Page 73 of Agrippa

In truth, it was more than just a question of politics. I could not bear the prospect of losing custody of my boys. The two young Caesars, legally Augustus’s sons, would almost certainly be drawn further into his clutches if I parted from Julia. I did not mention these fears to Maecenas, although he was shrewd enough to have guessed what was going through my mind.

– You could talk it over with Augustus when he returns from Gaul. He’s the only man she’s frightened of. A few sharp words from him might bring her into line.

But the prospect of telling Augustus I had lost control of my wife was a humiliation I could not face. In any case, I was not convinced a reprimand from him would change her behaviour. She was as tough as he was. What could he threaten to do to her? Have her watched night and day? Banish her from Rome? Miserable though it was, I preferred to live in a sham marriage, in the faint hope that one day the illusion might again become reality.

I asked Maecenas not to mention any of this to Augustus.

When I returned home, I said nothing of my conversation with Maecenas, and agreed to Julia’s plan to celebrate my fiftieth birthday.

I left the guest list to her.

In the end, eleven of us gathered for dinner. She naturally invited all four of my daughters by my previous wives, and as the eldest, Agrippina, was married to Tiberius, he came too. His career was now prospering, to the extent that he had been elected consul. (I should also mention here that while I had been away, their union had been blessed with a son, so now I was a grandfather.) And if Tiberius was to come, so too must his mother, Livia, the great matriarch of the family, who was now in her mid forties, and still elegantly beautiful. Her invitation entailed another to her younger son, Drusus, who attended with his wife, Antonia, the daughter of Octavia. And Octavia herself, with whom I was still friendly despite my divorce from Marcella, made up the table.

The only notable absentee was Augustus, who sent a message of congratulations from Gaul, which Livia read out as soon as we assembled.

Everyone was most solicitous, even Tiberius, but I cannot pretend that I enjoyed the occasion. I glanced around and realised that apart from my daughters, this was really Augustus’s family, not mine. I wondered how many of them had heard the stories of Julia’s infidelities. I could not help noticing how much attention she paid to Tiberius, with whom she shared a couch. My leg was hurting so that I had to grind my teeth to contain the pain, and as soon as I could decently escape without appearing rude, I limped off to my room to have it bathed in hot vinegar.

No, I did not enjoy becoming fifty. I do not recommend it. I sensed the shadows closing in.

A few months later, at the beginning of July, Augustus returned to Rome and summoned me to a private meeting.

For the first time in all our years together, he was in better health than I was. He was full of energy. He said he did not intend to remain in the city for long. He had decided to go to Greece for the winter. He wanted me to stay in Rome and keep an eye on things in Italy.

– I assume a period at home will suit you after such a long time away. You look exhausted, by the way. Are you ill?

– My leg is causing me grief. Otherwise I am fine.

– I hear Julia was a great success on the eastern tour. And how are the boys?

– They are in good health. Gaius is seven now. Lucius is four. They both seem very intelligent.

– I shall come and see them soon.

He did not ask after his new granddaughter. Girls were of little interest to him, except when it came to their marriages, which were a useful way of making new alliances.

He told me Lepidus had recently died in Sardinia, a forgotten figure. It was strange to reflect that he had once been one of the three rulers of the Roman world. After the failure of his attempted coup in Sicily, judging him no longer to pose a threat, Augustus had allowed him to live on in obscurity, and even to keep the title of pontifex maximus. Now, he said, he proposed to take the chief priesthood himself, and revitalise it after years of neglect. He would become an active guardian of public morality. He even delivered me a brief sermon on the need to stamp out adultery, licentiousness in the arts and general loose living.

I bit my tongue and said nothing.

On the twenty-third of September, he celebrated his own fiftieth birthday. It was a quiet occasion, unmarked by the Senate at his request, a day that few had ever expected him to live to see. Livia arranged a dinner in his honour, with the same guests who had attended mine. She put Julia on the couch next to Tiberius, and I was obliged to watch in silence once more as my wife flirted with my son-in-law, picking delicacies from the table and putting them on his plate. Once or twice she even popped them in his mouth. Not that I was particularly concerned. A woman as lively as Julia, I thought, could find little to entertain her for long in that dull dog. What a fool I was to be so complacent!

Otherwise, the evening was unmemorable. I recall asking Livia if she was looking forward to going to Athens. She answered with a shrug that Augustus was leaving her behind again.

– He doesn’t want me with him to witness all his women come and go.

So much for the guardian of public morality!

Perhaps it was his birthday that prompted in him thoughts of death. Or possibly it was his accession as chief priest. Or it may even be that he intuited I was nearing my end. At any rate, not long after the dinner, and on the eve of his departure to Athens, Augustus asked me to accompany him to look at his mausoleum, which had just been finished.

He had been building it for many years – a huge and hideous circular monument to himself, three hundred feet in diameter and well over a hundred feet high, set in a park on the Field of Mars. I do not need to describe it. Everyone can see it for themselves. It is sadly inescapable, with its vast conical roof of earth, planted with ascending tiers of cypresses, surmounted by a giant bronze statue of the man himself looking out over the city.

He showed me round it proudly. Beside the entrance, enclosed by a wall of white marble, a ring of black poplars and a circular iron fence, was the spot where he had decided his body would be cremated.

From the massive doors, a long passage lit by flaming torches took us down into the heart of the tomb. I was struck by the chilly gloom and the utter silence after the heat and bustle of the surrounding streets.

The burial chamber itself was flanked by wide bronze pillars, on which he said he intended to have engraved a record of all his achievements.

Inside the candlelit catacomb were a dozen or more empty niches. Only one was occupied by an urn.