheers. Later he said to me: 'Bloody birds, I could have died, my dear. I'll have that bird-seller flayed. He swore to me he had given them all a good trial flight in the Campagna.' 'Oh,' I said, 'let him alone. Your intervention improved things, don't you think?'
The next day I had the court clear my adoption as Julius' heir. Henceforth I was Caesar: Gaius Julius Octavianus Caesar. This done, I paid my troops, which had taken the first steps to restore order and the rule of law in the Republic, their promised bounties, from the public treasury. I ordered the law which had granted an amnesty to Caesar's killers to be rescinded on the high moral grounds that the murder of the head of the Republic, perpetual dictator and pontifex maximus, could never be legally condoned. I set up a special court to outlaw the murderers who had styled themselves Liberators.
Two days later Cicero left Rome. He wrote to me asking permission. His health was poor, he explained; he required sea air. He thanked me – for what I was never certain. He asked forgiveness for the Past and indulgence
