John Williams: Augustus

He had promised the island youths to observe the gymnastic competition that had been arranged to select those who would represent the island in the games at Naples the following week; and despite my protestations, he insisted upon fulfilling that promise; and again despite my wishes, he invited them all to his villa that evening for a banquet in their honor.

He was extraordinarily gay at the banquet. He invented licentious epigrams in Greek, and encouraged the young men to groan at their badness; he joined them in their boyish games of throwing crusts of bread at each other; and in the face of their strenuous activities of the afternoon, he jokingly insisted upon calling them the "Idle-landers" rather than the "Islanders," because of the leisurely life that they ordinarily led. He promised to attend the games in Naples, in which they were to compete; and insisted that he was gambling his entire fortune on their success.

We remained at Capri for four days. Most of the time the Emperor sat quietly, gazing at the sea, or at the Italian coast line to the east. There was a quiet smile on his face, and every once in a while he would nod slightly, as if he were remembering something.

On the fifth day we crossed to Naples. By this time the Emperor was so weak that he could not walk unassisted. Nevertheless, he insisted that he be taken to the games at which he had promised the young athletes he would be present; and I confess that, though I knew his end was near, I could not but assent to his going. It was clear that it would have made the difference of only a few days, at the most. He sat all afternoon in the blazing sun, cheering the Caprian Greeks to their victories; and when the contests were over, he found himself unable to rise from his chair.

We carried him from the stadium on a litter, and he let it be known that he wished to go at once to one of his childhood homes, at Nola. Since it was a journey of only eighteen miles, I consented; and we arrived at his old home in the early hours of the morning.

Knowing that the end was near, I had word sent to Benevento where Livia and her son Tiberius had been staying for several days. According to the Emperor's instructions, I made it clear that he did not wish to see Tiberius, though he would allow the information to be spread that Tiberius had indeed attended him during his last hours.

On the morning of the day he died, he said to me:

"Philippus, it is near, is it not?"

There was something in his manner that forbade me to dissemble with him.

"One cannot be sure," I said. "But it is near. Yes."

He nodded tranquilly. "Then I must fulfill the last of my obligations."

A number of his acquaintances-I believe he had no one then whom he would have called a friend-had heard of his illness in Rome, and had made haste to Nola. He received them, bade them farewell, and admonished them to assist in the orderly transference of his power, and obliged them to support Tiberius in his accession to authority. When one of them made a show of weeping, he became displeased, and said:

"It is unkind of you to weep upon the occasion of my contentment."

He wished to see Livia alone, then. But when I made a movement to leave the room, he beckoned me to stay.

When he spoke to Livia, I could tell that he was weakening rapidly. He made a gesture to her; she knelt and kissed him on the cheek.

"Your son-" he said. "Your son-"

He breathed hoarsely for a moment; his jaw went slack; and then, by an apparent effort of his will, he regained a little of his strength.

"We need not forgive ourselves," he said. "It has been a marriage. It has been better than most."

He fell back upon his bed; I rushed to his side; he still breathed. Livia touched his cheek. She lingered beside him for a moment, and left the room.

Some moments later, he opened his eyes suddenly and said to me:

"Philippus, my memories… They are of no use to me now."

For a moment, then, it seemed that his mind wandered, for he suddenly cried out: "The young! The young will carry it before them! "

I put my hand upon his brow; he looked at me again, raised himself upon one elbow, and smiled; then those remarkable blue eyes glazed; his body twitched once; and he toppled on his side.

Thus died Gaius Octavius Caesar, the August; it was at three o'clock in the afternoon, on the nineteenth day of August, in the consulships of Sextus Pompeius and Sextus Appuleius. He died in the same room that his natural father, the elder Octavius, had died in seventy-two years before.

Of that long letter which Octavius wrote to his friend Nicolaus in Damascus, I must say one thing. It was entrusted to my care for delivery; but in Naples, I received word that Nicolaus himself had died two weeks before. I did not inform the Emperor of this, for it seemed to me at the time that he was happy in the thought that his old friend would read his last words.

Within a few weeks after his death, his daughter Julia died in her confinement at Reggio; it was whispered by some that her former husband, the Emperor Tiberius, allowed her to starve. Ofthat rumor I do not know the truth, nor I suspect does anyone who is now alive.

It is the fashion of the day, and it has been the fashion for more than thirty years, for many of the younger citizens to speak with some condescension of the long reign of Octavius Caesar. And he himself, toward the end of his life, thought that all of his work had been for nothing.

Yet the Empire of Rome that he created has endured the harshness of a Tiberius, the monstrous cruelty of a Caligula, and the ineptness of a Claudius. And now our new Emperor is one whom you tutored as a boy, and to whom you remain close in his new authority; let us be thankful for the fact that he will rule in the light of your wisdom and virtue, and let us pray to the gods that, under Nero, Rome will at last fulfill the dream of Octavius Caesar.