I then turned to address the House as a whole. `My Lords;' I said, `it is, not for me to decide whether my, grandmother Livia Augusta is worthy of national deification by your votes or whether she is not. I can only repeat that I swore to her by my own head that if ever I became Emperor - an event which, I admit, seemed both improbable and absurd, though she herself was positive that it. would come to pass - I would do, my best to persuade you to raise her to Heaven, where she might stand once more at the side of her, faithful husband, who is now, next to Capitoline love, the most venerated of all our deities. If you refuse my request to-day I shall renew it every year at this same season, until you grant it: so long as my life is spared and so long as I am still privileged to address you from this chair.'
That was the end of the little speech that I had prepared but I found myself launched on a further, extempore, appeal, `And I really think, my Lords, that you should consider Augustus's feelings in this matter. For more than fifty years he and Livia worked hand in hand together, all day and every day. There were few things that he did without her knowledge and advice, and if ever he did act on his own initiative, it cannot be said that he always acted wisely or that he met with any great success in these undertakings. Yes, whenever he was faced by a problem which taxed his own powers of judgement, he would always call for Livia. I would not go so far as to say that my grandmother was without the faults that are complementary to the extraordinary qualities with which she was endowed: I am probably more cognizant of them than anybody here. To begin with, she was entirely heartless. Heartlessness is a grave human fault and is unforgivable when combined with profligacy, greed, sloth, and disorderliness; but when combined with boundless energy and a rigid sense of order and public decency, heartlessness takes on a different character altogether. It becomes a divine attribute. Many Gods do not indeed possess it in nearly so full a measure as my grandmother did. Then again, she had a will that was positively Olympian in its inflexibility, and though she never spared any member of her own household who failed to show the devotion to duty that she expected of him, or who created a public scandal by his loose living, neither, we must remember, did she spare herself. How she worked! By going at it night and day she enlarged those sixty-five years of rule to one hundred and thirty. She soon came to identify her own will with that of Rome, and anyone who withstood it was a traitor in her eyes, even Augustus. And Augustus, with occasional lapses into self-will, saw the justice of this identification; and though, in an official way of speaking, she was merely his unofficial adviser, yet in his private letters to her he made a thousand acknowledgements of his entire dependence on her divine wisdom. Yes, he used the word "divine", Vinicianus: I call that conclusive. And you are old enough to remember that whenever he happened to be temporarily parted from her, Augustus was not at all the man that he was in her company; and it may be argued that his present task in Heaven of watching over the fortunes of the Roman people has been made very difficult by the absence of his former helpmeet. Certainly Rome has not flourished since his death nearly so prosperously as during his lifetime, except for the years that my grandmother Livia ruled through her son, the Emperor Tiberius. And has it occurred to you, my Lords, that Augustus is almost the only male deity in Heaven without a consort? When Hercules was raised to heaven, he was given a bride at once, the Goddess Hebe.'
What about Apollo?' interrupted Vinicianus. `I never heard that Apollo was married. That seems to me a very lame argument.'
The Consul called Vinicianus to order. It was clear that the word `lame' was intended offensively. But I was accustomed to insults and answered quietly: `I have always understood that the God Apollo remains a bachelor either because he is unable to choose between the Nine Muses, or because he cannot afford to offend eight of them by choosing the other as his bride. And he is immortally young, and so are they, and it is quite safe for him to postpone his choice indefinitely; for they are all in love with him, as the poet What's-his-name says. But perhaps Augustus will eventually persuade him to do his duty by Olympus, by taking one of the Nine in honourable wedlock, and raising a large family "as quick as boiled asparagus".'
Vinicianus was silenced in the burst of laughter that followed, for 'as quick as boiled asparagus' was one of Augustus's favourite expressions. He had several others: `As easily as a dog squats' and `There are more ways than one of killing a cat' and 'You mind your own business, I'll mind mine' and `I'll see that it gets done on the Greek Kalends' (which, of course, means never) and `The knee is nearer than the shin' (which. means that one's first concern is with matters that affect one personally). And if anyone tried to contradict him on a point of literary scholarship, he used to say: `A radish may know no Greek, but I do'. And whenever he was encouraging anyone to bear an unpleasant condition patiently he always used to say: `Let us content ourselves with this Cato'. From what I have told you about Cato, that virtuous man, you will easily understand what he meant. I now, found myself often using these phrases of Augustus's: I suppose that this was because I had consented to adopt his name and position: The handiest was the one he used when he was making a speech and had lost his way in a sentence a thing that constantly happens to me, because I am inclined, when I make an extempore speech, and in historical writing too when I am not watching myself, to get involved in long, ambitious sentences - and now I am doing it again, you notice. However, the point is that Augustus, whenever he got into a tangle, used to cut the Gordian knot, like Alexander, saying: `Words fail me, my Lords. Nothing that I might utter could possibly match the depth of my feelings in this matter.' And, I learned this phrase off by heart and constantly, made it my salvation. I used to throw up my hands, shut my eyes, and declaim: 'Words fail me, my Lords. Nothing that I might utter could possibly match the depth of my feelings in this matter? Then I would pause for a few seconds and recover the thread of my argument.
We deified Livia without further delay and voted her a statue to be placed alongside that of Augustus in his Temple. At the deification ceremony cadets of noble families gave a performance of the sham-fight on horseback which we call the Troy Game. We also voted her a chariot to be drawn by elephants in the procession during the Circensian Games, an honour which she shared only with Augustus: The Vestal Virgins were instructed to offer sacrifices to her in the Temple; and just as in taking legal oaths all Romans now used the name of Augustus, so henceforth all Roman women were to use my grandmother's name. Well, I had kept my promise.