I Am Livia by Phyllis T. Smith Page A

arms.
    Mother put the baby back in the cradle. “You feel quite well now, don’t you, Livia? No signs of fever? No weakness?”
    “Mother, I’m fine.”
    She brushed my hair back from my face. “Always so messy. Ah well, life goes on.”
    I went to bed rather late that night and also slept late, long after Tiberius Nero and the rest of the household were up. A knock on the bedchamber door roused me. I opened it to find Antiope, the maid who waited on my mother, looking anxious. She said she had repeatedly knocked on the door of Mother’s bedchamber and was concerned that Mother did not answer.
    I raced to Mother’s bedchamber. Before I threw the door open, I suspected what awaited me there. Mother lay across her bed, dressed just as she had been for yesterday’s ceremony. Her head rested on a pillow. Her legs were crossed at the ankles. The folds of her stola were carefully arranged. There was a smear of yellow across her lips, and in her hand she clutched the kind of vial used to hold expensive perfume. Her eyes, wide open, gawked at the ceiling.
    A waxed tablet with writing on it lay on the stool at the foot of her bed. I snatched it up with desperate eagerness, as if words could somehow make everything right.
Livia, I have gone to join your father. The loss of our property has played only a minor part in my decision. Certainly I have no desire to be a burden to you or your husband. But I have chosen this course because it pays the greatest honor to your father and our marriage. I am sure you have enough daughterly reverence that you would not dream of questioning the rightness of my action.
Secunda is to get my emerald necklace, which I promised her; you may divide the rest of my jewelry with her as you think just.
I forbid you to follow my example, and hope I need not remind you of your responsibilities to your husband and your son.
    I had received the news of my father’s death calmly; Mother was there to order me to be calm. She was not here now. I sank down on my knees, howled like an animal, and tore at my clothes.
    Tiberius Nero came running. It was a long time before he could get me up on my feet. He made me down a sleeping draught, and I soon fell into a stupor. I think my husband was afraid that if he did not give me the draught I would do myself harm.

D ecember is the most joyous month of the year, the time of the Saturnalia, of games and feasting, and at the end of the month, new year’s presents. Fresh grief at this time walls you off from everyone . W ith so many people dead in the proscriptions and in battle, the revels that year had a forced quality, but one still heard music in the streets and smelled honey cakes and spiced wine. When I had to go anywhere, I kept the curtains of my litter closed. Young as I was, I did not know that mourning passes, and was as defenseless before grief as the young usually are.
    I did not take much pleasure even in my son. I felt terrified if he so much as sneezed. What if I lost him as I had lost my parents?
    Soon it was time for me to take up my duties as a wife again. They were less onerous than they had once been. Tiberius Nero’s ardor in the bedchamber had lessened. I suspected that he began seeking other women during my pregnancy, and having fallen into this habit, he never stopped. For men of the nobility this was expected, conventional behavior. It still would have upset me, if I had loved him.
    I no longer had the illusion that my marriage might help save the Republic. The Republic was quite dead. Antony, Lepidus, and Caesar had carved up the empire between them. Antony was in the east, Lepidus in North Africa, and Caesar remained in Italy.
    Tiberius Nero was named a praetor. Lucius Antony stayed in Rome, having been chosen consul. People said that Lucius could almost be taken for his brother’s less competent and vital twin; he had the same tall, husky build and fleshy face as Mark Antony. He would frequently dine at my home, and then he and my husband