Antony and Cleopatra. Colleen McCullough

the charms of her figure or her flawless ivory skin. As thick and black as night, with the same indigo tinge to its lustre, her hair was done plainly, drawn back to cover her ears and knotted on the nape of her neck. And her face was exquisite! A small, lush red mouth, enormous eyes fringed with long black lashes like fans, pink cheeks, a small but aquiline nose, all combined to form perfection. Just when Antony became annoyed at not being able to decide what color her eyes were, she moved her chair and a thin ray of sun lit them. Oh, amazing! They were a very dark blue, but striated in a magical way with strands of whitish fawn. Like no eyes he had ever seen before, and – eerie. Livia Drusilla, I could eat you up! he said to himself, and set out to make her fall in love with him.

      But it wasn’t possible. She was not shy, answered all of his questions frankly yet demurely, wasn’t afraid to add a tiny comment when it was called for. However, she would introduce no topic of conversation of her own volition, and said or did nothing that Nero, watching suspiciously, could fault. None of that would have mattered to Antony had a single spark of interest flared in her eyes, but it didn’t. If he had been a more perceptive man, he would have known that the faint moue crossing her face from time to time spoke of distaste.

      Yes, he would beat a wife who grossly erred, she decided, but not as Nero would, coldly, with total calculation. Antonius would do it in a terrible temper, though afterward, cooled down, he wouldn’t rue the deed, for her crime would be unpardonable. Most men would like him, be drawn to him, and most women desire him. Life during those few days in Sextus Pompeius’s lair at Agrigentum had exposed Livia Drusilla to low women, and she had learned a lot about love, and men, and the sexual act. It seemed that women preferred men with large penises because a large penis made it easier for them to achieve climax, whatever that was (she had not found out, afraid to ask for fear of being laughed at). But she did find out that Marcus Antonius was famous for the immensity of his procreative equipment. Well, that was as maybe, when now she could discover nothing in Antonius to like or admire. Especially after she realized that he was trying his hardest to elicit a response from her. It gave her tremendous satisfaction to deny him that response, which taught her a little about how a woman might acquire power. Only not intriguing with an Antonius, whose lusts were transient, unimportant even.

      ‘What did you think of the Great Man?’ Nero asked as they walked home in the brief, fiery twilight.

      Livia Drusilla blinked; her husband didn’t usually ask her what she thought about anyone or anything. ‘High in birth, low in character,’ she said. ‘A vulgar boor.’

      ‘Emphatic,’ he said, sounding pleased.

      For the first time in their relationship, she dared to ask him a political question. ‘Husband, why do you cleave to a vulgar boor like Marcus Antonius? Why not to Caesar Octavianus, who by all descriptions is not a boor, nor vulgar either?’

      For a moment he stopped absolutely still, then turned to look at her, more in surprise than irritation. ‘Birth outweighs both. Antonius is better born. Rome belongs to men with the proper ancestry. They and only they should be permitted to hold high offices, govern provinces, conduct wars.’

      ‘But Octavianus is Caesar’s nephew! Wasn’t Caesar’s birth unimpeachable?’

      ‘Oh, Caesar had it all – birth, brilliance, beauty. The most august of the august patricians. Even his plebeian blood was the best – mother Aurelian, grandmother Marcian, great-grandmother Popillian. Octavianus is an imposter! A tinge of Julian blood, the rest trash. Who are the Octavii of Velitrae? Utter nobodies! Some Octavii are fairly respectable, but not those from Velitrae. One of Octavianus’s great-grandfathers was a rope maker, another a baker. His grandfather was a banker. Low, low! His father made a lucky second marriage to Caesar’s niece. Though she was tainted – her father was a rich nobody who bought Caesar’s sister. In those days the Julii had no money, they had to sell daughters.’

      ‘Is a nephew not a quarter Julian?’ she ventured boldly.

      ‘Great-nephew, the little poseur! One-eighth Julian. The rest is abominable!’ barked Nero, getting worked up. ‘Whatever possessed the great Caesar to choose a low-born boy as his heir escapes me, but of one thing you may be sure, Livia Drusilla – I will never tie myself to the likes of Octavianus!’

      Well, well, thought Livia Drusilla, saying no more. That is why so many of Rome’s aristocrats abhor Octavianus! As a person of the finest blood, I should abhor him too, but he intrigues me. He’s risen so far! I admire that in him because I understand it. Perhaps every so often Rome must create new aristocrats; it might even be that the great Caesar realized that when he made his will.

      Livia Drusilla’s interpretation of Nero’s reasons for hewing to Mark Antony was a gross oversimplification – but then, so was Nero’s reasoning. His narrow intellect was undeveloped; no number of additional years could make him anymore than he had been when a young man serving under Caesar. Indeed, he was so dense that he had no idea Caesar had disliked him. Water off a duck’s back, as the Gauls said. When your blood is the very best, what possible fault could a fellow nobleman find in you?

      To Mark Antony, it seemed as if his first month in Athens was littered with women, none of whom was worth his valuable time. Though was his time truly valuable, when nothing he did bore fruit? The only good news came from Apollonia with Quintus Dellius, who informed him that his legions had arrived on the west coast of Macedonia, and were happy to bivouack in a kinder climate.

      Hard on Dellius’s heels came Lucius Scribonius Libo, escorting the woman surest to blight Antony’s mood: his mother.

      She rushed into his study strewing hairpins, stray seed for the bird her servant girl carried in a cage, and strands from a long fringe some insane seamstress had attached to the edges of her stole. Her hair was coming adrift in wisps more grey than gold these days, but her eyes were exactly as her son remembered them: eternally cascading tears.

      ‘Marcus, Marcus!’ she cried, throwing herself at his chest. ‘Oh, my dearest boy, I thought I’d never see you again! Such a dreadful time of it I’ve had! A paltry little room in a villa that rang night and day with the sounds of unmentionable acts, streets slimed with spittle and the contents of chamber pots, a bed crawling with bugs, nowhere to have a proper bath—’

      With many shushes and other soothing noises, Antony finally managed to put her in a chair and settle her down as much as anyone could ever settle Julia Antonia down. Only when the tears had diminished to something like their usual rate did he have the opportunity to see who had entered behind Julia Antonia. Ah! The sycophant to end all sycophants, Lucius Scribonius Libo. Not glued to Sextus Pompey – grafted to him to make a sour rootstock produce sweet grapes.

      Short in height and meager in build, Libo had a face that reinforced the inadequacies of his size and betrayed the nature of the beast within: grasping, timid, ambitious, uncertain, selfish. His moment had come when Pompey the Great’s elder son had fallen in love with his daughter, divorced a Claudia Pulchra to marry her, and obliged Pompey the Great to elevate him as befitted his son’s father-in-law. Then when Gnaeus Pompey followed his father into death, Sextus, the younger son, had married his widow. With the result that Libo had commanded naval fleets and now acted as an unofficial ambassador for his master, Sextus. The Scribonian women had done well by their family; Libo’s sister had married two rich, influential men, one a patrician Cornelius, by whom she had borne a daughter. Though Scribonia the sister was now in her early thirties and deemed ill-omened – twice widowed was once too often – Libo did not despair of finding her a third husband. Comely to look at, proven fertile, a two-hundred-talent dowry – yes, Scribonia the sister would marry again.

      However, Antony wasn’t interested in Libo’s women; it was his own bothering him. ‘Why on earth bring her to me?’ he asked.

      Libo opened his fawn-colored eyes wide, spread his hands. ‘My dear Antonius, where else could I bring her?’

      ‘You could have sent her to her own domus in Rome.’

      ‘She refused with such hysteria that I was forced to push Sextus Pompeius out of the room – otherwise he would have killed her. Believe me, she wouldn’t go to Rome, kept screeching