Page 61 of Agrippa

– Yes, which is a grief to me. But I would prefer it if no one else knew. You might become a focus for discontent.

– I would never allow it.

– Even so, you are the most famous general in the Republic. We can’t be seen to have fallen out. At least accept a legateship, so that I can say you are travelling as my representative. Where is it you wish to go?

– I haven’t decided. The east somewhere.

– That can be arranged. I’ll ask Maecenas to put his mind to it. He’ll be in touch.

And so we parted, civilly enough at the end, after more than a quarter of a century of intimate friendship, torn apart by the ineluctable dictates of power.

XIX

Augustus granted me general proconsular power for a term of five years, but no specific command. The arrangement suited us both. He could say that I was away on a confidential special mission. I could escape the poisonous swamp of Rome.

To maintain the fiction, I was provided with a small flotilla of triremes and liburnians, which I boarded in the harbour of Brundisium at the end of July. I took with me half a dozen slaves, including a cook and a doctor, a freedman who served as my secretary, and a couple of staff officers.

The captain asked me where I wished to go. I called for a map of the eastern Mediterranean. My first thought had been to head for Athens. But that would be full of Roman magistrates and traders, whereas I sought solitude. In the end, I settled on the island of Lesbos, for no better reasons than that it was reasonably remote, I had never been there before, and I had heard it was pleasant.

At the age of forty, for the first time in my life, I was running away from a fight. Travel was what I craved. Movement. A changing view. Anything to distract me from my thoughts, which had become unhealthily dark and brooding.

I stood at the stern and watched the coast of Italy dwindle and disappear.

I had not set foot on a warship since my return from Actium eight years earlier. Immediately I felt my spirits start to revive. Now that I look back, I can see that water was the element in which I was always most at home – aqueducts, bathhouses, fountains, but most of all the sea. That long voyage over the calm summer waves, around the coast of Greece and up through the islands and into the Aegean, was a balm to my soul, and by the time we reached Lesbos, I was fully restored.

It was a beautiful place. I could picture myself living there for years. I bought a villa in the island’s main town of Mytilene, looking out over the busy harbour, so there was always something to see. The heat of summer was passing. The climate was mild. I spent my days digging a new drainage system in the garden, planting an olive grove, building a loggia and reading books on travel and history. I even hired a tutor to improve my Greek.

I met a woman in the town, a young widow whose name I shall not record because she is still alive, and she became my companion, running the household and sharing my meals. For exercise, I hiked into the mountains, often pitching a tent in the wilderness and sleeping out on my own.

When the winter began and brought rain, I changed my routine and began walking through the town. I pulled up my hood as a precaution, but nobody recognised me.

And thus the months passed pleasantly.

There are two harbours in Mytilene, linked by a bridge. The one to the south, on the mainland where I lived, is used by merchant vessels and fishermen. The one to the north is situated on an island and has deeper water, suitable for warships. For the early part of my stay, it was empty. But one day in November, I noticed that three triremes had moored overnight. Curiosity got the better of me, and I crossed the bridge for a closer look.

The quayside was thronged with sailors. I missed the companionship of the legions. It was nostalgic to wander among them, listening to their talk. Suddenly I heard my name being called.

I turned to see a man coming down a gangplank. He was the captain of one of the triremes. It turned out he had fought under my command as a young sailor at Actium, and still recognised me after all these years. He was most deferential, to the extent that he got down on his knees. I hastily pulled him to his feet. He took me on board, poured some wine, and we had a pleasant conversation about old times.

I asked what had brought the squadron to Lesbos. He told me there had been fighting in the region. The governor of Macedonia, Marcus Primus, had attacked the kingdom of the Odrysians, a hundred miles to the north. I expressed surprise.

– But the Odrysians are our allies. We have a treaty with them.

The captain shrugged. Such matters were above him.

So, I thought, Marcellus has had his war after all.

But thankfully I was now out of it. What strategies or conspiracies lay behind the fighting were no more my concern than they were the captain’s. After confiding in him that I was living on Lesbos incognito, and asking him not to mention that he had seen me, I walked back to the villa for my dinner, and thought no more about it.

This much I have learned at the end of a long life. Our past will always find us, no matter how hard we try to hide from it.

One morning a few weeks later, at the beginning of January, I went out onto the terrace and saw that a new trireme had put into the island harbour. The previous squadron had long since gone. It was moored alone.

The sight was somehow ominous. I felt a tightening in my chest. I sensed the ship was a harbinger of bad news.

Presently, a messenger appeared at my door carrying a letter addressed to me. It had a wax seal bearing the image of a sphinx. I recognised it at once.

I took the letter into my study and broke it open.