Augustus_ The Life of Rome's First Emperor - Anthony Everitt [129]
It is not necessary to see these two accounts—co-regency and “exile”—as mutually exclusive. Augustus and Agrippa were grown-up politicians. Both of them (and perhaps especially the latter) held a somber commitment to the public interest, not to mention the advantage of their governing party (which they saw as much the same thing). It is possible that they agreed not only about Agrippa’s promotion, but also on the desirability of a tactful withdrawal to allow Marcellus to emerge onto the public stage without Agrippa’s overshadowing presence.
When looking to the future, Agrippa and the sickly Augustus had to accommodate a number of possible outcomes. If the princeps were to die soon, Agrippa would presumably take over. His humble birth and rough tongue made him unpopular with the old nobility, and he did not have the huge advantage of being a member of the Caesarian, almost-royal family; but he was omnicompetent, and would do.
If both men lived for another fifteen or twenty years, a perfectly reasonable supposition, Marcellus would be an appropriate dynastic successor, assuming that meanwhile he showed sufficient ability at the business of government. To make assurance doubly sure, Livia’s promising sons, Tiberius and the fifteen-year-old Drusus, would also be trained in public administration.
Whatever was or was not going on behind the scenes, the professional partnership between Augustus and Agrippa went on from strength to strength. When the two men’s powers were renewed in 18 B.C., Agrippa was granted the same tribunicia potestas that the princeps held. His energy and effectiveness were undimmed.
Then the worst possible thing that Augustus could imagine took place. In the autumn of 23 B.C., before his games were over, Marcellus fell ill and died. He was only twenty-one years old. He was given the same medical treatment by Musa as his uncle, but this time it did not work. The princeps delivered a eulogy at his funeral and placed his body in the great circular family mausoleum he was in the process of building (Marcellus’ gravestone and the later one of his mother survive). A new theater on the far side of the Capitoline Hill from the Forum, the foundations of which had been laid by Julius Caesar, was named the Theater of Marcellus in his honor. (Part of its exterior wall can still be seen.)
Octavia never recovered. She refused to have a portrait of her son or to permit anyone to mention his name in her presence. She came to hate all mothers and, more especially, Livia, whose Tiberius would now inherit the happiness she had been promised. She spent more and more of her time in darkness and paid little attention to her brother. Becoming something of a recluse, she stayed in mourning for the rest of her life.
She did attend a special reading by the poet Virgil of extracts from his new epic about the foundation of Rome, the Aeneid. Its hero is the Trojan prince, Aeneas; the poem tells the story of his escape from the sack of Troy and his arrival at Latium, where he rules over a kingdom that is the precursor of Rome. At one point in the narrative, Aeneas visits the underworld, where he meets not only the great dead but also the shades of the unborn. He notices a good-looking but downcast youth, and asks who he is.
The phantom of Aeneas’ dead father tells him that it is the future Marcellus:
Fate shall allow the earth one glimpse of this young man—
One glimpse, no more….
Alas, poor youth! If only you could escape your harsh fate!
Marcellus you shall be. Give me armfuls of lilies
That I may scatter their shining blooms and shower these gifts
At least upon the dear soul, all to no purpose though
Such kindness be.
Virgil’s style of recitation was “sweet and strangely seductive.