A month into the marriage saw the tall, graceful lily (as Livia Drusilla had named her) wilted and browned. She poured her woes into Livia Drusilla’s sympathetic ear, and Livia Drusilla in her turn poured them into Octavian’s ear.
“It’s a disaster!” she cried. “Poor Attica thinks he doesn’t care for her a scrap—he never talks to her! And his idea of making love is—is—I crave your pardon for being vulgar, my love!—resembles a stallion with a mare! He bites her on the neck and—and—well, I leave it to your imagination. Luckily,” she continued in tones of gloom, “he doesn’t avail himself of his conjugal pleasures very often.”
As this was a side of Agrippa he had never expected to know anything about, nor wanted to now, Octavian blushed and wished he was anywhere but sitting with his wife. That his own lovemaking talents left something to be desired he knew, but he also knew that Livia Drusilla’s thrills came from power, and could rest comfortably. A pity that Attica was not so inclined—but then, she hadn’t had six years of marriage to Claudius Nero to transform her girlish dreams into a woman’s iron purpose.
“Then we will have to hope that Agrippa quickens her,” he said. “A baby will give her someone else to interest her.”
“A baby is no substitute for a satisfactory husband,” said Livia Drusilla, extremely satisfied herself. She frowned. “The trouble is that she has a confidant.”
“What do you mean? That Agrippa’s marital affairs will become known far and wide?”
“If it were that simple, I wouldn’t worry as much. No, her confidant is her old tutor, Atticus’s freedman Quintus Caecilius Epirota. According to her, the nicest man she knows.”
“Epirota? I know that name!” Octavian exclaimed. “An eminent scholar. According to Maecenas, an authority on Virgilius.”
“Hmmm…I’m sure you’re right, Caesar, but I don’t think he’d offer her poetic consolation, somehow. Oh, she’s virtuous! But for how long, if you take Agrippa off to Illyricum?”
“That is on the laps of the gods, my dear, and I for one have no intention of sticking my beak into Agrippa’s marriage. We must hope that a baby comes along to keep her occupied.” He sighed. “Perhaps a very young woman isn’t right for Agrippa. Ought I to have suggested Scribonia?”
Be that as it may, by the time that Octavia came to dinner together with Maecenas and his Terentia and Agrippa and his Attica, it was clear to most of Rome’s upper class that Agrippa’s marriage was not prospering. Looking at Agrippa’s bleak expression, his oldest friend yearned to offer him words of comfort, but could not. At least, he reflected, Attica was pregnant. And he had had the necessary fortitude to drop a hint in Atticus’s ear that his much-loved freedman Epirota ought to be kept far from his much-loved daughter. Women who read, he thought, are just as vulnerable as women who shop.
Octavia almost skipped home to the palace on the Carinae, she was so happy. To see Antonius at last! Two years had gone by since he left her on Corcyra; baby Antonia Minor, known as Tonilla, was walking and talking. A lovely little girl with her father’s dark red hair and reddish eyes, but luckily neither his chin nor—thus far, at any rate—his nose. Oh, what a temper! Antonia was more her mother’s child, whereas Tonilla was all her father’s. Stop, Octavia, stop! Stop thinking of your children and think about your husband, whom you will be seeing soon. Such joy! Such pleasure! She went in search of her dresser, a very competent woman who much esteemed her position in the Antonian household, and was, besides, greatly attached to Octavia.
They were deep in a consultation about which dresses Octavia should take with her to Athens, and how many new dresses she ought to have made to delight her husband, when the steward came to tell her that Gaius Fonteius Capito had come to call.
She knew him, but not very well; he had been with them when she and Antony had last set sail, but seasickness had kept her in her cabin and her journey had been cut short at Corcyra. So she greeted the tall, handsome, impeccably garbed Fonteius with some reserve, not sure why he had come.
“Imperator Caesar says you and I are to take his gifts to Marcus Antonius in Athens,” he said, not attempting to sit down, “and I thought I should call to see if there is anything you specially need, either on the voyage or as cargo for Athens—a piece of furniture, or some nonperishable foods, perhaps?”
Her eyes, he thought, watching the expressions chase through them, are the most beautiful I have ever seen, though it isn’t the unusual color that renders them so haunting; it’s the sweetness in them, the all-embracing love. How can Antonius play her so false? Were she mine, I would cleave to her forever. Another contradiction: how can she be the full sister of Octavianus? And another: how can she manage to love Antonius and Octavianus?
“Thank you, Gaius Fonteius,” she was saying with a smile, “I can think of nothing, really, except”—she looked fearful—“the sea, and that is beyond anyone’s ability to arrange.”
He laughed, took her hand and kissed it lightly. “Lady, I will do my best! Father Neptune, Vulcan Earthshaker, and the Lares Permarini of voyages shall all have rich offerings that the seas be flat, the winds propitious, and our passage swift.”
Whereupon he departed, leaving Octavia to stare after him conscious of a peculiar feeling of relief. What a nice man! With him in charge, things would go well, no matter how the sea behaved.
It behaved exactly as Fonteius had ordered when he made his offerings; even rounding Cape Taenarum was shorn of its dangers. But while Octavia thought that his concern for her welfare was just that, Fonteius knew how much of self was in his hopes; he wanted this lovely woman’s company throughout the voyage, which meant no seasickness. He couldn’t fault her, up to and including docking in the Piraeus. Pleasant, witty, easy to converse with, never prudish or what he called “Roman matron” in her attitude—divine! No wonder Octavianus erected statues to her, no wonder ordinary people respected, honored, and loved her! The two nundinae he had spent in Octavia’s company from Tarentum to Athens would live in his memory for the rest of his life. Love? Was it love? Maybe, but he fancied it held none of the baser urges he associated with that word when it concerned the relationship between a man and a woman. Had she appeared in the middle of the night demanding the act of love, he would not have refused her, but she didn’t appear; Octavia belonged to some higher plane, as much goddess as woman.
The worst was that he knew Antony wouldn’t be in Athens to meet her, that he knew Antony was firmly in the clutches of Queen Cleopatra in Antioch. Octavia’s brother knew it too.
“I have entrusted my sister to your care, Gaius Fonteius,” Octavian had said just before the cavalcade set off from Capua to Tarentum, “because I think you more sincere than the rest of Antonius’s creatures, and believe you a man of honor. Of course your main task is to escort these various military supplies to Antonius, but I require something more of you, if you’re willing.”
It was a typically backhanded Octavian compliment—he was one of Antony’s “creatures”—but Fonteius took no offense, as he sensed this was simply an introduction to something else far more important that Octavian wished to say. And here it came:
“You are aware what Antonius is doing, with whom he is doing it, where he is doing it, and probably why he is doing it,” said Octavian in rhetorical vein. “Unfortunately my sister has little idea what’s going on in Antioch, and I haven’t enlightened her because it’s possible that Antonius is just—ah—filling in time by filling up Cleopatra. It’s possible that he will return to my sister the moment he knows she’s in Athens. I doubt it, but must consider it. What I ask is that you remain in Athens in close touch with Octavia in case Antonius doesn’t come. If he doesn’t, Fonteius, poor Octavia will need a friend. News that Antonius’s infidelity is serious will crush her. I trust you to be no more than a friend, but a caring one. My sister is part of Rome’s luck, a figurative Vestal. If Antonius disappoints her, she must be returned home, yet not hustled home. Do you understand?”
“Completely, Caesar,??
? Fonteius said without hesitation. “She can’t be let leave Athens until all her hope is gone.”
Remembering that exchange, Fonteius felt his face twist; he knew the lady far better now than he had then, and found he cared desperately about her fate.
Well, this was Greece; his offerings should now be to Greek gods—Demeter the mother, Persephone the ravished daughter, Hermes the messenger, Poseidon of the deep, and Hera the queen. Send Antonius to Athens, let him break his ties with Cleopatra! How could he prefer such a scrawny, ugly little woman to the beautiful Octavia? He couldn’t, he just couldn’t!
Octavia concealed her disappointment at the news that Antony was in Antioch, but learned enough of the awful campaign of Phraaspa to understand that he probably preferred to be with his troops at this moment. So she wrote to him immediately to tell him of her arrival in Athens, and of the bounty in her train, from soldiers to battering rams and artillery. The letter was replete with news of his children, her other nursery occupants, the family, and events in Rome, and artlessly implied that, if he couldn’t come to Athens, he would require her to travel on to Antioch.
Between the writing of it and Antony’s reply—a matter of a full month—she had to suffer the renewal of friendships and acquaintances from her previous time in residence. Most of these were innocuous enough, but when the steward announced the arrival of Perdita to call on her, Octavia’s heart sank. This elderly Roman matron was the wife of a merchant plutocrat, immensely rich and dangerously idle. Perdita was her nickname, one she flaunted with pride; it meant not so much that she herself was ruined, but that she contrived at the ruination of others. Perdita was a destroyer, a bringer of bad tidings.
“Oh, my poor, poor sweet dear!” she cried, swanning into the sitting room clad in gauzy wools of the newest color, a jarring magenta, the plethora of necklaces, bracelets, bangles, and earrings clanking like prisoner’s chains.
“Perdita. How nice to see you,” Octavia said mechanically, suffering the kisses on her cheeks, the squeezing of her hands.
“I think it’s a disgrace, and I hope you tell him so when you see him!” Perdita cried, settling into a chair.
“What is a disgrace?” Octavia asked.
“Why, Antonius’s shameless affair with Cleopatra!”
A smile curved Octavia’s lips. “Is it shameless?” she asked.
“My dear, he’s married her!”
“Has he?”
“Indeed he has. They married in Antioch, the moment they arrived there from Leuke Kome.”
“How do you know?”
“Peregrinus has had letters from Gnaeus Cinna, Scaurus, Titius, and Poplicola,” Perdita said: Peregrinus was her husband. “It is quite true. She bore him another boy last year.”
Perdita stayed half an hour, stubbornly clinging to her chair despite her hostess’s negligence in not offering her refreshments. During this time she poured out the entire story as she knew it, from Antony’s months-long binge waiting for Cleopatra to all the details of the marriage. Some of it Octavia already knew, though not the way Perdita painted events; she listened intently, her face giving nothing away, and rose as soon as she could to end the unpleasant interlude. No word of men’s tendencies to take lovers when separated from their wives passed her lips, nor other remarks that would fuel Perdita’s retelling of this morning’s work. Of course the woman would lie, but those to whom she lied would find no confirmation of Perdita’s version when they encountered Octavia. Who closed her sitting room door to admission even by servants for a full hour after Perdita had clashed and clattered off into the Attic sun. Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt. Was this why her brother spoke of Cleopatra so scathingly, even over dinner? How much did others know, while she knew virtually nothing? Of the children her husband had sired on Cleopatra she was aware, including the boy born last year, but they hadn’t chewed at her; she had simply assumed that the Queen of Egypt was a fertile woman who, like herself, did not take precautions against conceiving. Her own impressions had been of a woman who had loved Divus Julius passionately, wholeheartedly, and sought solace in his cousin to provide her with more offspring to safeguard her throne in the next generation. It had certainly never occurred to Octavia that Antony wouldn’t philander; such was his nature, and how could he change that?
But Perdita spoke of an undying love! Oh, she oozed malice and spite, so why believe her? Yet the parasite had been inserted under Octavia's skin and was beginning to tunnel its way through her vitals toward her heart, her hopes, her dreams. She couldn’t deny that her husband had called for aid from Cleopatra, nor that he was still in the arms of this fabulous monarch. But no, the moment he learned of her, Octavia’s, presence in Athens, he would send Cleopatra back to Egypt and come to Athens. She was sure of it, positive of it!
Even so, during that hour alone she paced the room, struggled with the burrowing worm of Perdita’s making, reasoned her way to sanity, called upon all her formidable resources of common sense. For it made no sense that Antony would have fallen in love with a woman whose chief claim to fame was her seduction of Divus Julius, an intellectual, an aesthete, a man of unusual and fastidious tastes. As much like Antony as chalk was like cheese. The usual metaphor, yet it didn’t properly distinguish them. As much like Antony as a ruby was like a red glass bead? No, no, why was she wasting time on silly metaphors? The only thing Divus Julius and Antony had in common was Julian blood, and from what brother Caesar said, it was this alone had spurred Cleopatra to seek out Antony. She had, brother Caesar revealed, once propositioned him because of his Julian blood; her children had to have Julian blood. To bed a ruling queen with the aim of providing her with children would have appealed enormously to Antony, and so Octavia had regarded the affair when first it came to her attention. But love? No, never! Impossible!
When Fonteius called on his usual quick daily visit, he found Octavia subtly blighted; there were shadows under those wonderful eyes, the smile had a tendency to slip, and her hands were aimless. He decided to be blunt.
“Who’s been blabbing to you?” he demanded.
She shivered, looked rueful. “Does it show?” she asked.
“Not to anyone save me. Your brother charged me with your welfare, and I have taken that charge to heart. Who?”
“Perdita.”
“Abominable woman! What did she tell you?”
“Nothing really that I didn’t know, except for the marriage.”
“But it’s not what she said, it’s how she said it, yes?”
“Yes.”
He dared to take those purposeless hands, rub his thumbs over their backs in what might have been construed as comfort—or love. “Octavia, listen to me!” he said very seriously. “Don’t think the worst, please. It’s far too early and too ephemeral for you—or anyone!—to form conclusions. I’m a good friend of Antonius’s, I know him. Perhaps not as well as you, his wife, but differently. It may well be that a marriage with Egypt was something he deemed necessary to his own rule as Triumvir of the East. It can’t affect you—you’re his legal wife. This invalid union is a symptom of his trials in the East, where nothing has gone as he imagined. It is, I think, a way of stemming the spate of his disappointments.” He released her hands before she could find their touch intimate. “Do you understand?”
She looked better, more relaxed. “Yes, Fonteius, I do. And I thank you from the bottom of my heart.”
“In future, you’re not at home to Perdita. Oh, she’ll come running the next time Peregrinus has a letter from one of his boon companions! But you won’t see her. Promise?”
“I promise,” she said, smiling.
“Then I have good news. There’s a performance of Oedipus Rex this afternoon. I’ll give you a few moments to primp, then we’re off to see how good the actors are. Rumor has it, they’re terrific.”
A month after Octavia’s letter went to Antioch, Antony’s reply reached her.
What are you doing in Athens without the twenty thousand men I am owed by your brother? H
ere I am, preparing for an expedition back to Parthian Media, shockingly short of good Roman troops, and Octavianus has the presumption to send me two thousand only? It is too much, Octavia, far too much. Octavianus knows full well that I cannot return to Italia at the moment to recruit legionaries in person, and it was part of our agreement that he recruit me four legions. Legions I need badly.
Now I receive a silly letter from you, burbling about this child and that child—do you think the nursery and its occupants concern me one scrap at such a time as this? What concerns me is Octavianus’s broken agreement. Four legions, not four cohorts! The finest of the finest, indeed! And does your brother think I have need of a gigantic battering ram, when I’m sitting not far from the cedars of the Libanus?
May a plague take him, and all associated with him!
She put the letter down, bathed in cold perspiration. No words of love, no terms of endearment, no reference to her arrival beyond a diatribe aimed at Caesar.
“He doesn’t even tell me what he wants done with the men and supplies I’ve brought,” she said to Fonteius.
His face felt stiff, its skin prickling as if hit by a blast of sand in a dust storm. The big eyes fixed on him, so translucent that they were windows into her most private thoughts, filled with tears that began to course down her cheeks as if she didn’t know they did. Fonteius reached into the sinus of his toga and pulled out his handkerchief, gave it to her.
“Cheer up, Octavia,” he said, voice hardly under control. “I think two things, reading your letter. The first, that it reflects a side of Antonius that we both know—angry, impatient, thwarted. I can see and hear him rampaging up and down the room, coming out with a typical initial reaction to what he sees as Caesar’s insult. You just happen to be the intermediary, the messenger he kills to vent his spleen. But the second is more serious. I think that Cleopatra sat listening, jotted down notes, and dictated this reply herself. Had Antonius replied, he would at least have indicated what he wants done with what is, after all, a donation of materials and engines of war, as well as soldiers, that he needs very badly. Whereas Cleopatra, a military tyro, wouldn’t be bothered with a directive. She wrote it, not Antonius.”