I, Claudius - Robert Graves [35]
Then he had a seal of his own, a ruby from India, cut by the famous goldsmith Dioscurides, which all his successors have used as the token of their sovereignty.]
Livia wrote the recommendation for banishment in very strong terms. It was composed in Augustus' own literary style; which was easy to imitate because it always sacriEced elegance to clarity—for example, by a determined repetition of the same word, where it occurred often in a passage, instead of hunting about for a synonym or periphrasis [which is the common literary practice]. And he had a tendency to over-prepositionalize his verbs. She did not show the letter to Augustus but sent it direct to the Senate, who immediately voted a decree of perpetual banishment.
Livia had listed Julia's crimes in such detail and had credited Augustus with such calm expressions of detestation for them that she made it impossible for him ever afterwards to change his mind and ask the Senate to cancel their decision. She did a good piece of business on the side, too, by singling out for special mention as Julia's partners in adultery three or four men whom it was to her interest to ruin. Among them was an uncle of mine, Lulus, a son of Antony, to whom Augustus had shown great favour for Octavia's sake, raising him to the Consulship. Livia, in naming him in her letter to the Senate, strongly emphasized the ingratitude that he had shown his benefactor and hinted that he and Julia were conspiring together to seize the supreme power. lulus committed suicide. I believe that the charge of conspiracy was groundless, but as the only surviving son of Antony, by his wife Fulvia—Augustus had put Antyllus, the eldest, to death immediately after his father's suicide, and the other two, Ptolemy and Alexander, his sons by Cleopatra, had died young—and as an ex-Consul and the husband of Marcellus' sister, whom Agrippa had divorced, he seemed dangerous. Popular discontent with Augustus often expressed itself in a wish that it had been Antony who had won the Battle of Actium.
The other men whom Livia accused of adultery were banished.
A week later Augustus asked Livia whether "a certain decree" had been duly passed—for he never mentioned Julia by name again and seldom even by a roundabout expression, though she plainly was much in his thoughts.
Livia told him that "a certain person" had been sentenced to perpetual confinement on an island and was already on her way there. At this he seemed further downcast, that Julia had not done the one honourable thing left to her to do, namely to take her own life. Livia mentioned that Phcebe, who was Julia's lady-in-waiting and chief confidant, had hanged herself as soon as the decree of banishment had been published. Augustus said: "I wish to God I had been Phoebe's father." He delayed his public appearance for a further fortnight. I well remember that dreadful month. We children were all, by Livia's orders, made to wear mourning and not allowed to play or make a noise or even smile. When we saw Augustus again he looked ten w years older and it was months before he had the heart to visit the playground in the Boys' College or even to resume his daily morning exercise, which consisted of a brisk walk around the Palace grounds with a run at the end over a course of low hurdles.
Tiberius had the news about Julia sent him at once by Livia. At her prompting he wrote two or three letters to Augustus, begging him to forgive Julia, as he did himself, and saying that however badly she had behaved as a wife he wished her to keep all the property that he had at any time made over to her. Augustus did not answer. He firmly believed that Tiberius' original coldness and cruelty to Julia, and the example of immorality he had given her, were responsible for her moral degeneration. So far from recalling him from banishment he refused even to renew his Protectorate when it came to an end the following year.