the civil wars worthwhile; duck them and make your whole life to now a nonsense…' When I had landed at Naples on my return from Egypt, I found Virgil there. He was living in a villa a few miles out of the city on the Sorrentine peninsula, where, in ancient times, the Sirens dwelled. He invited me to dine with him, but, when I arrived in the mellow glow of the late afternoon, I found the poet pale, listless and unable to eat. It was the first intimation of the illness that would afflict him over the next decade and bring about his death, that came too soon for me, for Rome and for Poetry. He toyed with his food, but brushed aside my concern, and was himself solicitous for my health.
'Olives and bread and a little pecorino cheese, and the white wine of those hills suffice me. I am no man of action. But you have aged Caesar, in grief and disillusion,' he said.
'Antony's death,' I said… and left my meaning for him to divine. One never had to speak copiously to this master of words who understood silence. 'And Egypt was horrible,' I said. 'I hated it. Flies and corruption and incessant demanding chatter. I caught a fever but the cause was, I'm sure, my loathing for the ancient vice, cruelty, superstition and greed of Egypt.'
He had finally completed his Georgics and I asked him to read me a passage.
He complied, in that soft and gentle voice that nevertheless carried all the authority of knowledge: Happy – even too happy, if they knew their bliss -are farmers who receive, far from the clash of war, an easy livelihood from the just and generous earth. Although they own no lofty mansion with proud gates, from every hall disgorging floods of visitors, nor gape at doorposts bright with tortoise-shell veneer, tapestry tricked with gold, and rich bronzes of Corinth, nor yet disguise white wool with vile Assyrian dye and waste the value of clear oil with frankincense, still they sleep without care and live without deceit, rich with various plenty, peaceful in broad expanses, in grottoes, lakes of living water, cool dark glens, with the brute music of cattle, soft sleep at noon beneath the trees: they have forests, the lairs of wild game; they have sturdy sons, hard-working, content with little, the sanctity of God, and reverence for the old. Justice, quitting this earth, left her last footprints there… He gave me his slow smile. 'You envy my farmers, Caesar, who would never envy you. But we are not all called to the same work. Listen to the last line of that passage again.' And he repeated slowly, pausing over each word as if in wonder. 'Justice, in its ideal form,' he said, 'has quit the earth. But we can still discern the footprints. It falls on you, Caesar, to restore the shadow of justice.'
And then he read me another passage, a great hymn of praise to Italy, which I shall not quote since it ends in a compliment to myself – one I value more highly than all the honours that have been paid me…
We sat in silence. The air was still warm with the smell of flowers, and the red glow of the dying sun lay like a carpet of roses on the bay. We heard no more than a murmur from the city below. In the distance a dog barked, and though we could not hear it, I sensed the steady munching of cattle knee-deep in meadows, an image of peace and plenitude called forth by the poetry. All at once, I knew that the world was at the same time good and barren; that life had a deep purpose which was not made insignificant (though the actors were all ultimately that themselves) simply because it would never be fulfilled.
Virgil, as if reading my thoughts, said: 'The finished poem is never as good as the poem that was not written; and yet it must be set down as though it were. Every start contains the seed of a new failure, but that is no excuse for not starting.' 'I know what you are telling me,' I said.
Was it that evening that we first talked of 'The Aeneid'? Memory flickers in old age like a dying candle, and I cannot be certain; but I think it was. Perhaps in reality we made a contract, Virgil and I. If I assumed the burden of Empire, he would write Rome's epic: tell all how the Gods promised Aeneas limitless Empire. But it wasn't as simple as that. It never is… All the same, the contract existed. We both knew it. It hung in the soft air between us, and we both knew the cogency of a destiny recognized and accepted. Once, I said to him: 'What is destiny? Are we not free men?'
Virgil said: 'Leave that question to the philosophers. Act out what you feel and know. And our knowledge is this, Caesar: for both of us: we can only be free when we work out the destiny which we perceive is written for us. I do not know how this can be reconciled. I only know it is how it is.' The Curia buzzed with the rumour of a great occasion. Even the laziest and most inattentive senators thronged the benches. My stepfather sat with a rose pressed to his nostrils, to ward off the smell of hot flesh. The buzz died away as I began to speak.
The ground had of course been well-prepared. Agrippa, Maecenas and my other friends had taken soundings. We had, for instance, long discussed the question of names and tides. I had rejected the dictatorship, likewise the title of 'imperator', by which the soldiers had so often acclaimed me. It smacked too much of military rule. For a long time we could not come to a decision. Then someone – it may have been myself, it may have been Maecenas – suggested 'princeps'. It symbolized no direct power, merely a recognition of authority; Cicero, I recalled, had used it of both Pericles and Pompey…
Now I began by recounting what I had achieved for Rome. 'For the first time in a generation,' I said, 'civil discord is still. We are at peace.' Sunlight was visible beyond the open door. Philippus pressed his flower against his nose. Agrippa sat, tensed as a fighting bull. I reminded them that I had already rescinded all the acts of the triumvirate: Romans were no more subject to the arbitrary law which our extremity had made necessary. The Free State lived again. 'Accordingly,' I said, 'though speaking as one of this year's consuls, and invested with the tribunician power which I prize as the expression of the love and confidence of the Roman People, and which enables me to do my duty towards the people, I must tell you, Conscript Fathers, that the days of extraordinary powers are over. I shall lead you no longer… Receive back your liberty and the Republic. Take over responsibility for the army and the provinces, and govern yourselves in the manner hallowed by our fathers' example. The ship of the Republic, shaken by storms, almost wrecked on the rocks of ambition, sails free and serene again on the open sea.'
It was a pity I mentioned the sea, because looking over the assembled senators I saw so many mouths hanging open like fish waiting for a hook, that I almost broke out in giggles to see their consternation. However, I gathered up my papers and walked out of the Senate. The silence followed me into the Forum. Livia was alarmed when she heard what I had done, alarmed and angry.
Tm sorry,' I said, 'that I didn't consult you, but since you have been so unwilling to listen to what I had to say, it was difficult to do so. But don't worry, I haven't flown in the face of what you want me to do. I'm not giving up power. I'm making it legitimate.'
'If it works,' she said. 'I can guess what you're going to say. It seems to me a jolly sight too clever.'
'No,' I said, 'if you had seen their astonishment, you wouldn't say so. What I've done is give them a glimpse of the void. They are appalled. You see, my dear, whatever they say, they have forgotten how to act as free men capable of thinking of the general good. Even in this purged Senate the majority are either beasts or poltroons. Trust me, Livia, please.'
I put my arm round her, drew her to me, and kissed her. I took her chin and turned her face round that our lips might meet. For a moment she resisted, then returned my kiss as she had not done for almost five years. I drew her down to the couch, and, mindless of any possible interruption, we made love, as parched and starving men might fall on bread and wine. Our first intensity slackened and was replaced by that yielding tenderness coming from the knowledge of perfect union, which I had found with Livia and no other woman.
You were right,' she sighed, 'my damned Claudian pride has kept us apart; but I was right too to revolt. Nothing can ever repair the wound made by your sacrilege. We may be joined together again – oh we are, my love – but it can never be as it was. You can no longer be a favourite of all the Gods, and there is a curse on our marriage.' 'Don't, don't,' and I tried to silence her with kisses.
'No,' she said, when we had kissed long and then drifted into, and beyond, a second and tender love-making, 'it is different now, because I accept it as you have accepted what I feared you might reject or throw away. I love you, I have always loved you even while I hated you.'
'Livia, I shall love you, and no other woman like you, till I die. If I have seemed callous or indifferent, it was because I feared I had killed your love…'
'My love,' she murmured, 'is not a slave to die at an angry word.' 'Let us always live mindful of what we are to each other. I know how little I am when your love is withdrawn…' And this time it was Livia who reached her lips towards mine. Writing that passage I relive its warmth, the sense of relief and comfort which we both felt. I warm myself at the knowledge that in that hour we approached the full flower of human felicity, creating something that the rigours, disappointments, quarrels and, yes, bitterness, of future years could never destroy. We attained then, while the stunned Senate resumed debate, that communion of souls which Plato holds out as the expression of perfect love, and which he considers unattainable in this life. Since that hour, I have known that it can be attained,
