I, Claudius - Robert Graves [36]
Lord Augustus each time bawling
As he fetched his head a crack,
"Varus, Varus, General Varus,
Give me my three Eagles back!"
Lord Augustus tore his bedclothes,
Blankets, sheet and counterpane.
"Varus, Varus, General Varus,
Give my Regiments back againi"
The next verses say that he never afterwards formed new regiments under the numbers of the three destroyed, but kept the gap in the Army List. He is made to swear that Marcellus' life and Julia's honour had been nothing to him by comparison with the life and honour of his soldiers, and that his spirit would have "no more rest than a flea in an oven" until all three Eagles were recovered and safely laid in the Capitol. But though since then the Germans had been thrashed again and again in battle, nobody had been able to discover where the lost Eagles were "roosting"—the cowards kept them so closely hidden. That was how the troops belittled Augustus' grief for Julia, but it is my opinion that for every hour he grieved for the Eagles he must have grieved a full month for her.
He did not wish to know where she had been sent, because this would have meant that his mind would be continually turning there and he would hardly be able to restrain himself from taking ship and visiting her. So it was easy for Livia to treat Julia with great revengefulness. She was not allowed wine, cosmetics, fine clothes or luxuries of any sort and her guard consisted of eunuchs and very old men. She was allowed no visitors and was even set to work on a daily spinning task as in her schoolgirl days. The island was off the Campanian coast. It was a very small one and Livia purposely increased her sufferings by keeping the same guards there year after year without relief; they naturally blamed her for their banishment in that confined and unhealthy spot. The one person who comes well out of this ugly story is Julia's mother, Scribonia, whom it will be recalled Augustus had divorced in order to be able to marry Livia. Now a very old woman, who had lived in retirement for a number of years, she boldly went to Augustus and asked permission to share her daughter's banishment. She told him in Livia's presence that her daughter had been stolen from her as soon as born but that she had always worshipped her from a distance and, now that the whole world was set against her darling, she wished to show what true mother's love was. And in her opinion the poor child was not to blame: things had been made very difficult for her. Livia laughed contemptuously but must have felt [78] pretty uncomfortable. Augustus, mastering his emotion, iigned that the request was granted.
Five years later, on Julia's birthday, Augustus asked Livia suddenly: "How big is the island?"
"Which island?" asked Livia.
"The island... where an unlucky woman is living."
"Oh, a few minutes' walk from end to end, I believe,"
Livia said with affected carelessness.
"A few minutes walk! Are you joking?" He had thought of her as an exile on some big island, like Cyprus or Lesbos or Corfu. After a while he asked: "What is it called?"
"It's called Pandatarial"
"What? My God, that desolate place? 0 cruel! Five years on Pandataria!"
Livia looked at him severely and said: "I suppose you want her back here at Rome?"