Antony and Cleopatra

‘Apply to your bankers. You’re a rich woman and sui iuris.’ He began yelling for the servants. ‘Clean her up and then kick her out!’ he said to the steward, who was almost fainting in fear. He turned on his heel and was gone.

Fulvia sat against the wall for a long time, hardly conscious of the terrified girls who bathed her face, tried to staunch the bleeding and the tears. Once she had laughed at hearing of this or that woman and her broken heart, believing that no heart could break. Now she knew differently. Marcus Antonius had broken her heart beyond mending.

Word flew around Athens of how Antony had treated his wife, but few who heard had much sympathy for Fulvia, who had done the unforgivable: usurped men’s prerogatives. The tales of her exploits in the Forum when married to Publius Clodius came out for an airing, together with the scenes she created outside the Senate House doors, and her possible collaboration with Clodius when he had profaned the rites of the Bona Dea.

Not that Antony cared what Athens said. He, a Roman man, knew that the city’s Roman men would think no worse of him.

Besides, he was busy writing letters, an arduous task. His first was curt and short, to Titus Pomponius Atticus, informing him that Imperator Marcus Antonius, Triumvir, would thank him if he kept his nose out of Marcus Antonius’s affairs, and have nothing to do with Fulvia. His second was to Fulvia, informing her that she was hereby divorced for unwomanly conduct, and that she was forbidden to see her two sons by him. His third was to Gnaeus Asinius Pollio, asking him what on earth was going on in Italia, and would he kindly keep his legions ready to march south in case he, Marcus Antonius, was denied entry to the country by the Octavianus-loving populace of Brundisium? His fourth was to the ethnarch of Athens, thanking that worthy for his city’s kindness and loyalty to (implied) the right Romans; therefore it pleased Imperator Marcus Antonius, Triumvir, to gift Athens with the island of Aegina and some other minor isles associated with it. That ought to make the Athenians happy, he thought.

He might have written more letters, were it not for the arrival of Tiberius Claudius Nero, who paid him a formal call the moment he had installed his wife and toddling son in good lodgings nearby.

‘Faugh!’ Nero exclaimed, nostrils flaring. ‘Sextus Pompeius is a barbarian! Though what else could one expect from a member of an upstart clan from Picenum? You can have no idea what kind of headquarters he keeps – rats, mice, rotting garbage. I didn’t dare expose my family to the filth and disease, though they weren’t the worst Pompeius had to offer. We hadn’t unpacked our belongings before some of his dandified “admiral” freedmen were sniffing around my wife – I had to chop a slice out of some low fellow’s arm! And would you believe it, Pompeius actually sided with the cur? I told him what I thought, then I put Livia Drusilla and my son on the next ship for Athens.’

Antony listened to this with dreamy memories in his head of how Caesar felt about Nero – ‘inepte’ was the kindest word Caesar could find to describe him. Gaining more from what Nero didn’t say, Antony decided that Nero had arrived at Sextus Pompeius’s lair, strutted around it like a cockerel, carped and criticized, and finally made himself so intolerable that Sextus had thrown him out. A more insufferable snob than Nero would be hard to find, and the Pompeii were very sensitive about their Picentine origins.

‘So what do you intend to do now, Nero?’ he asked.

‘Live within my means, which are not limitless,’ Nero said stiffly, his dark, saturnine countenance growing even prouder.

‘And your wife?’ Antony asked slyly.

‘Livia Drusilla is a good wife. She does as she’s told, which is more than you can say about your wife!’

A typical Neronian statement; he seemed to have no inbuilt monitor to warn him that some things were best left unsaid. I ought, thought Antony savagely, to seduce her! What a life she must lead, married to this inepte!

‘Bring her to dinner this afternoon, Nero,’ he said jovially. ‘Think of it as money saved – no need to send your cook to the market until tomorrow.’

‘I thank you,’ Nero said, unwinding to his full, spindling height. Left arm cuddling folds of toga, he stalked out, leaving Antony chuckling softly.

Plancus came in, horror written large upon his face. ‘Oh, Edepol, Antonius! What’s Nero doing here?’

‘Apart from insulting everyone he meets? I suspect that he made himself so unwelcome in Sextus Pompeius’s headquarters that he was told to leave. You can come to dinner this afternoon and share the joys of his company. He’s bringing his wife, who must be a terrible bore to put up with him. Just who is she?’

‘His cousin – fairly close, actually. Her father was a Claudius Nero adopted by the famous tribune of the plebs, Livius Drusus, hence her name, Livia Drusilla. Nero is the son of Drusus’s blood brother, Tiberius Nero. Of course she’s an heiress – a lot of money in the Livius Drusus family. Once, Cicero hoped Nero would marry his Tullia, but she preferred Dolabella. A worse husband in most ways, but at least he was a merry fellow. Didn’t you move in those circles when Clodius was alive, Antonius?’

‘I did. And you’re right, Dolabella was good company. But it’s not Nero gives your face that look, Plancus. What’s up?’

‘A packet from Ephesus. I had one too, but yours is from your cousin Caninius, so it ought to say more.’ Plancus sat in the client’s chair facing Antony across the desk, eyes bright.

Antony broke the seal, unrolled his cousin’s epistle and mumbled his way through it, a long business accompanied by frowns and curses. ‘I wish,’ he complained, ‘that more men had taken Caesar’s hint and put a dot over the beginning of a new word. I do it now, so do Pollio, Ventidius and – though I hate to say it – Octavianus. Turns a continuous scrawl into something a man can read almost at a glance.’ He went back to his mumbling, finally sighed and put the scroll down.

‘How can I be in two places at once?’ he asked Plancus. ‘By rights I should be in Asia Province shoring it up against attack from Labienus, instead I’m forced to sit closer to Italia and keep my legions within call. Pacorus has overrun Syria and all the petty princelings have thrown in their lot with the Parthians, even Amblichus. Caninius says that Saxa’s legions defected to Pacorus – Saxa was forced to flee to Apamaea, then took ship for Cilicia. No one has heard from him since, but rumor has it that his brother was killed in Syria. Labienus is busy overrunning Cilicia Pedia and eastern Cappadocia.’

‘And of course there are no legions east of Ephesus.’

‘Nor will there be in Ephesus, I’m afraid. Asia Province will have to fend for itself until I can sort out the mess in Italia. I’ve already sent to Caninius to bring the legions to Macedonia,’ said Antony, sounding grim.

‘Is that your only course?’ Plancus asked, paling.

‘Definitely. I’ve given myself the rest of this year to deal with Rome, Italia and Octavianus, so for the rest of this year the legions will be camped around Apollonia. If they’re known to be on the Adriatic, that will tell Octavianus that I mean to squash him like a bug.’

‘Marcus,’ Plancus wailed, ‘everyone is fed up with civil war, and what you’re talking is civil war! The legions won’t fight!’

‘My legions will fight for me,’ said Antony.

Livia Drusilla entered the governor’s residence with all her usual composure, creamy lids lowered over her eyes, which she knew were her best feature. Hide them! As always, she walked a little behind Nero because a good wife did, and Livia Drusilla had vowed to be a good wife. Never, she had sworn, hearing what Antony had done to Fulvia, would she put herself in that position! To don armor and wave a sword about, one would have to be a Hortensia, who had only done it to demonstrate to the leaders of the Roman state that the women of Rome from highest to lowest would never consent to being taxed when they didn’t have the right to vote. Hortensia won the encounter, a bloodless victory, at considerable embarrassment to the Triumvirs Antony, Octavian and Lepidus.

Not that Livia Drusilla intended to be a mouse; she simply masqueraded as someone small and meek and a trifle timid. Huge ambition burned in her, inchoate because she had no idea how she was going to seize that ambition, turn it into a productive thing. Certainly it was shaped in an absolutely Roman mold, which meant no unfeminine behavior, no putting herself forward, no unsubtle manipulating. Not that she wanted to be another Cornelia the Mother of the Gracchi, worshipped by some women as a truly Roman goddess because she had suffered, borne children, seen them die, never complained of her lot. No, Livia Drusilla sensed that there had to be another way to reach the heights.

The trouble was that three years of marriage had shown her beyond all doubt that the way was not through Tiberius Claudius Nero. Like most girls of her exalted station, she hadn’t known Nero very well before they married, for all that he was her close cousin. Nothing in him, on the few occasions when they had met, had inspired anything in her save contempt for his stupidity and an instinctive detestation of his person. Dark herself, she admired men with golden hair and light eyes. Intelligent herself, she admired men with great intelligence. On neither count could Nero qualify. She had been fifteen when her father Drusus had married her to his first cousin Nero, and in the house where she grew up there had been no priapic wall paintings or phallic lamps whereby a girl might learn something about physical love. So union with Nero had revolted her. He too preferred golden-haired, light-eyed lovers; what pleased him in his wife were her noble ancestry and her fortune.

Only how to be shriven of Tiberius Claudius Nero when she was determined to be a good wife? It didn’t seem possible unless someone offered him a better marriage, and that was highly unlikely. Her cleverness had shown her very early in their marriage that people disliked Nero, tolerated him only because of his patrician status and his consequent right to occupy all the offices that Rome offered her nobility. And oh, he bored her! Many were the tales she had heard about Cato Uticensis, Caesar’s greatest enemy, and his tactless, prating personality, but to Livia Drusilla he seemed an ecstatic god compared to Nero. Nor could she like the son she had borne Nero ten months after their wedding; little Tiberius was dark, skinny, tall, solemn and a trifle sanctimonious, even at two years of age. He had fallen into the habit of criticizing his mother because he heard his father do so and, unlike most small children, he had spent his life thus far in his father’s company. Livia Drusilla suspected that Nero preferred to keep her and little Tiberius close in case some pretty fellow with Caesarean charm tampered with his wife’s virtue. What an irritation that was! Didn’t the fool know that she would never demean herself in that way?

The housebound existence she had led until Nero embarked upon his disastrous Campanian venture in Lucius Antonius’s cause had not allowed her as much as a glimpse of any of the famous men all Rome talked about; she hadn’t laid eyes on Marcus Antonius, Lepidus, Servilius Vatia, Gnaeus Domitius Calvinus, Octavianus, or even Caesar, dead in her fifteenth year. Therefore today was exciting, though nothing in her demeanor showed that: she was going to dine with Marcus Antonius, the most powerful man in the world!

A pleasure that almost didn’t happen when Nero discovered that Antony was one of those disgracefully fast fellows who let women recline on the men’s couches.

‘Unless my wife has a chair, I am leaving!’ Nero said with his customary tact.

Had Antony not already found the little oval face of Nero’s wife bewitching, the upshot of that remark would have been a roar and expulsion; as it was, Antony grinned and commanded that a chair be brought for Livia Drusilla. When the chair came he had it placed opposite his own position on the couch, but as there were only the three male diners, Nero couldn’t very well object to that. It wasn’t as if she was around a corner from him, though Nero did think it more evidence of Antony’s uncouth nature that he had relegated him to the end of the couch and put a puffed-up nobody like Plancus in the middle.

Removal of her wrap revealed that Livia Drusilla wore a fawn dress with long sleeves and a high neck, but nothing could disguise the charms of her figure or her flawless ivory skin. As thick and black as night, with the same indigo tinge to its lustre, her hair was done plainly, drawn back to cover her ears and knotted on the nape of her neck. And her face was exquisite! A small, lush red mouth, enormous eyes fringed with long black lashes like fans, pink cheeks, a small but aquiline nose, all combined to form perfection. Just when Antony became annoyed at not being able to decide what color her eyes were, she moved her chair and a thin ray of sun lit them. Oh, amazing! They were a very dark blue, but striated in a magical way with strands of whitish fawn. Like no eyes he had ever seen before, and – eerie. Livia Drusilla, I could eat you up! he said to himself, and set out to make her fall in love with him.

But it wasn’t possible. She was not shy, answered all of his questions frankly yet demurely, wasn’t afraid to add a tiny comment when it was called for. However, she would introduce no topic of conversation of her own volition, and said or did nothing that Nero, watching suspiciously, could fault. None of that would have mattered to Antony had a single spark of interest flared in her eyes, but it didn’t. If he had been a more perceptive man, he would have known that the faint moue crossing her face from time to time spoke of distaste.

Yes, he would beat a wife who grossly erred, she decided, but not as Nero would, coldly, with total calculation. Antonius would do it in a terrible temper, though afterward, cooled down, he wouldn’t rue the deed, for her crime would be unpardonable. Most men would like him, be drawn to him, and most women desire him. Life during those few days in Sextus Pompeius’s lair at Agrigentum had exposed Livia Drusilla to low women, and she had learned a lot about love, and men, and the sexual act. It seemed that women preferred men with large penises because a large penis made it easier for them to achieve climax, whatever that was (she had not found out, afraid to ask for fear of being laughed at). But she did find out that Marcus Antonius was famous for the immensity of his procreative equipment. Well, that was as maybe, when now she could discover nothing in Antonius to like or admire. Especially after she realized that he was trying his hardest to elicit a response from her. It gave her tremendous satisfaction to deny him that response, which taught her a little about how a woman might acquire power. Only not intriguing with an Antonius, whose lusts were transient, unimportant even.

‘What did you think of the Great Man?’ Nero asked as they walked home in the brief, fiery twilight.

Livia Drusilla blinked; her husband didn’t usually ask her what she thought about anyone or anything. ‘High in birth, low in character,’ she said. ‘A vulgar boor.’

‘Emphatic,’ he said, sounding pleased.

For the first time in their relationship, she dared to ask him a political question. ‘Husband, why do you cleave to a vulgar boor like Marcus Antonius? Why not to Caesar Octavianus, who by all descriptions is not a boor, nor vulgar either?’

For a moment he stopped absolutely still, then turned to look at her, more in surprise than irritation. ‘Birth outweighs both. Antonius is better born. Rome belongs to men with the proper ancestry. They and only they should be permitted to hold high offices, govern provinces, conduct wars.’

‘But Octavianus is Caesar’s nephew! Wasn’t Caesar’s birth unimpeachable?’

‘Oh, Caesar had it all – birth, brilliance, beauty. The most august of the august patricians. Even his plebeian blood was the best – mother Aurelian, grandmother Marcian, great-grandmother Popillian. Octavianus is an imposter! A tinge of Julian blood, the rest trash. Who are the Octavii of Velitrae? Utter nobodies! Some Octavii are fairly respectable, but not those from Velitrae. One of Octavianus’s great-grandfathers was a rope maker, another a baker. His grandfather was a banker. Low, low! His father made a lucky second marriage to Caesar’s niece. Though she was tainted – her father was a rich nobody who bought Caesar’s sister. In those days the Julii had no money, they had to sell daughters.’

‘Is a nephew not a quarter Julian?’ she ventured boldly.

‘Great-nephew, the little poseur! One-eighth Julian. The rest is abominable!’ barked Nero, getting worked up. ‘Whatever possessed the great Caesar to choose a low-born boy as his heir escapes me, but of one thing you may be sure, Livia Drusilla – I will never tie myself to the likes of Octavianus!’

Well, well, thought Livia Drusilla, saying no more. That is why so many of Rome’s aristocrats abhor Octavianus! As a person of the finest blood, I should abhor him too, but he intrigues me. He’s risen so far! I admire that in him because I understand it. Perhaps every so often Rome must create new aristocrats; it might even be that the great Caesar realized that when he made his will.

Livia Drusilla’s interpretation of Nero’s reasons for hewing to Mark Antony was a gross oversimplification – but then, so was Nero’s reasoning. His narrow intellect was undeveloped; no number of additional years could make him anymore than he had been when a young man serving under Caesar. Indeed, he was so dense that he had no idea Caesar had disliked him. Water off a duck’s back, as the Gauls said. When your blood is the very best, what possible fault could a fellow nobleman find in you?