I. Letter: Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso to Tiberius Claudius Nero, on Rhodes (4 B. c.)
My dear Tiberius, your absence is regretted by your friends in Rome, which seems content in its own stagnation. Yet for the present, perhaps that stagnation is fortunate. There is no news of the past year that might profoundly affect our futures-and that, I suppose, in these days, is the best we can hope for.
Herod the Jew is dead at last, and that is perhaps best for all of us. During the last few years of his life, he was no doubt mad, and growing madder; I know the Emperor had become profoundly distrustful of him, and perhaps was considering to effect his overthrow; and that, of course, if it came to war, would have united the people behind the Emperor as nothing else might have done. Just a few days before he died, Herod had put to death one of his sons, whom he suspected of having plotted against him-which gave the Emperor occasion for another of his witticisms. "I had rather," he said, "be Herod's pig than his son." In any event, he is succeeded by another of his sons, who has made sincere overtures to Rome; so the possibility of an armed excursion seems remote at this time.
Incidental to Herod's death, and preceding it by some time was the departure from Rome of the unpleasant little Nicolaus of Damascus, of whom the Emperor has always been so fond. This may seem a trivial thing to record, yet it has some bearing on our futures, I believe; for this departure has saddened the Emperor more than one might reasonably expect. For now none of his old close friends remain-and he seems to grow more bitter and more private as the months succeed one another. And of course as one grows so, one's grasp upon power and authority progressively must weaken.
And that grasp does seem to be weakening, though in ways that are not yet significant enough to raise uncautious hopes. For example: this year, he refused the clamor of the Senate to accept his thirteenth consulship, pleading age and weariness. When it became clear that he was firm in his decision, the Senate demanded to know whom he would have to serve in his place- and he named Gaius Calvisius Sabinus! Do you remember the name? He is an old Caesarean, older even than the Emperor himself, and was consul once under the triumvirate, some thirty-five years ago, and served under the Emperor and Marcus Agrippa in the naval battles against Sextus Pompeius! The other consul is one Lucius Passienus Rufus (if you can imagine one of such an undistinguished name serving as consul), of whom you may or may not have heard. He is one of the new men, and I really have no idea of his allegiance to the family of the Emperor. I suspect that he will support the government, no matter who might be in power. So the consulship of this year promises no real consolidation that might be ranged against your eventual assumption of power. One who is senile, and one who has no name!
Somewhat more depressing (though we knew it had to come, eventually) were the rites of manhood conferred by the Emperor upon your stepsons. Gaius and Lucius (though neither is sixteen yet) are now citizens of Rome, they wear the togas of manhood, and no doubt as soon as he dares, the Emperor will give each of them at least nominal command of an army. Fortunately, he would not dare do more than that at the moment; and none of us knows what the future may bring. He will see that his old friend, Marcus Agrippa, though dead, is somehow in the center of things, even if it is only through his sons.
None of this, my dear Tiberius, need disturb us, I think; we have expected much of it, and that which we did not expect certainly has done us no harm.
But I fear that my concluding observations, tentative though they may be, offer some cause for apprehension. As you may have suspected, these observations have to do with the recent activities of your wife.
The scandals surrounding your wife have to some degree subsided, and they have done so for several reasons. First, the public is growing used to her behavior; second, what is often described as her infectious charm and gaiety have gone a long way toward softening opinion about her; third, her popularity among the young seems to be growing rather than diminishing; and last (and this is, for reasons that I shall shortly explain, the most ominous) her more blatant disregard of the proprieties seems to have diminished, and to have diminished substantially. It is to this last that I shall address myself.
Her rather indiscriminate and promiscuous choice of lovers seems to be a thing of the past. Sempronius Gracchus, as far as I can gather, is no longer her lover, but remains a friend; the same may be said for Appius Claudius Pulcher, and several others of note. The rather despicable toys with which she once amused herself (such as that Demosthenes, who was little better than a freedman, though technically a citizen) have been discarded; she seems, in a curious way, to have become more serious, though she retains sufficient wit and humor and abandon to still be a favorite of the frivolous young.
This is not to say that she is no longer adulterous; she is. But she seems to have chosen a lover of somewhat more substance than the riffraff she once favored, and one of more danger. It is Julius Antonius, whose wife (once the intimate of Julia) has conveniently begun to travel abroad a good deal more than she is accustomed to doing.
There still are gatherings of her old friends, of course; but Julius is always with her, and the discussions are reported to be of a much less frivolous nature than they had been before- though they remain, in my eyes, frivolous enough. At least, I trust that my reports are accurate in this respect. They discuss philosophy, literature, politics, and the theater-all such matters.
I do not know what to make of it, nor does Rome. I do not know whether her father is aware of this new affair, or not; if he is, he condones it; if he is not, he is a fool; for he therefore knows less than any of his fellow citizens. I do not know whether her recent behavior will help us or harm us. But you may be assured that I shall make it my business to keep myself fully informed upon this new development, and that I shall impart what I learn to you. I do have certain sources of information in the household of Julius Antonius, and I shall develop more-discreetly, you may be sure. I shall not develop these sources in your wife's household. That would be altogether too dangerous to me, to you, and to our cause.
I trust that you will destroy this letter-or if you do not, be sure that it is secreted so that it cannot fall into unfriendly hands.
II. The Journal of Julia, Pandateria (A.D. 4)
My old friend and tutor Athenodorus once told me that our ancient Roman ancestors thought it unhealthy to bathe more than once or twice a month, that their daily ablutions consisted only of washing from their arms and legs the dirt that had been gathered in the day's labor. It was the Greeks, he said (with a kind of ironic pride), who had introduced to Rome the habit of the daily bath, and who had taught their barbaric conquerors the elaborate possibilities to be discovered in this ritual… Though I have discovered the excellent simplicity of peasant food, and hence, no doubt, in that respect returned to the ways of my ancestors, I have not yet persuaded myself to adopt their habits of the bath. I bathe nearly every day, though I have no retinue to serve me with oils and perfumes, and my bath has but one wall-the rock cliff that rises above the shore of this island that is my home.
In the second year of my marriage to Marcus Agrippa, he opened in Rome, for the comfort of the people, what was said to be the most opulent bathhouse in the history of our city. Before that, I had not often attended the public baths; I believe that when I was young, Livia, fancying herself the model of the ancient virtues, disapproved of the luxuries offered at such places; and I must have caught the infection of her virtue. But my husband had read in a work by a Greek physician that bathing ought not to be looked upon merely as a luxury, that it might indeed contribute toward the prevention of mysterious illnesses that periodically swept through any crowded city; he wished to encourage as many of the common people as he might to avail themselves of such hygienic measures, and he persuaded me to occasionally forsake the privacy of my own bath and go among the people, so that all would see that it was fashionable to frequent the public baths. I went as if it were a duty; but I had to admit to myself that it became a joy.
I had never known the people before. I had seen them in the city, of course; they had waited on me in the shops; I had spoken to them, and they had spoken to me. But they had known always who I was: I was the Emperor's daughter. And I had known (or thought I had known) that their lives were so distant from my life that they might as well belong to another species. But naked in the bath, surrounded by hundreds of women who shout and scream and laugh, an Emperor's daughter is indistinguishable from the sausagemaker's wife. And an Emperor's daughter, vain though she might be, discovered an odd pleasure in such an indistinguishability. So I became a connoisseur of baths, and remained one for the rest of my life; and after the death of Marcus Agrippa, I discovered baths in Rome whose existence I had never dreamed of, which offered pleasures that it seemed I had known once, but in a dream…
And now, still, I bathe nearly every day, as I imagine the soldier does, or the peasant, after his work is done, if there is a stream nearby. My bathhouse is the sea, and the marble of the pool is the black volcanic sand that gleams in the afternoon sun. There is a guard who attends me-I suspect that he has been ordered to prevent me from drowning myself-and stands impassively away from me, watching me incuriously as I let my body into the water. He is a castrate. His presence does not disturb me.
On quiet afternoons, when the sea is calm, the water is like a mirror; and I can see my face reflected there. It amazes me that my hair is nearly white now, and that my face is becoming lined. I was always vain about my hair, which began to go gray when I was very young. I remember that my father came upon me once when one of my maidservants was plucking out these gray hairs, and he asked me: "Do you look forward to becoming bald?" I replied that I did not. "Then," he said, "why do you allow your servant to hasten that condition?"
… The hair is nearly white, the face is lined-and as I lie in this shallow water, the body that I see seems to have nothing to do with that face. The flesh is as firm as it was twenty years ago, the stomach flat, the breasts full. In the chill water, the nipples harden, as once they did beneath the caress of a man; and in the buoyancy of the water, the body undulates, as once it did when it took its pleasure. It has served me well, this body, over the years-though it began its service later than it might have done. It began its service late, for it was told that it had no rights, and must by the nature of things be subservient to dictates other than its own. When I learned that the body had its rights, I had been twice married, and was the mother of three children…
And yet that first knowledge was like a dream, and for many years I did not believe it. It was at Ilium, and I was worshiped as a goddess. Even now, it is like a dream; but I remember that at first I thought it all an amusing foolishness, a barbaric and charming foolishness.
I came to see that it was not… That youth I chose that day in the sacred grove could not have been more than nineteen; he was virginal; and he was the most beautiful boy I have ever seen. I can close my eyes, and see his face, and almost feel the firm softness of his body. I believe that when I took him into the cave, I did not intend to fulfill the ritual. I did not have to; I was the Mother Goddess, and my power was absolute. But I did fulfill the ritual, and discovered the power of my body and the power of its needs. It was a power that I had been led to believe did not exist… He was a sweet boy. I wonder what became of him, after he had entered the goddess and lain with her.
I believe that I must have lived in a kind of dream until the death of Marcus Agrippa. I could not believe what I had discovered, and yet its presence was with me always. I was faithful to Marcus Agrippa-I could not feel that the goddess who took her lover then at Ilium was wife to Agrippa; I was not faithful to Tiberius Claudius Nero.
It was after the death of that good man, Marcus Agrippa, that Julia, daughter of Octavius Caesar, the August, discovered the power that had been hidden within her, and discovered the pleasure that she could take. And the pleasure she could take became her power, and it seemed to her that it was a power beyond that of her name and of her father. She became herself.
Yes, it has served me well, this body that is blurred by the water, that I can see as I lie supine in my pelagic bath. It has served me, while seeming to serve others. It has always served me. The hands that roamed upon these thighs roamed there for me, and the lover to whom I gave pleasure was a victim of my own desire.
Sometimes, bathing, I think of those who have given this body pleasure-Sempronius Gracchus, Demosthenes, Appius Pulcher, Cornelius Scipio-I cannot remember their names now, many of them. I think of them, and their faces and their bodies merge together, so that they are as one face and one body. It has been six years since I have known the touch of a man, six years since beneath my hand or my lips I have caressed the flesh of a man. I am forty-four years old; four years ago I entered my old age. And yet still at the thought ofthat flesh, I can feel my heartbeat quicken; I can almost feel myself to be alive, though I know that I am not.
For a while, I was the goddess to the mystery of all my pleasure; and then I became a priestess, and my lovers were the adepts. I served us well, I think.
And I think at last of the one from whom I had ultimate pleasure, one for whom all the others had been prelude, so that I might be prepared. I knew the taste and heft of his flesh more intimately than I have known anything else. I cannot believe that six years have gone. I think of Julius. The tide rises gently, and the water moves over my body. If I do not move, I may think of him. I think of Julius Antonius.
III Letter: Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso to Tiberius Claudius Nero, in Rhodes (3 B.C.)
I must say at the outset, my friend, that I am filled with apprehension; and I do not know whether it is justified or not. Let me give you a few causes, so that you may judge the soundness of my feeling.
Your wife, so far as I can determine, has been faithful to one man for more than a year. That man is, as you know, Julius Antonius. She is seen constantly in his company; indeed, the liaison has become so widely recognized that no longer does either of them try to dissemble it. Julia receives guests in his home, and directs the activities of his servants. Her father must know of the affair by now, and yet he remains on friendly terms with his daughter, and with Julius Antonius. Indeed, it is rumored that Julia intends to divorce you, and to take Julius as her husband. In this rumor, however, I think we can put very little credence. Octavius Caesar would never allow it. Such an official alliance would simply destroy the delicate balance of power that he maintains, and he knows it. I mention the rumor only to indicate to you the extent to which the affair has grown.
Despite the scandal of his relationship with the Emperor's daughter-or perhaps because of it, for who can know the mind of the people?-Julius Antonius ‘s popularity continues to grow. He is at the moment, I should imagine, the second or third most powerful man in Rome; he has a very large following in the Senate, a following which, I must say, he uses most discreetly. Yet despite this discretion, I do not trust him. He has made no move to court those senators who have some influence with the military; he smiles upon all; he even conciliates his enemies. Yet I suspect that like his father he has ambitions; and unlike his father, he is able successfully to hide them from the world.
And, alas, your popularity among the masses seems to be suffering. It is in part because of your necessary absence; but that is not all. Libels and lampoons about you are being circulated widely; this, of course, is usual. Any distinguished figure is at the mercy of versifiers and hacks. But the distribution of these libels is far greater than any that I can remember in years; and they are particularly vicious. It seems almost that there is a campaign of sorts under way to discredit you. It does not do so, of course; no one who was your friend will become your enemy because of these libels, but it does seem to me symptomatic of something.
And the Emperor, I am sad to say, does not unbend in his dislike of you, despite the entreaties of your mother and your friends. So we can expect no comfort from that quarter.
Despite all this, you are well advised to remain in Rhodes. Let the lampooners invent their salacious poems; so long as you remain abroad, you will not be forced to act. The memories of men are short.
Julius Antonius has gathered around him a band of poets- nothing so distinguished as those who were friends to the Emperor, of course; and I suspect that some of the libels and lampoons have been coming (anonymously, of course) from their pens. Some write poems in praise of Julius himself; and he has let it be known that his maternal grandmother was a Julian. The man is ambitious; I am sure ofthat.
Do not forget that you have friends in Rome; and the absence of your self does not mean that you are not present in all our minds. It is a depressing strategy, but a necessary one, this waiting; do not become too impatient. I shall, as I have done, keep you informed of all that is pertinent here in the city.
IV. The Journal of Julia, Pandateria (A.D. 4)
Before Julius Antonius and I became lovers, he used to tell me about his early years, and about his father, Marcus Antonius. Julius had not been a favorite of his father-that distinction had fallen to his elder brother, Antyllus-and he remembered him as if he were almost a stranger. In his early years, Julius had been raised by my Aunt Octavia, who, though a stepmother, was closer to him than had been his natural mother, Fulvia. Often, as I sat quieriy with Julius Antonius and Marcella and talked, it occurred to me that it was the most amazing thing that once, as small children, we had all played together at my Aunt Octavia's house. I could not then, and cannot now, recall those days with any precision; and when we tried to talk about childhoods and dredge up memories of them, it was as if we were inventing the characters and the events of a play, out of the conventions and necessities of an occasion in the past.
I remember one late evening, when the three of us lingered after the other few dinner guests had departed. It was a hot night, so we removed ourselves from the dining room and lounged in the courtyard. The stars glimmered through the soft air; the servants had gone; and our music was the mysterious chirp and whisper of the innumerable insects hidden in the darkness. We had been talking quietly, toward no particular end, of the accidents that befall us in our living.
"I have often wondered," Julius said, "what would have happened to our country had my father been less impetuous and had managed to prevail over my friend Octavius Caesar."
"Octavius," I said, "is my father."
"Yes," Julius said. "And he is my friend."
"There are those," I said, "who would have preferred such a victory over him."
Julius turned to me and smiled. In the starlight, I could see the heavy head and the delicate features. He did not resemble the busts of his father that I had seen.
"They are wrong," he said. "Marcus Antonius had the inherent weakness of trusting too much the mere presence of himself. He would have erred, and he would have fallen, sooner or later. He did not have the tenacity that the Emperor has."
"You seem to admire my father," I said.
"I admire him more than I do Marcus Antonius," he said.
"Even though-" I said, and paused.
He smiled again. "Yes. Even though Octavius had my father and my elder brother put to death… Antyllus was very much like Marcus Antonius. I believe Octavius saw that, and he did what was necessary. I was never fond of Antyllus, you know."
I believed I shivered, though the night was not cool.
"If you had been a few years older…"I said.
"It is quite likely that he would have put me to death also," Julius said quietly. "It would have been the necessary thing to do."
And then Marcella said petulantly and somewhat sleepily, "Oh, let's not talk of unpleasant things."
Julius turned to her. "We are not, my dear wife. We are talking of the world, and of the things that have happened in it."
Two weeks later^ we became lovers.
We became lovers in a way that I could not have foreseen. I believe I determined that evening that we should become lovers, and I foresaw nothing in my conquest of Julius Antonius that I had not seen before. Though I was fond of his wife, who was also my cousin, I knew her to be a trivial woman, as tiresome as I have found most women to be; and Julius I took to be a man like all men-as eager for the power of conquest as for the pleasure of love.
To one who has not become adept at the game, the steps of a seduction may appear ludicrous; but they are no more so than the steps of a dance. The dancers dance, and their skill is their pleasure. All is ordained, from the first exchange of glances until the final coupling. And the mutual pretense of both participants is an important part of the elaborate game-each pretends helplessness beneath the weight of passion, and each advance and withdrawal, each consent and refusal, is necessary to the successful consummation of the game. And yet the woman in such a game is always the victor; and I believe she must have a little contempt for her antagonist; for he is conquered and used, as he believes that he is conqueror and user. There have been times in my life when, out of boredom, I have abandoned the game, and have attacked frontally, as a conquering soldier might attack a villager; and always the man, however sophisticated, and however he might dissemble, was extraordinarily shocked. The end was the same, but the victory was, for me, never quite complete; for I had no secret to hide from him and, therefore, no power over his person.
And so I planned the seduction of Julius Antonius as carefully as a centurion might plan an advance upon the flank of an enemy, though in the ritual of this encounter, I thought, the enemy always wishes to be conquered. I gave him glances, and looked away hurriedly; I brushed against him, and drew away as if in confusion; and at last, one evening, I managed to arrange for us to be alone together at my house.
I languished on my couch; I said words that invited the hearer to offer comfort; I let my dress fall away from my legs a little, as if in distracted carelessness. Julius Antonius moved across the room and sat beside me. I pretended confusion, and let my breath come a little faster. I waited for the touch, and prepared a little speech about how fond I was of Marcella.
"My dear Julia," Julius said, "however attractive I find you, I must tell you at once that I do not intend to become another stallion in your stable of horses."
I believe that I was so startled that I sat upright on my couch. I must have been startled, for I said the most banal thing I can imagine: "What do you mean?"
Julius smiled. "Sempronius Gracchus. Quinctius Crispinus. Appius Pulcher. Cornelius Scipio. Your stable."
"They are my friends," I said.
"They are my associates," Julius said, "and they have been of service to me from time to time. But they are horses I would not run with. And they are unworthy of you."
"You are as disapproving," I said, "as my father."
"Do you hate your father so much, then, that you will not attend him?"
"No," I said quickly. "No. I do not hate him."
Then Julius looked at me intently. His eyes were dark, almost black; my father's were a pale blue; but Julius's eyes had that same intense and searching light, as if something were burning behind them.
He said: "If we become lovers, we shall do so in my own time and at terms more advantageous to us both."
And he touched me on the cheek, and he rose, and he left my room.
I sat where he left me for a long while, and I did not move.
I cannot remember my emotions at being so refused; it had not happened to me before. I must have been angry; and yet I believe that there must have been a part of me that was relieved, and grateful. I had, I suppose, begun to be bored.
For the next several days, I saw none of my friends. I refused invitations to parties, and once when Sempronius Gracchus called upon me unexpectedly, I had my maidservant, Phoebe, tell him that I was ill, and was receiving no visitors. And I did not see Julius Antonius-whether out of shame or anger, I did not know.
I did not see him for nearly two weeks. Then, late one afternoon, after a leisurely bath, I called for Phoebe to bring my oils and fresh clothing. She did not answer. I drew a large towel about me, and stepped into the courtyard. It was deserted. I called again. After a moment, I crossed the courtyard and entered my bedroom.
Julius Antonius stood in the room, his tunic bright in the shaft of late afternoon sunlight that slanted through the window, his face dark in the dimness above that light. For several moments neither of us moved. I shut the door behind me, and came a little into the room. Still Julius did not speak.
Then, very slowly, he came toward me. He took the large towel that I had wrapped around me and slowly unwound it from my body. Very gently he toweled my body dry, as if he were a slave of the bath. Still I did not move, or speak.
Then he moved back from me, and looked at me where I stood, as if I were a statue. I believe I was trembling. Then he stepped forward, and touched me with his hands.
Before that afternoon, I had not known the pleasures of love, though I thought I had. And in the months that came that pleasure fed upon itself, and multiplied; and I came to know the flesh of Julius Antonius as I had known nothing else in my life.
Even now, after these many years, I can taste the bitter sweetness of that body, and feel beneath me the firm warmth. It is odd that I can do so, for I know that the flesh of Julius Antonius now is smoke, and is dispersed into the air. That body is no more, and my body remains upon this earth. It is odd to know that.
No other man has touched me since that afternoon. No man shall touch me for as long as I shall live.
V. Letter: Paullus Fabius Maximus to Octavius Caesar (2 B. c.)
I do not know whether I write you now as a consular of Rome who is your friend, or as your friend who is consular. But write you I must, though we see each other almost daily; for I cannot bring myself to speak to you of this matter, and I cannot put what I have to say in one of the official reports that I give you regularly.
For what I must reveal to you touches upon both your public and your private self, and in such a way that I fear they cannot be separated, one from the other.
When at first you commissioned me to investigate those rumors which you judged to be so persistent as to be disturbing, I must confess that I thought you overly concerned; rumor has become a way of life in Rome, and if one spent his time investigating all that he hears, he would have not a moment for any other business that ought to occupy him.
So, as you know, I began the investigation with a great deal of skepticism. Now I am grieved to tell you that your apprehensions were right, and that my skepticism was mistaken. The matter is even more alarming than you initially suspected, or could imagine.
There is a conspiracy; it is a serious one; and it has gone a long way toward its completion.
I shall report my findings as impersonally as I can, though you must understand that my feelings protest against the coldness of my words.
Some seven or eight years ago-the year that he was consul -I relinquished to the service of Julius Antonius, as a librarian, a slave whom I had some time earlier freed, one Alexas Athenaeus. Alexas was and is an intelligent man, and he has remained loyal to me through the years; he is, I am sure, a friend. When he learned of the investigation that I was conducting, he came to me in a highly distraught state, bringing with him certain documents removed from the secret files of Julius Antonius, and a most disturbing series of revelations.
There is, incontrovertibly, a plot against the life of Tiberius. The conspirators have enlisted the support of certain factions around Tiberius in his retirement on Rhodes. He is to be murdered in the manner that Julius Caesar was murdered, and it is to be made to appear that it is an authentic uprising against the authority of Rome. Upon this pretext of danger it is planned that an army will be raised under the auspices of the senator and exconsul Quinctius Crispinus, an army whose ostensible purpose is to protect Rome, but whose actual purpose is to assume power for that faction of conspirators. If you oppose the raising of this army, you will be made to seem either cowardly or indifferent; if you do not oppose it, your position and your person may be in danger, to say nothing of the orderly future of Rome.
For there is strong evidence that a direct attempt will be made upon your life at the same time that the plan against Tiberius is carried out.
The conspirators are: Sempronius Gracchus, Quinctius Crispinus, Appius Pulcher, Cornelius Scipio-and Julius Antonius. I know that the last name will cause you particular pain. I thought that Julius was my friend, and I thought that he was yours. He is not.
But this is not the end of my report.
Alexas Athenaeus also informs me that, unknown to Julius Antonius, there has been insinuated into his household a slave who is in actuality an agent of Tiberius. This agent is privy to the conspiracy; indeed, it was something that Tiberius's agent let drop that first aroused Alexas's suspicions. And the agent has been reporting directly to Tiberius about this affair. And from all that I can gather, Tiberius has a plan, too.
He apparently has as much proof of the conspiracy as I have; and he intends to use that proof. He intends to expose the plot in the Senate, using as his spokesman the senator and his former co-consul, Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso. Calpurnius will insist upon a trial for high treason; the Senate will be forced to accede; and Tiberius will then raise an army in Rhodes and return to Rome, ostensibly to protect you and the Republic. He will be a popular hero; and you will be made to seem a fool. Your power will be lessened; Tiberius's will be increased.
And there is yet one other thing-and this is the most painful-that I must report.
I am sure that for the past several years, since the absence of Tiberius Claudius Nero, you have not been wholly unaware of the activities of your daughter. I am sure that, out of pity for her condition and affection for her person, you have, as it were, looked the other way-as have most of your friends and even some of your enemies. But it becomes clear from the documents that I have in my possession that Julia has been intimate with each of the conspirators; and her lover of the past year has been Julius Antonius.
If this matter becomes public, it will almost certainly be made to seem that Julia herself is a part of the conspiracy; and Tiberius may well have in his possession papers more damaging even than we imagine.
In any public disclosure of the plot, she will inevitably be implicated; and she is likely to be implicated so deeply that she will be found as guilty of treason as any of the conspirators. It is no secret that she hates Tiberius, and it is no secret that she loves Julius Antonius.
The documents to which I have referred are safe in my possession. No eyes have seen them save mine and Alexas Athenaeus (and, of course, the conspirators), and no other eyes shall. They remain for you to use, however you may judge best.
Alexas Athenaeus is in hiding; the documents that he has taken from the household of Julius Antonius are sure to be missed, and he is in fear of his life. He is a most remarkable man; I trust him. He has assured me that, despite his loyalty to Julius Antonius, he reveres the Emperor and Rome more. He will testify, if need be. But I make a personal plea. If it is necessary to put him to torture to validate his testimony, please arrange it so that it is a ritual torture rather than an actual one. I trust the man implicitly, and he has lost nearly everything by his revelation.
My dear friend, I should have preferred to take my life than to be the one to impart this information. But I could not do so. The safety of your person and the safety of Rome must take precedence over what now seems would be the comfort of my own death.
I await whatever orders you may give me.
VI. The Journal of Julia, Pandateria (A.D. 4)
It is autumn in Pandateria. Soon the winds from the north will sweep down upon this bare place. They will whistle and moan among the rocks, and the house in which I live, though of this native stone, will tremble a little in the blast; and the sea will beat with a seasonal violence against the shores… Nothing changes here except the seasons. My mother still shouts at our servant and directs her indefatigably-though it seems to me that in the last month or so she has become a bit more feeble. I wonder if she, too, will die upon this island. If so, it will be her choice; I have none.
I have not written in this journal for nearly two months; I had thought that I had no more to tell myself. But today I was allowed to receive another letter from Rome, and it contained news that reawakened memories of the days when I lived; and so I speak once more to the wind, which will carry my words away in the mindless force of its blowing.
When I wrote of Julius Antonius, it occurred to me that it was an appropriate moment to cease these entries into a journal that sprawls itself out to no end. For if for a year or so Julius Antonius brought me alive into the world, he also thrust me into this slow death of Pandateria, where I may observe my own decay. I wonder if he foresaw what might happen. It does not matter. I cannot hate him.
Even at the moment when I knew that he had destroyed us both, I could not hate him.
And so I must write of one more thing.
In the consulships of Octavius Caesar, the August, and Marcus Plautius Silvanus, I, Julia, daughter of the Emperor, was accused before the Senate convening in Rome of adultery, and hence of the abrogation of the marriage and adultery laws that my father had passed by edict some fifteen years before. My accuser was my father. He went into great detail about my transgressions; he named my lovers, my places of assignation, the dates. In the main, the details were correct, though there were a few unimportant names that he omitted. He named Sempronius Gracchus, Quinctius Crispinus, Appius Pulcher, Cornelius Scipio, and Julius Antonius. He described drunken revels in the Forum and debaucheries upon the very rostrum from which he had first delivered his laws; he spoke of my frequentation of various houses of prostitution, implying that out of perversity I sold myself to anyone who would have me; and he described my visits to those unsavory bath establishments which permitted mixed bathing and encouraged all manner of licentiousness. These were exaggerated, but there was enough truth in them to make them persuasive. And at last he demanded that, in accordance with his Julian Laws, I be exiled forever from the precincts of Rome, and requested the Senate to order me placed on this Island of Pandateria, to live out the rest of my life in contemplation of my vices.
If history remembers me at all, history will remember me so.
But history will not know the truth, if history ever can.
My father knew of my affairs. They may have pained him, but he knew of them, and understood the reasons, and did not upbraid me unduly. He knew of my love for Julius Antonius; and I think, almost, he was happy for me.
In the consulships of Gaius Octavius Caesar and Marcus Plautius Silvanus, I was condemned to exile so that I would not be executed for high treason to the state of Rome.
It is autumn in Pandateria, and it was autumn that afternoon in Rome, six years ago, when my life ended. I had not heard from Julius Antonius in three days. Messages that I sent to his house were returned unopened; servants that I sent were refused admittance, and came back to me puzzled. I tried to imagine those things that one in love is wont to imagine, but I could not; I knew that something else was amiss, something more serious than what a jealous lover can raise to beguile and torture one's lover.
But I swear I did not know what it was. I did not suspect; or perhaps I refused to suspect. I did not even suspect when, on the afternoon of the third day of silence, a messenger and four guards appeared at my door to take me to my father. I did not even recognize the significance of the guards; I imagined that they were there as a ritual protection of my safety.
I was carried by litter through the Forum and up the Via Sacra and past the Imperial Palace and up the litde hill to my father's house on the Palatine. The house was almost deserted, and when the guards escorted me across the courtyard toward my father's study, the few servants who were around turned away from me, as if in fear. It was only then, I believe, that I began to suspect the seriousness of the matter.
When I was led into the room, my father was standing, as if awaiting me. He motioned the guards to leave; and he looked at me for a long while before speaking.
For some reason, I observed him very closely for those moments. Perhaps, after all, I did know. His face was lined, and there were wrinkles of weariness around those pale eyes; but in the dimness of the room, the face might have been that of him whom I remembered from my childhood. At last I said:
"What strangeness is this? Why have you brought me here?"
Then he came forward and very gentiy kissed me on the cheek.
"You must remember," he said, "that you are my daughter and that I have loved you."
I did not speak.
My father went to the little desk in the corner of the room and leaned on it for a moment, his back toward me. Then he straightened, and without turning said to me:
"You know one Sempronius Gracchus."
"You know that I do," I said. "You know him also."
"You have been intimate with him?"
"Father-" I said.
Then he turned to me. In his face there was such pain that I could not bear to look. He said: "You must answer me. Please, you must answer."
"Yes," I said.
"And Appius Pulcher."
"Yes."
"And Quinctius Crispinus and Cornelius Scipio?"
"Yes," I said.
"And Julius Antonius."
"And Julius Antonius," I said. "The others-" I said, "the others do not matter. That was a foolishness. But you know that I love Julius Antonius."
My father sighed. "My child," he said, "this is a matter that has nothing to do with love." He turned away from me once again and picked up some papers from his desk. He handed them to me. I looked at them. My hands were shaking. I had not seen the papers before-some letters, some diagrams, some that appeared to be timetables-but now I saw names that I knew. My own. Tiberius's. Julius Antonius's. Sempronius, Cornelius, Appius. And I knew then why I had been summoned before my father.
"Had you read those documents carefully," my father said, "you would know that there is a conspiracy against the government of Rome, and that the first step ofthat conspiracy is the murder of your husband, Tiberius Claudius Nero." I did not speak.
"Did you know of this conspiracy?"
"Not a conspiracy," I said. "No. There was no conspiracy."
"Did you speak to any of these-friends of yours about Tiberius?"
"No," I said. "Perhaps in passing. It was no secret that-"
"That you hated him?"
I was silent for a moment. "That I hated him," I said.
"Did you speak of his death?"
"No," I said. "Not in the way you mean. Perhaps I said-"
"To Julius Antonius?" my father asked. "What did you say to Julius Antonius?"
I heard my voice tremble. I stiffened my body, and said as clearly as I could: "Julius Antonius and I wish to marry. We have talked of marriage. It is possible that in talking ofthat I spoke wishfully of Tiberius's death. You would not have given your consent for a divorce."
"No," he said sadly, "I would not."
"Only that," I said. "I said only that."
"You are the Emperor's daughter," my father said; and he was silent for a moment. Then he said: "Sit down, my child," and motioned me toward the couch beside his desk.
"There is a conspiracy," he said. "There is no doubt ofthat. Your friends, whom I have named; and others. And you are involved. I do not know the extent and nature of your guilt, but you are involved."
"Julius Antonius," I said. "Where is Julius Antonius?"
"That will wait," he said. And then he said: "Did you know that there was also an attempt to be made on my life, after the death of Tiberius?"
"No," I said. "That cannot be true. It cannot be."
"It is true," my father said. "I should hope that they would not have let you know, that they would have made it appear an accident, or illness, or something ofthat sort. But it would have happened."
"I did not know," I said. "You must believe that I did not know."
He touched my hand. "I hope you never knew ofthat. You are my daughter."
"Julius-" I said.
He raised his hand. "Wait… If I were the only one who had this knowledge, the matter would be simple. I could suppress it, and take my own measures. But I am not the only one. Your husband-" He said the word as if it were an obscenity. "Your husband knows as much as I do-perhaps more. He has had a spy in the household of Julius Antonius, and he has been kept informed. It is Tiberius's plan to expose the plot in the Senate, and to have his representatives there press for a trial. It will be a trial for high treason. And he plans to raise an army and return to Rome, to protect my person and the Roman government against its enemies. And you know what that would mean."
"It would mean the danger of your losing your authority," I said. "It would mean civil war again."
"Yes," my father said. "And it would mean more than that. It would mean your death. Almost certainly, it would mean your death. And I am not sure that even I would have the power to prevent that. It would be a matter for the Senate, and I could not interfere."
"Then I am lost," I said.
"Yes," my father said, "but you are not dead. I could not endure knowing that I had allowed you to die before your time. You will not be tried for treason. I have composed a letter which I shall read to the Senate. You will be charged under my law of the crime of adultery, and you will be exiled from the city and provinces of Rome. It is the only way. It is the only way to save you and Rome." He smiled a little, though I could see that his eyes were moist. "Do you remember, I used to call you my Little Rome?"
"Yes," I said.
"And now it seems that I was right. The fate of one may be the fate of the other."
"Julius Antonius," I said. "What will become of Julius Antonius?"
He touched my hand again. "My child," he said, "Julius Antonius is dead. He took his life this morning, when he learned beyond doubt that the plot was discovered."
I could not speak. At last I said, "I had hoped… I had hoped…"
"I shall not see you again," my father said. "I shall not see you again."
"It does not matter," I said.
He looked at me once more. Tears came into his eyes, and he turned away. In a few moments the guards entered the room and took me away.
I have not seen my father since. I understand that he will not speak my name.
In the news that I received from Rome this morning was the information that after all these years Tiberius has returned from Rhodes and is now in Rome. He has been adopted by my father. If he does not die, he will succeed my father, and become the Emperor.
Tiberius has won.
I shall write no more.