Augustus Read Free Page B

knew to be as great as mine - they liked that assurance - to go home and leave me to mourn. To my surprise it worked. They were a poor lot and even more confused than I was myself.
    'Well,' I said to Maecenas when we were alone.
    He stopped plucking his eyebrows, a task he would normally have left to a slave.
    'Well,' I said, 'I am head of the family. Julius had no other heir. I am almost his adopted son.'
    'You are only eighteen,' he said. 'There are other leaders of the Popular Party. Mark Antony and his brother Lucius.'
    'They may have killed Antony too,' I said. 'Why shouldn't they? It's five days since Julius was murdered. Anything could have happened. My mother tells me to act the man. But how?'
    'We must go to Italy,' he said. 'You are in no more danger there than here. And whatever you do, nobody will believe you plan to do nothing. So you might as well act with decision. The Gods,' his tongue flickered on his lips, 'have thrown the dice for you. You must pick them up, and roll again. Tell Agrippa to see to a ship, employ his vast administrative talent. As for me, well, Nikos tells me he has a new consignment from Asia. He has promised me a Phrygian boy with a bottom like a peach. It would be a shame not to pluck it before we sail. Nothing, my dear, is sadder than the remembrance of lost fucks.'
    * * *
    You will wonder, I am sure, why I tolerated Maecenas; he is hardly the type you would find around me now, is he? Of course I have grown staid and respectable with years, but even then your natural father Agrippa could not understand it. He often rebuked me for this friendship and inveighed against Maecenas, of whom he was intensely jealous, and whom he would call 'a pansy whoremaster'. You will wonder too why I record the light nonsense of Maecenas' lascivious conversation, that quip about my legs for instance. To tell the truth, I am surprised to find myself doing so. I can only say that nothing brings back those last moments of boyish irresponsibility so keenly to me as the echo in my memory of that affected drawl.
    And to answer the first question: no one in my life ever gave me more consistently good advice.
    Agrippa couldn't stand that knowledge either.
    * * *
    Certainly not my mother's husband Philippus.
    We had arrived in Brindisi in an April dawn. The sun was just touching the mountains of Basilicata. Even this early though, the port was in a ferment. It swarmed with disbanded or disorganized legionaries - we were told that a ship bringing back some of the last remnants of Pompey's men had docked the day before, and the streets round the fishmarket were thronged with these veterans who had no idea what to do with themselves. Ours seemed an unpropitious arrival.
    Then, so quickly does news get about, a century of legionaries in good marching order wheeled round the corner of the harbour offices, the crowd falling back. Their centurion halted them on the quayside, as if they constituted a guard of honour; or possibly, as I remarked to Maecenas, a prisoner's escort.
    The centurion boarded the ship, followed by a couple of his men. He called out in a loud voice:
    'I have information that Gaius Octavius Thurinus is on board.'
    I saw the captain of the vessel hesitate. I drew back the cloak with which I was covering my face, and stepped forward.
    'I am he.'
    The centurion saluted with a great flourish.
    'Publius Clodius Maco, centurion of the fifth cohort of the twelfth legion, served in Gaul, fought at Pharsalus and Munda, wounded and decorated in the latter battle, at your service, sir. I have brought my century as your escort, sir.'
    I advanced towards him.
    'Welcome, friend. I am happy to see you.' Then I raised my voice so that I could be heard by the troops drawn up on the quay. 'You are all Caesar's soldiers and colleagues. I am Caesar's adopted son. You wish to avenge your general, I seek to avenge my father. You offer me your protection on the road to Rome. I offer you my name and my father's name as a