But now, four months after that evening, such an extraordinary scandal is buzzing over Rome that I am sure you would not forgive me if I failed to inform you of it.
Less than two weeks ago, his erstwhile wife, Scribonia, gave birth to a girl child—though it would seem that even the adoptive son of a god should have been able to manage a boy. On the same day of the birth, Octavius delivered to Scribonia a letter of divorce—which in itself was not surprising, the whole affair having been negotiated in advance, it is said.
But—and here is the scandal—in the week following, Tiberius Claudius Nero gave Livia a divorce; and the next day gave her (though pregnant still). and with a substantial dowry, to Octavius as wife; the whole affair was sanctioned by the Senate, priests made sacrifices, the whole foolish business.
How can anyone take such a man seriously? And yet they do.
V. The Journal of Julia, Pandateria (A.D. 4)
The circumstances of my birth were known to all the world long before they were known to me; and when at last I had the age to comprehend them, my father was the ruler of the world, and a god; and the world has long understood that the behavior of a god, however odd to mortals, is natural to himself, and comes at last to seem inevitable to those who must worship him.
Thus it was not strange to me that Livia should be my mother, and Scribonia merely an infrequent visitor to my home—a distant but necessary relative whom everyone endured out of an obscure sense of obligation. My memories of that time are dim, and I do not fully trust them; but it seems to me now that those years were ordinarily pleasant. Livia was firm, majestic, and coldly affectionate; it was what I grew to expect.
Unlike most men of his station, my father insisted that I be brought up in the old way, in his own household, in the care of Livia rather than a nurse; that I learn the ways of the household —to weave and sew and cook—in the ancient manner; and yet that I be educated in the degree that would befit the daughter of an Emperor. So in my early years I wove with the slaves of the household, and I learned my letters, Latin and Greek, from my father’s slave Phaedrus; and later I studied at wisdom under his old friend and tutor Athenodorus. Though I did not know it at the time, the most significant circumstance of my life was the fact that my father had no other children of his own. It was a fault of the Julian line.
Though I must have seen him seldom in those years, his presence was the strongest of any in my life. I learned my geography from his letters, which were read to me daily; they were sent in packets from wherever he had to be—in Gaul, or Sicily, or Spain; Dalmatia, Greece, Asia, or Egypt.
As I said, I must have seen him seldom; yet even now it seems that he was always there. I can close my eyes, and almost feel myself thrown into the air, and hear the ecstatic laughter of a child’s safe terror, and feel the hands catch me from the nothingness into which I had been tossed. I can hear the deep voice, comforting and warm; I can feel the caresses upon my head; I can remember the games of handball and pebbles; and I can feel my legs strain up the little hills in the garden behind our house on the Palatine, as we walked to a point where we could see the city spread out like a gigantic toy beneath us. Yet I cannot remember the face, then. He called me Rome, his “Little Rome.”
My first clear visual memory of my father came when I was nine years old; it was in his fifth consulship, and upon the occasion of his triple triumph for his victories in Dalmatia, Actium, and Egypt.
Since that time, there have been no such celebrations of military exploits in Rome; later my father explained to me that he had thought even the one in which he took part was vulgar and barbaric, but that it was politically necessary at the time. Thus, I do not now know whether the grandeur I saw then has been enhanced by its uniquity and its subsequent absence, or whether it was the true grandeur of my memory.
I had not seen my father for more than a year, and he had no chance to visit Rome before the ceremonial march into the city. It was arranged that Livia and I and the other children of the household should meet him at the city gates, where we were escorted by the senatorial procession and placed in chairs of honor to await his coming. It was a game to me; Livia had told me that we were going to be in a parade, and that I must remain calm. But I could not restrain myself from jumping from my chair, and straining my eyes to find the approach of my father down the winding road. And when at last I saw him, I laughed and clapped my hands, and would have run toward him; but I was restrained by Livia. And when he came near enough to recognize us, he spurred his horse ahead of the soldiers he was leading, and caught me in his arms, laughing, and then embraced Livia; and he was my father. It was, perhaps, the last time that I was able to think of him as if he were a father like any other.
For quickly he was moved away by the praetors of the Senate, who fastened about him a cloak of purple and gold and led him into the turreted chariot, and led Livia and me to stand beside him there; and the slow procession toward the Forum began. I remember my fear and disappointment; my father beside me, though he steadied me gently with his hand upon my shoulder, was a stranger. The horns and trumpets at the head of the procession sounded their battle calls; the lictors with their laureled axes moved slowly ahead; and we went into the city. The people crowded the squares where we passed and shouted so loudly that even the sound of the horns was muted; and the Forum where we halted at last swarmed with Romans, so that not a stone upon the ground could be seen.
For three days the ceremonies lasted. I spoke to my father when I could; and though Livia and I were at his side nearly all the time, during his speeches and the sacrifices and the presentations, I felt him drawn away from me into the world that I was beginning to see for the first time.
Yet he was gentle toward me all the time, and answered me when I spoke as if I mattered to him as much as I ever had. I remember once I saw drawn in one of the processions, on a cart gleaming with gold and bronze, the carven figure of a woman, larger than life, upon a couch of ebony and ivory, with two children lying on either side of her; their eyes were closed, as if in sleep. I asked my father who the lady was supposed to be, and he looked at me a long time before he answered.
“That was Cleopatra,” he said. “She was Queen of a great country. She was an enemy to Rome; but she was a brave woman, and she loved her country as much as any Roman might love his; she gave her life so that she might not have to look upon its defeat.”
Even now, after all these years, I remember the strange feeling that came over me upon hearing that name in those circumstances. It was, of course, a familiar name; I had heard it often before. I thought then of my Aunt Octavia, who in fact shared the responsibility of the household with Livia, and whom I knew had once been married to this dead Queen’s husband, that Marcus Antonius who was also dead. And I thought of the children for whom Octavia cared and with whom I daily played and worked and studied: Marcellus and his two sisters, the fruit of her first marriage; the two Antonias who were the issue of her marriage to Marcus Antonius; Jullus, who was the son of Marcus Antonius by an earlier marriage; and at last of that little girl who was the new pet of the household, the little Cleopatra, daughter of Marcus Antonius and his Queen.
But it was not the strangeness of that knowledge that caused my heart to come up in my throat. Though I did not have the words to say it then, I believe it occurred to me for the first time that even a woman might be caught up in the world of events, and be destroyed by that world.
2
I. Mail Packet: Letters to Octavius Caesar in Gaul, from Rome (27 B.C.)
To her husband, Livia sends greetings and prayers for his safety; and according to his instructions, an account of those matters for which he has evidenced concern.
The works which you set into motion before your departure northward proceed as you ordered. The repairs upon the Via Flaminia are completed, two weeks before the scheduled date that you gave to Marcus Agrippa, who will send you a full accounting of the work in the next packet of mail. Both Maecenas and Agrippa, who confer with m
e daily, ask me to assure you that the census will be completed before your return; and Maecenas projects that the increase in revenue from this revised tax base will be even more considerable than he had anticipated.
Maecenas also has asked me to convey to you his pleasure in your decision not to invade Britain; he is confident that negotiation will accomplish as much; and even if the negotiation does not, the possible cost of the conquest would outweigh the recovery of the defaulted tribute. I, too, am happy at your decision; but for the more affectionate reason of regard for your safety.
I slight these reports, knowing that you will get fuller accounts from those who have the details more firmly in hand, and knowing that your interest in hearing from me lies elsewhere. Your daughter is in good health, and she sends you her love. Yes: your letters are read to her daily, and she speaks of you often.
You will be pleased to learn that the last week has seen a decided improvement in her behavior toward the household servants; I am sure that your letter upon the subject had a great effect. This morning she spent nearly two hours at the spinning wheel, and not once did she complain or speak disrespectfully to any who worked with her. She is at last, I believe, beginning to accustom herself to the notion that she may be both a woman and the daughter of an Emperor. Her health is excellent; and she will have grown so that upon your return, you may hardly know her.
The account of that other part of her education, upon which you have insisted and to which with some reluctance I have acquiesced, I shall leave to others, whose reports you will find included in these packets.
There is a bit of gossip that will both please and amuse you. Maecenas has asked me to convey to you the information that he is at last acceding to your wishes and taking a wife; he asked me to give you the news because (he said) the subject was too painful for him to broach himself. As you might expect, he is making a great show of his misery; but I think he is rather enjoying the idea. His wife to be is one Terentia, of a family of no particular importance; Maecenas sniffs, and says that he has nobility enough for them both. She is a pretty little thing, and seems content with the marriage; it appears that she perfectly understands Maecenas’s propensities, and is willing to accept them. I believe that she will please you.
Your sister sends you her affectionate greetings, and asks you to give the same to her Marcellus, whom she trusts has been a pleasant companion to his uncle. And I send you my love, and ask you to give to my Tiberius the same. Your family in Rome awaits your return.
Gaius Octavius Caesar, at Narbonne in Gaul, from his servant and devoted friend, Phaedrus. I address you Gaius, for I speak on a household matter.
Your daughter Julia is fast approaching that point in her education at which I can no longer adequately perform as you would wish. I say this with reluctance, for you know my fatherly fondness of her. You have proved me wrong. I doubted that any girl might progress in her studies as rapidly and as ably as might a boy of the same station, equally capable of diligence and understanding. Indeed, of the many of your relatives’ children of like age whom you have been kind enough to put under my tutelage, both boys and girls, she has made the most rapid progress, so that even at the age of eleven, she is rapidly approaching the point at which she should be put in another’s care. She composes easily in Greek; she has mastered those more fundamental elements of rhetoric which I have exposed her to, though my teaching her such an unladylike subject has occasioned a minor scandal among her fellow pupils; and your friend Horace intermittently aids her with that poetry in his own tongue, a literature of which my command is adequate but not sufficient for your daughter. I gather that the more feminine parts of her curriculum are not so much to her liking—her musicianship is barely adequate, and though she has a natural physical grace, she does not really take to the more formal elements of her dancing lessons; but I also gather that such fashionable accomplishments lie outside your own interest as well. Were I so foolish to think that you might be pleased by flattery, I should pretend no surprise and affect some such nonsense as expecting so much from the daughter of the son of a god, Emperor of all the world, and so forth. But we both know that her character is her own, and that it is a strong one.
I propose, therefore, that in the near future her education be turned over to one more wise and learned than myself, that Athenodorus who was once your own teacher and who is now your friend. He knows her mind, they get on well, and he has consented to the task which I have had the presumption to suggest. I understand that he is to write you regarding another matter, and that in that letter he will also give you his thoughts upon this.
I trust that your journey in Gaul will not keep you away from your daughter longer than is necessary. The only serious distraction in her studies with me is her longing for your presence. I am, Gaius, your faithful servant and, I trust, your friend, Phaedrus of Corinth.
Athenodorus to Octavius, greetings. As you knew I would, I applaud your decision to establish a system of schools in Gaul. You are quite right; if the people there are to become a part of Rome, they must have the Roman tongue, whereby they may know that history and that culture in which they are to thrive. I would to the gods that the fashionable riffraff here in Rome, some of whom you are pleased to call your friends, had so much concern for the education of their own children as you have for your subjects in distant lands. It may be that those in other lands shall become more Roman than we who remain in the heart of our country.
There will be no difficulty in finding teachers to staff the schools; I shall, if you wish, make specific recommendations. Since you have brought peace and some measure of prosperity to our nation, learning has begun to flourish among those classes from whom you must draw your teachers, though perhaps flourish is too strong a word. In general, I would suggest: (1) that you not depend upon the easy idealism of the well-to-do young, whose enthusiasm is almost certain to disappear in the isolation of the provinces; (2) that so far as possible you choose your teachers from native stock and not depend upon the Greeks or Egyptians or whatever, since their students must at least know what a Roman looks like if he is to really apprehend Roman culture; and (3) that you not depend upon slaves or even too heavily upon freedmen to fill those pedagogic ranks of which you speak. I think you must understand my reasons for this advice. I know that it has been the tradition in Rome to raise even a slave above a gentleman, if he is learned enough. In Rome he is content to remain a slave, if he can become rich; but in Gaul there will not be the opportunity for the kind of fiscal corruption that he can find in Rome, and he will be discontented. You know yourself that many slaves, especially the learned and rich (our friend Phaedrus excepted, of course), are contemptuous of Rome and its ways, and resentful even of that condition out of which they have not chosen to purchase themselves. In short, in Gaul there will not be the complex of forces that operate here to subject them to some kind of order. I assure you that there are sufficient Italians, from both the countryside and the city, who for a decent wage and some honor, would be happy to fulfill your purposes.
As for the matter of your daughter: Phaedrus has spoken to me, and I have consented. I assume that you will approve. I have now educated so many of the Octavian clan that it would seem inappropriate to me for you to look elsewhere. You may call yourself Emperor of the world; that is not my concern. In this matter, I insist that I remain your master; and I should not like to see the final education of Julia in the hands of anyone other than myself.
II. The Journal of Julia, Pandateria (A.D. 4)
For the past several years, since shortly after my arrival upon this island of Pandateria, it has been my habit to arise before dawn and to observe the first glimmer of light in the east. It has become nearly a ritual, this early vigil; I sit without moving at an eastern window, and measure the light as it grows from gray to yellow to orange and red, and becomes at last no color but an unimaginable illumination upon the world. After the light has filled my room, I spend the morning hours reading one or another of those book
s from the library that I was allowed to bring with me here from Rome. The indulgence of my library was one of the few allowed me; yet of all that might have been, it is the one that has made this exile the most nearly endurable. For I have returned to that learning which I abandoned many years ago, and it is likely that I should not have done so had not I been condemned to this loneliness; I sometimes can almost believe that the world in seeking to punish me has done me a service it cannot imagine.
It has occurred to me that this early vigil and this study is a regimen that I became used to many years ago, when I was little more than a child.
When I was twelve years old, my father decided that it was time for me to forgo my childhood studies, and put myself in the care of his old teacher, Athenodorus. Before that, I had, in addition to the kind of education imposed upon my sex by Livia, merely been exercised in the reading and composition of Greek and Latin, which I found remarkably easy, and in arithmetic, which I found easy but dull. It was a leisurely kind of learning, and my tutor was at my disposal at any hour of the day, with no very rigid schedule that I had to follow.