Page 54 of Agrippa

– Julia was happy?

– She seemed it.

– And Marcellus?

– The same.

– He is a fine young man.

– If you say so.

He opened his eyes.

– You do not like him?

– I hardly know him.

– I need you to like him, for my sake. He’s the best hope I have.

– Then I shall like him. For your sake.

– I want him in the Senate at the next elections.

– Even though he’ll only be eighteen on polling day?

– That doesn’t matter. I was only nineteen when I was elected consul. The Senate can make an exception in his case, just as it did in mine. We must move things on, Agrippa, and quickly. I intend to make him aedile for next year.

– At eighteen? He has no idea how to run the city!

– True. But you do.

At that moment, I understood why he had been so anxious to summon me. I was to do the work, and Marcellus, of all people, was to take the credit! If Augustus had been in good health, I would have refused him, or at least tried to talk him out of it. But I was mindful of Livia’s injunction not to upset him. And to see him in such a wretched state, much worse than I had expected, filled me with pity. I recognised that he had glimpsed his own mortality, lying there helpless – and worse to him than death was the thought that all he had achieved would be lost as soon as he was gone unless he could secure the succession.

I promised I would help.

He sighed and closed his eyes.

– My oldest and most loyal friend. What would I do without you?

The brief conversation had exhausted him. He thanked me for coming and said he needed to rest. I helped him to lie down again and covered him in his blankets. He was asleep by the time I reached the door.

Livia was standing outside in the passage.

I knew she had been listening, and she knew I knew it. She did not care. As she conducted me back through the house, she spoke frankly.

– This obsession of his with Marcellus is beyond all reason. You know Maecenas is encouraging it?

– I wasn’t aware. It doesn’t surprise me.

– Tiberius has his faults, but my son has one great virtue, instilled in him by his mother and vital for a ruler – he is cautious, whereas Marcellus’s arrogance makes him reckless. He is a young hothead who thinks he can do no wrong. He will lead us to disaster. You and I both know it. We must work together to stop him.

Despite my reservations about Marcellus, I had no intention of being drawn into her schemes. I made some excuse about being needed urgently back in Rome and left without making any commitment.

XVIII

Augustus’s health continued to be poor. He remained outside Rome for month after month. He had not been seen in the city since he left on his Spanish expedition nearly three years earlier. Finally he decided he simply had to make an appearance at the annual elections at the end of the summer, whatever the risk. It was vital to put a stop to the widespread belief that he was now a permanent invalid.

On polling day, to loud applause, he was carried on a litter into the new voting arena. Clenching his jaw, and supported on the arm of Marcellus, he somehow mustered the strength to take a few stiff steps from the litter to his throne. Sitting in the shaded portico in his purple toga, his outstretched feet in their red slippers resting on a stool, his wreath of oak leaves upon his head, he must have looked from a distance entirely like his old self. Only a few of us knew that beneath his toga his wasted legs were fixed by splints, and his unhealthy pallor was disguised with make-up.