Page 32 of Agrippa

– He just asked if he should cut the hawser and then cut your throats. I told him he should have done it without asking.

And on that convivial note, amid much renewed laughter, the evening ended.

Caesar’s wedding was a less joyous event.

His bride, Scribonia, was almost a decade his senior, a stately matron with a teenaged son by her first husband, who was dead, and a daughter by her second, who was still alive. She had not wanted to divorce him. Her expression as she joined hands with Caesar was as miserable as a mask from a Greek tragedy. He scowled throughout.

To symbolise the general reconciliation, this ceremony took place in Antony’s house. Among those invited was Salvidienus. He came alone, completely unsuspecting, and as the guests gathered to dine, at a signal from Antony he was suddenly surrounded by Antony’s bodyguards and hustled out of the room. It was done so quickly I do not believe anyone apart from me even noticed.

He was taken down to the cellar, and during a lull between the wedding toasts, Antony and Caesar slipped away to confront him. When they returned to their places, Caesar beckoned me over. I noticed that part of his toga was spattered with tiny droplets of blood.

– Old Big Nose confessed at once. With both of us there, what else could he do? Go and talk to him. Offer him a choice between a public trial and suicide. Tell him that if he chooses suicide, I give him my word his wife and children will be looked after.

The cellar passage was full of legionaries – so many they had to press themselves against the walls to let me pass. I asked one of them for his sword.

They had laid Salvidienus on the floor in a storeroom with his arms bound tightly behind him at the wrists and elbows. He had a rag stuffed in his mouth. His face was bloody and beginning to swell. When I sat him upright, I saw that one of his eyes had been gouged out and his famous big nose broken.

I pulled the rag from his mouth and repeated Caesar’s offer.

He coughed up blood and spat out a tooth.

– Does he really expect me to believe he will keep his word?

– For what it’s worth, I shall make sure he does.

– You? You really think you have that much influence over him? If so, you’re a fool. He is solitary and cruel, a flimsy scrap of a man hiding behind an enormous name. Remember what he did at Perusia? Now look at me. Oh yes, he is very brave – as long as he has a victim bound and helpless before him! Well, he’s all yours now. Tell him I accept his offer. Cut my ropes and give me your sword.

I did as he asked. He dragged himself to his feet.

– Antony is the better man, even if he did betray me. Take care, Agrippa. One day this will be you.

He grasped the hilt, put the point of the blade beneath his chin, took a final breath and jammed it into his throat.

I waited until I was sure he was dead, then made my way back upstairs to join the wedding feast.

XII

Memories breed memories. They multiply like vermin.

As soon as I catch one, another emerges – some incident or conversation I had forgotten about entirely.

My pen cannot keep pace with them all.

Last night, I counted how many closely written sheets I have filled so far. It comes to over fifty. This morning I had to send a slave to fetch me more sheets, and a fresh supply of ink.

When I started to write, it was only for myself. But now I wonder what the point is of a book without a reader. If a man started telling stories aloud to himself in an empty room, people would say he was mad. An audience is necessary to complete the transaction.

So I find myself trying to picture a reader – you, I suppose, whoever you are, sitting in your library in Rome or some well-appointed villa in the country. I try to imagine what an educated person might make of my life. Of course I know this is a fantasy. There never will be any readers. I have put down episodes far too damaging to be published. Augustus would never permit it.

Wait, though. Now I come to think of it, perhaps you are my reader, Octavius – if I may call you that one last time? After all, under the terms of my will, my estate passes entirely to you – that was always our agreement. Perhaps my memoir will be discovered after my death in the locked chest in which I now keep it, and it will be conveyed to you among my other effects.

In which case – greetings, my old friend! I wonder how you are managing without me.

Not well, I suspect.

You will doubtless remember all this differently. But I am trying to be honest.

A dishonest memoir is as pointless as a book without a reader.