SIX

      She looked so old and tired, his beloved Lady Roma. From where he stood at the top of the Velia, Octavian could see down into the Forum Romanum and beyond it to the Capitoline Mount; if he turned to face the other way, he could look across the swamps of the Palus Ceroliae all the way along the Sacra Via to the Servian Walls.

      Octavian loved Rome with a fierce passion alien to his nature, which tended to be cool and detached. But Goddess Roma, he believed, had no rival on the face of the globe. How he hated to hear this one say that Athens outshone her as the sun does the moon, hear that one say that Pergamum on its heights was far lovelier, hear another say that Alexandria made her look like a Gallic oppidum! Was it her fault that her temples were decayed, her public buildings grimy, her squares and gardens neglected? No, the fault lay with the men who governed in her name, for they cared more about their reputations than they did about hers, who made them. She deserved better, and if he had anything to do with it, she would receive better. Of course there were exceptions: Caesar’s glorious Basilica Julia, the masterpiece that was his Forum, the Basilica Aemilia, Sulla’s Tabularium. But, even on the Capitol, temples as grand as Juno Moneta were in sad need of fresh paint. From the eggs and dolphins of the Circus Maximus to the shrines and fountains of the crossroads, poor Goddess Roma was shabby, a gentlewoman in decline.

      If we only had one-tenth of the money Romans have squandered on warring against each other, Roma would be unparalleled for beauty, Octavian thought. Where does it go, all that money? A question that had occurred to him often, and to which he had only an approximate answer, an educated guess: into the purses of the soldiers to be spent on useless things or hoarded according to their natures; into the purses of manufacturers and merchants who took their profits from warmongering; into the purses of foreigners; and into the purses of the very men who waged the wars. But if that last is true, he wondered, why did I not make any profit?

      Look at Marcus Antonius, his thoughts went on. He has stolen hundreds of millions, more of them to keep up his hedonistic lifestyle than to pay his legions. And how many millions has he given away to his so-called friends in order to look like a big man? Oh, I have stolen too – I got away with Caesar’s war chest. If I had not, I would be dead today. But, unlike Antonius, I never give a brass farthing away. What I disburse from my hidden treasure-trove I expect to see put to good use, as in paying my army of agents. I cannot survive without my agents. The tragedy is that none of it dare I spend on Roma herself. Most of it goes to pay the legions’ massive bonuses. A bottomless pit that perhaps has only one real asset: it distributes personal wealth more equally than in the old days when the plutocrats could be numbered on the fingers of both hands, and the soldiers didn’t have enough income to belong even to the Fifth Class. That’s not true anymore.

      The vista of the Forum blurred as his eyes filled with tears. Caesar, oh, Caesar! What might I have learned if you had lived? It was Antonius enabled them to kill you – he was a part of the plot, I know it in my bones. Believing that he was Caesar’s heir and urgently needing Caesar’s vast fortune, he succumbed to the blandishments of Trebonius and Decimus Brutus. The other Brutus and Cassius were nothings, mere figureheads. Like many before him, Antonius hungers to be the First Man in Rome. Were I not here, he would be. But I am here, and he’s afraid that I will usurp that title as well as Caesar’s name, Caesar’s money. He’s right to be afraid. Caesar the God – Divus Julius – is on my side. If Rome is to prosper, I must win this struggle! Yet I have vowed never to go to war against Antonius, and I will keep that vow.

      The zephyr breeze of early summer stirred his mass of bright gold hair; people noticed it first, then noticed the identity of its owner. They stared, usually with a scowl. As the Triumvir present in Rome, it was he who got most of the blame for the hard times – expensive bread, monotonous supplementary foods, high rents, empty purses. But to every scowl he returned Caesar’s smile, a thing so powerful that the scowls became answering smiles.

      Though even in Rome Antonius liked to strut around in armor, Octavian always wore his purple-bordered toga; in it he looked small, slight, graceful. The days when he had worn boots with platform soles were gone. Rome now knew him as Caesar’s heir beyond doubt, and many called him what he called himself – Divi Filius, the son of a god. It remained his greatest advantage, even in the face of his unpopularity. Men might scowl and mutter, but mamas and grannies cooed and gushed; Octavian was too clever a politician to discount the impact of mamas and grannies.

      From the Velia he walked through the lichen-whiskered ancient pillars of the Porta Mugonia and ascended the Palatine Mount at its less fashionable end. His house had once belonged to the famous advocate Quintus Hortensius Hortalus, Cicero’s rival in the courts. Antonius had blamed the son for the death of his brother Gaius, and had him proscribed. Which didn’t worry young Hortensius, dead in Macedonia, his corpse thrown on Gaius Antonius’s monument. Like most of Rome, Octavian was well aware that Gaius Antonius had been so incompetent that his demise had been a positive blessing.

      The domus Hortensia was a very big and luxurious house, though not the size of Pompey the Great’s palace on the Carinae. That, Antonius had snaffled; when Caesar learned of it, he made his cousin pay for it. Upon Caesar’s death, the payments stopped. But Octavian hadn’t wanted a house ostentatious enough to be called a palace, just wanted something large enough to function as offices as well as residence. The domus Hortensia had been knocked down to him at the proscription auctions for two million sesterces, a fraction of its real value. That kind of thing happened often at the proscription auctions, when so much first-class property was sold at one and the same moment.

      At the fashionable end of the Palatine, all the crowded houses vied for views of the Forum Romanum, but Hortensius hadn’t cared about outlook. He cared about space. A noted fish fancier, he had huge ponds devoted to gold and silver carp, and grounds and gardens more usual in villas outside the Servian Walls, like the palace Caesar had built for Cleopatra under the Janiculan Hill. Its grounds and gardens were legendary.

      The domus Hortensia stood atop a fifty-foot cliff overlooking the Circus Maximus, where on days of parades or chariot races over a hundred and fifty thousand Roman citizens jammed its bleachers to marvel and cheer. Sparing the circus no glance, Octavian entered his house through the garden and ponds behind it, proceeding into a vast reception room that Hortensius had never used, so infirm was he when he added it on.

      Octavian liked the house’s design, for the kitchens and the servants’ quarters were off to one side in a separate structure that contained latrines and baths for servile use. The baths and latrines for the owner, his family and guests were inside the main pile and made of priceless marbles. Like most such on the Palatine, they were situated above an underground stream that fed into the immense sewers of the Cloaca Maxima. To Octavian, they were a main reason for his purchasing this domus; he was the most private of persons, especially when it came to voiding his bowels and bladder. No one must see, no one must hear! As was true when he bathed, at least once each day. Thus military campaigns were a torment only made bearable by Agrippa, who contrived to give him privacy