Fic - Know Yourself (1/1)

[redfiona99]

Author: Red Fiona
Disclaimer: The characters and the settings do not belong to me; they belong to the BBC and HBO, and to history in parts. No money is being made from this.
Fandom: Rome
Characters: Octavian, and various OCs.
Rating: R - Roman attitudes to women, sexuality and slavery
Notes: Set after 'Son of Hades' and before 'The Tortoise and the Hare'. I have done terrible things to Apollonia, which was a fine city, and not the backwater I am pretending it was.
Summary: The man who would be master of Rome must be master of himself first, and that required self-knowledge.

~~~~



There was little in Apollonia except the military camp. Which was why, Octavian supposed, they put the camp there. No one wants soldiers around their nice city, better to send them out into the country.

Of course, the emptiness was going to drive him mad. He was not some pastoral poet who could spend his time observing the land, no, he was a man of politics; he needed a city around him to function. And his books, he missed his books.

He needed Rome.

Of course, the usual functionary buildings had built themselves up around the camp, the temples of the Gods, and the whorehouses for the men, but nothing was even a patch on Rome.

For the first month or so, Octavian barely had the energy to complain. He spent the day undergoing the same basic training as the troops. Not that Maecenas understood that. "You're going to be a senator anyway, what's the point? It’s not as though they need you to train them. That's why we have a praefectus and the primus pilus." But Octavian couldn't do that. He needed to know what the men of the legion could do and how they did it.

Agrippa, having been here longer had this information already. He seemed to be able to get his men to follow him, not blindly, but with devotion nonetheless. It was a skill Octavian had yet to learn. This Agrippa was a different man to the one in Rome where Agrippa seemed to do his level best to be ignored. Octavian had known Agrippa since they were children, having met on and off. Agrippa was unlike Octavian. Take parties for instance. Octavian stayed to one side to better follow the intrigues of all concerned, while Agrippa had remained a wall-flower out of an intrinsic sort of shyness. Agrippa wasn't interested in politics or power, and said that he would rather spend his life in the army than go back to Rome once his term was done and become a quaestor. Octavian was willing to take Agrippa at his word.

Then again, were Agrippa's feelings all that different from Maecenas's? Maecenas didn't want the power that came with being a senator; he just wanted the money that went with it, so that he could be a patron to poets and have beautiful verse around him always. At least Maecenas was willing to admit that his own poetry was lacking. Octavian knew he was no judge of artistry but Maecenas's poetry was technically unsound.

Octavian didn't want the Consulship for money, other than that power that the money gave him, he wanted it for the same reason that he wanted the power the army gave him, not power for its own sake, but for the good of Rome. Octavian knew that he would be better for Rome than anyone else, most especially Anthony.

So he trained hard, watched the troops harder and exhausted himself.

It took two whole months for his body to become truly accustomed to this life and then he was bored again. He took to writing a diary to stave off the worst of it. If he died, he might as well leave something to live on behind him.

Originally it was going to be a work of philosophy, a distillation of what he'd learned, from his books and from his experiences, which had taken his book-learned knowledge and tested it. The testing had caused him to re-evaluate lots of the information.

It was while he was compiling some of the information from the less traditional sources (one Titus Pullo featuring strongly) that his mind turned to the present topic, and it would not be redirected. Like a head-strong horse, the more he tried to force his thoughts away from such things, the harder he returned to them.

He supposed it was only natural; man could only contain his bestial nature for so long. And there really was nothing else to do in Apollonia.

He had had intercourse twice before, with the whore and with she who is his most beloved, which was what he called her even in the privacy of his own diary. Some things were too secret to be written.

But even with her, he'd not discovered whatever it was that lead so many of his fellow men to spend so much time seeking more of it. He knows a man like Pullo would not waste his time on something if it was not enjoyable to him.

The only sensible way to discover the appeal of the thing was experimentation. The only feature this town had in its favour was the number of brothels. Who would notice one more young officer visiting such places?

~~~~

He wanted it known that he had tried. His diary was evidence of his attempts. He had tried blondes, brunettes, red-heads, he had tried Roman women, barbarian women, women from every corner of the empire and some brought in as captives from battles with enemy powers. Some were beautiful, some were not. Some were well-built for motherhood; some were as fragile as twigs.

It hadn't mattered.

It wasn't that he was unable to perform physically; he was as rampant as the stallion. His seed flowed forth when expected. There was nothing wrong with him. Given the great variety of women he had engaged in coitus with, there couldn't have been something wrong with all of them, that stood to reason. There was something he was missing.

There were enough soldiers for the brothels to cater to all tastes, and at least one had boy whores. It went against Octavian's better nature, but he was going to be thorough. An experiment half completed was as bad as no experiment at all.

~~~~

That hadn't worked either. He had to assume that, once again, the fault lay with him, not with the boy. There was, of course, one more option, but it was unconscionable. It was one thing to be rumoured to be catamite of a man like Julius Caesar, and Octavian would rather that be what the common man gossiped about rather than them knowing Caesar was prone to fits, and another thing to be someone's puer by action.

There were things that a Roman man had to hold to, standards that he shouldn't fall below. Despite his mother, he still believed in morals. Rome stood because of them. This particular act would stand him entirely outside those mores.

Octavian chose not to know about Maecenas's habits. As long as all the information he has was mere rumour, then he didn't have to have a policy. A blind eye was often a poor long term plan, but, since he knew all the rumours about Maecenas were true, it was the only plan he had. Maecenas was too valuable to him, one of the few intellects he could trust. He needed men he could trust, and all he had were Maecenas and Agrippa.

Agrippa seemed to be the only other man in the garrison who wasn't maddened by pleasures of the flesh or the product of the grape. There was something noble about Agrippa and Octavian knew he would need that along with Maecenas's easy charm, he himself having neither aspect.

So Octavian pushed all thought of these things to one side, made his mind up to be like Agrippa, and concentrated on his books and learning military tactics.

It was his military duties that revealed the hidden aspect of his character. He had to flog one of the soldiers under him for a disciplinary offence. The man had spoken out of turn to a superior officer. The principle behind the punishment was the public nature of it, to make it clear such conduct would not be tolerated. Octavian had never flogged anyone before; his mother had always left that task to Castor. There was, for obvious reason, a great theatricality to it.

Octavian was surprised by his reaction to the act. It was hearing the leather smack into the man's flesh and the man's stubborn attempts to prevent crying out. It felt like a fire burned its way from his chest down to his genitals. He hoped that the red flush spreading over his face would be mistaken for a sign of exertion not anything else. He had never felt anything like that before.

He finished the man's punishment, of course, duty was duty, before retiring to his quarters.

It would be easy enough to discover if this was some unusual occasion, an effect of the weather or the atmosphere. He went to one of the higher class of brothel, the sort too expensive for any but officers. His mission would have been easier if he had been Pullo, with his bluff, direct lack of manners, or Anthony with his swagger. Not that Anthony would ever bother with paying prostitutes; he just took what he wanted. Either option would be better than the tortuous conversation he was having with the aged lena, trying to make it clear what he wanted without being vulgar.

"Of course we can cater for that, sir. Oh the way you were going on I thought you were after something ... exotic." There was a curious, dismissive tone to the lena's voice that actually made Octavian like her more. Here was a woman who was not ruled by her desires, who understood their ephemeral nature.

Octavian still checked with the prostitute herself, she may have been infamia but he wanted her to know what the lena had agreed to have him do to her. She may have been a slave and Octavian was brought up not to damage other people's property. The woman agreed to everything.

He was careful. She offered him all kinds of devices but he restrained himself and only used his hands.

The pleasure was enormous. He understood why a man might go mad in search of this. He was filled with what felt like divine ecstasy, which only grew in strength with each red mark he left on the woman's pale skin.

He was utterly spent, exhausted beyond his capacities, when he had finished.

It was an instructive experience. A man had to know his weaknesses.

Octavian was aware that he was not the leader of men that Anthony was. That was why he was here, he hadn't come to Apollonia just to escape from Rome, it was carefully chosen as where he would run to because he could work on his weakness, and because Agrippa was here, and had prepared for his arrival. This stay had improved his knowledge. He knew now that he was unlikely to defeat Anthony in open battle unless he chose his ground carefully. And he must destroy the people's love of Anthony to aid his plans because they would not love him more than Anthony. That was another weakness, his inability to earn the love of the common populace, one less likely to change.

Anthony's weakness was his bestial nature, and his inability to control it like a good man should would be his downfall, of that Octavian was sure.

That left his own, newly discovered, weakness. He would not go down Anthony's route, nor would be become as some ancient tyrants were, dragging all of Rome down through their own dissolute behaviour. However, his needs would have to be met somehow. He could not do this to his best beloved, even if she would have him again. The things he wanted to do to her would hurt her and his stomach turned at the thought. The answer to his problem was obviously a wife. A wife would fulfil his needs without question. He would need a wife anyway when he was leader of Rome.

The ruler of Rome had to be virtuous. He had to be above such physical desires. He had to be seen to be almost a demigod to the populace, but one of the well-behaved ones. Zeno's maxims were as correct when applied to states as when applied to people, virtue is required for happiness and Rome was not a naturally virtuous place. It was fine for someone like Pullo, a man who came by his pleasures honestly and never tarnished any offices with them, but Anthony didn't do any of that, and would sell the Aventine for kiss.

He had to be got rid of, and Octavian felt he now knew himself, Rome, its citizens and its army well enough to get it done.