Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa
JANUARY 44 BC
“I bet fifty aurei that I roll a Senio.”
Octavius pushed forward a mound of gold coins, raising a challenging brow around the table. The soldiers crowding the tavern shouted their approval as the stakes were raised at last.
Agrippa shared disbelieving glances with Maecenas and Rufus. Fifty gold coins was over double the pot when all night long they had only raised the bets by increments.
Octavius looked all too satisfied at their hesitation. “Well?”
They all reluctantly matched the bet and threw in their coins. Octavius shook the dice in his hand, closing his eyes with a small smile. The tavern quieted before his throw as all the men watched Octavius take a deep breath and release the dice across the table. They skittered and settled loudly in the silence.
Agrippa reached over and flipped the first die face up. “Three.” The next. “One.” The next. “Four.”
He hesitated on the last. It had to be a six to make a Senio. He glanced at Octavius, but he only smirked. Agrippa picked up the die and showed the room.
“Six.”
The tavern broke out into rowdy cheers, the soldiers lifting their glasses high. Everyone looked at Octavius in open admiration as he kissed the dice in reverence and began dragging the pile of coins toward himself.
Agrippa shook his head in disbelief.
Octavius leaned over to him with a smile. “It appears Fortuna was on my side tonight.”
“It was luck indeed, Octavius,” said Maecenas loudly, who sat opposite Agrippa, “and you had best hope it does not run short.” He hated gambling nights because he usually lost, but he loved spending money, of which he had a lot. “I raise your bet to one hundred aurei. But this time, the first person who rolls a Venus takes home the pot.”
There were murmurs among the other men gathered around them. A Venus was the best throw in a game of dice when all four numbers were different. It was also notoriously rare to roll.
Agrippa shook his head. One hundred gold coins were nearly a fourth of his savings, and he would not risk it on an impossible bet. Besides, he had already lost much tonight. “I must concede.”
Rufus, who sat opposite Octavius, leaned back with a frown. “Me too.”
“And you?” Maecenas asked, turning to Octavius.
Octavius looked at Maecenas for a long moment, contemplating. He glanced around the room, a gleam in his eyes. Everyone was watching, waiting for his response. Octavius was at his best when there was a crowd.
He smiled and pushed forward a large pile of coins. “Two hundred and it’s a deal.”
Maecenas merely raised a brow, then nodded, adding his own coin to the pile which now towered in gleaming gold, comically large upon the stained wooden table beneath.
The soldiers in the tavern shifted on their feet, staring at the pile hungrily. Many of them had never glimpsed so much money in their entire lives. The shabby tavern packed with army men and smoky-eyed girls suddenly looked especially barbaric and dirty, though Octavius and Maecenas continued as if they had grown up betting on dice rolls in dingy taverns all their lives. Agrippa supposed it was not so far from the truth.
Octavius handed the dice to Maecenas, who eyed them warily. He gave them a quick shake, then released them onto the table without another word. Octavius leaned over the table to flip the dice one by one.
“One, six, three…and one,” Octavius said, giving Maecenas an apologetic smile, which Maecenas returned with a scowl. “My turn.”
He scooped up the dice and rubbed them between his hands, blowing gently. Maecenas sighed irritably at the theatrics but did not look away as Octavius rolled the dice, a reluctant smile tugging at his mouth. He had always found Octavius equally infuriating and charming.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Octavius murmured, right before he rolled the dice. They flew and scattered across the table. One dropped off the ledge and landed by Rufus’ feet.
Rufus reached across the table and flipped the first die. He showed the room. “Four.” He flipped the next. “Six.” There was a murmur among the men. Rufus flipped the next die. “Three.”
“It is not possible,” Maecenas whispered, staring at Octavius in disbelief.
Rufus picked up the die on the floor. Octavius had his eyes closed, but he was smiling triumphantly. He already knew. Somehow, he knew.
“One.”
There was a stunned silence, before the soldiers exploded into violent shouts and cheers, crowding about Octavius to congratulate him. Maecenas alone looked miserable, staring dumbly at the four dice.
Octavius grinned, slapping Maecenas on the back, who half-heartedly shoved him away. “I told you Fortuna was on my side tonight.” He raised his arms. “Another round on me, boys!”
The men could not contain their excitement at this, and wine sloshed across the tavern floor as another round of drinks was served. They began shouting his name and dragging him towards the bar, shoving a pretty Gades girl his way.
Agrippa stood up to join the festivities, but not before he glimpsed the white knucklebone of a fifth die disappearing in Rufus’ hand as he slipped it into his pocket.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
He turned towards Octavius but he was already swallowed up by the crowd.
***
“You cheated,” Agrippa said, halfway through the next morning.
Octavius glanced up in surprise from his couch. No, not surprise, Agrippa thought, but amusement. Had he known Agrippa would find out? Octavius paused his work, setting down his stylus and tablet.
They had been writing letters all morning to family and friends back in Italy before they worked on their assignments for tomorrow. Strategy lessons by their Greek tutor, Athenodorus, would begin early, followed by their first parade drill of the day and sword training.
“Yes,” Octavius said simply.
Agrippa stared. “Why?”
Octavius looked at him curiously, half-smiling already. “To win, of course.”
“It is not winning,” Agrippa argued, though he felt the conversation was futile. He never had the wit and charm of Octavius, who could turn his enemies into friends with one bawdy joke and convince a crowd that he was right with a mere smile. “It is cheating. There is a difference.”
“In war, there is no such thing as cheating,” Octavius said with a smirk.
It was something Athenodorus had taught them. But he had also taught them that there was such a thing as dishonor in war and that it was to be avoided even at the cost of death.
“It was just a game, Octavius, not a war. And games have rules.”
“Was it just a game?”
Agrippa shifted uneasily in his seat. Moments like these reminded him that they came from very different places.
Octavius, born into the Julian family, grand-nephew to the Imperator Julius Caesar, knew wealth and power that stretched beyond Rome, beyond the sea to lands of foreign tongues and strange peoples. Agrippa, descended from the humble beginnings of an immigrant family, born to a farmer and his wife, knew only what it meant to be a soldier turning the cogs of a machine much greater than himself.
“Nothing is just a game, Agrippa.“ But he spoke lightly, catching Agrippa’s frown and shaking his head ruefully. “Life is the greatest game of all, and the rules are written by the winners. One day all of those soldiers may be under my command. If I cannot win a simple game of dice now, why should they believe I will win a war?”
Agrippa fell silent. He had no argument against this. There were already rumors that the Imperator favored his grand-nephew and had adopted him in his will. Caesar had promised him the position of Master of Horses, a very high honor indeed, which was currently held by Lepidus, a man more than twice Octavius’ age.
Yet as they spoke the Egyptian queen Cleopatra resided in Rome as Caesar’s mistress in hopes of forging an alliance between East and West. There was even talk of a rebellion among the senators against Caesar, who kept the Senate close but powerless, like a dog on a leash.
“You understand, then?” Octavius demanded.
He seemed keen to have Agrippa’s approval. The thought pleased Agrippa, but at the same time, a doubt lingered in his mind.
For a moment neither of them spoke, and Octavius sighed, returning to his tablet.
“Rufus,” Agrippa said suddenly. Octavius looked up, this time in surprise. “You did not explain Rufus.”
“What of him?”
“Why did you have him swap the die?“ Agrippa asked. He did not know why this bothered him most of all, except that he and Rufus had never been as close as the rest of them. Agrippa was a better soldier and student despite Rufus’ more dignified background, which made Rufus endlessly jealous, and it took much of Agrippa’s patience to ignore his harsh jokes meant only to humiliate him. “Why not ask me?”
Octavius raised a brow. “Would you have done it?”
“You are my closest friend, Octavius. I would have done it if you asked it of me.”
Then Octavius smiled. “I know. That is why I did not need to.”
“I see.” Agrippa nearly smiled, before he realized what it was that had been truly nagging at him since the moment he saw Rufus slip the fifth die into his pocket. “But I was the one who flipped over the dice when you rolled a Senio. How did you manage that?”
“Ah.”
Octavius reached into his pocket and pulled out four dice with a flourish. He tossed the dice on the table between them. They rolled to a gentle stop.
Three, one, three…six. A perfect Senio.
It was impossible, and yet the truth gleamed as white as those knucklebones. Octavius grinned, and Agrippa’s breath caught. “That, my dear Agrippa, was pure luck.”
“I don’t believe it,” he whispered, but as he looked at Octavius and his unwavering brown eyes, Agrippa thought he would believe anything.
“Then call it fate.”
***
Later that night they dined in the modest summer house of a client family of Caesar, who had invited Octavius and his friends to spend the weekend there despite his absence.
Although the house was not very spacious and poorly lit, it was a luxurious retreat from their daily military training, which more often than not consisted of marching endlessly through grassy fields and mud, erecting and disassembling camps, and swimming great distances in the sea for physical conditioning.
“I still cannot believe you won last night,” Maecenas said, shaking his head and taking another sip of his wine.
Octavius grinned, but this time, Agrippa had trouble joining in. He refused to look at Rufus reclining right beside him, though Agrippa thought he glimpsed a tinge of a flush on his cheeks out of the corner of his eye.
“What can I say?” Octavius stretched his arms out. “I’m a lucky man.”
“Are you sure it was luck?” Maecenas asked, arching a brow.
Agrippa’s heart pounded. He glanced at Octavius, but he hardly seemed to be bothered, smiling into his cup as he drank. This time Agrippa stole a glance at Rufus. He was looking down at the floor and remained silent.
“You’re right,” Octavius said, and Agrippa looked at him sharply. “It was not luck. It was destiny.”
Maecenas rolled his eyes and Agrippa relaxed. “Oh, spare me Aeneas.”
It was an age-old joke they had with Octavius, whose family insisted they were descended from Aeneas, the famous Trojan hero and founder of the Roman race. While Octavius always took the jest with ease, Agrippa sensed it bothered him more than he let on.
“What? Do you not believe in fate?” Octavius asked teasingly. He smiled still, but his eyes grew serious, looking at Maecenas with a familiar intensity.
For Octavius believed in things like fate and glory, and though he did not often voice them, he harbored plans of following in his great-uncle’s footsteps. But while Julius Caesar was a seasoned and well-loved war general who had conquered not only armies but empires, Octavius was not yet nineteen and still in army training.
“Naturally I do,” Maecenas drawled, though he suddenly looked very uncomfortable on his couch, glancing at Octavius cautiously. “With men such as Aeneas, at least. Achilles. Agamemnon. Odysseus. Menelaus. You know, the great heroes.”
“You forgot Hector,” Rufus interjected with a mocking smile.
“Everyone forgets Hector,” Maecenas shot back.
“The great heroes,” Octavius echoed, setting down his cup. “You know, there will come a time when the world will need another hero. Like Alexander the Great.”
“You mean a conqueror,” Agrippa said quietly. “Alexander the Great was not a hero.”
“Oh, Agrippa, ever the moralist,” Maecenas said with a dismissive hand.
He always picked Octavius’ side, even if he did not exactly agree with Octavius himself. They came from the same social circles back in Rome after all, and Octavius had always been more charming than Agrippa.
But there was a hunger in Maecenas’ eyes as he glanced at Octavius that made Agrippa stiffen. He thought their friendship strange, since Octavius surely knew of Maecenas’ habits. It was not exactly a secret that Maecenas enjoyed the company of some of the younger boys now and then.
Yet when Agrippa had mentioned something about it off-hand some years ago, Octavius had only smiled at him.
“Maecenas is harmless,” Octavius had said lightly. “He is a good friend.”
“Because he has money?” Agrippa had asked, a touch angrily. He knew it was part—if not the only—reason Octavius was friends with someone like that, and it infuriated him to no end.
Octavius had given him a hard look. “Do not criticize his wealth when your problem lies with something very different.” He paused. “He is a good friend to have.”
Agrippa did not mention anything again after that.
But Agrippa was not surprised that Maecenas found Octavius attractive. It was not exactly his looks, which were dark and oddly delicate, almost feminine. His physique was slim and angular due to the illnesses which had riddled his childhood, and which he still suffered from occasionally. In fact, if one looked at him carefully as he walked, there was the slightest limp in his step, as if one leg had grown longer than the other, or he was born with some deformity.
But there was an air to him, a confidence in his eyes, a secret in his teasing smile like he knew something that no one else did, but that if you got close enough he might just tell it. It was one of the reasons Agrippa had always found himself gravitating towards Octavius, hoping to learn that secret, or perhaps simply wishing to be more like him.
Agrippa still did not know exactly what Octavius had seen in him, in his modest upbringing, his unartful conversation, his unexceptional intelligence. But he must have found something worth holding onto, even if it was only a boy who was desperate for a friend.
They had studied together at the same school in Rome since they were nine, under the tutelage of Apollodorus of Pergamon, a notable Greek teacher. His father had sent Agrippa to school there in the hopes that he would rise above his station.
The boys at school were all sons of rich politicians and lawyers, like Maecenas and Rufus, and they hardly spoke to him at first. It would take many months and the unlikely attention of Octavius to rope him into their summers vacationing in luxury villas on the bay of Naples and dinner parties at their father’s stately homes on the Palatine.
Only later as they grew older did Agrippa feel more at ease among them, joining in their gambling and drinking sprees across Rome and exploring the back rooms of brothels. It helped that he had grown tall and strong, and excelled in all kinds of sports, so that he earned the respect of more than just his few close friends.
But that all came to an end at seventeen when Julius Caesar confronted the forces of Pompeius—his established rival by that time—in Hispania.
Octavius had wanted to fight alongside Caesar, but he fell ill before he could leave, and remained bedridden for weeks.
It was not the first time Agrippa had seen Octavius sick, but this time had been different. Agrippa would never forget the conversation they had on one particularly bad night.
Octavius had been lying in bed, his face deathly pale and gleaming with sweat, his dark eyes sunken and ringed gray. Agrippa had been so sure, then, that he would die, so he had spent all his days ceaselessly by his side, while even Maecenas and Rufus had left to attend to other business.
“You are afraid,” Octavius had said, weakly, coughing at the effort. Agrippa thought he saw blood. “You are afraid I will die.”
“Yes.” His voice had been less than a whisper. To his horror, Agrippa had felt his eyes sting, and tears had welled in his eyes.
“Me too.” Octavius’ breath had rattled in his chest, and he would not look at Agrippa, staring at the ceiling. “Will you stay?”
Agrippa had stayed by his bedside through the entire night, and every time Octavius had closed his eyes, his breath so weak it appeared he was not breathing at all, Agrippa’s heart would stop. But by dawn, Octavius had still been alive, and day by day he had recovered and regained his strength until he could walk again.
Soon after that, Octavius had begun talking about joining Caesar in Hispania, though his mother Atia flatly refused. Agrippa himself had not been sure that Octavius was well enough for the journey, but Octavius was adamant not to waste any more of his life at home, so together with Maecenas, Rufus, and a few others they journeyed north.
It seemed like the wrath of the gods when a violent storm hit them off the coast of Hispania, dragging their ship in the wrong direction and landing them on the shores of enemy territory.
Yet somehow they had survived, sleeping during the day and marching at night, until they arrived at Caesar’s camp, where most of the fighting had already concluded.
Caesar had been so impressed by their survival that at the end of the year, he had them all accompany Octavius to the Academy in Apollonia for military training, where they would eventually join his Macedonian troops preparing for war in the East.
Months passed, and Octavius never spoke of that terrible night again. Agrippa was not even sure Octavius remembered it.
But Agrippa did, and he could still feel Octavius’ limp, feverish hand in his, and for some time afterward his dreams were plagued with visions of Octavius’ chest growing still, and Agrippa failing to shake his dead body awake.
Their early days in Apollonia, however, were not so easy, despite Octavius’ wealth and favor with Caesar. The soldiers had already been circulating rumors about Octavius, especially as the grand-nephew of Caesar, who now had the Republic completely at his mercy. His youth and delicate constitution were an easy mark for slander.
“I heard he’s a favorite of Caesar’s,” one would say in admiration.
“Aye, you know what that means. I heard he sold himself to Hirtius for a pretty sum.”
The soldiers found that particular joke awfully funny.
Even then, another would defend him. “Well, I heard that he fought against the eldest son of Pompeius in Spain earlier this year, and Caesar named him his heir because of it.”
This quieted most of them, since the name of Julius Caesar carried a certain awe, and already people speculated about his successor. But when Octavius spent time among the men, all of the rumors came to an abrupt stop.
One of the first weeks there, Octavius had joined a night of games at the tavern. He gambled so much money away with such good nature that the boys all warmed up to him at once. By the end of the week, he was surrounded by a slew of young soldiers, leaning over the game board as Octavius played against the veteran soldiers.
There was one night that Agrippa will never forget. Octavius had been playing an older man who was at the time unbeatable in the game of mercenaries. Octavius had found himself in a tight spot, with most of his pieces confiscated, and his opponent closing in on the rest.
Suddenly Octavius had leaned back, looking around the room. His eyes had settled on Agrippa, sitting in his own corner, watching the night’s events around him quietly so as not to draw attention to himself.
“Agrippa,” Octavius had said. “Come here.”
“The gladiator!” someone called out.
There was a ripple of laughter among the men. They jokingly called him a gladiator because of his strength and size, which was all the more amusing because of his rather soft-spoken nature.
Agrippa had walked over and sat down beside Octavius nonetheless, feeling very self-conscious, though he tried not to show it.
“Tell me, Agrippa,” Octavius said, motioning to the game board. It was hard to tell if he was being sincere or not. “What do you think I should do next?”
Maecenas, who had attached himself to Octavius’ side for as long as Agrippa could remember, frowned. “I already told you, Octavius. You should move that piece and block his attack.”
But Octavius only looked at Agrippa. “Well?”
It was not unusual to ask for advice from friends during a game, but Agrippa was his social inferior, known more for his tavern brawls and boxing matches than anything else.
Luckily, his father had loved the game of mercenaries, having served in the army himself, and together at home they would play for hours, adding makeshift boards to enlarge the grid and make the games even longer and more complex. Agrippa had understood the strategy of Octavius’ opponent since the beginning, and Octavius was falling right into his trap.
“The attack is only a distraction,” Agrippa said finally. “He will use it to corner your offense and you will have lost before you have even begun to defend. It would be best to stage an attack yourself.”
Octavius raised a brow but did not speak. The room hushed as Octavius made his next move, and by the end of the hour, he had defeated the reigning champion. Since that day, Octavius had insisted that Agrippa remain at his side during game nights, and as each night passed the bets staked on his victory rose to ever greater heights, much to the jealousy of Maecenas.
Even now, Maecenas disliked how close Agrippa was with Octavius, and in arguments such as these, he often argued merely to make Agrippa look bad.
“So what if he was a conqueror?” Maecenas asked flippantly, glancing at Agrippa with poorly veiled annoyance. “Alexander the Great was the best general to ever live and he was only twenty years old.”
Octavius held up a hand to quiet Maecenas and looked at Agrippa thoughtfully. “Let him speak, Maecenas.”
Maecenas was stunned into silence. Agrippa felt his heart move to his throat at the sudden attention. Even Rufus turned to him now.
“Alexander the Great only knew how to fight, not to rule. It was his downfall,” Agrippa said quietly. “A true hero must know how to do both.”
“Nonsense,” Maecenas said, though he sounded unsure, shooting Octavius a quick glance. “Achilles never ruled and he was the greatest hero of all.”
But Octavius was still looking at him steadily, as if Agrippa had understood something that only Octavius had known all along. “That, my Agrippa, is why we are friends.”
