The four years that succeeded my arrival here at Rhodes were the happiest of my life. I had cast aside care, and though I lived in leisure, I abjured mere idleness. I studied for three hours every morning, and read for two every afternoon. I attended lectures and debates in the schools of philosophy and exercised in the gymnasium. I engaged in friendly conversation on terms of equality with the citizens, cultured and generally charming Greeks who showed themselves free of the vices with which those members of their nation who have settled in Rome are wont to disgrace themselves and disgust us. On the contrary, the citizens of Rhodes are distinguished by their learning, common sense and virtue; nobody could reside here without learning that virtue is not, as some suppose, the monopoly of well-born Romans, but a quality innate in all men, which only requires congenial surroundings for its cultivation. The demeanour of the citizens here is such that no wise man can forget that Greece is the cradle of both liberty and law. I was pleased to reflect that through the insensible influence of this enchanted island I was growing in both virtue and wisdom.
My peace of mind owes much to my garden, for a fine garden is, in my opinion, the image of the good life. It was on account of the garden and its situation that I had been so pleased with this villa on my first visit; and residence here has only deepened my delight. It is set round with plane trees, many of them covered with silver-striped ivy. The tops flourish with their own green, but towards the base their verdure is borrowed from the ivy, which spreading around, connects one tree with another. Between the plane trees I have planted box trees, for their aromatic blessing of the evening air, while a grove of laurels blends its shade with that of the planes. There are a number of walks through these groves, some shady, others planted with roses, and the latter connect, by a pleasant contrast, the coolness of the shade with the warmth of Apollo's gift. Having passed through these winding alleys, which are indeed so seductive that I can spend hours in their delight, you come upon a straight walk, which breaks off into a number of others, bordered by little box hedges. There is again a pleasing contrast of regularity with the negligent beauties of rural nature. In the centre of the garden there is a grove of dwarf planes and nearby a clump of acacias, smooth and bending. At the southern extremity of the garden there is an alcove of white marble, shaded with vines and supported by four simple Carystian columns. There is a basin of water here, so skilfully contrived that it is always full, but never overflowing. When I sup here, this basin serves as a table, the larger dishes being placed round the edge, while smaller ones float like vessels or waterfowl. Opposite is a perpetual fountain, the basin of which is supported by four exquisitely carved boys who are holding up tortoises to drink of the water. Facing the alcove is a summer-house, in iridescent marble, which opens into the green shade of an enclosure, cool even at noon when the lizard sleeps on the baking wall. This summer-house is furnished with couches, and, being covered with a trailing vine, enjoys so agreeable a gloom that you may lie there and fancy yourself in a wood. Throughout the garden are other fountains and little marble seats, secluded from the hum of the city below and from the glare of the overmastering sun. In this garden I can echo the Greek poet who exclaims: "Give me beneath the plane tree's shade to rest While tinkling fountains murmur and caress…" And when I lift my gaze behind the villa I see mighty pines stride up the hillside. Below, the sea glistens like a shield.
I busy myself improving on perfection. I live simply, eating and drinking little: asparagus, cucumbers, radishes, red mullet, bread, fruit and sheep-milk cheese from the mountain content me; I take no thought for fine wines, the resinated stuff of the locality suffices.
For four years I lived in Arcady, without distractions of war, politics, lust, thought of Rome, power or intrigue. I lived as my nature assures me I was born to live. At night I followed the pure and passionless movement of the stars. I was completely myself… But, there is always a but in human life. My use of tenses wavers. Do I describe a state, settled as a summer afternoon, or am I struggling to recall, and in recalling to perpetuate, something which, even as I form the conception of my sweet content, is slipping from my possession?
I was not free of disturbance. One day, for example, I had expressed a wish to visit some of the sick people in the city, an obligation I have cheerfully undertaken at regular intervals since coming here. Now a new servant misunderstood my intention, and, when I descended into the town, I was disgusted to discover that a great number of the sick had been collected in a public cloister, at what inconvenience and discomfort I did not care to think. They had even been arranged in separate squads according to their ailments. Naturally I made my apologies as best I could, and the affair passed. But my distress was increased by the realisation that these poor fellows had taken it for granted that they should be put to such inconvenience merely to enable me to display my benevolence. There is something disagreeable, and to my mind immoral, in the social relationships which we have established by our exercise of power. A coarse thought came to me, with a memory. Once, in a temper, Julia flashed at me, "It's all the same whether I get it from a labourer or a nobleman, and, believe me, the former are often better." There is, it struck me, a strange honesty and decency in that judgment. How ironical that sentence looks. It was a few months after that incident that disquieting rumours reached me from Rome. The first hint was offered in a cryptic note attached to a letter from Gnaeus Piso; he suggested I look to my wife. I understood him only too well. I consulted Thrasyllus, who was evasive. When pressed he admitted that misfortune threatened; the stars were in ill conjunction. I wrote to Livia in guarded terms. She ignored my covert questions in her reply, though I could not imagine that she had failed to understand them. I hesitated before writing to Julia, for I was certain that her correspondence would be intercepted and examined. It so happened, however, that a young officer, Lucius Aelius Sejanus, whose father L. Seius Strabo had been Prefect of the Praetorians and was now Proconsul of Egypt, paid a courtesy call on me while travelling from Antioch to Rome. I received him, as I did any young Roman who showed me such respect, and also because his father had served under me on the Danube.
"There are many in the armies," young Sejanus said, "who wish for your return, sir."
He spoke in an open manly fashion. His eyes, which were very blue, met mine and he did not flinch from my assessing gaze. I liked him for his frank smile, for his ease of body and of manner. We dined together and he made me laugh with his accounts of his travels in the East and also because of his evident dislike of Egypt. When he spoke of that country, a strain of exaggeration of which he was wholly conscious was evident in his language. He set out to amuse me, and succeeded. Yet it was not that which pleased me most, but rather his ingenuous acceptance of experience. There was something of my brother Drusus in his manner, and when I looked at him stretched out on the couch beside me, like an athlete resting between races, I felt for him that mixture of affection and envy with which I had been accustomed to regard Drusus, and which I had not known since my brother's death. The world, and the nature of man, were less complicated matters for him, and would always be less complicated, I sensed, than they were for me, and I responded to his youthful candour. He was little more than a boy, but he was already worthy of my trust.
"If I asked you," I said, "to do something for me that might put you at risk, and certainly, if discovered, would endanger your chances of promotion in the service, but which would nevertheless be a very valuable service to me, would you be prepared to undertake it?" He blushed at the question.
"Yes, I should," he said, and then smiled. It was a shy smile, and an uncommonly sweet one. "For I know that you would not ask me to do anything which was dishonourable."
Even so I hesitated. There was shame in my hesitation, which did not distress me, and fear, which did. They were strangely mingled, for one part of my shame rested in my fear to trust him. And this was strange too, for such fear was natural. But I was also ashamed to make use of him, as I intended, though I knew he longed for me to do so. He leaped up, sparkling with youthful life, and fell on his knee before me. He took hold of my hands and pressed them. "Trust me, sir. I am eager to do you service."
"It is in itself a small thing," I said, "merely to deliver a letter that I dare not send in the normal fashion. But this small thing could destroy you. You must understand that." "Sir, you already have my answer."
"Yes," I said, "I have your answer, and am grateful for your willingness, but my perplexity nevertheless remains. I do not know whether I dare put you to this trial, or whether I would be justified in making use of you in this manner." The pressure on my hands tightened.
"Sir," he said speaking in a low and urgent voice, which was yet gentle as that of a woman in love, "I am yours to command. Make such use of me as you please." His eager smile seemed to mock the seriousness of his words.
"You're only a boy, a boy for whom the sun shines every day, and, if you accept my commission, I am going to introduce you to a world where there is no sunshine. What do you know of my wife?"
The abruptness of my question, and the bitterness of my tone startled him. He got to his feet and turned his back on me. His fingers played on the soft flesh of a ripe peach in the basket on the table. "I don't know how to answer that, sir."
"I see. Perhaps that is a sufficient reply. It is to my wife that I wish you to convey a letter, and, when she has read it, I warn you that she will be angry with its bearer…"
But – I thought – she will look at its bearer, and she will imagine herself caressed by these strong hands and wrestling with these youthful limbs, and she will look at that lock of red-gold hair that falls over his eye, which he brushes back in so negligent a manner… and then she will set herself to seduce him; and that is not what I would want for him. But I need someone I can trust, and I think I can trust this boy…
"You have nothing to hope for from me," I said. "I am a man on the threshold of old age, who has resigned from the struggle for power. Do you understand that?"
"I hear your words, but I also hear that the stars speak differently, that they promise you a glorious future. And I know also what they say in the armies. So I am happy to accept your commission…" He turned on me with a radiant smile.
"You see, sir," he said, "I have chosen to bind my future with yours. I am, as I told you, yours to command in all affairs." Tenderness steals on you unawares like the evening breeze that wafts into my garden from the sea. It is not an emotion I have known often: for Vipsania when she would look at me with her plain face beautiful in its response to the pain or unhappiness of others; for Julia as she lay with our little son in her arms; for Drusus as I accompanied his dead body on that long march to the mausoleum; for young Segestes as I held him in my arms against the world. In each case, it seems to me, my experience of tenderness was a form of protest against the cruelty and mindlessness of life. Any rational being knows that the life of man is nasty and brutish, that all our carefully acquired and cherished culture amounts to no more than fragments of defence, work we have made against the reality of existence, against – to coin a phrase – its remorseless nihilism. The gods mock our feeble efforts or are indifferent to them; hence our hearts go out most powerfully to those who struggle against fate, and fail, for in their failure we recognise an ultimate truth about this life to which we are condemned. "Who," as the poet says, "would have heard of Hector, if Troy had not been taken?" When I stood on the cliff-top and watched the sail of the ship that carried young Sejanus back to Rome dip below the horizon, I felt a renewal of that strange tenderness, and I could see him as Hector, that broken hero, dragged behind the chariot of his destroyer, his long limbs that delighted in movement now flaccid and streaked with blood, the red-gold hair begrimed with the dust through which it was dragged, while the vulgar shrieked execrations, and those of noble mind stood silent, aghast at the defilement of beauty, courage and virtue.
A sea-bird mewed, dived in search of fish. I shook off my waking dream. "Ridiculous," I said to myself, and turned from the glistening mirror of the sea that seemed to foreshadow death into the sweet shades of evening under the laurels.