I Am Livia by Phyllis T. Smith Read Free Book Online Page A

she should?
    My husband returned then, and young Caesar and I spoke no more private words.
    That night, I said to Tiberius Nero, as we prepared for bed, “Young Caesar—will someone kill him?”
    “Not unless he does something to ask for it.” He gave a small, contemptuous grimace. “He’s young and has always been a weakling.” Tiberius Nero drew me to him. “What are you looking so worried about, my little dove?”
    No longer affected by the charm of Caesar Octavianus’s presence, I did a calculation in my mind. I added up his popularity with the people and especially the army, his vast wealth, and his love for his adoptive father, which surely implied hatred for his killers. I recalled the sense I’d had that he would soon reach for great power. A malign spirit possessed me. I imagined my father, my mother, and all I loved, trod into bloody pulp under young Caesar’s boots. In terror, I said, “I’m afraid he’s dangerous, very dangerous. Perhaps you should kill him.”
    My husband just laughed.

A s summer became autumn, I walked with quick strides through my house, supervising servants who needed little supervision. I would reach for a book, take the scroll from its leather cover, read a few sentences, then roll the parchment up again. What I had felt when I was with Caesar Octavianus was well buried. But I would look at the birds and wish I could rise up into the sky as they did, or else become a nymph or a goddess and be lifted far beyond the claims of marriage and duty. Day after day I brimmed over with energy for which no one had any use.
    Since my husband and father were both senators, I found it easy to keep informed about politics. I learned that every one of the senators who had stabbed Caesar had, in their fear of the common people, abandoned the city of Rome. Marcus Brutus took ship to Athens, there to await events and, of all things, study philosophy. Decimus Brutus went to govern the province of Cisalpine Gaul.
    Meanwhile, Mark Antony took up command of Rome’s legions in Brundisium. The soldiers mocked him for not avenging Julius Caesar. Antony tried to sweeten their mood by offering them a bonus, but they shouted that it was too little, so he had some of the malcontents beaten to death. This reduced the rest to gloomy silence.
    Young Caesar remained in Rome, living with his mother, an ailing widow. He offered much more generous bonuses than Antony had, and raised a private army of three thousand men.
    Antony came back to the city, intending to give a speech to the Senate denouncing young Caesar. But he got drunk and forgot about it. Then he announced that he would avenge Julius Caesar after all. He intended to attack Decimus Brutus in Gaul. He went marching off at the head of his legions. I wondered—was this the beginning of a civil war?
    Shortly after Antony’s departure, my father hosted a small dinner party, the first I ever attended at my parents’ home. I had a pleasant sense of my new status as an adult, as I reclined on a dining couch as a married woman should, instead of sitting, as I had always done before I was wed.
    Marcus Cicero came to this dinner. He was sixty-two years old, a plump, red-faced man with a wonderful, stentorian voice. He arrived alone. Everyone knew he had divorced the mother of his children to marry a fifteen-year-old heiress. Then he divorced this girl for quarreling with his beloved daughter Tullia, and for failing to mourn Tullia when she died in childbirth.
    Also at the dinner was young Caesar. He and I were next to each other at the table, he reclining alone, I sharing a couch with my husband. He smiled at me and said, “It’s good to see you again, Livia Drusilla.” He had a sheen about him, the look of a young man pleased with where life was taking him.
    “I’ve been hearing how you and Cicero have become wonderful friends,” I said. Everyone in Rome knew that these days they were often seen in each other’s company.
    “He’s become like a