I, Claudius Read Online Free PDF

very decently and quietly, the young women
    [whom she picked out herself in the Syrian slave-market--he preferred Syrians]
    being introduced into his bedroom at night with a knock and the rattle of a chain for signal, and called away again early in the morning by a similar knock and rattle; and that they kept silence in his presence as if they were succubi who came in dreams--that she contrived all this so thoughtfully and remained faithful to him herself in spite of his impotence with her, he must have considered a perfect proof of the sincerest love. You may object that Augustus, in his position, might have had the most beautiful women in the world, bond or free, married or unmarried, to feed his appetite, without the assistance of Livia as procuress. That is true, but it is true nevertheless that after his marriage to Livia he tasted no meat, as he once said himself, though perhaps in another context, that she had not passed as fit for eating.

    Of women, then, Livia had no cause to be jealous, except only of her sister-in-law, my other grandmother, Octavia, whose beauty excited as much admiration as her virtue.

    Livia had taken malicious pleasure in sympathising with her over Antony's faithlessness. She had gone so far as to suggest that it had been largely Octavia's own fault in dressing in so modest a way and behaving with such decorum. Mark Antony, she pointed out, was a man of strong passions, and to hold him successfully a woman must temper the chastity of a Roman matron with the arts and extravagances of an Oriental courtesan. Octavia should have taken a leaf from Cleopatra's book: for the Egyptian, though Octavia's inferior in looks and her senior by eight or nine years, knew well how to feed his sensual appetite.

    "Men such as Antony, real men, prefer the strange to the wholesome."
    Livia finished sententiously, “They find maggoty green cheese more tasty than freshly pressed curds."

    "Keep your maggots to yourself!” Octavia flared at her.

    Livia herself dressed very richly and used the most expensive Asiatic perfumes; but she did not allow the least extravagance in her household, which she made a boast of running in old-fashioned Roman style. Her rules were: plain but plentiful food, regular family worship, no hot baths after meals, constant work for everyone, and no waste. "Everyone" was not merely the slaves and freedmen but every member of the family. The unfortunate child •"Wj 3*.'

    Julia was expected to set an example of industry. She led a very weary life.
    She had a regular daily task of wool to card and spin, and cloth to weave, and needlework to do, and was made to rise from her hard bed at dawn, and even before dawn, in the winter months, to be able to get through it. And because her stepmother believed in a liberal education for girls, she was set, among other tasks, to learn the whole of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey by heart.

    Julia had also to keep a detailed diary, for Livia's benefit, of what work she did, what books she read, what conversations she had, and so on: which was a great burden to her. She was allowed no friendships with men, though her beauty was much toasted. One young man of ancient family and irreproachable morals, a Consul's son, was bold enough to introduce himself to her one day at Baize on some polite pretext, when she was taking the half-hour's walk allowed her by the seaside, accompanied only by her duenna. Livia, who was jealous of Julia's good looks, and of Augustus' affection for her, had the young man sent a very strong letter, telling him that he must never expect to hold public office under the father of the girl whose good name he had tried to besmirch by this insufferable familiarity. Julia herself was punished by being forbidden to take her walk outside the grounds of the villa. About this time Julia went quite bald. I do not know whether Livia had a hand in this: it seems not improbable, though certainly baldness was in the Caesar family. At all events,