Augustus

'Besides,' she said, and laughed, 'I seem to have been always married. I rather fancy a freedom from husbands.'

She kissed me on the top of the head and flitted away, not even conscious of my anger. Or was she conscious, and did not care? It might be that it pleased her to have made me angry. Of course I turned to Maecenas for advice, as I had always done. Though our relations had grown more distant Maecenas enjoyed poor health (with some stress on the enjoyment) and declared himself frankly bored with public affairs nowadays, a residual loyalty which we felt for each other could be relied on. But, whereas I would once have strolled to his house on the Esquiline, I now sent a message in advance. That would allow him to get Bathyllus, whom I found repellent even in his stage performances, out of the way.

Maecenas kept me waiting in a room over-furnished and cluttered with bibelots. The wall-paintings depicted a variety of acts of congress. It was a tease asking me to wait there; there had always been a sharp streak of malice in my friend.

'Of course you're out of place here,' he said, 'these decorations aren't your taste now, are they? You've gone all stuffy. But it's just as well to remind you, old dear, that there are other sides of life.'

He was a frightful colour and mere skin and bone. That took my anger away. Even his mockery was now interrupted by a hacking cough.

He grimaced, and said, 'Not that there's much life left in me, ducky. Still, always smiling, always smiling, as the Greeks say. You want something. It can't be a boy, which I could perhaps provide, so it must be advice. Julia?' 'That's clever of you.'

'Obvious, my dear. Poor Julia. I saw her at a dinner-party last week. She looked stunning, and so eager and yet wasted. I said to myself, poor dear, you haven't really got a lot out of life, have you? Not for a fun-loving chap, which you are. Of course, I have a certain empathy with Julia. She's my sort of girl, old dear.'

It was far too hot in the room and a sickly scent wafted through it.

'You're just the same as always though, when I speak in a way you don't like.' Maecenas poured wine and passed me a glass; too sweet as usual. 'You just sit there like a demure little cat and wash your face with your paws. But I'm not going to let you get away with it. You don't understand Julia and I'm going to tell you a few unwelcome truths. She loathed being married to Agrippa. She had to close her eyes and grit her teeth when he made love to her. Don't ask me how I know, I just know. And don't put my words down to spite. I know just what Agrippa was worth, but I know Julia too. She's a big strong girl and she likes men (or boys) who are softer than herself. She's androgynous enough not to feel happy with anyone but a fellow androgyne. You've forgotten your own youth, that's the trouble with you, old dear. The first marriage to Marcellus might have worked if it hadn't been that she knew that you and Marcellus and she made a triangle. She was besotted with you then, old dear, and you were besotted with Marcellus who was alas, alas – a charming girl but one who couldn't look away from the mirror. So really that was no good. Have some more wine. You can't think how I've been dying to tell you this.'

He stretched out on the couch ('I can't stand for long these days, in any sense of the word,' he giggled), and dangled his jewelled hand.

'So what did you do then? You married her off to old Agrippa who was quite the wrong sort of father-figure, and who bored the poor girl silly with his boasting, as well as disgusting her physically. She turned against you then. It was one thing being married off to Marcellus, whom she was jealous of, but fancied, quite another being handed over to that old bruiser. But she's game, your daughter, and she did her best. She toed the line. And now at last she's free.'

Maecenas could never tell the truth about people. The disability had grown more acute with the years. He was a slave of gossip and innuendo. You could discount most of what he said. You could never discount the core. I sat there, neglecting the too sweet wine, oppressed by the cloying perfumes blown through the room, and waited for what I had after all invited.

'Love,' he said, and let it hang in the air. 'You know, old dear, till Bathyllus came along I fought shy of love. Oh yes, I have never been without my loves, none knows that better than yourself. But I avoided, except in one case, love's degradation. You know the case of course. What do I mean by degradation? Enslavement, what else? Knowing you can never please, knowing you can never possess, longing to possess fully, utterly, and yet at the same time longing for your beloved to trample on you. Isn't it strange, after all these years, to be saying this to you, and you still can't understand. You still have to be in control. You find my association – that's the word you use, isn't it? – my association with Bathyllus degrading. It's abject, isn't it, my surrender to him? You've never surrendered to anyone, not even Livia. I'll go further. You chose a wife who would be embarrassed by surrender. Oh yes, you're subject to her in little things and everyone laughs at it because it makes you seem human. But not in big things, eh? All your life everyone's had to yield to your monstrous will. Monstrous.'

He broke off in a fit of coughing. His skin shone yellow. I couldn't move, in fact I waited for him to continue. I felt nothing but impatience. There was absolute silence when he finished coughing. Nothing moved in the house. Whatever fan had been blowing the perfume through the room must have been stopped. We were held there, like prisoners, in the room's cloying stillness.

'What is this world, 0 soldiers? It is I. That's what you've come to, Augustus. Poor lovely lost Julia, victim of your will. You couldn't allow yourself to do what you wanted with Marcellus, bugger and be buggered, so poor Julia was your surrogate. Then she fell victim to Reason of State, to keep Agrippa in line. Oh yes, I advised it myself, you're going to say. I told you what you wanted to hear. I've always known how to do that, haven't I? Now I'm pleading with you. Let the girl be. Let her marry if she wants to. If she does it will be a pretty boy like Iullus Antonius. Oh I admit that, and he's the grandson of Antony and Fulvia, but he's not dangerous, he's a pretty playboy. She'll have fun with him. Don't sacrifice her again to Reasons of State.' He paused and held up his hand. 'I know what you're going to say. You're going to talk of Gaius and Lucius. You want a husband who'll ensure their succession. Oh yes, I know you don't like the word, succession, but be honest, old dear, that's what it is, disguised monarchy. Do you remember that conversation we had with old Agrippa, when he wanted a return to the old Republic – really, you know, he was no brighter than Pompey – and I said what we needed was a ruler. Well, that's what you are, dress it up how you like. And you want to ensure the succession for your grandsons… So to get it, you'll sacrifice Julia again. And you won't feel a thing, certainly not guilt. Still nothing to say…?'

I shrugged my shoulder. 'It's easy to talk,' I said, 'I've done my duty as I see it. And of course I'm trying to provide for the future…'

'I'm sorry for you, you know,' he said. 'My hands are free of the responsibility of crime, even moral crime. Virgil knew what was happening to you, and pitied you. Yes, you've achieved great things, and in a way we're all in your debt, but what has it done to you? It's killed your imagination, your sympathy. All that's left is the will. Virgil loved you, as I have done, and yet you filled him, as you do me, with a sort of horror…'

'If I were what you say, you would not speak to me in this way. You would not dare.' 'Dare? See the words you choose.'

'Oh,' I said, 'Maecenas, there's truth in what you say. Of course. I recognize that. Parts of me are dead. They don't feel a thing. A moral numbness. Yes, sometimes, I've had to cultivate that. But we all kill part of ourselves. Don't pretend, old friend, you haven't done that yourself. You have deliberately excised a sense of decency, for one thing. And in not falling in love…' 'But I have,' he said.

'And in rejecting family ties, you have denied and smothered much that was good in you. But I haven't rejected love. I want what's best for those I love…' 'You want what you choose is best…' 'Every man must use his own judgement…'

'If you loved Julia, you would let her be, let her marry her pretty playboy…'

'Loving Julia, I cannot encourage a match that will diminish her…' 'Diminish? Am I diminished?'

'You are diminished, Maecenas, by your infatuation with that actor. I'm sorry to say this, but who respects you now?' 'And yet you come to me for advice…'

'I always have. But I'm told you can't now appear in the theatre without suffering mockery and cat-calls…' He smiled.

'Let us not quarrel,' he said. 'Perhaps we are both diminished. Perhaps on the other hand one can put it differently. Perhaps life consists of a stripping away of whatever are the inessentials of each soul. The shy and pretty boy I loved has been eaten up by the man of will; and I, yes, you are right, I am now a slave to the emotions, to beauty and to pleasure. My dignity has been ripped from me. I am a laughing-stock, an old queen, quite absurd. In becoming what we have become, in shedding much that was good, we are revealed in our true