The Egyptian Royals Collection (147 page)

Octavia put her arm around Gallia’s shoulders and told Vitruvius to fetch some blankets. We followed her through the hall into the library. There would be no ludus in the morning, and there was no use telling us to go to sleep. A slave arrived to light the brazier, and we sat together around the fire, drinking warm wine and huddling in our cloaks. Marcellus looked the worse for his night.

“He’s probably been taken to the Carcer,” Octavia guessed. “They’ll search his rooms, and when they don’t find anything to suggest he’s a traitor, they’ll set him free.” But she hesitated. “He isn’t a traitor, is he?”

Gallia put down her cup more loudly than she probably intended. “I have lived with him for nearly a year. I think I would know if he was the Red Eagle!”

Octavia nodded. “Then once they’re finished going through his scrolls—”

“So let them read! I hope they enjoy Simonides and Homer!”

The fire crackled in the brazier, and an uneasy silence settled over the library. Vitruvius returned with blankets and warm
ofellae
, but no one felt much like eating.

As dawn broke over the sky, doing its best to lighten the leaden clouds, little Tonia put her head in her mother’s lap. “It’s time for ludus,” she said. “Why aren’t they going?”

“Because there’s not going to be any ludus today. Antonia, take your sister back to your chamber.”

Although I would certainly have argued with my own mother, Antonia rose quietly and did as she was told. The ensuing stillness in the room felt crushing.

“Did you hear about the theater?” Octavia asked to fill the silence.

Vitruvius nodded. “Caesar has approved of Selene’s help,” he said quietly. “I look forward to seeing her ideas.”

The conversation lapsed into silence, and just as my eyes were becoming too heavy to keep open, a shadow darkened the doorway.

“Verrius!” Gallia cried. She rushed from her seat and threw her arms around his neck, searching his face for signs of torture.

“He wasn’t there long,” Juba assured her. “The soldiers searched his rooms and didn’t find anything.”

“Of course they didn’t!” Gallia said harshly. “What did they do to you?” she asked tenderly.

“Nothing. Juba arrived to get me out before they could even put me in chains.”

Tears dampened Gallia’s cheeks. “Thank you, Juba—”

“So nothing was found tonight,” Octavia cut in angrily. “Not here, not in the ludus, and not in Magister Verrius’s home.”

Juba’s gaze did not waver. “Those were my orders.”

“And what have you been
ordered
to do next?” she demanded.

“Inform you that Octavian is resigning from office.”

27–26 BC

BY THE
next day, there was no one in Rome who hadn’t heard the news. Thousands of people flocked to the Senate, where Octavian had promised to relinquish his powers and resign his office in its entirety. Soldiers kept peace in the courtyard outside, where the men looked solemn and a few hysterical women were beating their chests. We stood around the open doors of the Senate, where a space had been cleared for us, and I heard Octavia say, “Make way!”

Vitruvius appeared with a young man at his side, and for a terrible moment I wondered if he had taken a new apprentice.

“Alexander, Selene. My son Lucius,” he said.

Lucius gave me a dazzling smile. He was shorter than my brother, but, like Octavian, he had small heels on his bright golden sandals. When I extended my hand, his kiss lingered. “So you are the one who is bearing my burden,” he said gratefully. “Without you, I would be chained to ink drawings and cement.”

I laughed. “It’s a pleasant burden,” I told him.

“Well, with someone as pretty as you watching over them, the builders must be begging for more work.”

Marcellus laughed at this empty flattery, but Lucius just turned his attention to my brother. “Alexander—”

“There he is,” Marcellus interrupted, pointing through the open doors into the Senate. “He’s taken the podium!”

Octavian was dressed in a plain white toga, and nothing on his person gave any indication that he was Caesar. He was flanked by Juba and Agrippa, and behind them stood the Praetorian Guard. Although Alexander and Lucius were whispering, everyone else in the courtyard was silent.

I had asked Julia whether her father was doing this because of the Red Eagle, but she’d only laughed. “There’s nothing he does without planning it first. He’s probably considered this for months. Years.”

“Then you don’t think he plans on giving up his power?”

Julia had given me a wearied look. “No,” she’d said with practiced cynicism. “He would only be doing this if he thought it would increase it.”

I didn’t see how resigning his office would make Octavian more powerful than he already was. But as he rose to speak, the senators began to revolt. They shouted for him to remain, citing the civil wars that had ripped Rome apart before he had taken power and swearing that this would happen again if he refused. Men pumped their fists in the air, cursing like sailors from Ostia. But Octavian raised his arms and the room fell silent.

“It is time,” he shouted, “for me to give up the reins of power and return the Republic to the citizens of Rome.”

“He can’t mean that!” Marcellus exclaimed.

Octavia twisted her belt strings nervously in her hands. But Livia was smiling, and I thought,
Julia’s right. He doesn’t mean that
.

“I believe we all remember my adoptive father, Gaius Julius Caesar, who stood before you only seventeen years ago in the purple robes of
imperium
, with a laurel wreath on his head. Notice that I come
before you with none of the trappings of Caesar. I am a humble servant, one who remembers his history well.”

“Then you remember the civil wars!” a senator shouted.

“Yes,” Octavian conceded. “But I also remember my father,” he said harshly, “stabbed to death for attempting to build an empire!”

There was pandemonium in the Senate. A young boy in the doorway repeated Octavian’s words for those standing in the courtyard, and the frenzy outside soon matched the turmoil within.

Octavian raised his arms, and again the senators fell silent. “Having done what I can for Rome,” he went on, “I now lay down my office in its entirety. To you, the esteemed senators of Rome, I return authority over the army, the laws, and the provinces. You are free to govern not just those territories which you entrusted to me, but also those which I fought and won for you.”

Seneca leapt violently from his seat. “This is not acceptable!” he cried. “You fought against Antony, you crushed the kingdom of Egypt, you rebuilt our city and sent forces to police our dangerous hills. You took a republic in chaos and made it into an empire, and we will never allow you to resign!”

Vitruvius turned to Octavia. “Is he paying Seneca?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“He doesn’t have to pay him,” Livia snapped. “The senators don’t want a return to civil war. Without Octavian’s leadership, the clans will go back to fighting and tearing each other apart like wolves.”

“Let us take a vote!” one of the senators shouted.

There were hums of approval, and Octavian raised his hands. “Then I submit my departure to you,” he acquiesced.

Seneca addressed the chamber. “We are voting on the future of Rome,” he said. “There is not a man here who doesn’t know what Octavian has done for this city, for this empire, for
all
of you! Do you
want to return to the days of anarchy? The days of civil war?” he threatened. “Octavian is not another Julius Caesar. He is something different.
This
is something different. We can share power, and for the first time in the history of Rome, create a joint way of ruling. So let us give him a name in honor of his difference, of his victories, and his sacrifices to build a better Rome. Let us call Gaius Octavius … Augustus.”

There was a roar of approval from the senators, and only a few men remained seated on the benches. From the platform, Octavian bent his head humbly.

Livia looked toward the sky. “He’s done it,” she murmured. The gods seemed to have been watching over her. “He’s made himself emperor.”

The senators resumed their seats, and only Seneca remained standing. “As for leaving office,” he continued, and a chorus of protests met the words, “we shall have a vote as to whether Augustus shall be allowed to resign.”

It was a grand piece of theater, and when all of it was done, we watched as Octavian reluctantly accepted control over the provinces of Syria, Iberia, and Gaul for ten years. Egypt would still belong to him, and the command of more than twenty legions was his as well. But the rest of the provinces and their comparatively small legions would be governed by the Senate, and they would be allowed to choose which praetors would oversee them. The celebration in the streets that followed was as loud and wild as any military Triumph. It was as if Augustus were coming home again victorious from battle.

In Octavia’s villa that afternoon, we prepared for a celebratory feast. Gallia arranged my curls into a loose bun and slipped pearl-tipped pins into my hair. I imagined how beautiful the pins would have looked with my mother’s necklace, then commanded myself not to think about it. Gallia’s freedom and happiness was worth any
number of necklaces, and no necklace could bring my mother back. Gallia swept the slightest hint of malachite across my lids, then allowed me to wear a pair of pearl earrings Julia had given to me for Saturnalia. When Alexander saw me, he hummed with appreciation.

“Be careful,” he teased. “All of those senators will be here tonight, and they’re probably tired of looking at Octavian.”

“Did you even hear what was happening?” I asked critically. “Or did you spend the entire time talking with Lucius?”

“Of course I heard! He’s kept his power for ten more years, and we’re all to call him Augustus.”

I looked up at Gallia. “Is it true? Will even Octavia call him that?”

“Yes. Romans are always changing their names.”

I thought of the mausoleum that Vitruvius had already started to build, and all of the inscriptions that would have to be changed.

“So do you think he planned this?” Alexander asked, seating himself next to me at the mirror while Gallia perfumed my neck.

“Julia says he did.”

“So does Lucius.”

“And what does Lucius know?” I demanded. “He lives with his aunt.”

My brother raised his brows. “Not anymore. He’s been talking to his father. Octavia has said he can come and live here.”

“He’s quite the charmer.”

We sat together in silence for a moment. Then I glanced in the mirror. “Do you really think I look pretty?”

“Enough to turn every head in the triclinium,” he promised. “And me?”

I laughed. “You’re always handsome. And what does it matter? There’s no one you have your eye on.”

He smiled uneasily.

“Is there?”

“No,” he confirmed. “It would be foolish to begin anything. We don’t know what Octavian—Augustus—has in mind for us. He could give you to a senator as old as Zeus and me to a witch like Livia.”

“Don’t say that,” I whispered.

“It’s true. That’s why Lucius won’t stay with his aunt. She thinks she’s found a wife for him. Some horrible hag with a villa in Capri. And he’s only a year older than we are.”

“When will he come here?” I asked.

“This evening.”

“So quickly?”

“The more time he spends with her,” my brother said, “the more time she has to bring women home to meet him.”

“But Vitruvius has to approve any marriage.”

“Lucius says Vitruvius trusts his sister’s judgment.”

“So does he think he’ll escape marriage by coming here?”

“Perhaps. Not every man marries, you know. Maecenas didn’t have a wife for years. And Vergil’s in his forties and has never married.”

“They are
poets
, Alexander. And probably Ganymedes.”

But my brother didn’t seem bothered by the reference to the handsome Trojan boy who was abducted to Olympus to become the lover of Zeus. He simply shrugged. “Maybe.”