Page 44 of Agrippa

– Are you asking me to marry you?

We laughed together – the first time for a long while – and our old relations were restored.

– No, that is a duplicate of my official seal. I have decided not to take you on to Egypt with me. I want you to escort Antony’s legions back to Italy, demob them, pay them, settle them on the land – I leave the details up to you. My seal will give you all the authority you need. I have appointed myself consul for the coming year, and I’ll inform the Senate you are to be regarded as my proxy in every respect until I return. I hope you’ll see it as a measure of my trust in you.

I tried to conceal my disappointment. I would much have preferred to join the expedition against Antony. It was a dismal, difficult assignment he was giving me, although I could hardly refuse it, even though I was full of misgivings. I wondered what lay behind his decision. I had my suspicions.

I tried to put on the ring, but I couldn’t get it past my knuckle – my hands had always been bigger than his, my fingers thicker.

It seemed a very small thing to carry so much weight.

– And what if you don’t return? What if you are killed in battle, or you fall ill again? What are your instructions then?

He sighed and shook his head.

– My dear Agrippa, I entrust you with half the world and all you can do is raise objections! Of course I shall return, and together we shall remake Rome. We have both known it, ever since that fortune-teller in Apollonia cast my horoscope. It is my destiny.

XV

I left Actium a few days later, at the head of a twenty-mile column consisting of three legions, including artillery, cavalry, baggage train and slaves. We marched along the coastal road towards Corfu, where a fleet of transports awaited us. In the middle of October, I sailed for Italy with the first ten thousand of Antony’s men.

After the three great naval battles of Mylae, Naulochus and Actium, the seas now belonged to Rome. It was no longer necessary to scan the horizon endlessly for pirates or hostile warships. But peace had brought its own problems, and the voyage gave me a couple of days to try to think of a solution.

What faced me was the perennial problem of the Republic in those days. Our state was over-militarised. The endless civil wars had left us with too many men under arms. One adult male in every four was a legionary. There was no easy means of returning them to civilian life. How was I to maintain discipline over thousands of disaffected soldiers who might easily degenerate into a marauding rebel horde after we landed? How could I keep them occupied? How would I pay them? Where would they live?

I chose to travel on an ordinary troop transport rather than my flagship to better get a sense of their mood. I sat talking with them for hours. Some had served for twenty-five years under one general or another. A few had even fought with Julius Caesar when he invaded Britain. They were respectful to me, and I had respect for them. They wanted what veterans always want. Money. A wife. A slave or two. A house. Some land. During their time in the army, they had dug trenches, built walls, repaired siege engines and carts, sewn leather, tempered steel, hunted and cooked, shod horses, slept rough. They could turn their hands to most things.

As we talked, an idea began to form in my mind.

When we landed in Italy, I worked with my officers to establish a camp for the veterans outside Brundisium. I gave orders for them to use the harshest punishment against any potential troublemakers. Then I set off with a small escort for the snakepit that was Rome.

I like soldiers.

I don’t like politicians.

They leave their wounded behind.

Nevertheless, I had Caesar’s seal, and the Senate had been informed that I was to act with his authority, so I was now a politician whether I wanted to be or not.

I entered the city without ceremony early in the morning through the Capena Gate, unnoticed by the crowds, and went directly to my house, where Caecilia and my daughters were waiting. It was a year since I had left home to begin the campaign against Antony. Agrippina was now eight, Attica six. They hung back, clinging to their mother’s dress, shy in the presence of this enormous stranger, until I swept them up, one on either arm, then set them down shrieking with laughter and embraced my wife.

It is a difficult business, to come home from a war and pick up the threads of domestic life. I felt heavy and stiff standing there in that female household, wearing my chainmail and helmet, like some ancient bronze statue fished out of the sea, barnacled and corroded, that has retained its shape but lost its features. I handed out some gifts I had brought back from Greece, and then excused myself, saying I had urgent business to attend to in the city.

I went straight to the headquarters of the Cura Aquarum, in the Porticus Minucia on the Field of Mars, which I had established when I was aedile. I had already sent a message ahead to Auctus, my chief engineer, to warn him I would be coming.

Our renovation of the three main aqueducts and the building of a fourth had transformed the curatorship into a busy department. Auctus showed me around the yard with pride. When we returned to his office, I asked him to fetch the plans of the Portus Julius. He looked puzzled but complied.

During the building of the harbour, we had conceived a scheme to bring in a reliable supply of fresh water to satisfy the demands of such a large military base. After an extensive search, our surveyors had concluded that the only feasible springs of sufficient pressure and reliability emerged high up in the hills on the far side of Vesuvius, near the town of Abellinum.

To maintain the necessary gradual flow of an aqueduct – so slight as to be almost invisible – a fall of no more than six inches per one hundred feet is essential, otherwise the channel soon wears away. To achieve this, the engineers had mapped out a sinuous descent following the contours of the land, running for sixty miles from Abellinum to Misenum. That would have made it the longest aqueduct ever built. We had neither the time nor the resources to undertake such an enormous task and abandoned the project immediately.

Now I told Auctus I wanted to revive it.

He folded his arms and frowned, rocking his head from side to side in that irritating way I remembered, then began raising objections.

– The manpower required for such an undertaking would be enormous.

– I can provide the manpower. I will soon have forty thousand demobbed veterans on my hands.