Antony and Cleopatra (37 page)

The Livia Drusilla whom Octavia met was very different from the girl she had still been when she married Octavian. No demure, mouse-like wife, this! thought Octavia, remembering reports. She beheld an elegantly dressed young matron whose hair was piled up in the latest fashion and who wore the correct amount of plain (but solid) gold jewelry. Compared to her, Octavia felt a nicely dressed frump—not surprising after a relatively long time in Athens, where women didn’t mix in general society. Of course, Roman wives insisted upon attending dinners given by Roman men, but those given by Greek men were closed to them: husbands only. So the center of feminine fashion was Rome, and never had Octavia realized that more than she did now, looking at her new sister-in-law.

“A very clever idea to put us both in the same house,” said Octavia when they were settled over sweet watered wine and honey cakes still warm from the clay oven, a delicacy of the region.

“Well, it gives our husbands latitude,” said Livia Drusilla, smiling. “I imagine Antonius would rather have come without you.”

“Your imagination is absolutely right,” Octavia said wryly. She leaned forward impulsively. “But I don’t matter! Tell me all about you and—” it was on the tip of her tongue to say “Little Gaius,” but something stopped her, warned her that that would be a mistake. Whatever she was, Livia Drusilla was neither sentimental nor feminine, so much was plain. “You and Gaius,” she amended. “One hears such idiotic tales, and I would like to know the truth.”

“We met in the ruins of Fregellae, and fell in love,” said Livia Drusilla in ordinary tones. “That was our only meeting until we married
confarreatio
. I was eight months gone by then with my second son, Tiberius Claudius Nero Drusus, whom Caesar sent to his father to be reared.”

“Oh, you poor thing!” Octavia cried. “It must have broken your heart.”

“Not at all.” Octavian’s wife nibbled at a cake daintily. “I dislike my children because I dislike their father.”

“You dislike a
child
?”

“Why not? They grow into the selfsame adults we dislike.”

“Have you seen them? Especially your second one—what do you call him for short?”

“His father chose Drusus. And no, I haven’t seen him. He’s thirteen months old now.”

“Surely you miss him!”

“Only when I got the milk sickness.”

“I—I—” Octavia floundered, and stammered into silence. She knew what people said of Little Gaius—that he was a cold fish. Well, he had married another cold fish. Yet both of them burned, just not for the things she, Octavia, held important. “Are you happy?” she asked, trying to find some common ground.

“Yes, very. My life is so interesting these days. Caesar is a genius, the quality of his mind fascinates me. Such a privilege, to be his wife! And his helpmate. He listens to my advice.”

“Does he really?”

“All the time. We look forward to our bedtime talks.”

“Bedtime talks?”

“Yes. He saves all the day’s headaches to discuss with me in privacy.”

Pictures of this bizarre union danced before Octavia’s eyes: two young and extremely attractive people cuddled together in their bed
talking
. Did they…did they…? Perhaps after their conversation was finished, she concluded, then came out of her reverie with a start when Livia Drusilla laughed, bells tinkling.

“The moment he’s thrashed his problems out, he falls asleep,” she said tenderly. “He says he’s never slept so well in all his life. Isn’t that splendid?”

Oh, you’re still a child! thought Octavia, understanding. A fishlet caught in my brother’s net. He’s molding you into what he needs, and conjugality isn’t one of his needs. Has he even consummated your
confarreatio
marriage? You’re so proud of that, when the truth is it binds you to him irrefutably. If it has been consummated, that’s not what you yearn for either, you poor little fishlet. How perceptive he must be, to have met you once and seen what I see now—a hunger for power equal only to his own. Livia Drusilla, Livia Drusilla! You will lose your childishness, but never know the true happiness of a woman as I have known it, know it now…. Rome’s first couple, presenting an iron face to the world, fighting side by side to control every person and every situation you meet. Of course you’ve gulled Agrippa. He’s as smitten with you as my brother is, I imagine.

“What of Scribonia?” she asked, changing the subject.

“She’s well, though not happy,” said Livia Drusilla, sighing. “I visit her once a week now that the city has settled down a bit—it’s difficult to get out when the street gangs are rioting. Caesar put guards at her house too.”

“And Julia?”

For a moment Livia Drusilla looked blank, then her face cleared. “Oh,
that
Julia! Funny, I always think of Divus Julius’s daughter whenever I hear that name. She’s very pretty.”

“She’s two, so she must be walking and talking. Is she bright?”

“I really wouldn’t know. Scribonia dotes on her.”

Suddenly Octavia felt tears close at hand, and rose. “I am so tired, my dear. Do you mind if I have a nap? There’s plenty of time to see the children—we’ll be here for days.”

“
Nundinae
, more like,” said Livia Drusilla, obviously not enthralled at the prospect of meeting a tribe of small children.

Maecenas’s private prediction was right; having spent the winter in Athens assimilating the size of the sum in Sextus Pompey’s vaults, Antony wanted the lion’s share.

“Eighty percent of it to me,” he announced.

“In return for what?” Octavian asked, face impassive.

“The fleet I’ve brought to Tarentum and the services of three experienced admirals—Bibulus, Oppius Capito, and Atratinus. Sixty of the ships are commanded by Oppius, the other sixty by Atratinus, while Bibulus acts as overall admiral.”

“And for twenty percent, I am to provide another three hundred ships at least, plus a land army for the invasion of Sicilia.”

“Correct,” said Antony, looking at his nails.

“You don’t feel that’s a rather disproportionate split?”

Grinning, Antony leaned forward with an air of subtle menace. “Put it this way, Octavianus—without me, you can’t beat Sextus. Therefore I’m the one who dictates the terms.”

“Negotiating from a position of power. Yes, I understand that. But I don’t agree, on two grounds. The first, that we will act in concert to eliminate a burr under
Rome’s
saddle, not yours or mine. The second, that I need more than twenty percent to repair Sextus’s ravages and pay off Rome’s debts.”

“I don’t give a turd in a cesspit what you want or need! If I am to participate, I get eighty percent.”

“Does that mean you’ll be present in Agrigentum when we open Sextus’s vaults?” asked Lepidus.

His arrival had come as a shock to Antony and Octavian, secure in the knowledge that the third Triumvir and his sixteen legions were safely tucked out of the way in Africa. How he had heard of the conference soon enough to make himself a part of it Antony did not know, whereas Octavian suspected Lepidus’s eldest son, Marcus, who was in Rome to marry Octavian’s untouched first bride, Servilia Vatia. Someone had tattled, and Marcus had contacted Lepidus at once. If great spoils were in the offing, the Aemilii Lepidi must have their fair share.

“No, I won’t be in Agrigentum!” Antony snapped. “I’ll be well on the way to reducing the Parthians.”

“Then how do you expect the division of what’s in Sextus’s vaults to follow your dictate?” Lepidus asked.

“Because if it doesn’t, Pontifex Maximus, you’ll be out of your priestly job and everything else! Do I care about your legions? No, I do not! The only legions worth their salt belong to me, and I won’t be in the East forever. Eighty percent.”

“Fifty percent,” said Octavian, face still expressionless. He looked at Lepidus. “And for you, Pontifex Maximus, nothing. Your services won’t be required.”

“Nonsense, of course they will,” said Lepidus complacently. “However, I’m not greedy. Ten percent will do me nicely. You, Antonius, are not doing enough to warrant forty percent, but I’ll agree to that, as you’re such a glutton. Octavianus has the most debts due to Sextus’s activities, so he should get fifty percent.”

“Eighty, or I take my fleet back to Athens.”

“Do so, and you get nothing,” said Octavian, leaning forward in subtle menace, an act he did better than Antony did. “Do not mistake me, Antonius! Sextus Pompeius is going to go down next year, whether you donate a fleet or not. As a loyal and dutiful Triumvir, I am offering you a chance to share in the spoils of his defeat.
Offering
. Your war in the East,
if
successful, will benefit Rome and the Treasury, therefore a share will help fund that war. For no other reason do I offer. But Lepidus has a point. If I use his legions as well as Agrippa’s to invade a very large and mountainous island once Sextus’s fleets are no more, Sicilia will fall more quickly, and with less loss of life. So I am willing to concede our Pontifex Maximus ten percent of the spoils. I need fifty percent. That leaves you with forty. Forty percent of seventy-two thousand is twenty-nine. That’s about what Caesar had in his war chest for his campaign against the Parthians.”

Antony listened in obviously growing ire, but said nothing.

Octavian swept on. “However, by the time we mount this all-out war against Sextus, he will have added twenty thousand talents to his hoard—the price of this year’s harvest. That means he’ll be sitting on about ninety-two thousand talents. Ten percent of that is over nine thousand talents. Your forty, Antonius, goes up to about thirty-seven thousand. Think on that, do! A huge return for a minor investment—one fleet only, no matter how good.”

“Eighty,” Antony repeated, but wavering.

How much, Maecenas wondered, has he come prepared to take? Not eighty percent—he must know he’d never get away with that. But clearly he’s forgotten the addition of another harvest to the spoils. It depends on how much he’s spent in his mind. On the old figures, thirty-six thousand. Accepting ten percent less on the new figures, he comes out slightly ahead of that if what he had counted on getting was fifty percent.

“Remember,” said Octavian, “whatever goes to you, Antonius, and to you, Lepidus, is paid in Rome’s name. Neither of you will spend your share on Rome herself. Whereas my entire fifty percent will go straight into the Treasury. I know the general is entitled to ten percent, but I will take nothing. What would I use it for, if I did? My divine father left me more than enough in property for my needs, and I have bought the only Roman
domus
I’ll ever require. It’s already furnished. So my personal wants are quite nonexistent. My share goes wholly to Rome.”

“Seventy percent,” said Antony. “I’m the senior partner.”

“In what? Certainly not the war against Sextus Pompeius,” said Octavian. “Forty percent, Antonius. Take it or leave it.”

The wrangling went on for a month, at the end of which Antony should have been well on his way to Syria. That he remained where he was could be laid entirely at the door of Sextus’s hoard, for he was determined to come out of the negotiations with enough to equip twenty legions superbly, and twenty thousand cavalry. Many hundreds of pieces of artillery. An enormous baggage train capable of carrying all the food and fodder his massive army would eat. Trust Octavian to imply that he would keep his percentage for himself! He would not, which Octavian well knew. It meant the finest army Rome had ever fielded. Oh, and the plunder at the end of his campaign! It would make Sextus Pompey’s hoard look miserable.

Finally the percentages were agreed: fifty for Octavian and Rome, forty for Antony and the East, and ten for Lepidus in Africa.

“There are other things,” said Octavian. “Things that have to be thrashed out now, not later.”

“Oh, Jupiter!” growled Antony. “What?”

“The Pact of Puteoli or Misenum or whatever you want to call it gave Sextus proconsular imperium over the Islands as well as the Peloponnese. And he is to be consul the year after next. Those are all things that must be stopped immediately. The Senate must re-enact its decree of
hostis,
forbid Sextus fire and water within a thousand miles of Rome, strip him of his so-called provinces, and remove his name from the
fasti
—he cannot be consul, ever.”

“How can any of that be done immediately? The Senate meets in Rome,” Antony objected.

“Why, when the subject is war? When it discusses war, the Senate must meet outside the
pomerium
. And Tarentum is definitely outside the
pomerium
. There are over seven hundred of your tame senators here, Antonius, busy smarming up to you so assiduously that their noses have turned quite brown,” Octavian said acidly. “We also have the Pontifex Maximus here, and you are an augur, and I am priest and augur. There is no impediment, Antonius, none at all.”

“The Senate must convene in an inaugurated building.”

“Of which, no doubt, Tarentum has its share.”

“You’ve forgotten one thing, Octavianus,” said Lepidus.

“Pray enlighten me.”

“The name Sextus Pompeius is on the
fasti
already—that’s what happens when we choose the consuls years in advance and then simply pretend to have them elected. To strike it off would be
nefas
.”

Octavian giggled. “Why strike it off, Lepidus? I don’t see the need. Have you forgotten there’s another Sextus Pompeius of the same family strutting around Rome? There’s no reason he can’t be consul the year after next—he was one of the sixty praetors who served last year.”

Every face broke into a broad grin.

“Brilliant, Octavianus!” Lepidus cried. “I know the fellow—Pompeius Strabo’s brother’s grandson. He’ll be flattered to death.”

“Just flattered to near death will do, Lepidus.” Octavian stretched, yawned, managed to look like a contented cat. “Do you suppose this means we can conclude a Pact of Tarentum and repair to Rome to spread the joyous news that the Triumvirate has been renewed for a further five years, and the days of Sextus Pompeius the pirate are numbered? You must come, Antonius, it’s already too late for a campaign this year.”