Tiberius (7 page)

Tiberius brooded and could find no answer. With Julia gone, Rome was once again heaven, but he was excluded.

Heartsick, more sullen and secretive than ever, Tiberius talked with his astrologers, pla
y
ed with his little harem, and saw time vanish away from him. As he talked witii his parasites his speech was slower than ever, the silences longer and more embarrassing. Livia was moving heaven and earth for him, but Augustus stood obstinately firm. One litde concession he did make. To end Livia's nagging, he appointed Tiberius ambassador to Rhodes, but it was a mere cloak to hide the real fact of exile.

The stories that came to Rhodes from outside were most unpleasant. Once Tiberius had been a triumphing general, and statues had gone up to him all over Rome. Now citizens, moved by heaven knew what lies of Julia's raging supporters, were toppling those statues and screaming for the death of the Exile. Probably it was Julia's sons who were behind it. There were three sons, and not all were equally favored—one was Postumus, a shaggy bear of a man, a vulgar lout though brave. Augustus turned against him, too, sending him to exile after his mother. But the other two were riding high. Augustus was falling asleep after his meals now, dropping off in his litter, drowsing with his shoes off and his hand shading his eyes; he wore four or five layers of tunics and woolen gowns in winter, and he had a slave always fanning him in summer. He was failing. Gaius and Lucius, eidier or both, would not have to wait too long to inherit.

And of course once Augustus was dead some sycophant of the brothers would surely remember to come and lop off the head of the Exile.

Tiberius
had
to g
et to Rome. But he could not, th
ough the years passed and became a decade.

Tiberius retreated from the world entirely.

He took refuge in the stars. He had always been an enthusiastic believer in astrology. Most Romans were, Julius Caesar had been; Augustus too. Perhaps astrology held them so firmly because they had so little to believe in otherwise.

The ancients were not as ignorant of the facts of science as we sometimes suppose. The world did not need to wait for Galileo to discover that the earth was not flat; Strabo was twenty years older than Tiberius, and he had already told the world that it was round. "We may show summarily that the earth is spheroidal," he wrote in his
Physical Geography,
"from the consideration that all things, however distant, tend to its center, and that everybody is attracted toward its center of gravity." Galileo? Why, it is almost Newton! Strabo told the Romans this, but perhaps they did not believe. Perhaps they did not want to. It was rather more reassuring to think of Earth as something rather special and rather solid, not like the fleeing stars.

And it was also reassuring to believe that somehow the stars could tell a man what to expect. A man needed to have some glimpse of tomorrow. Stars, spells, trances, the study of the intestines of animals, the interpretation of dreams— somewhere the gods must be kind enough to let wise men see their plans!

Augustus looked everywhere for omens. It was good luck to begin a journey in a light rain; it was bad luck to put a shoe on the wrong foot. He studied his dreams endlessly. You couldn't put much trust in springtime dreams, though; he always had bad dreams in the spring, and they never meant anything. But he had been moved to leave his tent at the battle of Philippi because of a dream; and his tent was captured shortly after. Dreams were important, if you knew how to read their lessons. Even more important than the stars.

With Tiberius it was the other way—stars first, dreams and other omens second. Of course, one couldn't afford to neglect any sort of omen. Tiberius knew that an ancestor of his, Claudius the Fair, had made that mistake; Claudius was about to start a naval battle when he was told the sacred chickens were off their feed. "If they will not eat, let them drink!" he cried brashly, threw the chickens into the sea, went out to fight his naval battle, and lost it. His whole fleet was destroyed, in fact, all because Claudius the Fair had ignored the warning of the chickens.

Astrology, however, was the most important and reliable of the sciences, in Tiberius' considered opinion, and he had tried them all. Of course, you had to have a good astrologer. Since it was so arcane and cryptic an art, the field was full of mischievous quacks, and it was hard to tell the good from the bad without a test.

Tiberius arranged testing facilities. They were not elaborate. All that was required was an astrologer, a cliff, and
a
husky slave.

It was the custom of Tiberius to take
a
new recruit to his stable of astrologers out for a walk, on a path that led by some cliffs. The husky slave would walk a few paces ahead while Tiberius plied the astrologer with questions. Tiberius usually had a good idea of what the answers should be. If the answers were right, the slave was merely a sort of guard of honor. If the answers were wrong, disappointed Tiberius gave a signal, and the slave hurled the astrologer off the cliff. It was hard on the astrologers, but there were always plenty more.

On one occasion an astrologer named Thrasyllus was put to this test. Tiberius was very anxious for
a
reliable man, for there had been some indication that something big was about to happen. An eagle had perched on the roof of his villa—strange! Because there had never been any kind of eagle on Rhodes before. And when he put his tunic on that day, it had seemed to glow with a fiery radiance.

So, up on the cliff path, Tiberius suggested to Thrasyllus that he consult the stars. Was there, he asked, anything of very great interest coming up soon?

Thrasyllus made his studies. There were many stars in the sky, and comprehending their messages took time. They were not even Roman stars, really, or not all of them—bright Canopus, the giant of the south, was never visible from Rome, but was from Rhodes; so with other stars and constellations; in fact, it may be that one reason why Tiberius picked
a
southern place of exile was to change his constellations. So Thrasyllus computed all the variables, and presently began to shake with fear. "What's the matter?" demanded Tiberius.

"The stars," said Thrasyllus, trembling; "why, I'm in great danger myself, the stars say—something threatens my life at this very moment!"

Tiberius laughed and signaled the slave to go away. The danger had been real enough for Thrasyllus, but he had the right answer, and now he had earned himself a position—
a
long-term one, as it turned out. Go ahead, Tiberius ordered him, see what else you can find in the stars.

And Thrasyllus studied on and—"Lo!" he said, "there is
a
ship! It brings great news for you, Tiberius!"

Almost at once the ship appeared.

It was a great triumph of scientific study over guesswork. Thrasyllus' prediction was borne out very soon. For when the ship arrived the news was very great. It carried a letter for Tiberius; the iron will of the Emperor had softened, just
a
little; Tiberius was ordered to return to Rome.

VIII

Tiberius was back in Rome, but the Emperor still looked at him with a dour face. No matter. Tiberius was at the hub of the universe. He was a Roman, and it meant more to him to be a private citizen in Rome than to be a tribune and all but king in Rhodes
...
as long as Julia was on her naked rock.

Tiberius came back to Rome in August of the year 2
a.d.
Almost at once there was news from Marseilles, where young Lucius had gone on state affairs. The princeling was ill—very ill, said a later dispatch—no, said one later still; he was dead.

Tiberius had moved up a notch.

It had happened at an awkward time, so soon after Tiberius' return. Public opinion was bound to whisper that Tiberius' agents had poisoned him. However, for Tiberius the effect was good. The Emperor softened a trifle more. Tiberius was admitted to a few minor jobs of state—because the Emperor had softened, but also because there were signs of trouble in the provinces. Augustus might need a general soon.

Augustus tried his luck with Julia's remaining favored son, Gaius—sent him to Lycia, where there was a little war. But no war is a "little war" to the man who dies in it. Gaius died in this one; and lo! the Exile was the second man in Rome!

Augustus had gambled away many an afternoon at the dice and he knew when he had lost. Very well, Tiberius, the goddess Venus from whom you claim to be descended, and all the other gods in the Roman pantheon for that matter, have determined that you shall rule Rome. I surrender, said Augustus in effect; ru
le, th
en!

And now the world opened up to Tiberius.

Augustus gave him armies and a mission: Finish Drusus' job in Germany. Tiberius went, and fought bravely, and the Germans surrendered. Pannonia and Dalmatia were restive again. Tiberius took armies across the Adriatic and crushed them. Once again the Roman streets resounded with cheers for the great general. The toppled statues were set up again, new statues were carved in haste. Rule, Tiberius!

Nothing had changed inside the man, nothing at all. He was still secretive, he still spoke slowly and sat silent for long periods. "Poor Rome, doomed to be masticated by those slow-moving jaws," Augustus whimpered to a servant; but it was Augustus who fed Rome to them.

In the year 4
a.d
. Augustus adopted Tiberius as his son. It meant that Tiberius would be the next Emperor of Rome.

Rome itself was buzzing with new scandals about the old Emperor's family. Not poor, pretty, careless Julia this time; it was too late for that sort of thing for her. She still lived out her life in exile on her rock, with her father's guards studying every male who came near her. If they were at all young or handsome they were sent away; she could not have handsome men around her any more, nor could she have wine or good food. That was part of her punishment.

But Julia had left behind her a daughter, the Younger Julia, who was very much her mother's child.

The daughter's crowd of Inimitable Livers caroused every bit as bravely as the mother's had. The daughter too had poets in her circle—Ovid, now aging, was one of them, and he was a figure of scandal himself. He had published his
Arts
of
Love
a few years earlier. Some said that young Julia set herself the task of practicing them all. "Take your fill of amusement," Ovid gravely advised men. All right, that was Roman custom; but Ovid shocked Rome by advocating equal rights for women. To Roman girls he counseled: "Withhold not your favors from your ardent lovers. If they deceive you, wherein is your loss? All your charms remain; and even if a thousand should partake of them, those charms would still be unimpaired."

The Emperor struck like lightning and annihilated them all.

Augustus would tolerate no more from a granddaughter than from her mother, not when he was made to see. Tiberius helped him to see; it was the party of Tiberius and Livia, the Old Roman party, that held the power now. Augustus thundered at the girl as he had at Julia herself, and gave her the same punishment. Off to an island! The girl was pregnant. She was not married to the father but, for a wonder, she knew who he was. The man wished to admit paternity, even to marry the girl, but it was too late for
that.
Augustus was stern. The bastard could not live. The guilty man went into one exile, Julia the Younger into another; when the baby was born, Augustus ordered it exposed—that is, ordered it to be put out in an unsheltered place until it died.

Ovid followed them into exile, protesting that he hadn't done a thing, really. But he had. Not the thing he was exiled for, of course—the ostensible reason was punishment for daring to write that filthy work, the
Arts
of
Love.
That was nonsense; the book had been published ten years before.

What Ovid was exiled for was something to do with the Younger Julia. She might have been his mistress. Probably not. More likely, she was the mistress of another man and Ovid knew about it—perhaps helped their rendezvous; there was talk of a tryst in the Temple of Isis, with Ovid conspiring to 'help it along. He need have done nothing more, under
Lex Iulia;
it was not only a crime to commit adultery, but a crime to refrain from denouncing it if one had proof.

But most of all, whether he slept with the Younger Julia or not, whether or not he had guilty knowledge of her affairs, he was part of the circle of free-living, free-loving youth that she had built around her; and his presence in Rome was an embarrassment to Augustus. Augustus did not need to suffer embarrassment from a mere poet.

When Julia went to her island, Ovid went to Tomi, a tiny and backward community at the mouth of the Danube, on the Black Sea. Wine froze in winter, it was so cold; there was a constant threat of barbarian raids. So said Ovid; yet perhaps the man was making things sound worse than they were—at least, we know that old Agrippa had visited that part of the world once and liked it well enough to stay six months, the only vacation he took in his life. But for so highly cultivated an Inimitable Liver as Ovid, Tomi might have been very hell. The natives didn't even speak Latin!

Ovid half-heartedly learned their language and even wrote a few verses in it, which delighted the natives. But the plaudits of the citizens of Tomi were no recompense for the loss of Rome. Ovid spent the rest of his life writing wheedling letters and self-pitying verse, begging for a pardon which never came.