The Ghost of a Marriage
I was to meet Publius the very next day, at his family’s house. Before we left, my mother had the slaves spend hours on my hair and arranging my dress. They were palace slaves, so they had high standards. Ropes of amber and gold were wrapped around my throat. Whitening lead make-up was rubbed over my face, and ochre was daubed on my lips and cheeks to make them look red. My hair was waved like the Empress’s, which meant tucking wads of hair that used to belong to some unfortunate slave girl under my own hair to give it volume. By the end of it my neck was stiff with being held upright and my eyes ached from looking in the mirror. I no longer even looked like myself.
Then my father came in in a rage and made me wash it all off.
“Absolute nonsense,” he told my mother. “That white lead that rich women smear on their faces is bad for the health. It can poison, even as far as death if it is used too much. That was written in the Alexipharmaca of Nicander, the great Greek physician. No daughter of mine is using it.”
“But everyone uses it,” my mother protested. “Even the Empress!”
“Not my daughter,” my father repeated firmly. “It’s bad for the health.”
My mother shrugged. “Oh well,” she said with a sigh, “perhaps it is for the best. It may be fashionable, but it made you look too grown-up. He is marrying a girl, after all, not an adult woman on her second husband.”
So, in the end, I went to meet Publius wearing a fashionable hairstyle, gold earrings and necklace, perfume, but no make-up. I didn’t care. I felt sick with nerves and I just wanted to get the meeting over with.
The house itself was a villa in the heart of the city’s finest district. Slaves unbarred the door for us and we went in over the mosaic floor, into the wide, pleasant courtyard filled with the scent of blossom and grapes dangling overhead. Publius’s mother, a plump, giggly woman with house keys jingling at her waist, came out to meet us, and embraced my mother – the two had been friends before I was born.
“You have such a cute accent!” she exclaimed, pinching my cheeks in a way I hated. “Just like the Emperor himself, may he live forever! I couldn’t understand a word the man was saying when I first met him. I suppose everyone sounds like that in the provinces.”
I hardly heard her. I was looking around trying to guess which of the young men I saw might be Publius. His mother led me over to him. I recognised his long-lashed eyes and his shy expression. The knobbly elbows were gone, however, and I wished Livia were there, because I could have told her: he was handsome.
“Mother!” You look at me, shocked. I have to laugh.
“What? There are other handsome men in the world than your father, you know,” I tease. “Anyway, he wasn’t just handsome. He was. . .” I search for the right word. Gentle, modest. . . and yet those weren’t the things that made me feel at ease with him. “Kind.”
Our mothers sat a polite distance away from us, while Publius and I walked awkwardly together around the large pool in the courtyard. He was twenty, slim and quiet with dark curly hair, and not much suited to the senatorial toga he wore. I expected the purple stripe to be on fat, old men with bald heads and wrinkles. He seemed rather embarrassed by his, instead of honoured.
“I don’t usually wear this at home,” he told me in a low voice. “After all, it’s my father who is the senator – not me.”
I said very little at first, suddenly feeling too shy and awkward to talk. It was not as if I had never met any men before. I was used to my father’s friends, who enjoyed loud philosophical discussions over plenty of wine and a good meal, but that was different; I wasn’t expected to marry them. Suddenly I felt I had to prove I would be a good wife. Publius seemed to notice that I was tongue-tied, and kindly asked me questions I could answer, about my life in Leptis Magna, and about my reading.
This was something I could be confident about.
“I have read all of Virgil, and Cicero, and the Greek philosophers, and the writings of Marcus Aurelius. . . but my favourite is the Aeneid.”
“It is a wonderful story,” he said. “It has everything – burning cities, shipwreck, adventure, love. . .” He broke off, blushing. He was clearly as embarrassed as I was about being reminded of the reason we were here. I wished we could just have a conversation without the ghost of marriage hanging over us the whole time.
“I am glad you are educated,” he said finally. “So many girls are not, and it makes them very dull to talk to. It seems, to me anyway—” he glanced shyly at me “—that we will get along together very well, if we can talk about the same things.”
After our visit, when my mother leaned across to me in the carriage and asked, “Well?” – looking into my face as demandingly as a tax collector – it really was not that hard to make myself smile and nod: I like him.
I saw Publius almost every day after that. He never again wore the senatorial toga; he wore a plain toga over a simple tunic. We talked about my favourite places in Leptis Magna, and we discussed philosophy and literature.
Once, Caracalla came with us.
I was never sure exactly why he came. I suspected that it was to inspect Publius, to see if he was a threat. But Publius was so obviously gentle and unassuming that Caracalla, after a few questions that were as pointed and loaded as ballista missiles, got up abruptly, snatched a peach from the silver fruit bowl and strode off, ignoring both the hostess and Publius. His visit gave me a new insight into Publius, however, because that was the only time I ever heard him sound angry.
“I dislike that man,” he said, although his voice sounded as if he had said hate instead of dislike.
“Me too,” I replied at once, without thinking whether this was a wise thing to say, or a wife-like thing to say. I met his eyes and I saw Publius meant it.
“He is cruel,” Publius went on, his fists clenching. “He has his slaves whipped for the slightest offence, and I have heard tales—” He stopped, scowling to himself. “I shall not repeat them.” Then he burst out: “I don’t believe we should have slaves at all. People are not for owning. If we were to free all ours, when we are married, what would you say?”
I was taken aback. We had always had slaves. I really didn’t know what we would do without them. Who would do the washing, I wondered, and the cooking, and the cleaning? And what on earth would Publius’s father – a grand old man of a senator – say? It seemed completely unrealistic to me. But. . .
“I would say it was a good idea,” I said, and smiled at him.
He looked into my face, as if trying to judge how much he could trust me. What he saw seemed to please him. He smiled.
“You must miss Leptis Magna,” he said. He hesitated. “Once we are married, we could travel there perhaps. For a visit.”
My eyes filled with tears. I hadn’t realised how nervous I had been feeling, or how much depended on him being kind. I knew I was lucky in the man I was betrothed to.
But I also realised that I needed to be lucky. What happened in my life did not depend on me, but on the whim of the Emperor and the goodwill of the man I was told to marry. I felt glad and happy that Publius was going to be a good husband, but a shadow was cast over it by the knowledge that it was just luck. At any moment, a wave might come and knock my sandcastle life to pieces.
As I talked to Publius over the next few days, I learned more about Roman politics. When I asked whether his father and the Emperor were friends, Publius shook his head.
“The Emperor and the senate are not friends. Too many senators had their noses put out of joint by a provincial general taking control after they had spent years working to gain power,” he added. “That is why the Emperor is encouraging us two to marry. He wants to make some alliances among his friends and the senate.”
“But doesn’t the Emperor rule by the will of the senate?”
“Not this emperor. No, he rules by the will of the army. No one dares rebel, not when all the men with swords are loyal to him. If you cross him. . .” He made a gesture of slitting a throat with his hand.
“Like Plautianus,” I said, remembering.
“Yes, that was a scandal. The man was powerful, but Caracalla hated being married off to his daughter. Poor little Plautilla. She was sent off to the ends of the earth, and her father was dead soon after. Caracalla has his own plans and the Emperor won’t be able to hold him back for long.” He sounded bitter. “This is Rome, full of murderers, liars and thieves. One day they will all be called to answer to God.”
That last word rang oddly in my ears, and I began to suspect something. As it turned out, I was right to be suspicious.