Free I Am Livia by Phyllis T. Smith Page B

couldn’t wait to leave town.”
    “Who will govern here in Rome?”
    “I’m sure Caesar will have picked men of his own to do that. And Livia, do you know what I found out today? The boy doesn’t shave yet. He’s very fair, and naturally not very hairy, so he’s only now getting much stubble on his chin. And he has new hair on his upper lip, I noticed. But he said he has sworn never to shave until he has avenged his so-called father. It will be a new experience for him—shaving.” My husband averted his face. “How the gods must be laughing at us.”

    I ask myself now, was what I felt then for Caesar pure loathing? Did some part of me thrill to the audacity of what he had done? If so, I did not acknowledge the feeling. Caesar was a threat to all those I loved, and to everything my father had taught me to believe. I had reverence for the vision of the Republic that Father had shown me. In much of the world there were kings, and people bowed to the rule of one man . W e in Rome had had a government based on law, in which the people elected magistrates, and from these magistrates senators were selected. The senators were once men who wished to serve the common good. I knew that the government had become corrupt, that over the last hundred years rich and powerful men had resorted to outright violence to subvert the people’s will, that the Senate had become a narrow, despised oligarchy. But, like my father, I had believed the Republic could be purified and once more be what it had been long ago. If Caesar had his way, that would never happen. I tried to consider him in that light, and only that light, not as a man I had felt drawn to but as a problem to be solved.
    The next day, while tribunals met to obediently condemn Brutus and the rest, I summoned Caesar Octavianus into my presence. Oh, not the boy himself, but his phantom image. I sat, leaning against pillows in my bed, and imagined him, resplendent in his purple-edged consular toga, perching on the stool near my feet. I visualized him with his shining good looks, and added the new chin stubble and the hint of a moustache my husband had mentioned.
    What do you want? I asked him.
    He answered, Supreme power .
    What else?
    I want to avenge my father.
    Because you loved him so much?
    They came at him, fifty against one, men who received only good from him. They stabbed him and stabbed him and stabbed him. Do you think I forget that?
    Your great-uncle—
    Young Caesar interrupted me. Kindly do me the courtesy of calling him my father. Julius Caesar was the father I longed for. The father who begat me died before I could well remember him.
    How strange it was. I felt no sympathy for Caesar Octavianus now, or so I believed. Yet there was an odd tie, as if I were able to sense his feelings.
    I saw myself in Julius Caesar just as he saw himself in me, the phantom said . I did love him.
    But it’s not all a matter of love with you. That’s not the only reason you seek revenge.
    No, I have to avenge my father for my own credit. My soldiers will worship me less and hesitate to follow me if I don’t do it.
    You are giving this matter of the tribunals a high priority. You want to appear to be acting within the law.
    The phantom smiled. Exactly.
    You will convict Brutus and the rest, and then rush off to fight…Antony?
    Caesar tilted his head and gaped at me. Now why would I do that?
    You said you would.
    He laughed. But Livia Drusilla, we both know I don’t always do what I say.

    The armies of Caesar and Antony marched toward each other, Caesar coming from Rome, Antony from Gaul. They both stopped at the Lavinius River, and camped on opposite banks. In the middle of the river sat a tiny island, linked to both shores by bridges. Lepidus, a former consul, walked over to the island from Antony’s side of the river. This Lepidus had ranked next to Antony among Julius Caesar’s supporters. Now he dutifully searched for hidden weapons and lurking assassins. When he found