Page 58 of Agrippa

– And you owe everything to the accident of your birth. But for that, you’d be selling your arse on the streets.

After that, it was war between us.

He tried to frustrate my projects on the Field of Mars, luring away my best craftsmen to schemes of his own by offering them more money. But I warned them that if they went, they would never work for me again. And as I had built more in Rome than any man since Pompey and Julius Caesar, they chose to stay. He staged elaborate games in April to raise his popularity – theatrical shows and chariot races in honour of the Great Mother, Cybele, so lavish he was plunged heavily into debt, which only made him more desperate. I retaliated by increasing the number of days my bathhouses were free for public use.

Our enmity was common knowledge, and Claudia found herself torn between her husband and her brother. She sided with her brother, as she always did, and so the dispute spread from the streets and into my home. She laid all the blame on me. We argued and did not speak to one another for days on end. How greatly I missed the gentle Caecilia, who had now remarried and was happy with her new husband! What sacrifices one must make for power!

Marcellus sought to play the statesman. He rose often in the Senate to speak on matters to do with military and foreign affairs. Like many young men, he did not allow his ignorance to curb his eloquence. But the Senate guarded jealously the authority it still possessed over its share of the provinces, and the majority did not take kindly to hearing a nineteen-year-old lecture them on the need for a war in Macedonia.

I saw that with a bit of luck I would not have to try to destroy him. He would do the job himself.

And then a most unexpected development occurred.

Augustus recovered.

The person who deserved the credit was his sister, Octavia.

In despair at his endlessly worsening condition, she had invited to Rome Antonius Musa, a Greek doctor she had known in Athens. He had acquired a high reputation treating royalty in the east and curing them of chronic ailments. Livia was suspicious of Octavia’s motives, but reluctantly gave permission for Musa to examine Augustus.

Afterwards, I joined a meeting with her, the doctor and Octavia to hear his diagnosis.

Musa was a confident, even arrogant man, not in the least awed by his powerful patient. He stated bluntly that he was appalled at the way Augustus had been treated. His malady was obviously seated in his liver. Warm baths and hot compresses were the opposite of what was needed – these only increased the swelling. He prescribed instead freezing baths and cold compresses to reduce the temperature of his body by drawing out its heat.

Livia was again resistant. After all, if what he said was true, it reflected badly on her. She said she did not believe a word of it. He shrugged.

– That is up to you, noble lady. I was brought here to give my opinion, which I have done. But I warn you, if you carry on like this, you will kill him.

Livia rose with such an angry expression I thought she might strike him. Somehow she mastered her temper.

– Very well, I shall suggest to him we try your method. But if his condition worsens, I shall hold you responsible – and be assured, you will suffer the consequences!

Augustus and Livia lived in great luxury. Ice and snow were brought down often to the house from the mountains for use in the kitchen and for cooling certain rooms in summer. She ordered her slaves to fetch a great quantity from the ice house and prepare a bath. Then she went to tell Augustus what we wished to do.

She returned to say he was unconscious.

We agreed to go ahead without his permission.

Livia, Octavia and I gathered in the frigidarium. We stood around the circular plunge pool, which was open to the gloomy sky, and watched as it was filled with barrowloads of ice. Once Musa declared it cold enough, Augustus was carried in on a stretcher by his attendants. His eyes were closed, his cheeks sunken. He appeared to be in a deep sleep.

At Musa’s direction, the slaves removed his clothes. His body was as limp as a rag doll. Hauling him up and supporting him by his thin arms, they ventured down the steps into the pool, on which a layer of ice was floating.

As soon as the water came into contact with his feet, Augustus’s head jerked back and his eyes blinked open. When it reached his knees, he began to struggle. His shout of protest when it was up to his waist was the loudest sound I had heard him make for months.

The attendants, plainly suffering themselves, looked to Musa for relief. But with a doctor’s indifference to the pain he inflicted, he instructed them to keep on wading towards the centre, until only their heads were visible. Beneath the surface, Augustus’s white body thrashed and twisted like a hooked fish. Only when he had ceased his cries did the doctor tell them to bring him out.

His teeth were chattering, his lips blue, his eyes unfocused. He was rubbed dry, wrapped in towels and carried away on his stretcher, accompanied by Musa.

Livia, Octavia and I looked at one another. I am sure they thought as I did that we might have killed him. Instead, from that day onwards, he began to get better.

Augustus’s recovery was remarkable. Within a few days, he was sitting up and talking. Within a week, he was out of bed and doing exercises to restore his wasted legs.

At the beginning of May, he was well enough for me to announce in the Senate his return to full health.

Great was the celebration. A day of national thanksgiving was ordered. Musa was granted a large sum of money and exempted from taxation for life. A statue of him was set up in the Temple of Aesculapius, the god of healing, on Tiber Island.

Almost as dramatic as the restoration of Augustus’s body was the revival of his agile mind.

One afternoon in early summer, he sent me a message saying he wanted to discuss his return to public life. I assumed it would just be the two of us. But when I arrived, I found him sitting in the garden with Livia. Not long afterwards, Calpurnius Piso turned up, followed quickly by Maecenas, who brought with him, to my dismay and I am sure to Livia’s, the strutting, smirking figure of Marcellus.