Tiberius by Allan Massie Read Free Book Online Page A

daughter. Your mother is also concerned about the Princeps' fondness for the boy. She realises, like me, that it won't do for him to advance him further. Not too quickly. This isn't, as we agreed, a monarchy. We're a faction in power, a party. There are always those who would displace us if they could, like Caepio, whom you prosecuted so capably, and his friend Murena, and you know whose brother-in-law he was. That comes a bit near home. Marcellus sees too much of that bugger, my old friend Maecenas. That's enough, don't need to spell it out further, do I? One other thing. Remember: the basis of our power is the legions. Think you have the makings of a soldier. I'm bloody sure Marcellus hasn't."
    I pondered that conversation.
    A few weeks later Augustus fell ill. He was indeed near death. They said he raved in delirium. Livia fled from the chamber distressed by what he uttered in his madness. She retired to the Temple of Vesta to pray and sacrifice to the gods, that they might relent and restore her husband to health. In a brief moment of lucidity, fearing that he was on the point of death, he summoned Agrippa and Calpurnius Piso, who had replaced Murena as his consular colleague, and consigned to them the care of the Republic. A change of doctor and a change of treatment proved effective. He recovered and all was well.
    But, though all was well, a secret had been revealed: the revolution he had accomplished depended on his life. The conspirators of the summer were posthumously justified. If they had killed Augustus, the regime would have crumbled.
    It was for this reason that he remodelled it that autumn, obtaining a grant of maius imperium for himself from the Senate, and abandoning his practice of holding one of the consulships himself. More important, he associated Agrippa more closely in the government, granting him proconsular power over all the provinces of the empire, and, more important still, the tribunicia potestas, the tribunician power.
    The will of Livia and Agrippa had prevailed over the inclinations of my stepfather. Marcellus was eclipsed. And that winter he died, suddenly.
    5
    J ulia had miscarried as her husband died, thus cheating her father of the grandson he so greatly longed for. But his grief for Marcellus for a time blinded him to this other loss. That was excessive. To please him, Vergil would incorporate a reference to Marcellus in his Aeneid, ridiculously exaggerated, I'm afraid.
    But a curious thing: Julia also appeared to be overcome by grief. This amazed me for I had doubted whether the child she was carrying and had lost, was indeed her husband's. (Indeed I wondered if it might be mine; it was possible.) Livia of course dismissed Julia's display of emotion as playacting, but she was naturally volatile and might have been sincere. Vipsania said to me that while she realised there had been difficulties between them, it was her impression that they had been agreeing better in the last months. That might indeed be true; Vipsania was a good judge of these matters. On the other hand, I knew, as she didn't, how close Marcellus had come to being singed by the conspiracy of the spring. He hadn't been directly involved, but the conspirators had been his friends. He had had a fright, and it may have seemed prudent to give the impression of devotion to his wife. After all, since his talents were slight, Marcellus depended absolutely on his uncle's favour.
    You wonder how I knew of his involvement? In two ways. First, Fannius Caepio, under examination, tried to throw suspicion on him. I recognised this as a bargaining counter, when the "evidence" was brought before me in my capacity as prosecutor. Therefore I decided to have nothing to do with it and, to prevent any hint of the accusation from being brought before the court, I had it expunged from the record of the examination. But before I did so I confronted Marcellus with the charge. He came near to fainting. When I told him I didn't believe a word of it,