Free Tiberius by Allan Massie Page B

running water. It was late afternoon and the wind blew in my face. I made my way to my mother's house, for Vipsania and our son were still lodged in our villa on the coast. I knelt before Livia and she laid her fingers on my forehead. I rose and we embraced. We exchanged the awkward courtesies of reunion.
    "The Princeps is pleased with your achievement, my son." "Good. He should be. It has been a difficult summer."
    "You know," she said, "that he finds it difficult to converse with you . . ."
    "My genius rebukes him?"
    "Don't scoff. If you want to know, it's your bitter humour that he finds disconcerting. He likes . . ."
    "Yes, I know, he likes everything to be comfortable."
    "There's no need to be disrespectful. It's been a difficult summer here too. Agrippa's death . . ."
    There had been a time, as I knew, when my mother had despised Agrippa. For all her subtle intelligence, she was not altogether free of the prejudices of her class. But she had come to understand his value. They had learned to work together, aware that they pursued the same end: the creation of my stepfather's legend. Moreover, they had understood that while each of them was in important respects far superior to Augustus, and the pair together generally a match for him, nevertheless Augustus emerged, in some fashion which neither could have accounted for, as their master. There are always many observers who put it about that Livia controlled her husband, and she was not unhappy to have this believed, even while she strove to magnify his reputation. Yet she knew that in the last resort, it was not the case. Augustus kept within him a dour capacity for domination. Ultimately he was stubborn, inflexible, adamant; yes, even he, the great politician who twisted and compromised and cajoled and accommodated, yet contrived to impress his will on events. It has always been the paradox of their loving and quarrelsome marriage: that each feared the other. But, despite appearances, Augustus has always been the stronger.
    Livia would not talk that evening of Agrippa's death and of its consequences for the state, and I sensed something was wrong, for she had always been eager to engage in political speculation.
    When I met Augustus the next morning, he praised me, and was embarrassed to praise me. I declared my intention of hurrying to my wife and child, and he begged me to delay a few days in Rome. There were matters that had to be discussed when he could spare the hours from the myriad tasks of unavoidable administration, and he wished me to hold myself in readiness. I wrote to Vipsania explaining the situation and apologising for my tardiness. I told her I longed to hold her in my arms. Those were my exact words, I know, though I have no copy of that letter.
    It was at the baths a few days later that Iullus Antonius accosted me. I have not mentioned Iullus Antonius hitherto in these scraps of memory, and he deserves a paragraph to himself, as I approach the worst moments of my life.
    I had known him since I was a child - indeed we had done lessons together. He was, as his name indicates, the son of Mark Antony, by his first marriage to Fulvia, who had so terrified my own poor father in the long months of the dreadful siege of Perugia. When Antony married Augustus' sister Octavia, that noble and generous woman assumed responsibility for his children by his first marriage, and she continued to care for them even after he deserted her for Cleopatra. There were four, two of whom I came to know well: Iullus and his sister Antonia, who was now married to my brother Drusus. I have always had a warm affection for Antonia, but I never cared for Iullus. Despite my dislike, I felt some sympathy for him. He had been brought up with us, but Augustus never trusted him: he was always mindful of his heredity, and he knew that many of Antony's old adherents, and their connections, regarded Iullus as the natural leader of their party. He therefore permitted him civil office, but