standards were themselves soaked in the blood of Crassus' and Antony's folly.
I hope this account will be valuable to you, darling boy. It will furnish you with much necessary background information. You must combine strength, subtlety, caution and imagination in dealing with Orientals, and you must try to conceal the natural distaste we feel for them. I have no doubt you will succeed… Reading that letter now plunges me into renewed grief for Gaius, so cruelly torn from me in his full flower. And I recall too the return of the prisoners. There were even a dozen survivors of Crassus' army, old men who had suffered almost forty years as slaves and lost all hope of seeing Italian skies again. Three whom I talked to had almost forgotten the use of Latin…
Their faces rise to haunt me as I brood on Tiberius' letter from Germany. Then I was sturdy enough to overcome my natural reluctance and welcome them. I could not do so now. Is it guilt, for after all it was I who despatched Varus, or merely the softer sentiments of age? These soldiers of Crassus and Antony had been robbed of life even more completely than if they had been killed in battle, for they had been forced through their long years of slavery to contemplate what they had lost. How, I wondered even then, would they greet their generals in the Shades? And what will Varus' soldiers have to say to me?
Nobody questions the morality of war, or almost nobody. I have never doubted Rome's mission. Even if I had, Virgil's words would have allayed my doubts. Yet I have seen too much of war not to feel its cruelty, or to retain any belief in military glory. Accursed term! I have come to detest generals who delight in war. I prefer Tiberius, my dear dour Tiberius, to Julius Caesar who delighted in battle because it gave him opportunity to win glory and exhibit his genius. I owe something to Caesar, but my life's work has been to repair the destruction wrought by that genius.
SIX
I remained on Samos till the spring, for I have always loved islands. The Parthian settlement brought me peace of mind and there were now matters of interest and pleasure to divert me. I received there an embassy from India. They brought me as a gift a striped cat which they called 'tiger', about the size of a lion, but more graceful and, they said, more dangerous. It was the first ever seen in Europe and I delighted in its beauty. The forests of their land, the ambassadors told me, are rich in tigers; villagers fear them, for they kill their cattle and goats, and sometimes turn maneaters. Some of those with me were eager that my tiger be displayed in battle in the arena, but I refused to entertain the suggestion. Its caged beauty disturbed me, as well as delighting, but I would not have it made the sport of the mob.
In spring I crossed to Athens. The weather was benign, flowers bloomed, wisteria and jasmine tumbled from the walls, mingling with roses, and, best of all, Virgil was waiting for me. He was drawn and ill, his face lined with the experience of pain, but we ate young lamb and kid and drank the resin-flavoured wine of Greece, and it seemed as if, with returning warmth, his health improved. It was a relief for me to be able to discard the cares of State for a short while, and talk of poetry and philosophy. I asked if 'The Aeneid' was finished. 'One never knows enough,' he said.
It was in pursuit of knowledge – the quest which alone distinguishes man from brutes – that we travelled to Eleusis to be admitted to the Mysteries. I hesitated to do this. All good Romans are nervous of foreign gods and goddesses, and though one does not like to compare the deities of Greece with the disgusting cults of Egypt and Syria, everything I had heard of the service of the Great Goddess disquieted me. Our Roman Gods are either familiar, with local habitations, and a long heritage, or they appeal to the lucid light of Reason. We do of course retain some aspects of our ancient religion, the origins of which are unknown and the exact purpose often too, but these are hallowed for us by their long association with our ancestors, even wild ceremonies, like the Feast of the Luparcal when men dress in skins of wolf and goat, and run round the Palatine Hill whipping every woman they meet to cure her of barrenness; this Feast is of course time-honoured. It would disgust us if we did not know that our ancestors had practised it so long. Even so, we no longer believed in its efficacy. It has become in a strange way a sort of sport. Our lack of belief can be demonstrated by the fact that Livia and I, even when we still hoped for a child of our own, never considered whether she should take part in the ceremony and expose herself to the test. We continue it because it is good for men to act as their fathers did.
Our religion is a matter of duty and reciprocal obligation. It is informed with light. So are the Olympian Gods of Greece, who are mostly our own Gods under a different name. Thus our Jupiter becomes their Zeus, our Juno their Hera, our Diana their Artemis, and our Mars their Ares. But Greek religion is also rich in the mystery cults, which are not masculine and reasonable like our Roman ones, but feminine and emotional. They speak with a strange music to parts of our nature that we do not, and cannot, know. All Romans fear them in their hearts, and, without Virgil, I do not think I would have gone to Eleusis.
We approached the valley in the late afternoon. It was surprisingly small and green, and large pines glowed with a deep greenness in the golden light of the westering Apollo. Soon he would decline below the mountains and leave Earth to the Goddess. The beauty of the scene caught at my heart, and I was impressed by the silent reverence of the troops of worshippers. My doubts were allayed: there was no fearful frenzy here.
'What do you seek?' a priest asked at the gate of the chapterhouse to which we had been led. 'We seek truth,' Virgil answered. 'Enter.'
Our clothes were taken from us and we bathed, and were anointed with sweet-smelling unguents, and were given saffron-coloured robes. All this was performed in silence, and, though the rooms were crowded, there was no noise but the shuffling of feet and the rustle of vestments.
'You must clear your mind of the past if you wish a vision of the future,' the priest said when we were ready.
For two days we prayed and fasted, and drank only the pure water of the Springs, obeying the silence still enjoined on us. I watched Virgil carefully, and in doing so began to understand something of the mystery of the poetic spirit. He was emptying himself of all but the desire to imbibe knowledge.
On the third night we were led out after dark. We proceeded between lines of torches, held by chanting initiates. The moon was up and the temple of the Goddess of Mysteries shone candid in its pure light. Shadows dappled the earth which was still warm under our bare feet. The chanting grew more resonant as we advanced: stranger, wilder, as if it came from a great distance, recalling what we had never known and yet seemed always to have known. A priestess stood at the portico of the temple, a flamen raised in her right hand. She spoke in a soft and sibilant voice. 'Are you prepared?' A cry of assent rose.
'Here,' she whispered, 'is neither life nor death, past nor future, but the eternal present. Here is neither rich nor poor, bond nor free, but the immortal soul. Here, for a passage of time that belongs to all time, we offer you escape from the thralldom of the body and union with the Goddess who is the primal source of life, from whom all things grow, without whom is dearth and death.'
Then the torches were extinguished. Lit only by the moon we mounted the steps, entered the temple and were escorted to the sanctuary.
It is forbidden to relate what happened there, to what rites we assented and what promises were given. And yet, though I cannot reveal what we experienced, I cannot leave the matter, for to do so, would be to deny those for whom I write, my… children, Rome's children (though not alas, the children of my body) of such illumination as I have received. There are those of course who say that wisdom which is partaken at second hand, is no true wisdom. I do not know. I write what I feel I must.
It was the next day, for we were both weary and I slept long, that I spoke of the Mysteries to Virgil. Fatigue showed in his face; his eyes were dark and remote pools. I did not know how best to approach the matter, and so did so clumsily. But he took no notice of this, and smiled…
'It confirmed,' he said, 'what I needed to be reassured of… I have not slept, but have been working, for I know now that little life is left to me, but I must soon go down into the underworld. I fear I may do so before I have revised my poem, and, if that is indeed so, I must ask you to destroy it as an imperfect thing. Will you do so?'
I was silent, knowing myself. But he urged me, and at last, to calm him, I promised I would carry out his will.
'But,' he said, 'I may be spared. I must believe I shall be spared, and I have been working all morning on a passage in the Sixth Book, which I knew did not express what I meant it to express, and yet, before I came to
