who would be heroes of the Republic; how I remember too her grave smile of pride and how she touched wood when she heard my words.
Julia and Marcellus joined us towards the end of the month, coming from the Capri villa I had given them as a wedding present. I was a little nervous before they arrived, not only in case the difficulties between them persisted but because I knew how Livia was unsettled by them, and I feared lest the perfect happiness of September would be disturbed. But Livia, secure in my love and praise for her sons, smiled to see them. They too glowed with health and pride and happiness and seemed at one together; and on the second morning Julia made my joy complete by telling me that she was with child. I was nervous too of course, as one must be in such a case. Any child may prove difficult to bear, a first one most of all. But Julia shone with health, and assured me that she had suffered no ill-effects in the first weeks of pregnancy.
Then, 'You remember,' she said, 'how I told you we weren't getting on. What a fool I was. Marcellus is a perfect dear, he couldn't be sweeter. Really, Daddy, I'm as happy as… oh, I don't know what, I can't imagine anyone or anything as happy as I am, I'm happy as the flowers would be if they knew what happiness is. Poor flowers, not to know…' Flowers… I hardly noticed them when I was a young man, and even that day, took Julia's words as being merely conventional. After all, the brevity of a flower's life has long been a commonplace of poets, though few have expressed the idea as felicitously as Horace. But I could not understand Livia's enthusiasm for gardening and flowers, could not see that a garden is to be valued because at one and the same time it denies whatever is discordant in life, and affirms mortality. Now it is with melancholy irony that I recall Julia's words.
October brought wind and rain, a sudden drop in temperature, and squalls throwing up sea-foam on the rocks below the villa. Marcellus caught a chill. I found him shivering over a game of dice and, irritated by his carelessness, snapped him to bed. His condition worsened during the night. Julia sent to wake me, and I found her crouching by his bedside, her face swollen with fearful weeping. I sent urgently for Antonius Musa, but even as I waited for him, despair stabbed me. Marcellus choked and struggled for breath, sweated, tossed and babbled. I ordered Julia to be led from the chamber, for her grief added only to her husband's distress. I knew he was going to die, and yet could not believe it. His eyes opened in momentary lucidity and I read terror in his gaze. I pressed his hand, but I do not know that he recognized me, or drew any comfort from it. In the hour before nightfall I saw him weaken, and with the dark, he crossed the Styx. Later, I could hear Julia howl among her maids. I begged Livia to comfort her, but she was unable to do so. Between waking and sleeping our world was torn apart. The next day Julia miscarried.
There are many who say I over-valued Marcellus. Tiberius, I know, is certain he would have disappointed me. Perhaps it is true. Perhaps his charm would have died as he lost the ardour of youth and he would have seemed less remarkable. Perhaps Livia is right, and he was never indeed remarkable. I cannot tell, and it is so long ago. But I was not alone in what I thought. In Book VI of 'The Aeneid' Virgil honoured my nephew by having Aeneas meet him in the Shades: I cannot recall his lines, even now, without tears and an aching heart. Whom the Gods love die young, and I am old. Fortune and misfortune rattle against each other throughout my life like dice in a box, they fall to the table as capriciously. Marcellus died but the work of the Republic was unceasing. I had sent Agrippa to the East. Now stories were put about that he had gone there in pique, resenting Marcellus. What nonsense! I needed him to report on the administration and morale of the Eastern provinces, especially Syria and Judaea. Both were troublesome for different reasons, Syria because it had been mismanaged, Judaea because it was unmanageable. Its inhabitants, the Jews, are a nation of narrow cantankerous monotheists, as reluctant to pay Roman taxes as to honour Roman Gods. They needed a few cuts from Agrippa's swagger-stick. How best to govern the Jews is difficult to know. I have tried direct rule, and also governing through a client-king, Herod. They like neither one nor the other. Revolt always simmers below the surface, for they are religious fanatics who believe, absurdly, that they are the chosen people of the one true God. I say, absurdly, for two reasons. First, we have no cause to believe there is only one God, and indeed all rational enquiry and observation of human history suggest that it is nonsensical to believe there is. Why should the Jews alone march in step? Secondly, if they were indeed the Chosen People, one would have thought they might have made more of God's favour. As it is, they live, squabbling like monkeys among themselves, pinned between the sea and the desert. One cannot avoid the conclusion that their assumption of God's favour is the most ridiculous evidence of man's infinite vanity and ability to deceive himself. What was to be done with Julia? I was not surprised to find her grief for Marcellus shorter- lasting than my own. She was young, still at an age when six months can seem an eternity. But I was displeased when Timotheus, tremblingly, warned me that she was frequenting disreputable late-night parties at the houses of dissolute young aristocrats. Such conduct was both unseemly and dangerous. I upbraided her. 'So you're spying on me,' she said. 'Well, that's delightful.'
'I don't have to spy on you, your behaviour is apparently common knowledge even though I am one of the last to hear of it.' 'Then it's Livia.' The blood flooded to her cheeks and her eyes sparkled. She had never looked lovelier. 'Really, Daddy, your wife's an old cat,' she said, and giggled. One of her most charming features was her inability to maintain a sour or angry mood. 'Livia knows nothing of the matter.'
'Don't be naive, Daddy. Your wife knows everything that's going on in the Palace, and especially anything concerning me. She's never approved of me, and she's always on the look-out to see if I slip up.'
'You mustn't talk like that,' I said, though I knew of course that I couldn't stop her. 'Marcellus has been dead less than half a year. Don't you ever think of that?'
'Oh Daddy, just because I go to parties doesn't mean I don't miss Marcellus. But I would miss him more if I didn't go and lay around at home. Don't you see that?' 'It's a matter though of decent behaviour.'
'Oh really, decent behaviour! All my friends think that old-fashioned mourning awfully stuffy. It's just not done nowadays. I bet if it was me that was dead, Marcellus wouldn't be glooming at home. No, and I don't suppose you'd be ticking him off for gadding about either. So there.' I would have to provide her with a new husband. It was, as I said to Livia (who sniffed on hearing it) unnatural to expect a girl as full of life as Julia to deny herself; besides we had to consider the effect on her of losing a child; and finally, if she didn't marry again soon, I was afraid she might get into trouble. A scandal was the last thing we wanted.
'Well,' Livia said, 'you are right there anyway. Have you anyone in mind?'
'It can't,' I said, 'be any of the young men she is frequenting now. They're none of them politically reliable… I had thought, perhaps…'
I paused. Livia was sewing. Her needle moved to and fro, quick, certain, exact. She didn't look up to question my silence, but waited for me to continue. It was cold outside, and the slaves had let the furnaces which served our heating system die down. I shivered, despite the thick under-vest I was wearing -I have always hated extremes of climate, and the north wind, scudding across the mountains, was bringing snow to the fringe of the city. I had noticed that afternoon that the Alban Hills were white. 'Tiberius,' I said. Livia made no reply.
'You have often observed,' I said, 'that Julia is fond of him, and you have said too that his stability is what she needs.'
'You're misquoting me.' Livia looked up from her sewing. 'I have never said she is fond of him. I have said she runs after the boy. That is not quite the same thing. It wouldn't do…'
She must have been tempted. I have always been certain of that. What was I offering after all? My only daughter, and hence, for Tiberius, the position in the Republic which she knew I had been reserving for Marcellus; surely she must have been tempted? Yet, not only then, but a few days later too, after 'many hours of consideration' she turned my proposal down, flat. 'It wouldn't do,' was all she would vouchsafe me, no explanation. I didn't understand it. I had thought to please her. It has taken me years, much pain and perplexity, to come to an understanding. She knew of course, and valued, what she was declining. Once, a few years later, she half-suggested that she had been unwilling to expose Tiberius to the envy of his contemporaries, but that wasn't the true reason. It was rather that she didn't trust my daughter, was sure she would make Tiberius unhappy, would bruise that Claudian pride of his, and would retard the development of his character. She feared he would withdraw into his secret world of brooding, drawing those heavy eyebrows down, fixing that long mouth in a sullen and recalcitrant line. If that happened, his career would suffer. Livia had no desire to see Tiberius a recluse. She was ambitious for her sons. I had counted on her ambition to secure agreement, but I had given insufficient value to her intelligence. I had failed to realize how well she knew Tiberius, and how she feared his nature. I could hardly blame myself for that, not knowing him well enough; so I blamed his mother. She had failed me. She had done nothing to solve my problem. More exasperatingly, I had thought to please her by this suggestion, and had not done so. I resented her refusal to be pleased. It was Maecenas who turned my mind to the solution for Julia. Over the last couple of years I had seen less of him, partly because Murena's conspiracy and his brother-in-law's
