in common, it occurred to no one that, now the utility of the match had passed, he would not follow the usual custom and divorce her.  He met Livia, the wife of this Tiberius Claudius Nero, and duly did divorce Livia.  A new wedding followed, in which Claudius Nero acted the part of father to his ex-wife, and gave her away to Octavian.  It all sounds very disgraceful; but this must be said:  the great Augustus could never have done his great work so greatly had he not had at his side the gracious figure of the empress Livia,—­ during the fifty-two years that remained to him his serenest counselor and closest friend.

And then—­there was the boy:  I believe the most important element in the transaction.

His father died soon afterwards, and he came to live in the palace, under the care of his mother,—­and of Augustus; who had now within his own family circle the two egos with whom he was most nearly concerned, and without whom his work would have been impossible.  So I think we may put aside the idea that the marriage with Livia was an ‘affair of the heart,’ as they call it:—­a matter of personal and passional atraction.  He was guided to it, as always, by his Genius, and followed the promptings of the Gods.

But,—­Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.  The divorced Scribonia never forgave Augustus.  She became the center of a faction in society that hated him, hated Livia, loathed and detested the whole Claudian line.  There must have been bad blood in Scribonia.  Her daughter Julia became profligate.  Of Julia’s five children, Agrippa Postumus went mad through his vices; Julia inherited her mother’s tendencies, and came to a like end.  Agrippina, a bitter and violent woman, became the evil genius of the next reign.  Of this Agrippina’s children, Drusus and Caligula went mad and her daughter was the mother of the madman Nero.  To me the record suggest this:  that the marriage with, not the divorce of, Scribonia was a grave mistake on the part of Octavian; bringing down four generations of terible karma.  He was afloat in dangerous seas at that time, and a mere boy to take arms against them:  did he, trusting in material alliances and the aid of Sextus Pirate, forget for once to trust in his Genius within?  We have seen how the lines of pain became deeply graven on his face during the years that followed Caesar’s death.  A high soul, incarnating, must take many risks; and before it has found itself and tamed the new personality, may have sown griefs for itself to be reaped through many lives.  The descendants of Augustus and Scribonia were the bane of Augustus and of Rome.  But Livia was his good star, and always added to his peace.

But now, back to the household on the Palatine, in the thirties B.C.