URGULANIA WAS LIVIA'S ONLY CONFIDANT AND BOUND TO her by the strongest ties of interest and gratitude. She had lost her husband, a partisan of Young Pompey's, in the Civil Wars and with her infant son had been sheltered by Livia, then still married to my grandfather, from the brutality of Augustus's soldiers. Livia, on marrying Augustus, insisted that he should restore to Urgulania her husband's confiscated estates, and invite her to live with them as a member of the family. By Livia's influence-for in Augustus's name Livia could force Lepidus, the High Pontiff, to make whatever appointments she pleased-she was set in a position of spiritual authority over all the married noblewomen of Rome. I must explain that. Every year, early in December, these women had to attend an important sacrifice to the Good Goddess presided over by the Vestal Virgins, on the proper conduct of which would depend the wealth and security of Rome for the ensuing twelve months. No man was allowed to profane these mysteries on pain of death. Livia, who had put herself into the good graces of the Vestals by rebuilding their Convent, furnishing it in luxurious style, and winning them, through Augustus, many privileges from the Senate, suggested to the Chief Vestal that the chastity of some of the women who attended these sacrifices was not beyond suspicion. She said that the troubles of Rome during the Civil Wars might well have been due to the Good Goddess's anger at the lewdness of those who attended her mysteries. She suggested further that if a solemn oath were to be given to any woman who confessed to a lapse from moral strictness that her confession would not be reported to any ear of man, and thus not involve her in public disgrace, there would be a greater chance of the Goddess being served only by the chaste, and her anger appeased.

       The Chief Vestal, a religiously-minded woman, approved of the idea but asked Livia's authority for this innovation. Livia told her that she had seen the Goddess in a dream only the night before, and that she had asked that, since the Vestals themselves were not experienced in matters of sex, a widow of good family should be appointed Mother Confessor for this very purpose. The Chief Vestal asked whether the sins confessed should pass unpunished. Livia replied that she could not have expressed an opinion had not the Goddess fortunately made a pronouncement on this point in the same dream: that the Mother Confessor would be empowered to prescribe expiatory penances and that the penances should be a matter of holy confidence between the criminal and the Mother Confessor. The Chief Vestal, she said, would be informed merely that such-and-such a woman was unfit to take part in the mysteries of this year; or that such-and-such had now performed her penance. This suited the Chief Vestal well, but she was afraid to suggest a name for fear that Livia would turn it down. Livia then said that the High Pontiff was obviously the man to make the appointment, and that if the Chief Vestal permitted her, she would explain matters to him and ask him to name a suitable person, after performing the necessary ceremonies to ensure a choice favourable to the Goddess. So Urgulania was appointed, and of course Livia did not tell Lepidus or Augustus the powers that the appointment carried. She spoke of it casually as a position of advisory assistant to the Chief Vestal in moral matters, "the Chief Vestal, poor woman, being so unworldly".

       The sacrifice was customarily held at the house of a Consul, but now always at Augustus's palace, because he ranked above the Consuls. This was convenient for Urgulania, who made the women come into her room there (which was arranged in a way to inspire fear and truthfulness), bound them to tell the truth by the most frightful oaths, and when they had confessed, dismissed them while she considered the appropriate penance. Livia, who was in the room concealed behind a curtain, would then suggest one. The two got a great deal of amusement out of this game and Livia plenty of useful information and assistance in her plans.

       As Mother Confessor in the service of the Good Goddess, Urgulania considered herself above the law. Later I shall tell how once, when summoned by a senator to whom she owed a large sum of money to appear before the magistrate in the Debtors' Court, she refused to obey the summons; and how, to avoid the scandal, Livia paid up. On another occasion she was subpoenaed as a witness in a Senatorial inquiry: having no intention of being cross-examined she excused herself from attending and a magistrate was sent to take her deposition down in writing instead. She was a dreadful old woman with a cleft chin and hair kept black with lamp-soot (the grey showing plainly at the roots), and she lived to a great age. Her son, Silvanus, had recently been Consul and was one of those whom Emilius approached at the time of his plot. Silvanus went straight to Urgulania and told her about Emilius's intentions. She passed the news on to Livia and Livia promised to reward them for this valuable information by marrying Silvanus's daughter Urgulanffla to me and so allying them with the Imperial family. Urgulania was in Livia's confidence and was pretty sure that my uncle Tiberius-not Postumus, though he was Augustus's nearest heir-would be the next Emperor: so this marriage was even more honourable than it seemed.

       I had never seen Urgulanilla. Nobody had. We knew that she lived with an aunt at Herculaneum, a town on the slopes of Vesuvius, where old Urgulania had property, but she never came to Rome even on a visit. We concluded that she must be delicate. But when Livia wrote me one of her curt cruel notes, to the effect that it had just been decided at a family council that I should many the daughter of Silvanus Plautius, and that this was a more appropriate match for me, considering my infirmities, than the two previously projected, I suspected that there was something much more seriously wrong with this Urgulanilla than mere ill-health.............