Claudius the God

While Caesar needs Polybius (Seneca wrote), Polybius has no more right to give way than has the giant Atlas, who is said to carry the world on his shoulders in obedience to the will of the Gods.

To Caesar himself, to whom all is permitted, many things are for that very reason denied. His vigilance defends every home; his labours establish general leisure; his industry procures civic happiness; his hard work spells a public holiday. From the very moment that Caesar first dedicated himself to humanity he robbed himself of himself, and, like the stars which perpetually run their tireless courses, he has never since allowed himself to rest or attend to any business of his own. And in some way, Polybius, your fate is linked with his august, fate, and you too cannot now attend to your own personal interests, pursue your own private studies. While Caesar owns the world you cannot honourably partake of pleasure, of grief, or of any other human emotion. You are wholly Caesar's. And is it not always on your lips that Caesar is dearer to you than your life? How, then, is it right for you to complain of this stroke of fortune, while Caesar still lives and thrives?

There was a lot more about my wonderful loving-kindness and mercy and a passage putting into my mouth the most extravagant sentiments about the noblest way of bearing the loss of a brother. I was supposed to cite my grandfather Mark Antony's grief for his brother Gaius, my uncle Tiberius's grief for my father, Gaius Caesar's grief for young Lucius, my own grief for my brother Germanicus, and then relate how valiantly we had each in turn borne these calamities. The only effect that this slime and honey had on me was to make me quite satisfied in my mind; that I had not wronged anyone by his banishment except perhaps the island of Corsica.

Chapter 13

THE Alexandrian; Greeks sent instructions to their envoys, who were still in Rome, to congratulate me on my victories in Germany, to complain of the insolent behaviour of the Jews towards them (there had been a recrudescence of trouble in the city), to ask my permission for the re-establishment of the Alexandrian Senate, and once more to offer me temples endowed and furnished with priests. They intended several other lesser honours for me besides this supreme one, among them being two golden statues, one representing the `Peace of Claudius Augustus', the other `Germanicus the Victor'. The latter statue I accepted because it was principally an honour to my father and brother, whose victories had been far more important than mine, and personally won, and because the statue's features were theirs, not mine. (My brother had been the living image of my father, everyone agreed) As usual, the Jews sent a counter-embassy, congratulating me on my victories, thanking me for my generosity to them in the matter of the circular letter I had written about religious, toleration for all Jews, and accusing the Alexandrians of having provoked these new disturbances by interrupting their religious worship with ribald songs and dances outside the synagogues on holy days. I shall here attach my exact answer to the Alexandrians, to show how I now handled questions of this sort:

Tiberius, Claudius Caesar Augustus-Germanicus, Emperor, High Pontiff, Protector of, the People, Consul Elect, to the City of Alexandria, greetings.

Tiberius Claudius Barbillus, Apollonius son of Artemidorus, Chaeremon son of Leonides, Marcus Julius Asclepiades, Gaius Julius Dionysius, Tiberius Claudius Phanias, Pasion son of Potamon, Dionysius son of Sabbion, Tiberius Claudius Apollonius son of Ariston, Gaius Julius Apollonius, and Hermaiscus son of Apollonius, your envoys, have delivered me. your decree and spoken to me at length about the City of Alexandria, recalling the goodwill which for many years past, as you know, I have always felt towards you; for you are naturally loyal to the House of Augustus, as many things go to prove. Especially there has been an exchange of amity between your city and my immediate family: I need only mention in this context my brother Germanicus Caesar whose goodwill towards you was shown more plainly than by any of us: he came to Alexandria and addressed you with his own lips. For this reason I gladly accepted the recent honours you offered me, though I am usually not partial to honours.

In the first place I permit you to keep my birthday as a `Day of Augustus' in the way mentioned in your own proclamation. Next, I agree to your erecting, in the places stated, the statues to myself and other members of my family, for I see that you have been zealous to establish memorials of your loyalty to my House on all sides. Of the two golden statues, that representing the Peace of Claudius Augustus, made at the suggestion and plea of my friend Barbillus, I have refused as appearing somewhat offensive to my fellow-men, and it is now to be dedicated to the Goddess Roma; the other shall be carried in your processions in whatever way you think best, on the appropriate birthdays; and you may provide it with a throne too, suitably decorated. It would perhaps be foolish, while accepting these great honours at your hands, to refuse to introduce a Claudian tribe and sanction sacred precincts for each Egyptian district; so I permit you to do both these things and, if you wish, to set up, too, the equestrian statue of my Governor, Vitrasius Pollio. Also, I give my consent to the erection of the four-horse chariots which you wish to establish in my honour at the frontiers: one at Taposiris in Libya, one at the Pharos in Alexandria, the third at Pelusium in Lower Egypt. But I must ask you not to appoint a High Priest for my worship or to build temples in my honour, for I do not wish to be offensive to my fellow men and it is quite clear to my mind that shrines and temples have, throughout history, been built in honour of the Gods, as their peculiar due.

As for the requests which you are so anxious for me to grant, these are my decisions: all Alexandrians who had officially come of age before I entered on the monarchy I confirm in their citizenship with all the privileges and amenities that this carries with it; the only exceptions being such pretenders, born of slave mothers, as may have contrived to intrude themselves among the free-born. And it is also my pleasure that all those favours which were granted you by my predecessors shall be confirmed, and those favours too which were granted by your former kings and City Prefects and confirmed by the God Augustus. It is my pleasure that the ministers of the Temple of the God Augustus of Alexandria shall be chosen by lot, like the ministers of his Temple at Canopus. I commend your plan for making the municipal magistracies triennial as a very sensible one; for the magistrates will behave with the greater prudence during their terms of office for knowing that when it ends they will be called upon to account for any maladministration of which they may have been guilty. As for the question about re-establishing the Senate, I am unable to say offhand what your custom was under the Ptolemies, but you know as well as I do that you have not had a Senate-under any one of my predecessors of the House of Augustus. So since this is an entirely novel proposal and I am not sure whether it will prove either to your advantage or mine to adopt, it, I have written to your City. Prefect, Aemilius Rectus, to hold an inquiry and report whether a Senatorial Order should be formed, and, if so, in what way it should be formed.

As for the question as to who must bear responsibility for the recent riots and the feud or to speak frankly - the war that has been waged between you and the Jews, I have been unwilling to commit myself to a decision on this matter, though your envoys, especially Dionysius, son of Theon, pleaded your cause with great spirit in the presence of their Jewish opponents. But I must reserve for myself a stern indignation against whichever party it was that started this new disturbance; and I wish you to understand that if both parties do not desist from this destructive and obstinate, hostility I shall be compelled to show you what a benevolent ruler can do when roused to righteous anger. I therefore once more beg you Alexandrians to show a friendly tolerance to the Jews who have been your neighbours in Alexandria for so many years, and offer no outrage to their feelings whilst they are engaged in worshipping their God according to their ancestral rites. Let them practise all their national customs as in the days of the God Augustus, for I have confirmed their right to do so after an impartial hearing of both sides in the dispute. On the other hand, I desire the Jews to press for no privileges in excess of those that they already hold, and never again to send me a separate embassy as if you and they lived in, different cities - a quite unheard of procedure! - nor to enter competitors for athletic and other contests at Public Games. They must content themselves with what they have, enjoying the abundance supplied by a great city of which they are not the original inhabitants; and they must not 'introduce anymore Jews from Syria or from other parts of Egypt into the city, or they will fall more deeply under my suspicion than at present. If they fail to take this warning I shall certainly take vengeance on them as deliberately fomenting a worldwide plague. So long therefore as both sides abstain from this antagonism and live in mutual forbearance and goodwill, I undertake to show' the same friendly solicitude for the interests of Alexandria as my family has always shown in the past.

I must testify here to the constant zeal for your interests which my friend Barbillus has now once again shown in his exertions on your behalf and also to a similar zeal on the part of my friend Tiberius Claudius

Farewell.

This Barbillus was an astrologer of Ephesus, in whose powers Messalina had complete faith, and 1 must admit that he was a very clever fellow, second only in the accuracy of his prognostications to the great Thrasyllus. He had studied in India and among the Chaldees. His zeal for Alexandria was due to the hospitality he had-been shown- by the principal men of the city when forced, many years before, to leave Rome because Tiberius had banished from Italy all astrologers and soothsayers except his favourite Thrasyllus.

I received a letter from Herod a month or two later formally congratulating me on my victories, on the birth of my son, and on having won the title of Emperor by my victories in Germany. He enclosed his usual private letter:

What a great warrior you are, Marmoset, to be sure! You just have to put pen to paper and order a campaign, and presto! banners wave, swords fly from their scabbards, heads roll on the grass, towns and temples go .up in flames! What fearful destruction you would cause if one day you were to mount on an elephant and take the field in person! I remember your dear mother once speaking of you, not very hopefully, as a future conqueror of the Island of Britain. Why not? For myself, I contemplate no military triumphs. Peace and security are all that I ask. I am busy putting my dominion in a state of defence against a possible Parthian invasion. Cypros and I are very happy and well, and so are the children. They are learning to be good Jews. They learn faster than I do, because they are younger. By the way, I don't like Vibius Marsus, your new Governor of Syria. I am afraid that he and I will fall out one day soon if he doesn't mind his own business. I was sorry when Petronius's term, came town end: a fine fellow. Poor Silas is still in confinement. I have given him the pleasantest possible prison quarters, however,, and allowed him writing materials as a vent for his sense of my ingratitude. Not parchment or paper, of course, only a wax tablet, so that when he comes to the end of one complaint he must scrape it off before starting on another.

You are extremely popular here with the Jews and the severe phrases in your letter to the Alexandrians were not taken amiss: Jews are quick at reading between the lines. I have heard from my old friend Alexander

the Alabarch that copies were circulated to the various city-wards of Alexandria to be posted up, with the following endorsement by the City Prefect:

Proclamation by Lucius Aemilius Rectus

Since the whole populace was unable owing to its numbers to assist at the reading of that most sacred and gracious letter to the City, I have found it necessary to, post it up publicly so that individual readers may admire the Majesty of our God Caesar Augustus and show their gratitude for His goodwill towards the City.

Fourteenth day of August, in the second: year of the reign of Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, Emperor.

They'll make you a God in spite of yourself; but keep your health and spirits, eat well, sleep sound, and trust nobody.

THE BRIGAND

Herod's schoolboy taunt about the ease with which I had won my title of Emperor touched me in a sensitive spot. His reminder of my mother's remark influenced me too: it touched me in a superstitious spot. She had once many years before declared in a fit of annoyance when I was telling her of my proposal for adding three new letters to the Latin alphabet: 'There are three notably impossible things in this world: the first that shops should stretch across the Bay of Naples yonder, the second that you should conquer the island of Britain, the third that a single one of your ridiculous new letters should ever be put into general circulation.' Yet the first impossible thing had already come to pass - on the day that Caligula built his famous bridge from Bauli to Puteoli and lined it with shops. The third impossible thing could be accomplished any day that I pleased, merely by asking the Senate's permission and why not the second?

A letter came from Marsus a few days later marked `urgent and confidential'. Marsus was a capable governor, and an upright man though a - most uncongenial companion - reserved, cold in his manner, perpetually sarcastic, and without either follies or vices. I had given him his appointment in gratitude for the prominent part he had taken more, than twenty years before, while commanding a regiment in the East, in bringing Piso to trial for the murder of my brother Germanicus. He wrote:

... My neighbour, your friend King Herod Agrippa, is, I am informed, fortifying Jerusalem. You are probably-aware of this, but Iwrite to

make it plain to you that the fortifications, when completed will make the city impregnable. I wish to make no accusations of disloyalty against your friend King Herod, but 'as Governor of Syria I view the matter with alarm. Jerusalem commands the route to Egypt, and if, it were to fall into irresponsible hands Rome would be in grave danger. Herod is said to fear a Parthian invasion: he has, however, already amply protected himself against this most improbable occurrence by a secret alliance with his royal neighbours on the Parthian frontier. No doubt you approve of his friendly advances to the Phoenicians: he has made enormous gifts to the city of Beirut and is building an amphitheatre there, also porticoes and public baths. It is difficult for me to understand his motives for courting the Phoenicians. However, for the present the chief men of Tyre and Sidon appear to have little trust in him. Perhaps they have good reason: it is not for me to say. At the risk of your displeasure I shall continue to report on political events to the south and east of my command as they come to my attention.

This made most, uncomfortable reading, and my first feeling was one of anger against Marsus for disturbing my confidence in Herod; but when I thought things over the feeling changed to one of gratitude. I did not know what to think about Herod. On the one hand, I was confident that he would keep his oath of friendship, publicly sworn, in the Market Place, with me; on the other hand, he was obviously engaged in some private scheme of his own which in the case of any other man I would call thoroughly treasonable. I was glad that Marsus was keeping his eyes open. I said nothing about the business to anyone, not even to Messalina,

and wrote to Marsus merely: `I have your letter. Be discreet.. Report further events.' To Herod I wrote a sly letter:

I shall probably take your kind advice about Britain, my dear Brigand, and if I do invade that unfortunate isle I shall certainly ride on the back of an elephant. It will be the first elephant ever seen in Britain and no doubt cause widespread admiration. I am glad to hear good news of your family; don't worry about that Parthian invasion on their account. If I hear news of trouble in that quarter I shall send at once to Lyons for your Uncle Antipas to go out and quell it in his seventy-thousand-and-first suit of armour; so Cypros can sleep sound at night in that confidence and you can stop work on your fortifications at Jerusalem. We don't want Jerusalem made too strong, do we? Suppose that there was a sudden raid made by your brigand cousins from Edom, and they managed to get into Jerusalem just before you'd built the final bastion - why, we'd never get them out again, not even with siege-engines and tortoises and rams and then what about the trade-route to Egypt? I am sorry that you dislike Vibius Marsus. How is your amphitheatre at Beirut progressing? I shall take your advice about trusting absolutely nobody, with the possible exceptions of my dear Messalina, Vitellius, Rufrius, and my old schoolfellow the Brigand, in whose self-accusations of roguery I, have never and shall never believe, and to whom I shall always affectionately sign myself his

MARMOSET

Herod replied in his usual bantering style, as if he did not care one way or the other about the fortifications: but he must have known that my playful: letter wasnot as

playful as it pretended to be and he must have known, too, that Marsus had been writing to me about him. Marsus replied shortly to my short note, reporting that work on the fortifications had now been discontinued.

I took my second Consulship in March, which is the New Year, but resigned the office two months later in favour of the next senator due for it: I was too busy to be bothered with the routine duties it involved. This was the year that my A.D. 42 daughter Octavia was born, that the Vinicianus Scribonianus rising took place, and that I added Morocco to the Empire as a province. I shall first tell briefly what happened in Morocco. The Moors had risen again under a capable general named Salabus, who had led them in the previous campaign. Paulinus, who was commanding the Roman forces, overran the country as far as the Atlas range, but was unable to come to grips with Salabus himself and suffered heavy losses from ambushes and night attacks. His term of command presently expired and he had to return to Rome. He was succeeded by one Hosidius Geta whom I instructed, before he set out, not on any account to allow Salabus to become another Tacfarinas. (Tacfarinas was the Numidian who, under Tiberius, had earned three Roman generals the laurel crown by allowing himself to be defeated by them in apparently decisive engagements, but who always reappeared at the head of his reconstituted army as soon as the Roman forces were withdrawn; however, a fourth general ended the business by catching and killing Tacfarinas himself.) I said to Geta: `Don't be satisfied with partial successes. Search out Salabus's main force, crush it and kill or capture Salabus. Chase him all round Africa if necessary. If he runs off inland to the country where they say that men's heads sprout from under their armpits, why, follow him there. You'll easily recognize him by his having his head in a different place.' I also said to Geta: `I won't attempt to direct your campaign: but one word of advice - don't be bound by hard-and-fast campaigning rules like Augustus's, general Aelius Gallus who marched to the conquest of Arabia as if Arabia were a second Italy, or Germany. He loaded up his men with the usual entrenching tools and heavy armour instead of water-skins and extra corn rations, and even brought a train of siege-engines. When colic attacked the men and they began boiling the bad water that they found in the wells, to make it safer to drink, Aelius came along and cried: "What! boiling your water! No disciplined Roman soldier boils his water! And using dried dung for fuel? Unheard of! Roman-soldiers collect brushwood or else go without a fire." He lost the greater part of his force. The interior of Morocco is a dangerous quarter too. Suit your tactics and equipment to the country.'

Geta took my advice in the most literal way. He chased Salabus from end to end of Morocco, defeating him twice, and on the second occasion only just failing to capture him. Salabus then fled to the Atlas mountains and crossed them into the unexplored desert beyond, instructing his men to hold the pass while he collected reinforcements from his allies, the desert nomads. Geta left a detachment near the pass and with the hardiest of his men struggled across another, more difficult, pass a few miles away and went in faithful search of Salabus. He had taken as much water with him as his men and mules could possibly carry, cutting down his equipment to the least possible weight. He reckoned on finding some water at least, but followed Salabus's criss-cross track in the desert sands for more than 200 miles before he saw so much as a thorn-bush growing. The water began to give out and the men to weaken. Geta concealed his anxiety, but realized that even if he retreated at once, and gave up all hope of capturing Salabus, he, had not enough water to see him safely back. The Atlas was 100 miles off, and only a divine miracle could save him.

Now, at Rome when there is a drought we know how to persuade the Gods' to send rain. There is a black stone called the Dripping Stone, captured originally from the Etruscans and stored in a temple of Mars outside the City. We go in solemn procession and fetch it within the walls, where we pour water on it, singing incantations and sacrificing. Rain always follows - unless there has been some slight mistake in the ritual, as is frequently the case. But Geta had no Dripping Stone with him, so he was completely at a loss. The nomads were accustomed to going without water for days at a time and knew the country perfectly besides. They began to close in on the Roman force; they cut off, killed, stripped, and mutilated a few stragglers whom the heat had driven out of their wits.

Geta had a black orderly who had been born in this very desert but had been sold as a slave too the Moors. He could not remember where the nearest water was, because he had been sold when only a child. But he said to Geta, `General, why don't you pray to Father Gwa-Gwa!' Geta inquired who this person might be. The man replied that he was the God of the Deserts who gave rain in time of drought. Geta said, `The Emperor told me to suit my tactics, to the country. Tell me how to invoke Father Gwa-Gwa and I shall do so at once.' The orderly told him to take a little pot, bury it up to the neck in the sand and fill at with beer, saying as he did so: `Father Gwa-Gwa, we offer you beer.' Then the men were to fill their drinking vessels with all, the water that they had with them in their water-skins except enough to dip their fingers in and sprinkle on the ground. Then everyone must drink and dance and adore Father Gwa-Gwa, sprinkling the water and drinking every drop in the skins. Geta himself must chant: `As this water is sprinkled, so let rain fall! We have drunk our last drop, Father. None remains. What would you have us do? Drink beer, Father Gwa-Gwa, and make water for us, your children, or we die!' For beer is a powerful diuretic and these nomads had the same theological notions as the early Greeks who considered that Jove made water when it rained; so that the same word (with a mere difference in gender) is still used in Greek for Heaven and for chamberpot. The nomads considered that their God would be encouraged to make water, in the form of rain, by offering him a drink of beer. The sprinkling of water, like our own lustrations, was to remind him how rain fell, in case he had forgotten.

Geta in desperation called his tottering force together and inquired whether anyone happened to have' a little beer with him. And by good luck a party of German auxiliaries had a pint or two hoarded in a water-skin; they had brought it with them in preference to water. Geta made them give it up to him. He then equally distributed all the water that was left, but the beer he reserved for Father Gwa-Gwa. The troops danced and drank the water and sprinkled the necessary drops on the sand, while Geta uttered the prescribed formula of invocation. Father Gwa-Gwa (his name apparently means 'Water') was so pleased and impressed by the honour paid him by this imposing force of perfect strangers that the sky was immediately darkened with rain-clouds and a downpour began which lasted for three days and turned every sandy hollow into a brimming pool of water. The army was saved. The nomads, taking the abundant rain as an undeniable token of Father Gwa Gwa's favour towards the Romans, came humbly forward with offers of alliance. Geta refused this unless they first delivered-up Salabus to him. Salabus was presently brought to the camp in bonds. Presents were exchanged between Geta and the nomads and a treaty made; then Geta marched back without further loss to the mountains; where he caught Salabus's men, who were still holding the pass, in the rear, killing or capturing the whole detachment. The other Moorish forces, seeing their leader brought back to Tangier as a prisoner, surrendered without further fighting. So two or three pints of beer had saved the lives of more than 2,000 Romans and gained Rome a new province. I ordered the dedication of a shrine to Father Gwa-Gwa in the desert beyond the mountains, where he ruled; and Morocco, which I now divided up into two provinces - Western Morocco with its capital at Tangier-and Eastern Morocco with its capital at Caesarea. had to furnish it with a yearly tribute of 100 goat-skins of the best beer. I awarded Geta triumphal ornaments and would have asked the Senate to confer on him the hereditary title of Maurus (of Morocco') had he not exceeded his powers by putting Salabus to death at Tangier without first consulting me. There was no military necessity for this act; he only did it for vainglory.

I mentioned just now the birth of my daughter Octavia. Messalina had come to be much courted by the Senate and People, because it was-well known that I had delegated to her most of the duties which fell tome in my capacity as Director of Public Morals. She acted, in theory, only as my adviser, but had, as I have explained, a duplicate seal of mine to ratify documents with; and within certain limits I let her decide what knights or senators to degrade for social offences and whom to appoint to the resulting vacancies. She had now also undertaken the laborious task of deciding on the fitness of all candidates for the Roman Citizenship. The Senate wished to vote her the title of Augusta and made the birth of Octavia the pretext.. Much as I loved Messalina, I did not think that she had yet earned this honour: it was something for her, to look forward to in middle life. She was as yet only seventeen, whereas my grandmother Livia had earned the title only after her death and my mother in extreme old age. So I refused it to her. But the Alexandrians, without asking my permission - and once the thing was done I could not undo it - struck a coin with my; head on the obverse and on the reverse a full-length portrait of Messalina in the dress of the Goddess Demeter, holding in the palm of one hand two figurines representing her little boy and girl, and in the other a sheaf of corn representing fertility. This was a flattering play on the name Messalina,- the Latin word messis meaning the corn-harvest. She was delighted. She came to me shyly one evening, peeped. up at my face without saying anything, and at last asked, plainly embarrassed, and after one or two false starts: `Do you love me, dearest husband?'

I assured her that I loved her beyond anyone else in the world.

`And what did you tell me, the other day were the Three Main Pillars of the Temple of Love?'

'I said that the Temple of True Love was pillared on kindness, frankness, and understanding. Or rather I quoted the philosopher Mnasalcus as having said so.'

`Then will you show me the greatest kindness and understanding that your love for me is capable of showing? My love will have to provide only the frankness. I'll come straight to the point. If it's not too hard for you, would you - could you possibly - allow me to sleep in a bedroom apart from you for a little while? It isn't that I don't love you every bit as much as you love me, but now that we have had two children in less than two years of marriage, oughtn't we to wait a little before we risk having a third? It is a very disagreeable thing to be pregnant: I have morning-sickness and heartburn and my digestion goes wrong, and I don't feel I could go through that again just yet. And, to be honest, quite apart: from this dread, I somehow feel less passionately towards you than I did. I swear that I love you as much as ever, but now it's rather as my dearest friend and as the father of my children than as my lover. Having children uses up a lot of a woman's emotions, I suppose. I'm not hiding anything from you. You do believe me, don't you?'

'I believe you and I love you'

She stroked my face. `And I'm not like any ordinary woman, am I, whose business is merely to have children and children and children until she wears out? I am your wife - the Emperor's wife - and I help him in his Imperial work, and that should take precedence over everything, shouldn't it? Pregnancy interferes with work terribly.'

I said rather ruefully: `Of course, my dearest, if you really feel like that, I am not the sort of husband to. insist on forcing anything on you. But is it really necessary for us to sleep apart? Couldn't we at least occupy the same bed, for company's sake?'

'0 Claudius,' she said, nearly crying, `it has been difficult enough for me to make up my mind to ask you about this, because I love you so much and don't want to hurt you in the least. Don't make it more difficult. And now that I have frankly told you how I feel, wouldn't it be dreadfully difficult for you if you had violently passionate feelings for me while we were sleeping together and I could not honestly return them? If I repulsed you that would be as destructive of our love as if I yielded against my will; and I am sure you would feel very remorseful afterwards if anything happened to destroy my love for you. No, can't you see now how much better it would be for us to sleep apart until I feel about you again as I used to do? Suppose, just to distance myself from temptation, I were to move across to my suite in the New Palace? It's more convenient for my work to be over there. I can get up in the morning and go straight to my papers. This lying-in has put me greatly behind-hand with my Citizens' Roll.'

I pleaded: `How long do you think you will want to be away?'

'We'll see how it works out,' she said, kissing the back of my neck tenderly. `Oh, how relieved I am that you aren't angry. How long? Oh, I don't know. Does it matter so much? After all, sex is not essential to love if there is any other strong bond between lovers such as common idealistic pursuit of Beauty or Perfection. I do agree with Plato about that. He thought sex positively an obstruction to love.'

`He was talking of, homosexual love,' I reminded her, trying not to sound depressed.

`Well, my dear,' she said lightly, `I do a man's work, the same as you,- and so it comes to much the same thing, doesn't it? And as for a common idealism, we have to be very idealistic indeed to get through all this drudgery in the name of attempted political perfection, don't we? Well, is that really settled? Will you really be a dear, dear Claudius, and not insist on my sharing your bed in a literal sense, I mean? In all other senses I am still your devoted little Messalina, and do remember that it has been very, very painful for me to ask you this.'

I told her that I respected and loved her all the more for her frankness, and of course she must have her way. But that naturally I should be impatient for the time when she felt again for me as she once had done.

`Oh, please don't be impatient,' she cried. `It makes it so difficult for me. If you were impatient I should feel that I was being unkind to you, and should probably pretend feelings; that I didn't have. I may be an exception, but somehow sex doesn't mean much to me. I suspect, though, that many women get bored with it without ceasing to love their husbands or to want their husbands to love them. But I'll always continue to be suspicious of other women. If you were to have affairs with other women, I think I should go mad with jealousy. It isn't that I mind the thought of your sleeping with someone other than me; it's the fear that you might come to love her better than me, not merely regarding her as a pleasant sexual convenience, and then want to divorce me. I mean, if you were to sleep with a pretty housemaid occasionally, or some nice clean woman too low in rank for me to be jealous of, I should be very glad, really delighted, to think that you were having a nice time with her; and if you and I ever slept together afterwards we wouldn't consider it as anything that had come between us. We'd merely think of it as a measure that you had taken for the sake of your health -like a purge or an emetic. I shouldn't expect you even to tell me the woman's name, in fact I'd prefer you not to, so long as you first promised not to have doings with anyone about whom I would have a right to feel jealous. Wasn't that how Livia is said to have felt about Augustus?'

`Yes, in a way. But she never really loved him. She told me so. That made it easier for her to be attentive to him. She used to pick out young women from the slave-market and bring them secretly - into his bedroom at night. Syrians, mostly, I believe.'

`Well, you're not asking me to do that, are you? I'm human, after all.'

This was how Messalina played, very cleverly and very cruelly, on my blind love for her. She moved over to the New Palace that very evening. And for a long time I said nothing further, hoping that she would come back to me. But she said nothing, only indicating by her tender behaviour that a very fine understanding existed between us. As a great concession she did sometimes consent to sleep with me. It was seven years before I heard so much as a whisper of what went on in her suite at the New Palace, when the old cuckold-husband was away at his work or safely snoring in his bed at the Old Palace.

And this brings me to the story of the fate of Appius Silanus, an ex-Consul who had been Governor of Spain since Caligula's reign. It may be recalled that it was marriage with this Silanus that Livia had made the bribe for Aemilia's betrayal of Postumus: Aemilia was Augustus's great-granddaughter, whom as a; boy I had nearly married. Through Aemilia, Silanus had become the father of three boys and two girls, now all grown up. Except for Agrippinilla and her little son, they were the only surviving descendants of Augustus. Tiberius had regarded Silanus as a danger because of his illustrious connexions and, had arranged to have him accused of treason in company with several other senators, including Vinicianus. However, the evidence against them broke down and they escaped with nothing worse than a bad fright. At the age of sixteen Silanus had been the handsomest youth in Rome; at the age of fifty-six he was still remarkably fine-looking, his hair only slightly grizzled,, his eyes bright, and his step and carriage like those of a man in the prime of life. He was now a widower, Aemilia having died of a cancer. One of his daughters, Calvina, had married a son of Vitellius's.

One day, shortly before little Octavia's birth, Messalina had said to me `The man whom we really need at Rome is Appius Silanus. I wish you could recall him and keep him permanently at the Palace as an adviser. He's remarkably intelligent and quite wasted in Spain.'

I said: `Yes, that isn't a bad plan I admire Silanus, and he's a man of great influence in the Senate. But how can we persuade him to come and live with us? We can't very well plant him in the Palace as we might plant a new secretary or accountant. There must be some sort of honourable pretext for his presence.'

`I've thought of that, and I've got a brilliant idea.' Why not connect him with the family by marrying him to my mother? She'd like to marry again: she's only thirty-three. And she's your mother-in-law, so it would be agreat honour for Silanus. Do say that you think it a good idea.'

`Well, if you can make it right with your mother....'

'I have already asked' her about it. She says that she'd be charmed.'

So Silanus came to Rome and I married him to Domitia Lepida, Messalina's mother, and assigned them a suite in the New Palace, next to Messalina's. I soon noticed that Silanus was very ill at ease with me. He readily did any services that I asked him to do, such as paying surprise visits to the lower courts on my behalf to see that justice was being properly done, or inspecting and reporting upon housing conditions in the poorer quarters of the City, or attending the public auction of property confiscated by the State, to see that the auctioneers did not play any tricks; but he seemed unable to look me in the face and always avoided any intimacy with me. I was rather offended. But after all I could not have been expected to guess the truth: which was that Messalina had only asked me to send for Silanus from Spain because she had been in love with him as a girl, , and that she had married him to her mother merely as a means of having easy access to him, and that ever since his arrival she had been pressing him to sleep with her. To think of it! Her own step-father and. a man five years my senior, with a granddaughter not much younger than Messalina herself ! Naturally, his manner to me was queer, since Messalina had told him that she had moved over to the New Palace at my orders, and that I had myself suggested that she should become his mistress! She explained that I wanted to keep her amused while I had a silly affair with that Julia, once the wife of my nephew Nero, whom we used to call Helen, to distinguish her from the other Julias, but now called Heluo because she was such a glutton. Apparently Silanus believed this story, but he firmly refused to sleep with his daughter-in-law, in spite of her beauty, even at the Emperor's suggestion: he said that he was of an amorous but not an impious nature.

'I'll give you ten days to make up your mind about it,' Messalina threatened. `If you refuse me at the end of that time I shall tell Claudius. You know how vain he has become since they made him Emperor. He wouldn't like to hear that you'd scorned his wife. He'd certainly kill you, wouldn't he, Mother?'

Domitia Lepida was entirely, under Messalina's thumb, and bore her out. Silanus believed them. His experiences under Tiberius and Caligula had made him a secret anti-monarchist, though he was not a man who mixed much in politics. He fully believed that nobody could now find himself at the head of the State without giving way very soon to tyranny, cruelty, and lust. By the ninth day he had not yet yielded to Messalina, but had worked himself up into such a state of nervous desperation that he had, it appears, fully resolved to kill me.

My secretary Narcissus was a witness of Silanus's distracted state that evening; he overtook him in a corridor of the Palace muttering unintelligibly to himself, `Cassius Chaerea - Old Cassius. Do so - but not alone.' Narcissus was busy at the moment working out something in his head, and heard the words but did not consider them fully. They stuck in his mind and, as often happens in cases of this sort, when he went to bed that night without having thought about them again, they came into his dream and enlarged themselves into a terrifying picture of Cassius Chaerea handing Silanus his bloody sword and shouting `Do so! Strike! Strike again. Old Cassius is with you! Death to the tyrant!' and of Silanus then' rushing at me and hacking me to pieces. The dream was so vivid and so violent that Narcissus leaped out of bed and came hurrying to my bedroom to tell me about it.

The shock of being suddenly awakened just before dawn and told in a terrified voice about this nightmare - I was sleeping alone and not sleeping very well either - put me into a cold sweat of horror. I called for lights - hundreds of lights - and sent at once for Messalina. She was terrified too at this hasty summons; afraid that I had found her out, I suppose. It must have been a great relief to her when I merely told her of Narcissus's dream. She shuddered. 'No! Did he really dream that? 0 Heavens! That's the same terrible nightmare that I've been trying to remember every morning for the last seven days! I always wake up screaming, but I can't ever remember what I was screaming about. It must be true. Of course it must. It's a divine warning. Send for Silanus at once and make him confess.'

She ran from the room to give the message to one of her freedmen. I know now that she told him to say: `The ten days are over., The Emperor now orders you to, his presence immediately and asks for an explanation.' The freedman did not understand what ten days were meant, but delivered the message, arousing Silanus from his sleep. Silanus cried: `Come? Indeed I will!' He, dressed hurriedly, thrusting something into the fold of his robe and rushed stumbling, and wild-eyed ahead of the messenger to my rooms. The freedman was alert. He stopped a slave-boy. `Rum like lightning to the Council Chamber and tell the guards there to search Appius Silanus when he arrives.' The Guards found the hidden dagger and arrested him. I tried him then and there. It was, of course, impossible for him to explain the dagger, but I asked him whether he had anything to say in his defence. His only defence was to rage and splutter inarticulately, cursing me for a monster and Messalina for a she-wolf. When I asked him why he had wished to kill me he would only answer: `Give me back my dagger, tyrant.' Let me use it on my own breast! I sentenced him to execution. He died, poor fellow, because he did not have the sense to speak out.

Chapter 14

IT was the execution of Silanus that encouraged Vinicianus to make his insurrection. When I reported in the Senate, the same day, that Silanus had intended to kill me but that my guards had frustrated his designs and that I had already executed him, a groan of astonishment rose, followed by a dismayed whisper, instantly smothered. This was the first execution of a senator since I had assumed the monarchy, and nobody believed Silanus capable of trying to murder me. It was felt that at last I was showing myself m my true colours and that a new reign of terror was about to start. I had recalled Silanus from Spain under the pretext of doing him a great honour but had really intended all the time to murder him. Just like Caligula ! Naturally, I was quite unaware of all this feeling and even ventured on a little joke, saying how grateful I was to Narcissus for being so vigilant for my safety even in his sleep. `But for that dream I should not have sent for Silanus and consequently he would not have been frightened into giving himself away: he would have made his attempt on my life in a more considered manner. He had many opportunities for assassinating me; having lately been taken so deeply into my confidence that I spared him the indignity of being searched for weapons. The applause was hollow.

Vinicianus told his friends afterwards: `So the noble Appius Silanus is executed just because the Emperor's Greek freedman has a bad dream. Are we to allow a creature as weak-minded as this pumpkin-headed Clau-Clau-Claudius to rule over us? What do you say?'

They agreed that a strong, experienced Emperor was needed, not a makeshift like myself, who knew nothing, learned nothing, and acted in a perfectly crazy way half the time. They began reminding each other of my most remarkable errors or eccentricities. Apart from those that I have already mentioned, they brought up, for instance, a decision that I, had made a few days before when reviewing the jury-lists. It must here be explained that there were about 4,000 qualified jurymen at Rome and that these were obliged to attend trials when called upon, under penalty of a heavy fine: jury-service was extremely laborious and extremely unpopular. The jury-lists were first prepared by a first-rank magistrate, and this year more than half the men named in them came forward as usual to excuse themselves on one account or another; but in nineteen cases out of twenty their appeals -were dismissed. The magistrate handed me the final lists for my scrutiny with a mark against the names of those whose appeal for exemption had been dismissed. I happened to notice that among the men who had willingly presented themselves for jury-service was one whom I knew to be the father of seven children. Under a law of Augustus's he was exempt for the rest of his life; yet he had not pleaded for exemption or mentioned the size of his family. I told the magistrate: `Strike this man's name off. He's a father of seven.' He protested: `But, Caesar, he has made no attempt to excuse himself.' `Exactly,' I said, `he wants to be a juryman. Strike him off.' I meant, of course, that the-fellow-was concealing his immunity from what every honest man considered a very thankless and disagreeable duty and that he therefore was almost certain to have crooked intentions. Crooked jurymen could pick up a lot of money by bribes, for it was a commonplace that one interested juryman, could sway the opinions of a whole bunch of uninterested ones; and the majority verdict decided a case. But the magistrate was a fool and simply reported my words, `He wants to be a juryman; strike him off, as a characteristic example of my fatuity.

Vinicianus and the other malcontents spoke, too, of my extraordinary decision in insisting that every man who appeared before me in court should give the usual preliminary account of his parentage,, connexions, marriage, career, financial condition, present occupation, and so on - with his own mouth, as best he could, instead of calling upon some patron or lawyer to do it for him. My reasons for this decision should have been obvious: one learns more about a man from ten words which he speaks himself on his own behalf than from a ten hour eulogy by a friend. It does not matter so much what he says in those ten words: what really counts is the way in which he says them. I had found that to have some knowledge before a case starts as to whether a man is slow-witted or glib, boastful or modest, self-possessed or timorous, capable or muddle-headed, is a great help to my understanding of what follows. But to Vinicianus and his friends I seemed to be doing the accused a great injustice by robbing him of the patronage or eloquence on which he counted.

Strangely enough, what shocked them most of all my Imperial misdemeanours was my action in the case of the silver chariot.

This is the story. As I happened to pass through the Goldsmiths' Street one day I saw about 500 citizens gathered around a shop. I wondered what the attraction could be and told my yeomen to move the crowd on, because it was blocking the traffic. They did so, and I found that the shop was exhibiting a chariot entirely plated with silver, except for the rim of the body, which was gold. The axle was silver-plated too, ending in golden dog-heads with amethyst; eyes; the spokes were ebony carved in the form of negroes with silver girdles, and even the lynchpins were of gold. The silver sides of the body were embossed with scenes illustrating a chariot-race in the Circus and the felloes of the wheels were decorated with a golden inlay of vine-leaves. The extremities of the yoke and pole - silver-plated too - were golden cupids' faces with turquoise eyes. This wonderful vehicle was for sale at 100,000 gold pieces. Someone whispered to me that it had been commissioned by a rich senator and already paid for, but that he had asked the goldsmiths to expose it for sale for a few days (at a far higher price than he had actually paid) because he wished publicly to advertise its costliness before taking possession of it. This seemed likely: the goldsmiths themselves would not have built so expensive a thing on the mere chance of its finding a millionaire buyer. In my capacity as Director of Public Morals I had a perfect right to do what I then did. I made the goldsmiths, in my presence, strip off the gold and silver with a hammer and chisel and sell it by weight to the competent Treasury official, whom I sent for, to be melted down into coin. There were loud cries of protest, but I silenced them by saying: `A car of this weight will damage the public pavements: we must lighten it a bit. I had a pretty shrewd notion who the owner was: it was Asiaticus, who now felt it safe to make no secret of his immense riches, though he had successfully concealed them from Caligula's greedy eyes by parcelling them out into hundreds of small deposits which he left with scores of different bankers in the names of his freedmen or friends. His present ostentation was a direct incitement to popular disorder. The extraordinary additions he had made to the Gardens of Lucullus, which he had now bought! They had been considered only second in beauty to the Gardens of Sallust; but Asiaticus boasted, `When I have finished with the Gardens of Lucullus, the Gardens of Sallust will seem by contrast to be little better than a few acres of waste land.' He put in such fruits, flowers, fountains, and fishpools as Rome had never seen before. It occurred to me that when food was scarce in the City nobody would like to see a jolly senator with a big, belly driving about in a silver car with golden axle-ends and lynchpins. A man wouldn't be human if he didn't at least feel a desire to pull out the lynchpins. I still think that I did right in this instance. But the destruction by me of a work of art - the goldsmith was a famous craftsman, the same who had been entrusted by Caligula with the modelling and casting of his golden statue - was regarded as a wanton act of barbarism and caused far more resentment among these friends of Vinicianus than if I had hauled a dozen common citizens out of the crowd and had them knocked to pieces with hammer and chisel and sold as meat to the but Asiaticus himself did not express any irritation, and was indeed careful not to acknowledge ownership of the chariot, but Vinicianus made the most of my crime. He said: `He'll be pulling our gowns off our backs next and unravelling the wool to sell to the weavers again. The man's insane. We must get rid of him.'

Vinicius was not in the party of malcontents either. He guessed that he was under my suspicion for having proposed himself as Emperor in opposition to me, and was now very careful not to offend me in the slightest particular. Besides, he must have known that it was no use trying to get rid of me yet. I was still extremely popular with the Guards, and took so many precautions against assassination - a constant escort of soldiers, careful searchings for weapons, a taster against poison at every meal and my household was so faithful and alert, besides, that a man would have had to be extremely lucky as well as ingenious to take my life and escape with his own. There had been two unsuccessful attempts by individuals recently, both made by knights whom I had threatened to degrade from the order for sexual offences. One waited at the gate of Pompey's Theatre to murder me as I came out. That was not a bad idea, but one of my soldiers saw him snatch the hollow top off a stick that he was carrying, showing it to be really a short javelin; he rushed at him and struck him on, the head just as he was about to hurl the thing at me. The other attempt was made in the Temple of Mars where I was sacrificing. The weapon on this occasion was a hunting-knife, but the man was immediately disarmed by the bystanders.

The only way to get rid of me, in fact, was by force of arms, and where were troops to be found to oppose me? Vinicianus thought that he knew the answer to the question. He would get help from Scribonianus. This Scribonianus was a first, cousin of little Camilla, whom my grandmother, Livia, had poisoned long ago on the day that she and I were to have been betrothed. When I was in Carthage, the year before my brother died, Scribonianus had been very insulting to me because he had just distinguished himself hi a battle against Tacfarinas, in which I had been unable to-take part; and his father, Furius Camillus, who was Governor of the province of Africa, had thereupon made him beg my pardon in public. He had been forced to obey, because in Rome a father's word is law, but he had never forgiven me and on two or three occasions since then had behaved very unpleasantly to me. Under Caligula he had been foremost among my tormentors at the Palace: nearly all the booby-traps and similar practical jokes that I had been plagued with were of his contrivance. So you may imagine that when Scribonianus, whom Caligula had recently sent to command the Roman forces in Dalmatia, heard of my election as Emperor he was not only jealous and disgusted but alarmed for his own safety. He began to wonder whether, when his term of command expired and he had to return to Rome, I was the sort of man to forgive him his insults; and if so, whether my forgiveness might not be less easy to bear even than my anger. He decided to pay me the usual respects due to a Commander-in-Chief but to do everything possible to win the personal loyalty, of the forces under his command: when the time came to recall him he would write to me what Gaetulicus had once written to the Emperor Tiberius from the Rhine: `You can count on my, loyalty so, long as I retain my command.'

Vinicianus was a personal friend of Scribonianus's and kept him informed by letter of what was happening at Rome. When Silanus was executed Vinicianus wrote: I have, bad news for you, my dear Scribonianus. Claudius, after disgracing the dignity of Rome by his stupidity, ignorance, and clowning, and by his complete dependence on the advice of a pack of Greek freedmen, a spendthrift rogue of a Jew, Vitellius his fellow boozer,, and Messauna his lustful and ambitious girl-wife, has committed his first important murder. Poor Appius Silanus was recalled from his command in Spain, kept hanging about the Palace in suspense for a month or two and then suddenly hauled out of bed early one morning and summarily executed. Claudius came into the House yesterday and actually joked about it. All the right-minded men in the City agree that Silanus must be avenged, and consider that if a suitable leader appeared the whole nation would welcome him with open arms. Claudius has turned things completely upside-down and one almost wishes Caligula back again. Unfortunately he has the Guards to rely upon at present, and without' troops we can do nothing. Assassination has been unsuccessfully tried: he is such a coward that one can't bring so much as, a bodkin into the Palace without having it removed by searchers in the vestibule. We look to you to come to our rescue. If you were to march on Rome with the Seventh and Eleventh Regiments and whatever local forces you are able to muster, all our troubles would be over. Promise the Guards a bounty as big as the one that Claudius gave them and they will desert to you at once, They despise him as a meddling civilian and he hasn't given them more than a single gold piece a man, to drink his health with on his birthday, since his original act of enforced generosity. As soon as you land in Italy- the transport difficulty can easily be got over - we shall join you with a volunteer force and provide you with all the money you may need. Don't hesitate. Now is the time before matters get any worse. You can reach Rome before Claudius is able to send for reinforcements from the Rhine; and anyhow I don't think that he would get any if he did send for them. The Germans are said to be planning their revenge, and Galba isn't the man to leave his post on the Rhine when the Chattians are on the move. And Gabinius won't go if Galba stays: they always work w partnership. So the revolution promises to be bloodless. I do not wish to appeal to you by warnings as to your own personal safety, for I know that you put the honour of Rome before self-interest. But it is as well for you to know that Claudius a few nights ago told my cousin Vinicius: `I don't forget old scores. When a certain Governor returns to Rome from his command in the Balkans, mark my words, he's going to pay with his blood for the tricks he once played me.' One thing more. Don't have any compunction about leaving the province undefended. The regiments need not be away long, and why not take a large number of hostages with you to discourage the provincials from rising in your absence? It's not as though Dalmatia were a frontier province, either. Let me know at once if you are with us, and ready to earn as glorious a name as your great ancestor Camillus, becoming the second saviour of Rome.

Scribonianus decided to take the risk He wrote to Vinicianus that he would need 150 transports from Italy besides what vessels he could commandeer in Dalmatian ports. He would also need 1,000,000 gold pieces in bounty money to persuade the two regular regiments - each 5,000 strong - and the 20,000 Dalmatian levies whom he would call to the colours, to break their allegiance to me. So Vinicianus and his fellow conspirators - six senators and seven knights, and ten knights and six senators whom I had degraded from their Orders now left Rome unobtrusively under the pretence of visiting their country estates. The first news that I had of the rebellion was a letter which reached me from Scribonianus; addressed in the most insolent terms: calling me an impostor and an imbecile and ordering me to lay down all my offices immediately and retire to civil life. He told me that I had proved my lamentable incapacity for the task that had been entrusted to me by the Senate in a moment of confusion and aberration, and that he, Scribonianus, now repudiated his allegiance and was on the point of sailing to Italy with a force of 30,000 men to restore order and decent government to Rome and the rest of the world. If I resigned my monarchy, on receipt of this notice, my life would be spared and the same amnesty granted me and mine as I had been wisely persuaded to grant my political opponents on my accession.

The first thing that I did on reading this letter was to burst out laughing. Good heavens, what a delightful experience that would be, to retire into private life again and live quietly and easily under an orderly government with Messalina and my books and my children! Certainly, of course, and by all means, I would resign if Scribonianus thought himself capable of governing better than I. And to be able to loll back in my chair, so to speak, and watch someone else struggling with the impossible task which I had never wished to undertake and which, had proved more burdensome, anxious, and thankless than I can easily convey in words! It was as though King Agamemnon had leaped forward when Laocoon and his two children were struggling with the two great serpents sent by an angry God to destroy them and had shouted out: `Here, leave those splendid creatures for me to deal with. You aren't worthy to fight with them. Leave them alone, I say,' or it will be the worse for you.' But could I trust Scribonianus to keep his word about the amnesty and spare my life and that of my family? And would his government be as orderly and decent as he expected it to be? And what would the Guards have to say on the matter? And was Scribonianus as popular at Rome as he seemed to think? Would the serpents, in fact, consent to leave Laocoon and his children and coil, instead, about the body of this Agamemnon?

I hurriedly convened the Senate and addressed them: 'My Lords, before reading you this letter, I must tell you that I am most ready to agree to the demands contained in it and should welcome the rest and security that it somewhat severely promises me. The only reason, indeed, that would induce me to decline the propositions made by this Furius Camillus Scribonianus would be a strong. feeling on your part that the country would be worse rather than better off if I did so. I admit that until last year I was shamefully ignorant of the arts of government and of legal and military procedure; and though I am daily learning, my education is still in arrears. There are no men of my age and rank who could not teach me plenty of technical commonplaces with which I am totally unfamiliar. But that is the fault of my, original bad health and the poor opinion that my brilliant and now in part deified family had of my wits when I was a boy; it has not been due to any shirking of my duties to our fatherland. And even when I did not expect ever: to be, raised to responsible office I improved myself by private study with, I think you will grant, commendable application. I take the liberty of suggesting that my family were mistaken: that I never was an imbecile. I won a verbal testimony to that effect from the God Augustus shortly after his visit to Postumus Agrippa on his island, and from the noble Asinius Pollio in the Apollo Library three days before his death - who however advised me to assume a mask of stupidity, like the first Brutus, as a protection against certain persons who might wish to remove me if I showed too great intelligence. My wife Urgulanilla, too, whom I divorced for her sullen temper, unfaithfulness, and general brutality, took the trouble to record in her will I can show it you if you wish - her conviction that I was no fool. The Goddess Livia Augusta's last words to me on her death-bed, or perhaps, I should say ‘shortly before her Apotheosis’, were: "To think that I ever called you a fool I admit that my sister Livilla, my mother Antonia Augusta, my nephew the late Emperor Gaius, and my uncle Tiberius, his predecessor, never revised their ill opinion of me; and that the two last-named recorded the same in official letters to this House. My uncle Tiberius refused me a seat, among you, on the ground that no speech that I could make could be anything but a trial of your patience and a waste of your time. My nephew Gaius Caligula did allow me a seat, because I was his uncle and he wished to seem magnanimous. But he ruled that It should speak last of all in any debate, and said in a speech which, if you do not remember it, you will find recorded in the archives, that if any member wished to ease himself during any session would he please in future have the good manners to contain himself and not distract attention by running out in the middle of an important speech his own, for example-- but wait until the signal for a general lapse of attention was given by the Consul's calling on Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus (as I was then known)' to give his opinion on the matter in hand. Well, you took his advice, I remember, not supposing that I had any feelings to wound, or thinking that they had been so often wounded before that I must by now be armoured all over like Tiberius's wingless dragon; or perhaps agreeing with my nephew that I was indeed an imbecile. However, the considered opinions to the contrary of the two Gods,: Augustus and Livia - for which, however, you have to take my word because they are nowhere recorded in writing surely outweigh those of any number of mere mortals? I should be inclined to hold it blasphemous for anyone here to contradict them. Not that blasphemy is a criminal offence nowadays - we have changed that; but it is at least bad manners and perhaps dangerous if the Gods happen to overhear. Besides, my nephew and uncle both met violent deaths and were not mourned, and their speeches and letters are no longer quoted with the respect with which the God Augustus's speeches and letters are quoted, and much of their legislation has lapsed. They were lions in their day, my Lords, but now they are dead and in the words of the Jewish proverb that the God Augustus was fond of quoting - he borrowed it from King Herod the Great of Judaea, for whose wit he had as much respect as I have for the wit of King Herod Agrippa, his grandson - A live dog is worth more than a dead lion. I am not a lion - you know that. But I consider that I have not made so bad a watch-dog; and to say that I have grossly mismanaged national affairs or that I am an imbecile is, I think, an insult to you rather than to me, because you pressed the monarchy on me and have on many occasions since congratulated me on my successes and rewarded me with many great honours, including that of Father of the Country. If the father is an imbecile, surely his children will have inherited the taint?'

I then read Scribonianus's letter and glanced around inquiringly. Everyone had been looking extremely uncomfortable during my speech, though nobody ventured to do other than applaud, protest, or show surprise at the points where this seemed to be expected. You, my readers, will no doubt be thinking what no doubt they all were thinking: `What a curious speech to make on the eve of a rebellion! Why should Claudius have insisted on raking up a matter which we might be, expected to have forgotten about altogether his supposed imbecility.? Why did he find it necessary to remind us that this family once regarded him as mentally incapable, and to read the passages of Scribonianus's letter referring to this, and why, did he lower himself by arguing about, it?' Yes, it looked very suspicious; as though I really knew that I was an imbecile and was trying to persuade myself that I wasn't. But I knew just what I was doing. I was in fact, being rather clever. I had in the first place spoken extremely frankly, and unexpected frankness about oneself is never unacceptable. I was reminding the Senate what sort of a man I was - honest and devoted; not clever; but not self-seeking - and what sort of men they themselves were - clever but self-seeking, and neither honest nor devoted nor even courageous. Cassius Chaerea had warned them not to hand over the monarchy to an idiot and they had disregarded his advice for fear of the Guards - yet things on the whole had turned out very well, so far. Prosperity was returning to Rome, justice was being evenly dispensed, the people were contented, our armies were victorious abroad, I was not playing the tyrant in any extravagant way; and, as I told them in the discussion that followed, I had, perhaps travelled farther, hobbling on my lame leg, than most men would have travelled on a sound pair; because, only too conscious of my disability, I allowed myself no halts or slackening of pace. On the other hand, I wished to show them by my speech that they were perfectly free to dismiss me if they pleased; and my undignified frankness about my own shortcomings should encourage them not to be harsh or revengeful when I was a private citizen once more.

Several loyal speeches were made, all in rather guarded terms, for fear of the vengeance of Scribonianus, should he force me to resign. Only Vinicius spoke out strongly:

'My Lords, I think that many of us must be feeling keenly the reproach that the Father of the Country has been, however gently, heaping on us. I confess that I am heartily ashamed that I misjudged him before his accession and that I thought him unfitted for the offices which he has since so nobly filled. It is incredible to me now that his mental powers were ever underrated by any of us, and the only explanation that I can offer is that he deceived us, first by his great modesty and next by his deliberate self-depreciation in the reign of the late Emperor. You know the proverb "No man cries `Stinking Fish'.'' That proverb was discredited under Caligula, when no wise man with fish in his basket would cry it as anything but stinking, for fear Caligula should become greedy or jealous. Valerius Asiaticus concealed his wealth, Tiberius. Claudius concealed his wit; I had nothing to conceal except my disgust of tyranny, but. I concealed that until the time came for action. Yes; we all cried "Stinking fish". Caligula is dead now, and under Claudius frankness has come into its own. I shall be frank. My cousin Vinicianus spoke violently against Claudius lately in my presence and suggested his deposition. I reproached him angrily but did not report the matter, to the House, because there is no treason-law now in force, and, after all, he is my cousin. Free speech must be indulged, especially in the case of kinsmen. Vinicianus is not here to-night. He has left the City. I fear that he has gone to join Scribonianus. Six of his intimate friends are also absent, I notice. They must have gone with him. Yet what are seven discontented men - seven against five hundred? A negligible minority. And is theirs a genuine discontent or is it personal ambition?

`I condemn my cousin's, action on three counts: the first, that he is ungrateful; the second, that he is disloyal-, the third, that he is foolish. His ingratitude: the Father of the Country freely forgave him for supporting me as a candidate for the monarchy and has shown great tolerance since of hiss impertinent and obstructive speeches in this House. His disloyalty: he engaged himself by an oath to obey Tiberius Claudius Caesar as the Head of the State. A breach of this oath could only be excused in the unlikely event of Caesar flagrantly breaking his oath to rule justly, with respect for the common good; Caesar has not broken his oath. Disloyalty to Caesar is therefore impiety to the Gods by whom Vinicianus swore, and enmity to the State, which is more content than ever before to be ruled by Caesar. His folly: though it is possible that Scribonianus may persuade a few thousand of his troops by lies and bribes to invade Italy and may even win a few military successes, does any member of this honourable House really believe that he is destined to be our Emperor? Does anyone believe that the Guards, our chief bulwark, will secede to him? The Guards are not fools: they know when they are well off. The Senate and People are not fools either: they know that under Claudius they are enjoying a liberty and prosperity consistently denied them by his immediate predecessors. Scribonianus cannot impose himself on the City except by promising to redress existing wrongs; and it will puzzle him to find any wrongs to redress. As I see the case, my Lords, this promised revolt is actuated by personal jealousy and personal ambition. We are now asked: not merely to exchange an Emperor who has proved himself in every way worthy of our admiration and obedience for one of whose capacities we know little and whose intentions we suspect, but to run the risk of a bloody Civil War. For supposing that Caesar were persuaded to resign, would the armies necessarily acknowledge Scribonianus as their commander? There are several men of rank far more capable of undertaking the monarchy than Scribonianus. What is there to prevent some other corps-commander with four regular regiments at his back, instead of Scribonianus's two from setting himself up as a rival Emperor and marching on Rome? And even if Scribonianus's attempt were to succeed, which I regard as most unlikely; what of Vinicianus? Would he be content to bow the knee to the haughty Scribonianus? Has he not perhaps offered his support only on the understanding that the Empire shall be shared between them?' And if so, may we not expect another death-duel to be fought, as once between Pompey and the God Julius Caesar, and. again between Mark Antony and the God Augustus? No, my Lords. This is a case where our loyalty, our gratitude, and our interest go hand in hand. We must loyally support Tiberius Claudius Caesar if we wish to earn the thanks of the country, the approval of the Gods, and our own self-congratulations later when Vinicianus and Scribonianus have met the traitors' deaths that they so richly deserve.'

Then Rufrius spoke. `I regard it as unfortunate that the possibility of. the Guards' disloyalty has been so much as mentioned in this House. As their Commander I repudiate the notion that: even a single man will forget his duty to the Emperor. You must recall, my Lords, that it was the Guards who first called upon Tiberius Claudius Caesar, now the Father of the Country, to undertake the supreme command of the Army, and that this House was for a time unwilling to confirm their choice. It therefore ill befits a senator to suggest, that the Guards will be disloyal. No, as they were the first to acclaim Tiberius Claudius Caesar Emperor, so they will be the last to desert his cause. And if news reaches the Camp that the, Senate has decided to offer the supreme command to any other person - in that case, my Lords, I advise you immediately on reaching the decision either to fortify this edifice as best you can with barricades of benches and piles of cobble-stones, or to adjourn sine die and scatter in all directions.'

So I was given a unanimous vote of confidence and the Senate authorized, me to write to Scribonianus, informing him that he was suspended from his command and must return to Rome forthwith to explain himself. But Scribonianus never received my letter. He was already dead.

I shall tell you what had happened, Having succeeded, as he thought, in making himself very popular with his, troops by relaxation of discipline, plenty of free entertainments and a wine ration increased at his own expense, he had paraded the Seventh and Eleventh Regiments together in the local amphitheatre and told them that his life was in danger. He read them Vinicianus's letter, or most of it, and asked them whether they would stand by him in his attempt to deliver Rome from, a tyranny which seemed to be rapidly becoming as capricious and cruel as that of Caligula. `The Republic must be restored,' he shouted. `Only under the Republic has true liberty ever been enjoyed.' He sowed with the sack, as the saying is, and some of the seed seemed to sprout at once. The common soldiers smelt money in his tones: they liked money, and it seemed most unjust that so generous a commander should be sacrificed to my anger or jealousy. They cheered him, loudly, and also cheered Vinicianus, who had once commanded, the Eleventh Regiment; and swore to follow them both, if need be, to the ends of the earth. Scribonianus promised them ten gold pieces each, on the spot, a further forty each on arrival in Italy, and a further 100 each on the day that they marched victoriously into. Rome. He paid out the ten gold pieces and sent them back; to camp, ordering them to hold themselves in readiness for the coming campaign., The call would come as soon as the transports , arrived from Italy and the native levies were under arms. But Scribonianus had made a great mistake in underrating the loyalty and intelligence of his men. True, they could be easily worked up into a state of temporary indignation on his behalf and were not above accepting gifts in coin while in that mood; but an overt breach of their soldiers' oath was a different matter. That wasn't so easily bought. They would follow him to the ends of the earth; but not to Rome, its centre. It would take more than ten gold pieces a man to persuade them to embark for Italy, with a promise of forty more, on landing. To leave their province and invade Italy was to make rebellion, and the punishment for unsuccessful rebellion- was death, death in battle, or death under the executioner's sword - perhaps even death by flogging or crucifixion if the Emperor felt like making an example of them.

A meeting of officers was called to decide whether to follow Scribonianus or not. Some sympathy was expressed for him, but no great desire to resort to rebellion. In any case nobody wanted the Republic to be restored. Scribonianus had told them that he counted on their support, and hinted that he would give them over to the just fury of the common soldiers if they refused to join him in so glorious a cause as the restoration of ancient Roman liberties. They decided to play for time. They sent him a deputation informing him that they were not yet agreed among themselves, but would let him know of their common decision - if he would forgive them their conscientious hesitations - on the day that the expedition sailed. Scribonianus told them to please themselves - he

had plenty of capablemen to

put in their places- but warned them that if they declined to join him they must be prepared to die for their obstinacy. More important than this meeting of officers, there was also held a secret meeting of standard-bearers, sergeants, and corporals, all men of over twelve years' service and most of them married to Dalmatian women, because all their service had been done here: a Roman legion was almost never shifted from one province to another. The Seventh and Eleventh, in fact, looked on Dalmatia as their permanent home and had no interests or ideas beyond making themselves as comfortable as possible there and defending their possessions.

The Eagle-bearer of the Seventh addressed the meeting: `Lads, you' don't really intend to follow the General to Italy, do you? It looks like a very foolish adventure to me, quite apart from the matter of regimental honour. We've sworn allegiance to Tiberius Claudius Caesar, haven't we? He's proved himself' a decent man, hasn't he? He may have a down on old Scribonianus, but who knows on which side the right lies? Old Scribonianus can have his downs, we've all noticed. Why not leave the two of them to settle their own differences? I'm ready, to fight Germans, Moors, Parthians, Jews, Britons, Arabians, Chinese send me where you like - that's my job as an enlisted man. But I'm not going to do any fighting in Italy against the Guards Division. The Emperor's very popular with them, I'm told, and besides it's ridiculous in my opinion to think of us and them fighting each other. The General ought never to have asked us. Personally, I haven't spent that gift of his, and I don't intend to do so. My vote is that we call the whole business off.'

Everyone agreed. But the young soldiers and the hard cases old soldiers with bad characters had grown so excited now with the hope of easy money and plenty of loot that the question before the meeting was how to call, the rebellion off without, putting themselves into a false position. Someone had a sensible idea. A mutiny among these very regiments thirty years before had been quelled suddenly by an ominous sign from Heaven - an eclipse, followed by torrential rain: why not now provide another ominous sign to discourage the rebellion? So they decided on a suitable one.

Five days later the order came from Scribonianus for the regiments to march down to the port fully armed, rationed, and equipped, prepared to embark at once for Italy. The Eagle-bearers of the Seventh and Eleventh simultaneously reported to their commanders that they had been unable that morning to dress the Eagles in the customary, way with laurel garlands. The garlands had fallen off as soon as they tied them on, and immediately withered away! Then the standard-bearers-also came running in pretended consternation to report another miracle: the standards had refused to be pulled out from the earth into which they had been stuck! The officers were only too pleased to hear of these dreadful omens and reported them to Scribonianus. Scribonianus flew into a rage and came rushing into the camp of the Eleventh. `You say that the standards refuse to be moved, you, liars? .It's because you're a pack of cowards and haven't' the courage of dogs. Look! Who says that this standard can't be moved?' He went up to the nearest standard and heaved at it. He heaved and tugged and strained until the veins stood. out on his forehead like cords : but he couldn't so much as budge the thing. As a matter of fact, it had been secretly planted in concrete on the night of the meeting, and so had all the other standards, with earth heaped above. The concrete had set like rock.

Scribonianus saw that all was lost.. He shook his fist at Heaven and running down to the port jumped aboard his private yacht and told his crew to cast off and stand out to sea at once. He was making for Italy, intending, I suppose, to warn Vinicianus of his failure. But instead the crew put him ashore at the island of Lissa, near Corfu, suspecting that his plans had gone astray and not wishing to have anything more to do with him. One freedman alone remained with him and was present when he committed suicide. Vinicianus also killed himself when the news reached him a day or two later; so did most of his fellow-rebels. The revolt was over.

I shall not pretend that I did not spend an anxious ten days -

In between addressing the Senate and hearing the happy news of Scribonianus's failure. I grew very excitable, and if it had not been for Xenophon's exertions I should probably have had a serious return of my old nervous trouble. But he dosed me with this and that and kept me well massaged and encouraged me, in his dry way, to have no fears for the future; and so steered me through without serious damage to my health. A verse of Homer's stuck in my head and I kept repeating it to everyone I met:

Do thou resist that man with all thy might Who, unprovoked, provokes thee to a fight.

I even gave it to Rufrius one day as a watchword. Messalina teased me about it, but I had an answer ready: 'It stuck in Homer's mind too. He used it again and again. Once in the Iliad and two or three times in the Odyssey.' Messalina's devotion was a great comfort, and so were the loyal shouts of the citizens and the soldiers whenever I appeared in public, and the confidence that the Senate seemed to feel in me.

I rewarded the Seventh and Eleventh by asking the Senate to rename them `The Loyal Claudian Regiments', and on Messalina's insistence (Vitellius agreed with her that it was no occasion for an amnesty) I put to death the principal rebels who survived. I did not, however, execute them summarily, as I had executed Silanus, but gave them each in turn a formal trial. The procedure that I adopted was to read the charge sitting on a chair of state with the Consuls standing one on either side of me. I would then retire to my ordinary seat and the Consuls would call for their own chairs of state and conduct the trial as judges. I happened to be suffering from a severe cold, which reduced my voice, never very strong, to a whisper; but I had Narcissus, Polybius, and the Guards colonels at my side, and if I wished to cross-examine a prisoner or witness I would hand one of them a list of questions to ask on my behalf, or whisper them to him. Narcissus made the best mouthpiece, so I employed him more often than the rest: this caused a misunderstanding. He was later represented by my enemies as having conducted the prosecution on his own initiative - a mere freedman prosecuting noble Romans, what a scandal 1 Narcissus certainly had a very assured, independent manner and I must admit that I joined in the general laugh against him, when Scribonianus's faithful freedman, whom he was cross-examining, proved his master in repartee.

NARCISSUS: You were a, freedman of Furius Camillus Scribonianus's? You were present at his death?

FREEDMAN: I was.

NARCISSUS: You were in his confidence about this intended rebellion? You knew who his confederates were?

FREEDMAN: You wish to suggest that I was unworthy of his confidence? That if he had confederates, as you call them, in this alleged rebellion I should betray them?

NARCISSUS: I suggest nothing. I am asking you a plain question of fact.

FREEDMAN: Then I give you a plain answer. I do not remember.

NARCISSUS: Not remember?

FREEDMAN: His last words to me were: 'Whatever I have said to you in this matter, forget. Let my secrets die with me.'

NARCISSUS: Ah, then I may assume that you were in his confidence.

FREEDMAN: Assume whatever you like. It does not interest me. My master's dying injunctions were to forget. I have obeyed him implicitly.

NARCISSUS (striding forward angrily Into the middle of the floor, so that he actually obscured my view of the witness): A very honest freedman, by Hercules. And tell me, fellow, what would you have done if Scribonianus had made himself Emperor?

FREEDMAN (with sudden warmth): I should have stood behind him, fellow, and kept my mouth shut.

Fifteen rebel noblemen or ex noblemen were put to death, but only one of these was a senator, one Juncus, a magistrate of the first rank, and I made him resign his office before I condemned him. The other senators had committed suicide before arrest. Contrary to the usual custom, I did not confiscate the estates of the executed rebels, but let their heirs inherit as if they had decently killed themselves. In three or four cases, indeed, where their estates were found to be greatly encumbered by debt - the reason probably for their participation in the rebellion I actually made the heirs a present of money.. It has been said that Narcissus took bribes to cover up evidence of guilt against certain rebels: this is certainly an invention. I conducted the preliminary inquiries myself self with Polybius's help and took down depositions. Narcissus did not have the opportunity of suppressing any evidence. Messalina, however, had access to the papers and may have destroyed some of them; I cannot, say whether she did or not. But neither Narcissus nor Polybius handled them except in my presence. It has also been said that freedmen and citizens were put to the torture in an attempt to extract evidence from them: This is also untrue. A few slaves were racked, but not to force them to give evidence against their masters, only to make them give evidence against certain freedmen whom I suspected of perjury. The origin of the report that I tortured freedmen and citizens must probably be found in the case of certain of Vinicianus's slaves to whom he gave their freedom, when he saw that the rebellion had failed, to prevent them giving evidence against him under torture; he pre-dated their freedom, in the deed of manumission, by twelve months. This was an illegal procedure, or at any rate the men were still liable to be examined under torture, by a law passed under Tiberius to prevent this sort of evasion. One so-called citizen was put to torture when it was discovered that he had no claims to be regarded as such. Juncus indeed protested at his trial that he had been grossly maltreated in prison. He appeared swathed in bandages, with severe cuts on his face, but Rufrius testified that it was a downright lie; the injuries were due to his having resisted arrest - leaping naked from a bedroom window at Brindisi and trying to break through a quickset hedge. Two Guards captains confirmed this.

However, Juncus had his revenge on Rufrius. `If I must die, Rufrius,' he said, `then I shall take-you with me.' Then he turned to me: `Caesar, your trusted Commander of the Guards hates and despises you as much as I do. Paetus and I interviewed him, on Vinicianus's behalf, asking him whether on the arrival of the forces from Dalmatia he would bring over the Guards to our side. He undertook to do so, but only on condition that he Scribonianus, and Vinicianus should share the Empire between them. Deny this, Rufrius, if you dare.'

I arrested Rufrius on the spot. At first he tried to laugh off the charge, but Paetus, one of the rebel knights awaiting trial, supported Juncus's evidence, and finally he broke down and pleaded for mercy. I gave him the mercy of being his own executioner.

A few women were also executed. I did not see why a woman's sex should protect her from punishment if she had been guilty of fomenting rebellion, particularly a woman who had not married a man in the strict form of marriage but had kept her independence and her own property, and so could not plead coercion. They were brought to the scaffold in chains, just like their husbands, and on the whole showed much greater courage in facing death. One woman, Arria, Paetus's wife but a close friend of Messalina's, married in the strict form, could no doubt have won a pardon if she had dared to sue for one. But no, she preferred to die with Paetus. Paetus, as a reward for his evidence in the case of Rufrius, was allowed to commit suicide before any charge was formally brought against him. He was a coward and could not nerve himself to fall on his sword. Arria snatched it from him and drove it home under her own ribs. `Look, Paetus,' she said as she died, `it doesn't hurt.'

The most distinguished person to die because of complicity in this rebellion was my niece Julia (Helen the Glutton). I was glad to have a good excuse for getting rid of her. It was she who had betrayed her husband, my poor nephew Nero, to Sejanus and had got him banished to the island where he died. Tiberius afterwards showed his contempt for her by giving her in marriage to Blandus, a vulgar knight of no family. Helen was jealous of Messalina's beauty as well as of her power: she had lost her own great beauty because of her passion for food and her indolence, and become excessively stout; however, Vinicianus was one of those little rat-like men who have the same love for women of abundant charms as rats have for large pumpkins; and if he had become Emperor, as he intended, knowing himself more than a match for Rufrius and Scribonianus combined, Helen the Glutton would have become his Empress. It was Vinicianus who betrayed her to Messalina, as a, token of his loyalty to us.

Chapter 15

So I was still Emperor and my hopes of a safe and speedy return to private life were dashed. I began to tell myself that Augustus had been sincere in the speeches which he made from time to time about soon restoring the Republic, and that even my uncle Tiberius had not been so false as I suspected when he talked of resignation. Yes, it was easy enough for a private citizen to be a staunch Republican and grumble: `Why, what could there be simpler than to choose a moment of general tranquillity, resign and hand the government over to the Senate?' The difficulty could only be understood if that private citizen were to become Emperor himself. It lay in the phrase `moment of tranquillity' there were no moments of tranquillity. There were always disturbing factors in the situation. One said, sincerely enough, 'Perhaps in six months' time, perhaps in a year's time.' But the six months passed and the year passed; and even if some disturbing factors in the situation had been successfully disposed of, new ones were sure to have sprung up to take their places. I was determined to hand the government over as soon as the confusion left behind by Tiberius and Caligula had been cleared up and I had encouraged the Senate to recover its self-respect - one cannot have liberty without self-respect - by treating it as a responsible legislative body. Yet I could not be more respectful to the Senatorial Order than it deserved. I put the best available men into it, but the tradition of subservience to the Imperial pleasure was hard to break down. They suspected my good-nature, and whispered ill-manneredly to each other behind their hands if I behaved with natural affability towards them; and then if I suddenly lost my temper with them, as sometimes happened, they would suddenly fall silent and tremble like a lot of naughty schoolboys who have trespassed on the forbearance of an easy-going master. No, I could not give up yet. I was thoroughly ashamed of myself, in theory, as having been forced to put to death the leaders of an abortive anti-monarchical revolt; but in practice what else could I have done?

I brooded over the problem. Wasn't it Plato who wrote that the only sound excuse that anyone can offer for ruling is that by doing so he avoids being ruled by people inferior in talents to himself ? There's something in that. But I was afraid, on the contrary, that, if I resigned, my place would be taken by someone superior in talents (though, I flattered myself, not in industry) - for example, Galba or Gabinius, from the Rhine, so that the monarchy would become stronger than ever and the Republic never be restored. In any case, the moment of tranquillity had not come. I must get to work again.

The rebellion and its aftermath had interrupted public business and put me back a couple of months in my schedule. To gain time I abolished several more unnecessary public holidays. When theNew Year came I took on my third consulship, with Vitellius as my colleague, but resigned after two months in favour of Asiaticus. This was one of the most important years in my life - the year of my expedition to Britain. But before I come to that I must write about a few domestic matters. It was time now for my daughter Antonia to marry young Pompey - a ,capable young man and apparently well-disposed to me. I did not, however, allow the ceremony to be made the subject of any great public rejoicing - I celebrated it quietly at home. I did not wish it to be thought that I regarded my son-in-law as a member of the Imperial House. In fact, I did not care to think of my family as the Imperial House: we were not an Eastern dynasty - we were Julio-Claudians and no better or worse than the Cornelians, Camillam, Servians, Junians, or any other leading family. Nor did I wish my little son to be honoured above all other children of noble birth. The Senate asked permission to celebrate his birthday with Games at the public expense, but I refused this. However, the first-rank magistrates on their own initiative did observe his first birthday with a magnificent spectacle and banquet for which they paid themselves: and this practice was followed by their successors. It would have been discourteous not to have thanked them for their goodwill towards me, and the Games pleased Messalina greatly. All that I did for young Pompey was to allow him to stand for his first magistracy five years before the usual time and to make him City Warden during the Latin holidays. Pompey was descended from Pompey the Great through his maternal grandmother, the Pompey heiress: through her he inherited the family masks and statues and was able to adopt the name. I was proud to be able to link the name of Caesar with that of Pompey after so many generations. My grandmother Octavia had been offered in marriage by Julius Caesar to Pompey the Great nearly 100 years before this, but he had refused her and quarrelled with Julius. Later she married Mark Antony and became the great-grandmother of my daughter Antonia, whom I was now marrying to a great-great-grandson of Pompey.

The State finances were still in rather a difficult way, in spite of retrenchment. The world harvests continued to be poor and I had to devote a great deal of money to buying corn at high prices in distant markets. Among other economies I asked for the return of public revenues which had been granted by Caligula to certain of his favourites - charioteers, actors, and so on - as permanent pensions. I had been unaware that these were still being paid, for Callistus never mentioned them to me. He was probably bribed by the pensioners to keep quiet about them. I arrived at one important decision. Since the time of Augustus the charge of the Public Treasury had been taken from the usual Treasury officials, who formed the lowest of magistrates, - and given to the first-rank magistrates. In practice, however, these first-rank magistrates, though acting .as paymasters and receivers of revenue, did not do much more than take in or pay out the sums indicated to them by the Emperor, whose freedmen kept all Treasury accounts. I decided to return the charge of the Treasury to the original Treasury officials, who were now employed in other ways - the government of Lombardy, the collection of harbor-dues at Ostia, and so on - and give them a chance to understand State finances thoroughly; so that when the change-over came from monarchical to republican government there would be no confusion. At present the Treasury accounts, which were never auditedexcept by

myself, were wholly managed by Callistus and his clerks. But I did not wish any of these officials to take advantage of their position to rob the Treasury - it was, unfortunately, easier to trust freedmen than men of rank. So I only made those men eligible for the post who would undertake to present Public Games at their own expense during their term of office: rich men, I argued, are less likely to rob the State than poor ones. The young men (chose were obliged, for one whole year before their appointment, to attend every day at the New Palace and study Treasury routine. Each on appointment, was then given a Treasury department under myself - still, of course, represented by Callistus - with a freedman, the head-clerk of that department, as his adviser and secretary. The plan worked well. Freedmen and officials kept check on each other. I instructed Callistus that the cipher-like communications between departments must cease and correct Latin or Greek long-hand be substituted : the new officials must be allowed to understand what was going on.

In the same spirit I did my best to inculcate a high sense of duty in all magistrates and governors. For instance, I insisted that senators who had been chosen by lot in the New Year to administer provinces (the home provinces I mean, as opposed to frontier provinces whose military governors I nominated myself in my capacity as Commander-in-Chief) should not hang about in Rome, as they usually did, until June or July when the weather made sailing pleasant, but be on their way by the middle of April.

Messalina and I were making a thorough revision of the Roll of Citizens, into which a great number of quite unworthy persons had inserted themselves I left most of this business to her and thousands of names were removed and tens of thousands added. I had no objection to the enlargement of the Roll. The Roman citizenship gave all who held it an immense advantage over freedmen, provincials, and foreigners, and so long as it was not made either too inclusive or too exclusive a guild, but kept at the right proportion to the great mass of the population in the Roman dominion - say, about one citizen to every six or seven others it, was a great steadying factor in world politics. I only insisted that the new citizens should be men of substance, honest parentage, and good reputation, that they should be able to speak Latin, that they should have a sufficient education in Roman law, religion, and ethics, and that they should dress and comport themselves in a manner worthy of the honour. Any applicant with the necessary qualifications who was sponsored by a senator of good standing I put on, the list. I expected him, however, to make a gift proportionate to his means to the Public Treasury, from which he would now benefit in a variety of ways. Persons who could find no sponsor applied to me indirectly through my secretaries, and Messalina then inquired into their antecedents. Those whom she recommended I put on the list without further question. I did not realize at the time that she was charging applicants a heavy fee for her interest with me and that the freedmen, notably Amphaeus, and Polybius whom I had temporarily transferred to this duty, were making enormous sums of money too. Many senators who sponsored candidates for citizenship got wind of this and began to take money under the table (as the saying is) and some even advertised in a cautious way through their agents that they made a more reasonable charge for their patronage than any other senator in the business. I knew nothing about this at the time, though. I suppose that they thought I was getting money from the business myself, using Messalina as my agent; and so would wink at their own practices.

I was aware, I own, that many of my secretaries received money-presents from suitors. I discussed this point with them one day. I said: `I permit you to take presents: but I forbid you to solicit them. I shall not wrong you by suggesting that you could be bribed to commit any falsification, or other irregularity, and I don't see why you should not be rewarded for doing favours for people which take your time and energy, and for, ceteris paribus, giving priority to their business. If a hundred applications for the same favour are sent in simultaneously and there is nothing to choose between the candidates, yet only ten can have their applications granted - well, I should think you foolish not to choose the ten who are capable of showing the most gratitude. My loyal friend and ally, King Herod Agrippa, is fond of quoting a Jewish proverb or rather a Jewish law which has won proverbial force - "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn". That is appropriate and just. But I don't want any indecent haggling or auctioning of favours and priorities; and if I find that any of my oxen devote more of their attention to snatching mouthfuls of corn than to treading it out, I shall take them straight from the threshing-floor to the slaughter-house.'

My new Commander of the Guards was called Justus; I had called up the other Guards colonels to suggest one of their number for the appointment, and though I would have preferred someone other than Justus I accepted their choice. Justus took too meddling an interest in politics for a mere soldier: for instance, he came to me, one day and informed me that some of the new citizens I had created were not adopting my name, as they should do in loyalty, or altering their wills in my favour, as they should do in gratitude. He had a list already prepared of these ungrateful and disloyal men and asked whether I wished to have charges framed against them; I silenced him by asking him whether his recruits made a practice of adopting his name and altering their wills in his favour. Justus took the trouble to tell me this, but neither he nor anyone else let me know that not only was Messalina selling the citizenship and encouraging others to sell it; but, more shameful still, was being paid huge sums of money in return for her influence with me in the choice of magistrates, governors, and military commanders. In some cases she not only exacted the money but I might as well tell you at once insisted on the man sleeping with her as a seal to the bargain. The most shameful thing of all was that she brought me into it without my knowledge: telling them that I had cast her off in scorn of her beauty, but allowed her to choose what bed-fellows she liked on condition that she persuaded them to pay a good price for the appointments which I gave her to sell on my behalf ! However, I knew nothing about any of this at the time, and flattered myself that I was doing well enough and acting in an upright way that should command the affection and gratitude of the whole nation.

In my self-confident ignorance I did one particularly stupid thing: I listened to Messalina's advice on the subject of monopolies. You must remember how clever she was and how slow-witted I was, and how much I relied on her: she could persuade me to almost anything. She said to me one day: 'Claudius, I have been thinking about something; and that is, that the nation would be much more prosperous if competition between rival merchants were to be suppressed by law.'

`What do you mean, my dear?' I asked.

`Let me explain by analogy. Suppose that in our governmental system we had no departments. Suppose that every secretary in this place were free to move from job to job just as he thought fit. Suppose that Callistus were to come rushing into your study one morning and say: "I got here first and I want to do Narcissus's secretarial work this morning," and then Narcissus, arriving a moment later and finding his stool occupied by Callistus, were to dash into Felix's room, just in time to anticipate Felix, and begin work on some foreign-affairs document that Felix had not quite finished drawing up the night before. That would be ridiculous, wouldn't it?'

`Very ridiculous. But I don't see what this has to do with merchants.'

`I'll show you. The trouble with merchants is that they won't stick to a single task or let their rivals stick to one. None of them is interested in serving the community, but merely in finding the easiest way of making money. A merchant may start with an inherited business as a wine-importer, and manage that soberly for a while, and then suddenly break into the oil-business, underselling some old-established firm in his neighbourhood; perhaps he will force this firm out of business or buy it up, and then perhaps dabble in the fig-trade or slave-trade and either crush competitors or get crushed himself. Trade is constant fighting, and the mass of the population suffers from it, just like non-combatants in a war.'

'Do you really think so? Often they get things surprisingly cheap when one merchant is underselling another merchant or when he goes bankrupt.'

`You might as well say that sometimes non-combatants can get quite good pickings from a battle-field scrap-metal, the hides and shoes of dead horses, enough sound parts of broken chariots to build one good one with. Those windfalls aren't to be reckoned against the burning of their farms and the trampling down of their crops.' `Are merchants as bad as all that? They never struck me as being anything but useful servants of the State.'

'They could be and ought to be useful. But they do great harm j by their lack of co-operation and their insane jealous competition. The word goes round, for example, that there's to be a demand for coloured marble from Phrygia, or Syrian silk, or ivory from Africa, or Indian pepper; and for fear of missing a chance they scramble for the market like mad dogs. Instead of persisting with their ordinary lines of commerce, they rush their ships to the new centre of excitement, with orders to their captains tobring as

much marble, pepper, silk, or ivory as possible at whatever cost; and then of course the foreigners raise the prices.' Two hundred shiploads of pepper or silk are brought home at great expense when there is really only a demand for twenty, and the hundred and eighty ships could have been far better employed in importing other things for which there would have been a; demand and for which a fair price could have been got. Obviously trade ought to be centrally controlled in the same way as armies and law-courts and religion and everything else is controlled.'

I asked her how she would control trade if I gave her the chance.

`Why, that's simple enough,' she answered. `I should grant monopolies:'

`Caligula granted monopolies,' I said, `and sent prices up with a rush.'

'He sold monopolies to the highest bidder, and of course prices went up. I shouldn't do that. And my monopolies wouldn't be so huge as Caligula's. He sold one man the world's trading-rights in figs! I'd simply calculate a normal year's demand: for any given commodity and then freely allocate that trade for the next two years to one firm or more of traders. I should, for instance, grant the sole right to import and sell Cyprian wines to such-and-such a firm, and the sole right to import and sell Egyptian glass to such-and-such a firm; and Baltic amber and Tyrian purple and British enamel would go to other firms. Control trade like this and there is no competition, so the foreign manufacturer or dealer in raw materials can't put up the price; "take, it or leave it", says the trader, as he fixes the price himself. The traders who have not sufficient standing to be granted monopolies must either come to terms with monopoly-holders, if the latter think that they have more trade than they can manage themselves,, or must discover new industries or trades. If h had my way everything would be thoroughly orderly and we should be well supplied, and the State would get bigger harbour-dues than ever.'

I agreed that it sounded a very sensible plan; and one good effect would be to release a large number of ships and merchants for the corn trade. I immediately empowered her to grant a large number of monopolies, never suspecting that the clever woman had talked me over to her scheme merely with an eye to enormous bribes that she would get from the merchants. Six months later the removal of competition in the monopoly trades, which included necessaries as well as luxuries, had sent prices up to a most ridiculous height the merchants were recovering from the consumers what they had paid in bribes to Messalina - and the City became more restless than at any time since the famine-winter. I was continually shouted at in the streets by the crowd, and there was nothing for me to do but to set up a-big platform on Mars Field, from which, with the help of a big-voiced Guards captain, I fixed the prices, for the ensuing twelve months, of the commodities affected. I based the prices on those of the previous twelve months, as far as I was able to get accurate figures and then of course all the monopolists came to the Palace afterwards to beg me to modify my decision in their own particular cases, because they were poor men and beggary was facing their starving families, and nonsense of that sort. I told them that if they could not make their monopolies pay at the prices now fixed they could retire in favour of other traders with better business methods; and then warned them to go away at once before I charged them with `waging war against the State' and threw them from the Capitoline cliff. They made no further protests but tried to beat me by withdrawing their goods from the market altogether. However, as soon as any complaints reached me that a certain class of goods, say pickled fish from Macedonia or medicinal drugs from Crete - was not reaching the City in sufficient quantities I added another firm to those already sharing the monopoly.

I was always most attentive to the City food-supply. I instructed the steward of my Italian estates to devote as much land as possible in the neighbourhood of the City to the growing of vegetables for the City Market, especially cabbage, onion, lettuce, endive, leek, skirret, and other winter vegetables. My physician Xenophon told me that the frequent outbreaks of disease in the poorer' quarters of Rome in the winter months were largely due to the scarcity of green vegetables. I wanted an abundant supply raised, brought in -every day before: dawn and sold at the lowest possible prices: I also encouraged pig, poultry, and cattle-breeding; and a year or two later won special privileges from the Senate for City butchers and wine-sellers. There was some opposition in the Senate to these grants. The Senators themselves were supplied from their own country estates and were not interested in the people's food. Asiaticus said: `Cold water, bread, beans, pulse porridge, and cabbage are good enough for working-men. Why pamper them with wine and butchers' meat?' I protested against Asiaticus's inhumanity and asked him whether he preferred cold water to Chian wine, or cabbage to roast venison. He answered that he had been brought up on a rich diet and would find it quite impossible to change to the simpler sort, but that no doubt he would be a hardier man if he could, and that it was wrong to encourage poor men to a diet above their station.

`Iappeal to

you, my Lords,' I protested, trembling with vexation, `what man is able to live a self-respecting life without a little bit of meat now and then?' The House seemed to think this funny. I didn't. And the same thing happened at the end of the same debate when I was on the subject of the wine-sellers. `They want encouragement,' I said. `There has been a great falling off in the number of wine-shops even in the last five years : I mean honest jug-and-bottle houses, not those dirty places that I have had shut up now where they sold cooked meat as well as wine and what wine too! Awful stuff, for the most part, doctored with salts of lead - and a brothel full of diseased women attached, with pornographic pictures smudged on the wall. Why, five years ago, within a quarter of a mile of my house on the Palatine, there were at least fifteen - no, what am I saying? at least twenty-five jug-and-bottle houses, and now there aren't more than three or four. And they served good wine too. There was "The Flask", and "The Bacchus", and "The Veteran", and "The Two Brothers", and "The Glory of Agrippa", and "The Swan" (" The Swan's" still in business, but the others are gone - the best wine came from "The Two Brothers"), and the "Baucis and Philemon" - that's disappeared too, a very pleasant place. And so has "The Yew Tree" - I liked the old "Yew Tree".

How they laughed at me! They were all men who kept their own cellars and had probably never been into a wine-shop to buy drink in their life. I silenced them with an angry look. I said: `You may recall that five years ago, owing to the, caprices of my nephew, the late Emperor, I went bankrupt and was forced to live on the charity of my friends - not a man of you among them, by the way - real friends, such as a few, grateful freedmen, a girl prostitute, and an old slave or two: I visited those taverns to buy wine because my cellar was up for public auction along with my house, of which I could only afford to occupy a few rooms. So I know what I'm talking about: And I hope that if any of you happen to fall a victim to the caprices of an Emperor and find yourself in poverty you will remember this debate, and regret that, you have not voted for the maintenance of a proper supply of butcher's meat in the City and for the preservation of such honest wineshops as the old " Swan", ,"The Coronet' and "The Black Dog", which are still in business but won't survive long if you don't do something for them. To Hell with cold water and pulse-porridge! And if I see so much as a smile cross your faces, my Lords, before I have finished this speech - or after - I shall take it as a personal affront.'

I was really angry, shaking with anger, and I saw the fear of death gradually stealing over them. They passed my motion without a single contrary vote.

My success gave me momentary pleasure, but afterwards I felt deeply ashamed and made things worse by apologizing to them for my ill-temper. They thought that I was showing weakness and timidity by doing so. Now, I wish to make it clear that I had not been using my Imperial power, contrary to all my most cherished principles of equality and justice and human self-respect, to bully and browbeat the Senate. I had just felt outraged by Asiaticus and the rest of those rich heartless men who treated their fellow-citizens like dirt. I was not threatening, I was merely expostulating. But those words of mine were used against me afterwards by my enemies, in spite of my apology for them and in spite of the following letter that I composed and circulated in the City:

Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, Emperor, High Pontiff Protector of the People, Consul for the third time, to the Senate and People of Rome, greetings.

I am aware of a certain failing in myself, which distresses me perhaps more than it distresses you, because one grieves more for a trouble of one's, own making than for trouble that comes upon one from another source, particularly from some powerful source over which one has little or no control, such as lightning, disease, hail, or the severity of a judge: I refer to the sudden bursts of anger to which I have been increasingly subject since I first assumed the burden of government that, against my inclinations, you laid on me. For example, the other day I sent word to the citizens of Ostia that I was coming to view the progress of the excavations at their new port, sailing down the Tiber, and that they might expect me about noon, and that if they had any complaints to make about the behaviour of my army of workmen there or any petitions to offer I should be pleased to attend to them; but when I reached Ostia no boat put out to meet me and no group of city officials was waiting at the quay. I was incensed and sent for the leading men of the city, including the chief magistrate and the harbour-master, and addressed them in the most violent terms, asking why it was that I had become so contemptible and worthless in their eyes that there was not even a sailor there ready to tie my yacht up to the quay when I landed, and I supposed that they would charge me a fee for entering their port at all, and what sort of ingrates were the men of Ostia to growl and snap at the hand that fed them, or at the best, to turn away from it with indifference? However, a simple explanation was offered: my message had never reached them. They apologized, and I apologized, and we became the best of friends again, no ill-will remaining on either side. But I suffered more from my anger than they did, because they were not conscious of any wrong-doings when I shouted at them, whereas I was most ashamed, afterwards, to have insulted them.

So let me confess that I am subject to these fits of anger but, beg you to bear with me in them. They never last long and are quite harmless: my physician Xenophon says that they are due to over-work, like my insomnia. Recently I have been unable to sleep after midnight; the distant rumble of country wagons coming into the City with market-stuff keeps me awake until dawn, when I sometimes am lucky enough to snatch an hour's sleep. That's why I am often so sleepy at the law-courts after luncheon.

Another fault to which I must, confess is my tendency to bear malice: I cannot lay the blame for this on over-work or ill-health, but I can and do say that any malice to which I may from time to time give way is never wholly unjustified or due to an irrational dislike' of a man's features or bearing or to jealousy of his property or parts. It is always based on some unprovoked personal injury once done to me for which apology has never been offered or other satisfaction made. For example, on my first visit to the law-courts - shortly after my accession to settle the cases of men charged with treason I noticed the same audacious court-official who had once done his best to curry favour with my nephew, the late Emperor, at my expense, on the occasion that I was unjustly charged with forgery. He had then exclaimed, pointing at me: `One can read guilt written all over his face. Why prolong proceedings? Condemn him at once, Caesar.' Was it not natural for me to remember this? I cried to the fellow as he, cringed towards me at my entry: `I can read guilt in your, face. Leave this court and never appear in any court of law in Rome again!

You all know the old patrician saying: Aquila non captat muscas. The eagle is the noble soul and he does not hawk for flies, which means that he does not pursue petty ends, or go out of his way to revenge himself on mean little men that have provoked him. But let me quote an enlargement made many years ago by my noble brother, Germanicus Caesar 'Captat non muscas aquila; at quaeque advolat ultroFaucibus augustis, musca proterva perit.'

Bear all this mind and we shall have no misunderstandings but remain bound in the mutual affection which we have so often protested to each other. Farewell.

(The couplet, translated, means: `The eagle does not hawk for flies, but if any impudent fly comes buzzing of its own free will into his august throat, that's the end of the creature.')

My execution of Appius Silanus had been the pretext for the revolt; so to show that I entertained no enmity against his family I arranged for his eldest son, Marcus Silanus, Augustus's great-great-grandson and born in the year that he died, to be Consul in four years' time: and I also promised Appius's youngest son, Lucius Silanus, who had come with his father from Spain to live with us at the Palace, to betroth my daughter Octavia to him as soon as she was able to understand the betrothal ceremony.

Chapter 16

BRITAIN lies in a northerly position, but the climate, though very damp, is. not nearly so cold as one would expect; if properly drained the country could be made extremely fruitful. The aboriginal inhabitants, a small, dark-haired people, were dispossessed about the time that Rome was founded, by an invasion of Celts from the south-east. Some still maintain themselves independently in small settlements in inaccessible mountains or marshes; the rest became serfs and mixed their blood with that of their conquerors. I use the word `Celts' in the most general sense to cover the many nations which have appeared in Europe in the course of the last few centuries, travelling westward from some remote region lying to the north of the Indian mountains. They have, some authorities hold, been driven from this region, not by any love of wandering or by the pressure of stronger tribes on their borders, but by a slow natural catastrophe on an enormous scale, the gradual drying-up of immense tracts of fertile land which hitherto maintained them. Among these Celts; if the word is to have any true significance, I should reckon not only most of the inhabitants of France - but the Aquitanians are Iberian aborigines - and the many nations of Germany and the Balkans, but even the Achaean Greeks, who had established themselves for some time in the Upper Danube valley before pushing southward into Greece. Yes, the Greeks are comparatively new-comers to Greece. They displaced the native Pelasgians, who derived their culture from Crete, and brought new Gods with them, the chief of these being Apollo. This happened not long before the Trojan War; the Dorian Greeks came still later - eighty years after the Trojan War. Other Celts of the same race invaded France and Italy at about the same time, and the Latin language is derived from their speech. It was then, too, that the first Celtic invasion of Britain took place. These Celts, whose language is akin to primitive Latin, were called Goidels - a tall, sandy-haired, big-limbed, boastful, excitable but noble race, gifted in all the, arts, including fine weaving . and metal-work, music and poetry; they still survive, in Northern Britain, in the same state of civilization as has been immortalized for the Greeks, now so greatly changed, in the verses of Homer.

Four or five hundred years later another Celtic nation appeared in Northern Europe, namely, those tribes that we call Galates. They invaded Macedonia, after the death of Alexander, and crossed into Asia Minor, occupying the region which is now called Galatia, after them. They also entered Northern Italy, where they broke the power of the Etruscans, penetrating as far as Rome, where they defeated us at the Allia and burned our City. This same nation occupied most of France, though their predecessors remained in the centre, the north-west, and the south-east. These Galates are also a gifted people; though inferior to the earlier Celts in arts, they are more united in spirit and finer fighting men. They are of middle stature with brown. or black hair, round chins, and straight noses. About the time of the Allia disaster some tribes of this nation invaded Britain by way of Kent, the south-eastern district of the island, and compelled the Goidels to spread out fanwise before them, so that these are now only found, except as serfs, in the North of Britain and in the neighbouring island of Ireland. The Galates who went to Britain became known as the Brythons, or painted men, because they used caste-marks of blue dye on their faces and bodies, and have given their name to the whole island. 'However,' 200 years later still came a third race of Celts moving up the Rhine from Central Europe. These were the people whom we call the Belgians, the same that are now settled along the Channel Coast and are known as the best fighting men in France. They are a mixed race, akin to the Galates but with German blood in them; they have light hair, big chins, and aquiline noses. They invaded Britain by way of Kent and established themselves in the whole southern part of the island with the exception of the south-west corner, which was still occupied by the Brythons and their Goidel serfs. These Belgians kept in close touch with their kinsmen across the Channel (one of their kings ruled on both sides of the water), trading with them constantly and even sending armed help to them in their wars with Julius Caesar; as in the south-west Brythons traded with and sent help to their kinsmen, the Galates of the Loire.

So. much for the races of Britain; now for the story of their contact with the power of Rome. The first invasion of Britain was made 108 years ago by Julius Caesar. He had found numerous Britons fighting in the ranks of his enemies, the Belgians and the Galates of the Loire, and he thought that the island should now be taught to respect the power of Rome. He could nothope to

keep France pacified so long as Britain remained a safe place of refuge for the more stubborn of his enemies and a starting-point for new attempts to recover the independence of their country. Next he wished, for political reasons, to gain some remarkable military glory to balance his colleague Pompey's victories. His victories in Spain and France had been an answer to Pompey's in Syria and Palestine, and a campaign in distant Britain could be set off against Pompey's feats among the remote nations of the Caucasus. Lastly, he needed money. The Loire traders and the Channel traders seemed to do very well out of Britain, and Julius wanted to have the market for himself, first exacting a heavy tribute from the islanders. He knew that there was gold in Britain, for gold pieces from there were circulating freely in France. (It was, by the way, an interesting coinage: the original model was the gold stater of Philip of Macedon, which had. come to Britain by way of the Danube and Rhine, but the design had become so, debased in course of time that of the two horses of the chariot only one remained, the. charioteer and chariot having become a mere pattern; of Apollo's laurelled head only the laurel, was left..) Britain is not, as a matter of fact, particularly rich in gold, and though the tin mines of the south-west were once of importance the Carthaginians traded there - and are still worked, the chief supply of tin for Rome now comes from the tin islands off the coast of Galicia. There is some silver in Britain, and copper and lead, and there are important iron-workings on the south-east coast, and fresh-water pearls of a good quality, though small and not to be compared with the Oriental variety. There is no amber, except for tidewashed pieces - it comes from the Baltic - but very fine jet, and other valuable exports,, including slaves,-skins, wool, flax, domestic animals, enamelled bronze, blue dye, wickerwork baskets, and corn. Julius was most interested in gold and slaves; although he knew that the slaves that he, would get from the island would not be of particularly high quality - the women are by no means seductive and have fierce tempers, and the men, except those of the upper classes who make excellent coachmen, only fitted for the roughest sort of farm-labour. He could not expect to find among them cooks, goldsmiths, musicians, barbers, secretaries, or accomplished courtesans. The average price they would fetch at Rome would not exceed forty gold pieces.

He twice invaded Britain by way of the south-east, as the Goidels, Brythons, and Belgians had all done in their turn. On the first occasion the Britons hotly disputed his landing and gave a good account of themselves: so that apart from some hostages which he took from the men of Kent he accomplished little, only advancing ten miles inland. On the second occasion, however, profiting from his experiences, he landed with a strong force - 20,000 men; before, only 10,000. He marched from Sandwich, a point close to the French coast, along the southern bank of the Thames estuary, forcing first the passage of the River Stour and then that of the Thames near London. He was making for the territory of the Catuvellaunians, a Belgic tribe whose king bad become the overlord of several petty kings in the south and east of the island: his capital city was - Wheathampstead, some, twenty-five miles north-east of London. By `city I do not of course mean a city in the Graeco-Roman sense, but a big settlement of wattle-and-daub huts and a few huts of undressed stone. It was this king Cassivellaunus, who organized the resistance against Julius; but he found that while his cavalry and chariotry were superior to the French cavalry that Julius had brought with, him, his infantry could not compete with the Roman infantry. He decided that his best tactics were to dispense with infantry altogether and with his cavalry and chariots prevent the Roman army from deploying. Julius found that he could not safely send foraging parties out except in compact bodies with cavalry supports; the British chariot-fighters had perfected the technique of surprising and cutting off stragglers and small groups. So long as the Roman army remained in column of march the damage that it could inflict by the burning of cornfields and hamlets was of no great importance; and the Britons always had plenty of time to get their women and children and cattle to a safe place. Once across the Thames, however, Julius had the support of some tribesmen who had recently been defeated by their enemies, the Catuvellaunians. , These were the Trinovants who lived north-west of London, with Colchester as their capital. An exiled prince of the Trinovants, whose father had been killed by Cassivellaunus, had fled to Julius in France just before the expedition started and undertaken, if Julius invaded the territory of the Catuvellaunians,, to raise the whole east coast in his support. He fulfilled his undertaking, and Julius now had a secure, base in Trinovant country. After revictualling there he resumed his march on Wheathampstead.

Cassivellaunus knew that he had little hope of victory now, unless Julius could be forced by some diversion to retrace his steps. He sent an urgent message to his subject allies, the men of Kent, begging them to rise in force and attack Julius's base-camp. Julius had already once been checked, shortly after landing, by the news that a storm had wrecked some of his transports, which he had neglected to draw up on the beach and had left riding at anchor. He had been forced to return all the way from the Stour and it had taken him ten days to repair the damage; which gave the Britons the opportunity of reoccupying and strengthening the positions that he had already with some difficulty captured. If the men of Kent consented to attack the base-camp, which was manned by only 2,000 men and 300 cavalry, and contrived to, capture it and to seize the fleet, then Julius would be trapped and the whole island would rise against the Romans - even the Trinovants would desert their new allies. The men of Kent did make a mass attack - on the base-camp but were repulsed with heavy loss. On hearing the news of this defeat all the allies of Cassivellaunus who had not already done so sent peace embassies to Julius. But he was now marching on Wheathampstead, which he stormed by a simultaneous attack on two of its fronts. This fortress was a great earthwork ring protected by woods and deep ditches and stockades and was considered impregnable. It served as a place of refuge for all members of the tribe who were too old or too young to fight. In it were captured immense quantities of cattle and hundreds of prisoners. Cassivellaunus, though his army had not yet been beaten, was forced to sue for peace., Julius gave him easy terms, because not much of the summer remained and he was anxious to get back . to France; a rebellion threatened there. The Catuvellaunians were merely asked to hand over certain principal men and women as hostages, to pay an annual tribute in gold to the Roman people, and to promise not to molest the Trinovants. So Cassivellaunus paid Julius an instalment of tribute and handed over his hostages, as did the kings of all the other tribes except the Trinovants and their east-coast allies, who had voluntarily offered Julius assistance. Julius went back to France with his prisoners and as many of the cattle as he had not sold cheap to the Trinovants to save himself the trouble of getting them safely across the Channel.

The rebellion broke out in France two years later and Julius was so busy crushing it that he could not spare men for a third expedition to Britain; though Cassivellaunus had stopped paying tribute as soon as the news of the rebellion reached him and had sent help, to the insurgents in France. Soon after this the Civil Wars started and though, when these had ended, the question of an invasion of Britain was from time to time raised, there was always a good reason for postponing it, usually trouble on the Rhine frontier. Sufficient troops could never be spared. Augustus eventually decided against extending the bounds of the Empire beyond the Channel. He concentrated instead on civilizing France and the Rhine provinces and those parts of Germany across the Rhine captured by my father. When he lost Germany after Hermann's revolt he was still less prepared to add Britain to his j anxieties. He had recorded his opinion in a letter to my grandmother Livia, dated the year of my birth, that not until the French were ripe for the Roman citizenship and could be trusted not to rebel in the absence of part of the Roman army of defence, could an invasion of Britain be politically justified:

But it is none the less my opinion, my dearest Livia, that Britain must eventually be converted into a frontier province. It is unsafe to allow an island, so near to France and manned by so fierce and so numerous a population, to remain independent. Looking into the future, I can see Britain becoming as civilized as southern France is now; and I think that the islanders, who are racially akin to us, will become far better Romans than we shall ever succeed in making of the Germans, who in spite of their apparent docility and willingness to learn our arts, I find more alien-minded even than the Moors or the Jews. I cannot explain my feeling except by saying they have been much too quick in learning: you know the proverb, `Quick to learn, quick to forget'. You may think me rather foolish in writing of the British as if they were already Romans, but it is interesting to speculate on the future. I don't mean twenty years hence, or even fifty years hence, but allowing the French fifty years to be ready for the citizenship and allowing twenty years or so for the complete subjugation of Britain, perhaps in 100 years from now Italy will be knit closely with the whole British archipelago and (do not smile) British noblemen may well take their seats in the Roman Senate. Meanwhile we must continue our policy of commercial penetration. This King Cymbeline, who has now made himself overlord of the greater part of the island, gives a generous welcome to Roman-French traders and even to Greek doctors, especially oculists, for the British seem to suffer pretty severely from ophthalmia, owing to the marshiness of the country; and his Roman moneyers strike him a beautiful silver coinage; the gold coins remain barbarous and he is in friendly touch with our governors in France. British trade has increased greatly in the past few years. I am told that at Cymbeline's court at Colchester as much Latin as British is spoken.

In this context I might quote the historian Strabo who, writing early in the reign of Tiberius, remarks:

In our own days certain of the princes of Britain have secured the friendship, of Caesar Augustus by their embassies and attentive courtesies: they have even sent votive-offerings to the temple of Capitoline Jove and made the whole island almost, as it were, native soil to the Romans. They pay very moderate customs-dues both on their exports to France and on their imports, the latter being for the most part ivory bracelets, necklaces, amber, glassware, and the like.

Strabo then lists the exports as gold, silver, iron, skins, slaves, hunting-dogs, corn, and cattle. His conclusions - inspired, I think, by Livia herself - are these:

So the Romans have no need to garrison the island. It would take at least one infantry regiment, supported by cavalry, to force them to pay tribute; but the cost of keeping the garrison there would be at least as much as the tribute received, and the imposition of the tribute would necessitate the lowering of the customs-dues, and besides this there would be considerable military risks attendant on the policy of forcible subjection.

This estimate ‘at least one infantry regiment' was far too modest. `At least four regiments' would have been nearer to the mark. Augustus never raised the question of the interrupted repayment of tribute as a Catuvellaunian breach of faith nor protested against Cymbeline's subjugation of the Trinovants. This Cymbeline was a grandson of Cassivellaunus and reigned for forty years; the later years being clouded, as seems to be the fate of elderly rulers, by family troubles. His eldest son tried to seize the throne and was expelled from the kingdom, but fled to Caligula in France and asked for his help in an invasion of Britain, undertaking if he were put on his father's throne to acknowledge the suzerainty of Rome. Caligula sent off dispatches at once to the Senate, informing them of the surrender of the island, then marched to Boulogne at the head of a huge army as if to begin the invasion without a moment's delay. However, he was a nervous man and was afraid of being drowned in the Channel, where the tides run high, or of being killed in battle, or captured and burned in a wicker votive-image; so he announced that since Britain had yielded in the person of this prince the expedition was superfluous. Instead, he launched his attack on Neptune, ordering his troops to shoot arrows and hurl javelins and sling stones into the water, as I have described, and to gather sea-shells for spoils. He brought the prince back to Rome in chains and, after celebrating his triple triumph over Neptune, Britain, and Germany, put him to death as a punishment for the unpaid tribute and for his father's cowardly attack on the Trinovants and for the help sent by certain British tribes to the Autun rebels in the eighth year of Tiberius's reign.

Cymbeline's death occurred in the same month as that of Caligula and was followed by civil war. The eldest surviving prince, by name Bericus, was proclaimed king, but he was a man for whom neither his own tribesmen nor his subject allies had any respect. His two younger brothers Caractacus and Togodumnus rebelled against him a year later and forced him to fly across the Channel. He came to me at Rome and asked for my help in the same way as his brother had asked help from Caligula. I made no promises, but allowed him to live in Rome with his family: and a few noblemen who had come with him.

Togodumnus, who now reigned-jointly with Caractacus; had been, told by merchants that I was no soldier but a cowardly old fool who wrote books. He sent me an insolent letter demanding the instant return of Bericus and the other exiles, together with the sacred regalia thirteen magical objects – a crown, a cup, a sword, and so on - which Bericus had brought to Rome with him. If Togodumnus had written in a courteous tone I should certainly have replied courteously and at least returned the regalia, which it appears were necessary for the proper crowning of a Catuvellaunian king. As it was, I answered shortly that I was not accustomed to being addressed in this disrespectful manner, and did not, in consequence, feel obliged to do him any service. He replied, still more insolently, that I was not telling the truth: for until quite recently everyone, including my own family, had treated me with disrespect; and that since I had refused to obey him he had detained all the Roman-owned trading ships in his ports and would hold these as hostages until I gave him what he had demanded. There was nothing for it but to make war. The French would have lost all respect for me if I had hesitated. I took my decision quite independently of Herod, though his teasing letter happened to coincide with it.

I had other reasons for making war, too. One was that the time had come which Augustus had foreseen: I was about to extend the Roman citizenship to large numbers of our more civilized French allies, but the one element in Northern France that was checking the orderly progress of civilization there was the Druidical cult, a magical religion which was still kept alive, in spite of all that we could do to discourage or suppress it, by Druidical training-colleges in Britain from where it had originally been imported. Young Frenchmen went to Britain for their magical education as naturally as young Spaniards go to Rome to study law, or young Romans to Athens to study philosophy, or young Greeks to Alexandria to study surgery. Druidism could not readily be reconciled with Greek or Roman religious worship, involving as it did human sacrifices and necromancy, and the Druids therefore, though they were not warriors themselves but only priests, were always fomenting rebellion against us. Another reason for war was that the golden reign of Cymbeline was over. Togodumnus and Caractacus were, I learned, about to be involved in a struggle with their north-eastern neighbours, the Icenians, and with two subject tribes on the south coast; so that regular trade with Britain would be interrupted for some time if I did not intervene. I-could now count on the help of the Icenians and the other tribes, not to mention the cross-Channel merchants; so the opportunity seemed too good to miss.

It would be as well to give here in brief an account of the main features of Druidism, a religion which seems to be a fusion of Celtic and aboriginal beliefs. I cannot guarantee that the details are true, for reports are conflicting. No Druidical lore is allowed to be consigned to writing and a terrible fate is threatened to those who reveal even the less important mysteries. My account is based on the, statements of prominent apostates from the religion, but these include no Druidical priests. No consecrated Druid has ever been persuaded to reveal the inner mysteries even under torture. The word `Druid' means 'Oak-man', because that is their sacred tree. Their sacred year begins with the budding of the oak, and ends with the falling of its leaves. There is a god called Tartarus whose symbol is the oak. It is he who with a flash of lightning generates the mistletoe on the oak-tree branch, which is the sovereign remedy against witchcraft and all diseases. There is also a sun-god called Mabon whose symbol is a white bull. And then there is Lug, a god of medicine, poetry, and the arts, whose symbol is the snake. These are all, however, the same person, a God of Life-in-Death, worshipped in different aspects, like Osiris in Egypt. As Osiris is yearly drowned by a god of waste waters, so this triple deity is yearly killed by the God of Darkness and Water, his uncle Nodons, and restored to life by the power of his sister Sulis, the Goddess of Healing who corresponds to Isis. Nodons manifests himself by a monstrous wave of water, twelve feet high, that at regular intervals comes running up the mouth of the Severn, chief of the western rivers, causing great destruction to crops and huts as far as thirty miles inland. The Druidical religion is not practised by the tribes as such, for they are fighting units commanded by kings and noblemen, but by thirteen secret societies, named after various sacred animals, the members of any one of which belong to a variety of tribes; because it is the month in which one is born - they have a thirteen-month year - which decides the society to which one is to belong. There are the Beavers, and the Mice, and the Wolves, and the Rabbits, and the Wild Cats, and the Owls, and so on, and each society has a particular lore of its own and is presided over by a Druid. The Arch-Druid rules over the whole cult. The Druids take no part in fighting, and members of the same society who meet in tribal battles on opposite sides are pledged to run to each other's rescue.

The mysteries of the Druidical religion are concerned with a belief in the immortality of the human soul, in support of which many natural analogies are offered. One of these is the daily death and daily rebirth of the sun, another is the .yearly death and yearly rebirth of the leaves of the oak, another is the yearly cutting of the corn and the yearly springing up of the seed. They say that man when he dies goes westward, like the setting sun, to live in certain sacred islands in the Atlantic ocean, until the time shall come for him to be born again. All over the island there are sacred altars known as 'dolmens', one flat stone laid on two or more uprights. These are used in the initiation ceremonies of the societies. The initiation is at once a death and a rebirth. The candidate lies on the lintel stone and a mock-sacrifice is then performed. By some magical means the Druid who performs it seems to cut off the man's head, which is exhibited bleeding to the crowd. The head is then joined to the trunk again and the supposed corpse is placed underneath the dolmen, as in a grave, with mistletoe between its lips from which, after many prayers and charms, the new, man comes forth as if he were a child emerging from the womb and is instructed in his new life by god-parents. Besides these dolmens there are upright stone altars, devoted to phallic rites; for the Celtic Osiris resembles the Egyptian one in this respect too.

Rank in the societies is decided by the number of sacrifices a man makes to the Gods, standing on the lintel stone of his ancestral dolmen, by the number of enemies he kills in battle and by the honours he wins in the annual religious games as charioteer, juggler, wrestler, poet, or harper. Rank is shown by the masks and head-dresses which are worn during the ceremonies and by the blue designs executed in woad (a marsh plant) with which their whole bodies are painted. The Druid priesthood is recruited from young men who have attained high rank in their secret societies and to whom certain marks of divine favour have been given. But twenty years of hard study at the Druidical college are first called for and it is by no means every candidate who succeeds in passing through the necessary thirty-two degrees. The first twelve years are spent in being initiated in turn into all the other secret societies, in learning by heart enormous sagas of mythological poetry and in the study of law, music, and astronomy. The next three years are spent in the study of medicine. The next three are spent in the study of omens and magic. The tests put, upon candidates for the priesthood are immensely severe. For example, there is a test of poetical composition. The candidates must lie naked all night in a coffin-like box, only his nostrils protruding above the icy water with which it is filled, and with heavy stones laid on his chest. In this position he must compose a poem of considerable length in the most difficult of the many difficult bardic metres, on a subject which is given him as he is placed in the box. On his emergence next morning he must be able to chant this, poem to a melody which he has been simultaneously composing, and accompany himself on the harp. Another test is to stand before the, whole body of Druids and, be asked verse-questions in riddling form which must be answered; in further riddles, also in verse. These riddles all refer to obscure incidents in the sacred poems with which the candidate is supposed to be familiar. Besides all this he must be able to raise magic mists and winds and perform all sorts of conjuring tricks.

I shall tell you here of my only experience of Druidical magic. I once asked a Druid to show me his skill. He called for three dried peas and put them in a row across the palm of my outstretched hand. He said: `Without moving your arm, can you blow away the middle pea and not blow, away the outer ones?' I tried, but of course I could not: my breath blew all three peas away. He picked them up and laid them in a row across his own palm. Then he held down the outer ones with the forefinger and little finger of the same hand and blew the centre one-. away easily. I was angry at being fooled. `Anyone could do that,' I said. `That's not magic.'

He handed me the peas again. `Try it,' he ordered.

I began to do what he had done, but to my chagrin I found that not only could I not command enough breath to blow away the pea - my lungs seemed suddenly tightened but that when Iwanted to

straighten out my bent fingers again I could not. They were tightly cramped against my palm and the nails were gradually driving into my flesh so that it was with difficulty that I refrained from crying out. The sweat was pouring down my face.

He asked, `Is it so easy to do?'

I answered ruefully: `Not when a Druid is present.' He touched my wrist and my fingers recovered from their cramp.

The candidate's last test but one is to spend the longest night of the year seated on a rocking-stone called the `Perilous Seat' which is balanced over a deep chasm in a mountain somewhere in the west of the island. Evil spirits come and talk to him all night and try by various means to make him lose his balance. He must not answer a, word, but address, prayers and hymns of praise to the Gods. If he escapes from this ordeal he is permitted to take the final test, which is to drink a poisoned cup and go into a death trance, and visit the Island of the Dead, and bring back from there such proofs of his visit as will convince the examining Druids that he has been accepted by the God of Life-in-Death as his priest.

There are three ranks of Druid priests. There are those who have passed all the tests, the true Druids; then come the Bards, those who have passed in the bardic tests but have not yet satisfied the examiners in soothsaying, medicine, and magic; then come those who have satisfied the examiners in these latter tests, but have not yet taken their bardic degree - they are known as the Ovates or Listeners. It needs a bold heart to enter for the final tests, which result in the death of three candidates out of every five, I am informed, so most men are content enough with the degree of Bard or Ovate.

The Druids, then, are the law-givers and judges and the controllers of public and private religion, and the greatest punishment that they can inflict is to interdict men from the holy rites. Since this excommunication is equivalent to sentencing men to perpetual extinction - for only by taking part in these rites can they hope to be reborn when they come to die the Druids are all-powerful, and it is only a fool who will dare to oppose them. Every five years there is a great religious cleansing-like our five-yearly census - and in expiation of national sins human victims are burned alive in great wicker cages built to resemble men. The victims are bandits, criminals, men who have revealed religious secrets or have been guilty of any similar crime, and men whom the Druids accuse of having unlawfully practised magic to suit their private ends and of having blighted crops or caused a pestilence by doing so. The Druids, at that time outlawed any man who had embraced the Roman religion or allied himself by marriage with a family that had done so. That, I suppose, they were entitled to do; but when it came to burning such people alive, then they had to be taught a lesson.

They have two peculiarly holy places. The first is the island of Anglesey on the west coast, where their winter quarters are, among great groves of sacred oaks, and the sacred oak-log fire is kept burning. This fire, kindled originally by lightning, is distributed for the cremation of corpses, to ensure their reincarnation. The other, sacred place is a great stone temple in the middle of Britain, consisting of concentric rings of enormous trilithic and monolithic altars. It is dedicated to the God of Life-in-Death, and from the New Year, which they reckon from the spring equinox, until- midsummer, they hold their annual religious Games there. A red-haired young man is chosen to represent the God and is dressed in marvellous robes. While the Games last he is free to do exactly as he pleases. Everything is at his disposal, and if he takes a fancy to any jewel or weapon, the owner counts himself honoured and gives it up gladly. All the most beautiful girls are his playmates, and the competing athletes and musicians do everything they can to win his favour. Shortly before midsummer, however, he goes with the Arch-Druid, who is the representative of the God of Death, to an oak on which mistletoe grows. The Arch-Druid climbs the oak and cuts the mistletoe with a golden sickle, taking care that it does not touch the ground. This mistletoe is the soul of the oak, which then mysteriously withers away. A white bull is sacrificed. The young man is wrapped in leafy oak branches and taken to the Temple, which is so oriented that at dawn on Midsummer Day the sun strikes down an avenue of stones and lights up the principal altar where the young man is laid, fast bound, and where the Arch-Druid sacrifices him with the sharpened stem of the mistletoe. I cannot discover what eventually happens to the body, which for the present remains laid out on the stone of sacrifice, showing no sign of decay. But the priestess of Sulis, from a western town called the `Waters of Sulis', where there are medicinal springs, comes to claim it at the autumn festival of farewell and the Goddess is then supposed to restore it to life. The God is said to go by boat to the western island where Nodons, lives and to conquer him after a fierce fight. The winter storms are the noise of that fight. He reappears next year in the person of the new victim. The withered oak tree provides new logs for the sacred fire. At the autumn festival of farewell each society sacrifices its tribal animal, burning a wicker cage full of them, and all ritual masks and head-dresses are burned too. It is at this stone temple that the complicated initiation ceremony for new Druids takes place. It is said to involve the sacrifice of newly-born children. The temple stands in the centre of a great necropolis, for all Druids and men of high religious rank are buried here with ceremonies that ensure reincarnation.

There are British battle-gods and goddesses too, but they have little connexion with the Druid religion and sufficiently resemble our own Mars and Bellona to make no description necessary.

In France the centre of Druidism. was at Dreux, a town lying to the west of Paris, some eighty miles from the Channel coast. Human sacrifices continued to be performed there just as if Roman civilization did not exist. Imagine, the Druids used to cut open the bodies of victims whom they had sacrificed to the God Tanarus and examine their entrails for auspices with as little compunction as you or I would feel in the case of a ram or sacred chicken! Augustus had not attempted to put down Druidism; he had merely forbidden Roman citizens to belong to secret societies or to attend Druidical sacrifices. Tiberius had ventured to publish an edict dissolving the Druidical order in France; but this edict was not intended to be literally obeyed, only to withhold Roman official sanction from any decisions arrived at or penalties imposed by a Druidical council.

The Druids continued to cause us trouble in France, though many tribes now abandoned the cult altogether, and adopted our Roman religion. I was determined, as soon as I had conquered Britain, to strike a bargain with the Arch-Druid: in return for permission to conduct his religion in Britain in the customary way (though abstaining from any unfriendly preaching against Rome) he must refuse to admit French candidates for initiation into the Druidical order and must allow no British Druids to cross the Channel. Without priests, the religion would soon die out in France, where I should make illegal any Druidical ceremony or festival involving human sacrifice, and charge with murder- all who were, found to have taken part in one. Eventually, of course, Druidism would have to be stamped out in Britain too; but that need not be thought about yet.

Chapter 17

MY study of Julius Caesar's commentaries on his two British campaigns made it clear to me that unless conditions had changed considerably since his day it was possible to beat the Britons in any engagement by only a slight modification of our fighting tactics. Considerable forces, however, would have to be employed. It is a greatmistake to

start a campaign with only a couple of regiments, get, them badly knocked about in attempting the work of four, and then send home for reinforcements, thereby giving the enemy a breathing space. It is best to start with as imposing a force as can be commanded and to strike as hard as possible.

The British infantry are armed with broadswords and small leather bucklers. Man for man, they are the equals and even the superiors of the Romans, but their fighting value decreases with their numbers, as ours increases. In the clash of a battle a company of British warriors has no chance against an equal force of disciplined Romans. The Roman javelin, short stabbing sword, and long shield with its flanges for interlocking with neighbour shields, make an ideal equipment at close quarters. British arms are designed for single combat, but need plenty of space for manoeuvre. If the press of battle is too close to allow one to swing the broadsword handily and if the locking of enemy shields prevents one from dealing lateral strokes with it, it is of little use; and the small buckler is insufficient protection against javelin-thrusts.

British noblemen fight from chariots like the Greek heroes at Troy; and like the early Latin chieftains. The chariot has now, of course, disappeared from civilized warfare and only remains as an emblem of high military rank or of victory. This is because cavalry has taken the place of chariotry, the breed of horses having greatly improved. In Britain there are few horses suitable for mounting cavalry. British chariots are drawn by small strong ponies, highly trained.. They can be pulled up sharp even when travelling downhill at a good speed and turned right about in a flash. Each chariot is a fighting-unit in itself. The driver and commander is the nobleman, who has two fighters with him in the chariot, and two or more runners, armed with knives, who keep up with the ponies. The fighters often run along the pole and stand balanced on the cross-piece. The runners try to hamstring the ponies of opposing chariots. A column of chariots driven at full speed will usually break an infantry line by dashing straight at it. But if the line seems disposed to stand its ground, the chariot column-will wheel right past it, the fighting men raining down spears as they go by, and then turn in behind and launch, another volley from the rear. When this manoeuvre has been repeated several times the charioteers withdraw to a safe place, and the fighting men, dismounting and-now joined by infantry-supports, lead these to a final attack.

Should this attack fail, the chariots are once more manned and are ready to fight a rearguard action. The British chariot combines indeed, as Julius remarked; the celerity of cavalry with the stability of infantry. Naturally, enveloping tactics are much favoured by chariot squadrons. Naturally, too, the ` British suffer from the common fault of undisciplined fighting men - they will always go for plunder before destroying the main body of the enemy. I had to evolve some new tactical plan for dealing with the British chariotry Julius's French cavalry had been unable to hold them in check perhaps he should have borrowed an idea from the enemy and used them in conjunction with light-armed infantry.. But I could count on winning every infantry engagement.

I decided that the largest force that the Empire could spare for the expedition would be four regular infantry regiments and four regiments of auxiliaries, together with 1,000 cavalry. After consultation with my army commanders I withdrew three regiments from the Rhine namely, the Second, Twentieth, and Fourteenth

and one from the Danube, the Ninth. 'I entrusted the command of the expedition to Galba, with Geta as his Master of Horse, and planned it for the middle of April. But there was considerable delay in getting the transports built, and when these were ready Galba fell ill and I decided to wait for his recovery; by the middle of June he was still very feeble and I had regretfully to decide against waiting any longer. I gave his command to a veteran who had the reputation of being the cleverest tactician and one of the bravest men in the army, Aulus Plautius, a distant connexion of my first wife, Urgulanilla. He was, a man in the late fifties and had been Consul fourteen years previously: old soldiers remembered him as a popular commander of the Fourteenth under my brother. He went to Mainz to take command of the regiments detailed for the expedition. The delay caused by Galba's illness was the more unwelcome because news of the coming invasion, which had been kept a close secret until April, had now been carried over the Channel, and Caractacus and Togodumnus were busily preparing defensive positions. The Ninth Regiment had reached Lyons from the Danube some time before and two regiments of French auxiliaries and one of Swiss had long been under arms there too. I sent Aulus the order to march the Rhine regiments up to Boulogne, picking up a regiment of Batavian auxiliaries on his way - the Batavians are a German tribe living on an island at the mouth of the Rhine and cross the Channel in the transports which he would find waiting there. The Lyons forces would arrive at Boulogne simultaneously. An unexpected difficulty arose. The Rhine regiments could not be persuaded to start. They said quite openly that they were very well off where they were and regarded the expedition to Britain as a dangerous and useless undertaking. They said that the Rhine defences would be seriously weakened by their removal - though I had brought the garrison there up to strength by brigading large forces of French auxiliaries with the remaining regiments, and by forming an entirely new regiment, the Twentysecond - and that the invasion of Britain was against the wishes of the. God Augustus, who had permanently fixed the strategic boundaries of the Empire at the Rhine and Channel.

I was at Lyons myself by this time - the middle of July - and would have gone to the Rhine in person to persuade the men to do their duty, but signs of unrest were showing themselves in the Ninth regiment too, and among the French, so I sent Narcissus, who was with me, there as my representative. It was really a foolish thing to do, but my fool's luck gave, it a happy ending. I had not quite realized how unpopular Narcissus was. It was commonly believed that I took his advice on every point and that he led me by the nose. Narcissus, on his arrival at the Mainz camp greeted Aulus in rather an offhand way and asked him to parade the men before the Tribunal platform. When this was done he mounted it, puffed out his chest, and began the following speech: 'in the name of our Emperor, Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus. Men, you have been ordered to march to Boulogne, there to embark for an invasion of Britain. You have grumbled and made difficulties. This is very wrong. It is a breach of your oath to the Emperor. If the Emperor orders an expedition you are expected to obey and not to argue. I have come here to recall you to your senses....'

Narcissus was not speaking like a messenger but as though he were Emperor himself. Naturally this had an irritating effect on the men. There were shouts of `Get down from that Tribunal, you Greek valet', and 'We don't want to hear what you have to say.'

But Narcissus had a very good opinion of himself and embarked upon floods of reproachful oratory. `Yes,' be said, 'I am only a Greek, and only a freedman, but it seems, that I know my duty better than you Roman citizens.'

Suddenly someone shouted out, 'Io Saturnalia' and all the irritation vanished in a great roar of laughter. `Io Saturnalia' is the cry that goes up on our All Fools Festival, which is: celebrated annually in honour of the God Saturn. During the festival everything is topsy-turvy. Everyone has licence to say and do just as he likes. Slaves wear their masters' clothes and order them about as though they were slaves: The noble is abased and the base is ennobled. Everyone now took up the cry 'Io Saturnalia, Io Saturnalia ! The Freedman is Emperor to-day.' Ranks were broken and an absurd riot of jokes and horseplay started, in which first the captains, then one or two senior officers, and finally Aulus Plautius himself strategically joined. Aulus dressed up as a woman of the camp and bustled round with a kitchen cleaver. Four or five sergeants climbed up on the Tribunal and pretended to be rivals for Narcissus's love. Narcissus was bewildered and burst into tears. Aulus rushed to his rescue, swinging his cleaver. `You vile men,' he screamed in falsetto, `leave my poor husband alone! He's a worthy, respectable man!' He drove them off the platform and embraced Narcissus, whispering -in his ear as, he did so: 'Leave this to me, Narcissus. They're like a lot of children. Humour them now and afterwards you can do anything you like with them!' He dragged Narcissus forward by the hand and said: `My poor husband isn't quite himself, you see he's not accustomed to Camp wine and your rough ways. But he'll be all right after a night in bed with me, won't you, my poppet?' He took Narcissus by the ear. 'Now listen to me, husband! This Mainz is a tough place. It's where mice nibble iron, and cocks blow the reveillez with little silver trumpets, and wasps carry javelins slung round their waists.'

Narcissus pretended to be frightened - and he was frightened. But they soon forgot all about him. There were other games to play. When the fun was beginning to slacken, Aulus resumed his general's cloak and called for a trumpeter, and told him to blow the Attention. In a minute or two order was restored and he held up his hand for silence and made a speech:

`Men, we've had our All Fools' Day fun and we've enjoyed it, and now the trumpet has ended it. So let's get back to work and discipline again. To-morrow I shall take the auspices, and if they are favourable you must be prepared to strike camp. We have to go to Boulogne, whether we like it or not. It's our duty. And from Boulogne we have to go to Britain, whether we like it or not. It's our duty. And when we get there we are going to fight a big battle, whether we like it or not. It's our duty. And the Britons are going to get the worst beating of their lives, whether they like it or not. It's their bad luck. Long live the Emperor! That speech, saved the situation and there was no further trouble. Narcissus was able to leave the camp without further loss of dignity.

Ten days later, on August the first, my birthday, the expeditionary force sailed. Aulus had agreed with me that it would be best to send over the troops in three divisions, at intervals of two or three hours, because the landing of one division would concentrate all the British forces at that point, and the others could sail up the coast to some undefended spot and land unopposed. But as it happened not even the first division met with any resistance on landing, because the news had reached Britain that the Rhine troops had refused to march, and besides it was thought to be too late in the season now for us to attempt anything that year. The only event worthy of note in the crossing was the sudden wind that sprang up and drove the first division back on to the second; but a lucky portent then occurred, a flash of light travelling from the east across to the west, which was the direction in which they were sailing; so everyone who was not incapacitated by sea-sickness took heart again, and the landing was made in a victorious mood. Aulus's task was to occupy the whole southern part of their land, drawing his strategical frontier from the River Severn on the west to the great bay, the Wash, on the east: thus including the whole of the former dominions of Cymbeline in a new Roman province. He was, however, to permit any tribes who voluntarily offered their submission to Rome the usual privileges of subject allies. Since it was a war of conquest and not a mere punitive expedition, the greatest magnanimity must be shown the conquered, consistent only with their not mistaking it for weakness. Property must not be needlessly destroyed, nor women ravished, nor children and old people killed.. He was to tell his men: `The Emperor wants prisoners, not corpses. And since you are to be permanently stationed in this country his advice is to do as little damage to it in the process as possible. Wise birds do not foul their own nests; not even nests captured from other birds.'

His main objective was Colchester, the C4tuvellaunian capital city. When it was captured, the Icenians of the east coast would no doubt come to him there to offer him their alliance, and he could build a strong base for the conquest of the centre and southwest of the island. I told him that should 'his losses amount to more than a couple of thousand killed, or disabled before the enemy's main resistance was crushed,, or should there appear to be any doubt as to the issue of the campaign before winter set in, he was to send me a message at once, and I would come to his help with my reserves. The message would be relayed across France and Italy by bonfire signal, and if the bonfire-men kept their eyes open I ought to receive the news at Rome a few hours after the message left Boulogne. The reserves that I would bring up would include eight battalions of Guards, the entire Guards cavalry, four companies of Nubian spearmen, and three companies of Balearic slingers, They would be quartered at Lyons in readiness.

I had intended to remain at Lyons with these reserves, but was forced to return to Rome. Vitellius, who was acting as my understudy, wrote that he found the work incredibly difficult, that he was already two months behindhand in his judicial work, and that he had reason to suspect that my legal secretary, Myron, was not as honest as we had both supposed. There was another most unwelcome letter that reached me from Marsus at the same time and made me feel that I ought not to be away from Rome a day longer than I could help. Marsus's letter ran as follows:

The Governor, of Syria, Vibius Marsus, has the honour to greet the Emperor on the occasion of his approaching birthday and report that the province is prosperous, contented, orderly, and loyal. At the same time he confesses himself somewhat disquieted by a recent incident at the town of Tiberias, on the Lake of Galilee, and begs the Emperor to approve the measures that he has taken in dealing with it.

An unofficial report reached headquarters at Antioch that King Herod Agrippa had invited to a secret meeting the following neighbouring potentates - Antiochus, King of Commagene, Sampsigeramus, King of Osroene, Cotys, King of Lesser Armenia, Polemo, King of Pontus and Cilicia, Sohemus, King of Iturea, Herod Pollio, King of Chalcis. If the news of this meeting leaked out, the explanation was to be that it was a commemoration of King Herod Agrippa's marriage to his Queen Cypros exactly twenty years before. No invitation to any such banquet was sent me as your representative, though the decencies clearly required it: let me repeat that the only information that reached me about this extraordinary assemblage of potentates came from unofficial, not to say underground, sources. Sohemus of Iturea was ill, but sent his chamberlain to represent him. The other kings all obeyed King Herod's summons. Those whose route would naturally have led them by way of Antioch (namely, all those mentioned above except King Herod Pollio and King Sohemus) and who, on a visit to Galilee, should certainly have turned aside to pay their compliments tome as

your representative, chose to follow a roundabout route, travelling incognito and for the most part at night. It was only through the vigilance of certain of my agents in the Syrian desert east of Chalcis that I learned that they, were already on their way.

I immediately proceeded to Tiberias myself, at all speed, accompanied, by my two daughters and my chief staff officers, hoping to take the gathering by surprise. King Herod Agrippa; however, must have been informed of my approach. He came driving out from Tiberias in his royal carriage to welcome me. We met at a point seven furlongs from the city. He had not come alone, but was escorted by his five royal visitors, the last of whom, the King of Pontus, had only that moment arrived. King Herod did not appear in the least abashed, but climbed out of his coach and came hurrying to greet me in the warmest manner imaginable. He exclaimed how delighted he was that I had managed to come after all, after making no reply to his two letters of invitation, and remarked that this was indeed an extraordinary event - seven Eastern rulers meeting at, the seventh furlong stone. He would have the stone replaced by a marble pillar of commemoration with our names and titles engraved on it in letters of gold. I was bound to reply politely and accept his story that he had sent me two invitations, and even swear that as soon as I discovered the enemy who had intercepted the letters - which had not reached me would punish him with the utmost rigour of the law. The other kings had also dismounted, and an exchange of civilities began between us. The King of Commagene, whom I used to know at Rome, suggested that perhaps King Herod's invitation had been, somewhat officiously, withheld from me by one of my servants out of consideration for my feelings. I asked him what he meant and he replied that the recent death of my wife might be too fresh in my memory to make an invitation to someone's else's wedding anniversary altogether a pleasing one. I replied that my wife had been dead these four years, and he said, sighing: `As long ago as all that? It seems like yesterday that I last saw her. A very lovely woman.' I then asked the King of Pontus point-blank why he had not stopped at Antioch to greet me. He told me without a blush that he had counted on seeing me at the banquet and that he had taken a more easterly route because of the advice of a soothsayer.

It was impossible to shake the self-possession of any off the six of them, so we all drove into Tiberias together through a cheering mob. The wedding banquet, the most lavish that I have ever attended, was served a few hours later. Meanwhile I sent one of my staff officers to each of the kings to tell him privately that if he wished to keep the friendship of Rome he would be advised to return to his own country as, soon as politeness to our host permitted, and meanwhile not to take part in any secret conferences with his royal neighbours. To be brief, the, banquet ended at a late hour and' the guests made their excuses and left on the following day; no conference took place. I was the last to leave and the King and I parted with the usual compliments. However, on my return to Antioch I found an unsigned letter awaiting me. It ran: `You have insulted my guests. and you must accept, the consequences: I am now your enemy.' I assume it to be a message from King Herod Agrippa.

My compliments to the most virtuous and beautiful Lady Valeria Messalina, your wife. The more I studied this report, the less I liked it. It looked as though Herod, taking advantage of my preoccupation with Britain, and the presence there of so large an army - which might easily need further reinforcements - was planning a general rising in the East, for which his fortification of Jerusalem had been the prelude. I grew extremely anxious, but there was nothing that I could do except pray' for a speedy victory in Britain and let Herod know that Marcus was keeping me in touch with Near Eastern affairs. I wrote to him at once, giving exaggeratedly cheerful news of the British expedition for at the time of writing Aulus had not yet been able to get into touch with any considerable force of the enemy, who were adopting the same tactics that their forefathers had employed against Julius in his march through Kent - and saying, quite untruly, that since the expedition was only intended as a punitive one I expected the regiments back across the Channel in a couple of months.

This was the first lie that I had ever told Herod, and since I merely committed it to paper without the embarrassment of telling it verbally, I managed to make him believe it. I wrote:

... And are you able to tell me anything definite, Brigand, about this prophesied Eastern Ruler who is destined after his death to become the greatest God that has ever appeared on earth? I am continually coming across references to him. There was one in court the other day. A Jew was accused of creating a disturbance in the City. He was alleged to have shaken his fist at a priest of Mars and exclaimed : `When the Ruler manifests himself, that will be the end of men like you. Your temples will be razed to the ground and you'll be buried in the ruins; you dog! And the time is not far off now.' Under cross-examination he denied having said anything of the sort, and as the evidence was conflicting I did no more than banish him - if you can call it banishment to send a Jew back to Judaea. Well, Caligula believed himself to be this prophesied Ruler and in certain respects the prophecy, as it was reported to me, did indeed seem to point to him. My grandmother Livia had also been misled, by something that the astrologer Thrasyllus said about the year of her death corresponding with that of this prophesied person, into believing that it was she who was meant. She did not realize that it was a God and not a Goddess who was prophesied, nor that his first manifestation should be at Jerusalem - Caligula was there as a child though later he should reign at Rome. Is there anything written about him in the Jewish sacred writings? If so, precisely what? I understand that your learned relative Philo is an expert in such matters. I was talking the matter over with Messalina the other day and she asked me whether anyone had inherited this peculiar obsession from my now deified grandmother Livia Augusta and from my crazy nephew Caligula. I told her, 'I haven't, I swear, in spite of the divinity that Herod Agrippa is always trying to curse me with'. But what about you yourself, my old Brigand? Perhaps you are really the person meant? No, on second thoughts you certainly are not, in spite of your connexion with Jerusalem. The prophesied Ruler is specified as a man off extreme holiness. Besides, Thrasyllus was quite positive as to, the year of his death, the fifteenth year of Tiberius' reign, which was the year Livia was to die - and did actually, die. Thrasyllus never to my knowledge made a mistake in dates. So you have lost your chance. But, on the other hand, if Thrasyllus was right, why have we not yet heard about this dead King? Caligula knew a part of the prophecy, which was that this King was to die forsaken by his friends and that afterwards they would drink his blood. Curiously enough, that was fulfilled in his case: Bubo, one of the assassins, you remember had sworn to kill him and drink his blood in revenge, and did dabble his fingers in the wound he had made and then lick them dry, the madman. But Caligula died nine years too late to agree with the prophecy. I should be very grateful if you would tell me what you know about all this. Perhaps there are two or three prophecies that have got mixed up together? Or perhaps Caligula was misinformed as to the particulars? He was told of the prophecy by the poisoner Martina, the one who was concerned in my poor brother Germanicus's murder at Antioch. But I hear that it has long been current in Egypt, as a pronouncement of the oracle of Jupiter Ammon.

Why I wrote in this way was that I now knew that Herod did really fancy himself to be this prophesied Ruler. 'I had been told all about it by Herodias and Antipas, whom I had visited in their place of banishment during my stay in France. I could not allow them to return to Judaea, though I knew now that they had not been guilty of plotting against Caligula, but I allowed them to leave Lyons and gave them a fair-sized estate at Cadiz in Spain, where the climate was more like the one to which they were accustomed. They showed me an indiscreet letter from Herodias's daughter, Salome, now married to her, first cousin, Herod Pollio's son.

Herod Agrippa is, growing more and more religious every, day. He tells his old friends that he is only playing at being a strict Jew for political reasons, and that he still secretly worships the Roman Gods. But I know now that this is only pretence. He is extraordinarily conscientious in his observances. The Alabarch's son, Tiberius Alexander, who has abandoned the Jewish faith,. much to the shame and grief of his excellent family,, tells me that while he was staying, at Jerusalem the other day he took Herod aside and whispered: `I hear you have an Arabian cook who really understands how to stuff and roast a midnight sucking pig. Would- you be good enough to invite me in some night? It is impossible to get really eatable food in Jerusalem.' Herod went scarlet and stammered that his cook was ill! The truth is that he dismissed this cook long ago. Tiberius Alexander has another queer story about, Herod. You have heard of that farcical occasion when he visited Alexandria with a bodyguard of two soldiers whom he had kidnapped to prevent them from serving a warrant on him, and borrowed money from the Alabarch? It. appears that the Alabarch afterwards went to Philo, that learned brother of his who tries to reconcile Greek philosophy with Jewish scripture, and said, `I have probably been a fool, brother Philo, but I have lent Herod Agrippa, a large sum of money on rather doubtful security. In return he has promised to protect our interests at Rome, and has sworn before Almighty God to cherish and protect His people, so far as in him lies, and to obey His Law.' Philo asked: `From where did this Herod Agrippa suddenly appear? I thought that he was at Antioch.' The Alabarch said: 'From Edom wearing a purple cloak - Bozrah purple - and stepping like a king. I cannot help believing that in spite of his former follies and vicissitudes he is destined to play a great part in our national history. He is a man of outstanding talent. And now that he has definitely pledged himself ...' Philo suddenly grew very serious and began to quote the prophet Isaiah: `Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? This that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength?... I have trodden .the wine-press alone; and of the people there was none with me. But the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my Redeemed is come.' Philo has long been convinced that the Messiah is at hand. He has written several volumes on that head. He builds his argument on the text in Numbers about the Star out of Jacob, and reconciles it with a number of others in the Prophets. He's quite crazy, poor man. And now that Herod has become so powerful and has kept his promise about observing the Law so faithfully and done the Alexandrian Jews so many services, Philo is really convinced that Herod is the Messiah. What finally decided him was the discovery that Herod's family, though an Edomite one, is descended from a son of Zedekiah, the last king of Judah before the Captivity. (This Zedekiah managed to smuggle his newly-born son out of the city and get him safe to friends in Edom before Nebuchadnezzar captured the place.) Herod seems to have been persuaded by Philo that he really is the Messiah and that he is destined not to redeem the Jews from the yoke of the foreigner, but to combine all the Children of Shem together in a great spiritual Empire under the rule of the Lord of Hosts: this is the only possible explanation for his recent political activities which, I must confess, make me feel extremely nervous for the future. Indeed, there seems to be altogether too much religion in the air. It's a bad sign. It reminds me of what you said when we had that mystical idiot John the Baptist beheaded - `Religious fanaticism is the most dangerous form of insanity.'

I have said too much, I think, but I can trust you, my dear mother, not to let the story go any farther. Burn this when you have read it.

There was no more news from Marsus and I did not get an answer from Herod himself before I sailed for Britain for, a fortnight after: landing, Aulus was indeed obliged to send for me. But I reckoned that Herod would read between the lines of my letter that I suspected him, though I was careful not to mention

Marsus in it, or the wedding celebrations at Tiberias; and that he would be very careful about his next step. I also strengthened the garrison at Alexandria and told Marsus to call up all Greek levies in Syria and give them an intensive drilling letting the rumour go about that a Parthian invasion was expected. He was to do this as if on his own initiative, and not to tell anyone that the orders came from me.

Chapter 18

AULUS, as I have already related, landed in Britain without meeting any opposition. He built a strong base camp at Richborough, which he garrisoned with veterans from each regiment, pulled up his transport on the shore, well out of the reach of storms, and began a cautious advance through Kent, taking the route followed by Julius on his second expedition - the route indeed that all the invaders of the island have naturally, taken. At first he met with less resistance than Julius, because the passage: of the Stour did not need to be forced. The King of East Kent, a vassal of Caractacus and Togodumnus, decided not to man the prepared positions there. His overlords had withdrawn their main army to Colchester when they heard that our invasion could not possibly take place that-year, and his own forces were insufficient to defend the river successfully. He came to meet Aulus with tokens of peace and after an exchange of presents swore alliance and friendship with Rome. The King of East Sussex, which lies to the west of Kent, came into camp on the same errand a few days later. Between the Stour and the River Medway, the next natural barrier, Aulus encountered little serious resistance. But small parties of chariot-fighters disputed the frequent barriers of felled trees and thorn bushes that had been thrown across the track. Aulus's advance-guard commander was now instructed not to force these barriers, but as soon as they were sighted to envelop them with cavalry detachments and capture the defenders. This slowed down progress, but no lives were wasted. Most of the Kentish men seemed to have retired into the Weald - thick forest-land from which it would be most difficult to dislodge them. But increasingly large forces of chariotry began to appear on the flanks of the advancing column, charging down on foraging parties and forcing them to fall back on the main body. Aulus was aware that the mood in which the Kentish men would finally emerge from the Weald, whether meekly to offer their submission or valiantly to cut off his retreat, depended on his success against the Catuvellaunians. However, his base camp was well defended.

When he came to the tidal reaches of the Medway, which Julius, in his second campaign, had forded without loss, he found the enemy assembled in great force behind positions that had been prepared; some months before. Caractacus and Togodumnus were both present with all their tributary princes and an army of some 60,000 men. Aulus had no more than 35,000 effectives with him. The narrow ford, across the river had been made practically impassable by a succession of deep wide channels cut across it parallel with the banks. The Britons were bivouacked in a careless fashion on, the other, side. The nearest ford upstream was a day's march away and was reported by prisoners to be similarly fortified. Downstream there was no ford: the river, after debouching into the Thames estuary not far from this spot, spread out across impassable mud-flats. Aulus set his men to work at making the ford passable, filling in the channels with basketfuls of rubble. But it was clear that at this rate two or three days would pass before he could attempt to cross. The enemy bank was defended by two strong stockades; and the Britons, who now harassed the workers with arrows and insults, were building a third one behind that. Twice a day a huge tide welled up into the river mouth a commonplace in this part of the world, though never seen in the Mediterranean, except during storms and hindered Aulus's work greatly. But he was counting on the tide as his ally. At high tide, just before dawn on the third day, he sent the Batavian auxiliaries swimming across the motionless water. All Germans swim well, and the Batavians better than any. They swam across, 3,000 strong, with their weapons tied on their backs, and caught the Britons completely by surprise. However, instead of attacking the startled men at their camp-fires, they rushed to the horse-lines and began disabling the chariot-ponies, putting 2,000 or 3,000 of these out of action before their owners realized what was happening. They then established themselves at the enemy end of the ford behind the middle barricade, which had been designed to face the other way, and held it against strong British attacks while two battalions of the Ninth Regiment struggled across the river to their assistance, on blown-up wine-skins and improvised rafts and in captured British coracles. The struggle was a fierce one, and the British detachments posted higher up the stream, to prevent our men from crossing at any point there, came charging down to take part in the fight. Aulus saw what was happening, and detailed the Second under a certain Vespasian* to go upstream under cover of a forest and cross over at some now unguarded bend. Vespasian found the right place four or five miles upstream where the river narrowed somewhat and sent a man swimming over with a line. The line served to pull a rope across, which was made fast to a tree on either bank and then tautened. The Second were trained to this manoeuvre and were all across the river in an hour or two. Numerous ropes had to be used, because the distance was so great that to keep any one rope taut enough to hold the weight of more than twenty or thirty heavily armed men at a time was to risk it snapping. Once over, they hurried downstream, meeting none of the enemy as they went, and an hour later suddenly appeared on the enemy's unprotected right flank. They locked shields, shouted, and burst right through to the' stockade, killing hundreds of British tribesmen in a single charge. The Batavians and the men of the Ninth joined forces with the Second; and

* Afterwards Emperor (A.D. 69-79). - R.G.

although greatly outnumbered,( the combined forces-drove the confused and disordered but still courageous, enemy slowly backwards until they broke in undeniable rout. The river bank was clear of the British, and Aulus spent the rest of the day in hastily constructing a narrow brushwood causeway across the ford: at low tide this was anchored down firmly and the channels filled in. It was late- that night, however, before the work was finished, and the whole army was not safely over - the rising: tide interrupted their crossing until next morning.

The Britons had rallied on the rising ground behind, and in the afternoon a pitched battle took place. The French infantry, who had taken no part in the previous day's fighting, led the attack; but the defence was stubborn and a great column. of chariotry suddenly broke across the, centre from the left flank, cutting in just behind the leading French regiment, which was advancing in line and causing it heavy casualties with a quick volley of spears. When this column, which was led by Caractacus in person, reached the right flank it daringly wheeled round and cut in behind the second French regiment, which was moving up in support, and played, the same game with them, driving away without loss. The French were unable to take the ridge, and Aulus, seeing that the British chariotry and cavalry were concentrated on his right flank, about to make a strong attack on the now disordered French, galloped a third of his own cavalry up to the threatened position with instructions too hold it at all costs. Off went the cavalry and Aulus threw the whole of his regular infantry after them, with the exception of the Second Regiment. Leaving the Second to support the French, should the British make a counter-attack, and moving Geta with some -Batavian infantry and the remainder of, the cavalry forward to the left flank, Aulus pushed home the attack on the right. The British chariotry could not check this advance, though our cavalry lost heavily before the leading regiment, the Fourteenth, came up to relieve them. Caractacus then wheeled his column round behind the ridge for an attack on our left flank.

Geta was the hero of-the battle. He and his 700 cavalrymen stood up against a desperate charge of nearly 2,000 chariots; 500 of the same Batavians who had maimed the ponies during the dawn raid were mixed in with the cavalry and used their knives to good purpose again. But for them Geta would have been overwhelmed. Geta himself was unhorsed and nearly captured, but Caractacus finally withdrew, leaving 100 wrecked chariots behind him. By this time the pressure of the regular infantry ow the right flank was being felt by the British. The French, too, were more than holding their own, and suddenly the cry went up that Togodumnus had been carried off the field, mortally wounded. The British were disheartened. Their lines wavered and broke, streaming towards our left flank, where they ran unexpectedly into Geta's men advancing through a little wood. Geta charged, and when the battle was over 1,500 British corpses were found on that part of the field alone. The total British casualties in killed amounted to 4,000. Ours amounted to 900, of whom 700 were French; with about the same amount of seriously wounded. Among those who died of wounds was Bericus, the cause of the war, who had been fighting by Geta's side and saved his life when he was unhorsed.

Aulus's next important obstacle was the Thames, which Caractacus now held in much the same way as he had held the Medway. The defeated Britons retired behind it by taking a secret path across the mud-flats at its mouth when the tide was out. Our advance-guard tried to follow them, but got bogged and had to retire. The ensuing battle was almost a repetition of the previous one, the conditions being very similar.' This time it was Crassus Frugi, the father of young Pompey, my son-in-law, who made the upstream crossing. He forced his way across the bridge at London, which was held by a company of young British noblemen sworn to fight to the last man. The Batavians again swam across the lower reaches of the river at high tide. The British defence was weaker on this occasion and their losses were again heavy. Ours were inconsiderable - 300 - and 2,000 prisoners were taken. London was captured, with rich booty. The victory was spoilt, however, by the loss of nearly 1,000 French and Batavians who incautiously pursued the beaten enemy into marshland and were swallowed up in a quaking bog.

Aulus was now across the Thames, but the enemy resistance suddenly stiffened with the arrival of reinforcements from the south, west, and centre of the island. Strong new chariot-contingents appeared. The death of Togodumnus proved a positive advantage to the Britons: the supreme command of the Catuvellaunian army was no longer divided, and Caractacus, who was an able leader and in great favour with the Druids, could make an impassioned plea to his allies and vassals to avenge his noble brother's death. As the Roman losses had exceeded the stipulated maximum and the enemy's resistance could not be claimed to have been broken, Aulus now wisely sent the agreed message back to me. It went to Boulogne by one of the ships which, as arranged, had now reached London from Richborough with a cargo of wine, blankets,, and military stores. At Boulogne the first beacon was lighted and within a very short time the message had crossed the Alps and was hurrying on to Rome.