I, Claudius

XXII

GERMANICUS WAS DEAD, BUT TIBERIUS DID NOT FEEL MUCH more secure than before. Sejanus came to him with stories of what this or that prominent man had whispered against him during Piso's trial. Instead of saying, as he had once said of his soldiers, "Let them fear me, so long as they [269] obey me," he now told Sejanus, "Let them hate me, so long as they fear me." Three knights and two senators who had been most outspoken in their recent criticism of him he put to death on the absurd charge of having expressed pleasure on hearing of the death of Germanicus. The informers divided up their estates between them.

About this time Germanicus' eldest boy Nero* came of age and though he showed little promise of being as capable a soldier or as talented an administrator as his father, he had much of his father's good looks and sweetness of character and the City hoped much from him. There was great popular rejoicing when he married the daughter of Castor and Livilla, whom at first we called Helen because of her surprising beauty [her real name was Julia] but afterwards Helus, which means Glutton, because she spoilt her beauty by over-eating. Nero was Agrippina's favourite.

The family was divided, being of Claudian stock, into good and bad; or, in the words of the ballad, "crabs and apples".

The crabs outnumbered the apples. Of the nine children whom Agrippina bore Germanicus three died young--two girls and a boy--and from what I saw of them this boy and the elder girl were the best of the nine. The boy, who died on his eighth birthday, had been such a favourite with Augustus that the old man kept a picture of him, dressed in Cupid's costume, in his bedroom and used to kiss it every morning as soon as he got out of bed. But of the surviving children only Nero had a wholly good character. Drusus was morose and nervous and easily inclined to evil. Drusilla was like him. Caligula, Agrippinilla, and the youngest, whom we called Lesbia, were wholly bad, as the younger of the girls who died seemed also to be. But the City judged the whole family by Nero because, so far, he was the only one old enough to make a strong public impression.

Caligula was still only nine years old.

Agrippina visited me in great distress one day when I was in Rome and asked my advice. She said that wherever she went she felt that she was being followed and spied on, and it was making her ill. Did I know anyone besides *This Nero is not to be confused with the Nero who became Emperor.--R. G. Sejanus who had any influence over Tiberius? She was sure that he had decided to kill or banish her if he could get the slightest handle against her. I said that I only knew two people who had any influence for the good over Tiberius. One was Cocceius Nerva, and the other was Vipsania. Tiberius had never been able to root his love for Vipsania out of his heart. When a granddaughter was born to her and Gallus, who at the age of fifteen exactly resembled Vipsania as she had been when Tiberius' wife, Tiberius could not bear the thought of anyone marrying her but himself; and was only prevented from doing so by her being Castor's niece, which would have made the marriage technically incestuous. So he appointed her the Chief Vestal in succession to old Occia who had just died. I told Agrippina that if she made friends with Cocceius and Vipsania [who as Castor's mother would do all in her power to help her] she was safe, and so were her children. She took my advice. Vipsania and Gallus, who were very sorry for her, made her free of their house and their three country villas and took a great deal of trouble with the children.

Gallus, for instance, chose new tutors for the boys because Agrippina suspected the old ones of being agents of Sejanus. Nerva was not so much help.

He was a jurist and the greatest living authority on the laws of contracts, about which he had written several books: but in all other respects he was so absent-minded and unobservant as to be almost a simpleton. He was kind to her, as he was to everyone, but did not realise what she expected from him.

Unfortunately Vipsania died soon afterwards and the effect on Tiberius was apparent at once. He no longer made any serious attempt to conceal his sexual depravity, the rumours of which everyone had shrunk from taking literally. For some of his perversities were so preposterous and horrible that nobody could seriously reconcile them wifh the dignity of an Emperor of Rome, Augustus'

chosen successor. No women or boys were safe in his presence now, even the wives and children of senators; and if they valued their own lives or those of their husbands and fathers they willingly did what he expected of them. But one woman, a Consul's wife, committed suicide afterwards in the presence of her friends, telling them that she had been forced [271] to save her young daughter from Tiberius' lust by consenting to prostitute herself to him, which was shameful enough; but then the Old He-Goat had taken advantage of her complaisance by forcing her to such abominable acts of filthiness with him that she preferred to die rather than to live on with the memory of them.

There was a popular song circulated about this time which began with the words: "Why, o why did the Old He-Goat...?" I would be ashamed to quote more of it, but it was as witty as it was obscene and was supposed to have been written by Livia herself. Livia was the author of a number of similar satires against Tiberius which she circulated anonymously through Urgulania. She knew that they would reach him sooner or later and that he was extremely sensitive to satires, and thought that while he felt his position insecure because of them, he would not dare to break with her. She also now went out of her way to be pleasant to Agrippina, and even told her in confidence that Tiberius alone had given Piso the instructions about baiting Germanicus. Agrippina did not trust her, but it was clear that Livia and Tiberius were at enmity, and she felt, she told me, that if she had to choose between the protection of one or the other she would prefer to be under Livia's. I was inclined to agree with Agrippina. I had observed that no favourite of Livia had yet been made the victim of Tiberius' informers. But I had forebodings of what might happen if Livia died.

What had begun to impress me as particularly ominous, though I could not altogether account for my feelings, was the strong bond between Livia and Caligula. Caligula had in general only two ways of behaving: he was either insolent or servile. To Agrippina and my mother and myself and his brothers and Castor, for instance, he was insolent.

To Sejanus and Tiberius and Livilla he was servile. But to Livia he was something else, difficult to express. He was almost like her lover. It was not the usual tender tie that binds little boys to indulgent grandmothers or great-

grandmothers, though it is true that he once took great pains over a copy of affectionate verses for her seventy-fifth birthday and that she was always giving him presents. I mean that there was a strong impression of some unpleasant secret between them--but I don't mean to suggest that there was any indecent relationship between them.

Agrippina felt this too, she told me, but could find out nothing definite about it.

One day I began to understand why Sejanus had been so polite to me. He suggested the betrothal of his daughter to my son Drusillus. My personal feelings against the marriage were that the girl, who seemed a nice little thing, was unlucky to be matched to Drusillus, who seemed more of a lubber every time I saw him.

But I could not say so. Still less could I say that I loathed the thought of being even remotely related in marriage with a scoundrel like Sejanus.

He noticed my hesitation in answering and wanted to know whether I considered the match beneath the dignity of my family. I stammered and said no, certainly I did not: his branch of the ^Elian family was a very honourable one.

For Sejanus, though the son of a mere country knight, had been adopted in early manhood by a rich senator of the ^Elian family, a Consul, who had left him all his money; there was a scandal connected with this adoption, but the fact remained that Sejanus was an ^Elian. He anxiously pressed me to explain my hesitation and said that if I had any feeling against the marriage, he was sorry he had mentioned it, but of course he had only done so on Tiberius' suggestion. So I told him that if Tiberius proposed the match I would be glad to give my consent: that my chief feeling had been that four years old was rather young for a girl to be betrothed to a boy of thirteen, who would be twenty-one before he could legally consummate the marriage and by that time might have formed other entanglements, Sejanus smiled and said that he trusted me to keep the lad out of serious mischief.

There was great alarm in the City when it was known that Sejanus was to become related with the Imperial family, but everyone hastened to congratulate him, and me too. A few days later Drusillus was dead. He was found lying behind a bush in the garden of a house at [A.D. 23] Pompeii where he had been invited, from Herculaneum, by some friends of Urgulanilla's. A small pear was found stuck in his throat. It was said at the inquest that he had been seen throwing fruit up in the air [273] and trying to catch it in his mouth: his death was unquestionably due to an accident. But nobody believed this. It was clear that Livia, not having been consulted about the marriage of one of her own great-grandchildren, had arranged for the child to be strangled and the pear crammed down his throat afterwards. As was the custom in such cases, the pear tree was charged with murder and sentenced to be uprooted and burned.

Tiberius asked the Senate to decree Castor Protector of the People, which was as much as pointing him out as heir to the monarchy. This request caused general relief. It was taken as a sign that Tiberius was aware of Sejanus' ambitions and intended to check them. When the decree was passed someone proposed that it should be printed on the walls of the House in letters of gold. Nobody realised that it was at Sejanus' own suggestion that Castor was so honoured; he had hinted to Tiberius that Castor, Agrippina, Livia and Gallus were in league together and proposed this as the best way to see who else belonged to their party. It was a friend of his own who had made the proposal about the gold inscription, and the names of senators who supported this extravagant motion were carefully noted.

Castor was more popular now among the better citizens than he had been. He had given up his drunken habits--the death of Germanicus seemed to have sobered him--and though he still had an inordinate love of bloodshed at sword-fights and dressed extravagantly and betted enormous sums on the chariot races, he was a conscientious magistrate and a loyal friend. I had little to do with him, but when we met he treated me with far greater consideration than before Germanicus'

death.

The bitter hatred between him and Sejanus always threatened to blaze up into a quarrel, but Sejanus was careful not to provoke Castor until the quarrel could be turned to account. The time had now come. Sejanus went to the Palace to congratulate Castor on his protectorship and found him in his study with Livilla.

There were no slaves or freedmen present, so Sejanus could say what he pleased.

By this time Livilla was so much in love with him that he could count on her to betray Castor as she had once betrayed Postumus--somehow he knew that story--and there had even been talk between them in which they had regretted that they were not Emperor and Empress, to do as they pleased. Sejanus said, "Well, Castor, I've worked it for you all right! Congratulations!"

Castor scowled. He was only "Castor" to a few intimates. He had won the name, as I think I have explained, because of his resemblance to a well-known gladiator, but it had stuck because one day he had lost his temper in an argument with a knight. The knight had told him bluntly at a banquet that he was drunk and incapable, and Castor, shouting "Drunk and incapable, am I? I'll show you if I'm drunk and incapable," staggered from his couch and hit the knight such a terrific blow in the belly that he vomited up the whole meal. Castor now said to Sejanus:

"I don't allow anyone to address me by a nickname except a friend or an equal, and you're neither. To you I'm Tiberius Drusus Caesar. And I don't know what you claim to have 'worked' for me. And I don't want your congratulations on it, whatever it is. So get out."

Livilla said: "If you ask me, I call it pretty cowardly of you to insult Sejanus like this, not to mention the ingratitude of kicking him out like a dog when he comes to congratulate you on your protectorship. You know that your father would never have given it to you except on Sejanus' recommendation."

Castor said: "You're talking nonsense, Livilla. This filthy spy has had no more to do with the appointment than my eunuch Lygdus. He's just pretending to be important. And tell me, Sejanus, what’s this about cowardice?"

Sejanus said: "Your wife is quite right. You're a coward.

You wouldn't have dared to talk to me like this before I got you appointed Protector and so made your person sacrosanct. You know perfectly well that I'd have thrashed you."

"And serve you right," said Livilla.

Castor looked from one face to the other and said slowly: "So there's something between you two, is there?"

Livilla smiled scornfully: "And suppose there is? Who's the better man?"

Castor shouted: "All right, my girl, we'll see. Just forget for a moment that I'm Protector of the People, Sejanus, and put your fists up."

Sejanus folded his arms.

"Put them up, I say, you coward."

Sejanus said nothing, so Castor struck him hard across the face with his open palm. "Now get out!"

Sejanus went out with an ironical obeisance and Livilla followed him.

This blow settled Castor's fate. The account that Tiberius heard from Sejanus, who came to him with the mark of Castor's slap still red on his cheek, was that Castor had been drunk when Sejanus had congratulated him on his protectorship and had struck him across the face saying: "Yes, it's good to feel that I can do this now without fear of being hit back. And you can tell my father that I'll do the same to every other dirty spy of his." Livilla confirmed this the next day when she came to complain that Castor had beaten her; she said that he had beaten her because she told him how disgusted she was with him for striking a man who could not strike back and for insulting his father. Tiberius believed them. He said nothing to Castor but put up a bronze statue of Sejanus in Pompey's theatre, an extraordinary honour to be paid to any man in his lifetime. This was understood to mean that Castor was out of favour with Tiberius in spite of his protectorship [for Sejanus and Livilla had circulated their version of the quarrel] and that Sejanus was now the one person whose favour was worth courting. Many replicas of the statue were therefore made, which his partisans put in a place of honour in their halls on the right hand of Tiberius' statue: but the statues of Castor were rarely seen. Castor's face showed his resentment so clearly now whenever he met his father that Sejanus' task was made easy. He told Tiberius that Castor was sounding various senators as to their willingness to support him if he usurped the monarchy and that some of them had already promised their help. The ones who seemed most dangerous to Tiberius were therefore arrested on the familiar charge of blaspheming against Augustus. One man was condemned to death for having gone into a privy with a gold coin of Augustus' in his hand. Another was accused of having included a statue of Augustus in a list of furniture for sale in a country villa. He would have been condemned to death if the Consul who was judging the case had not asked Tiberius to give his vote first. Tiberius was ashamed to vote for the death-penalty, so the man was acquitted, but condemned soon after on another charge.

Castor became alarmed and asked Livia for her help against Sejanus. Livia told him not to be afraid: she would soon bring Tiberius to his senses. But she had no confidence in Castor as an ally. She went to Tiberius and told him that Castor had accused Sejanus of debauching Livilla, of abusing his position of confidence by levying blackmail on rich men in Tiberius' name, and of aiming at the monarchy; that he had said that unless Tiberius dismissed the rascal soon he would take the matter into his own hands; and that he had then asked for her co-operation. By putting the case like this to Tiberius she hoped to make him as mistrustful of Sejanus as he was of Castor and thus to cause him to fall back into his old habit of dependence on her.

For a time at least she succeeded. But then an accident suddenly convinced Tiberius that Sejanus was as loyally devoted as he pretended to be and as all his actions had hitherto shown him. They were picnicking together one day with three or four friends in a natural cave by the seashore, when there was a sudden rattle and roar and part of the roof fell in, killing some of the attendants and burying others, and blocking up the entrance. Sejanus crouched with arched back over Tiberius--they were both unhurt--to shield him from a further fall. When the soldiers dug them out an hour later he was found still in the same position.

Thrasyllus, too, by the way, increased his reputation on this occasion: he had told Tiberius that there would be an hour of darkness about noon that day. Tiberius had Thrasyllus' assurance that he would outlive Sejanus by a great many years, and that Sejanus was not dangerous to him. I think that Sejanus had arranged this with Thrasyllus, but I have no proof: Thrasyllus was not altogether incorruptible but when he made prophecies to suit his clients' wishes they seemed to come off just as well as his ordinary ones. Tiberius did outlive Sejanus as it happens, by a number of years.

Tiberius gave a further public sign that Castor was out of favour by censuring him in the Senate for a letter he had written. Castor had excused himself from attending the [277] sacrifice when the House opened after the summer recess, explaining that he was prevented by other public business from returning to the city in time. Tiberius said scornfully that anyone would think that the young fellow was on campaign in Germany or on a diplomatic visit to Armenia: when all the "public business" that kept him was boating and bathing at Terracina. He said that he himself, now in the decline of life, might be excused for an occasional absence from the City: he might plead that his energies had been exhausted by prolonged public service with the sword and the pen. But what except insolence could detain his son? This was most unjust: Castor had been commissioned to make a report on coastal defence during the recess and had not been able to collect all the evidence in time: rather than waste time by a journey to Rome and then back again to Terracina he was finishing his task.

When Castor returned he almost immediately fell ill.

The symptoms were those of rapid consumption. He lost colour and weight and began coughing blood. He wrote to his father and asked him to come and visit him in his room--he lived at the other end of the Palace--because he believed that he was dying, and to forgive him if he had in any way offended. Sejanus advised Tiberius against the visit: the illness might be real, but on the other hand it might easily be a trick for assassinating him. So Tiberius did not visit him and a few days later Castor died.

There was not much sorrow at the death of Castor. The violence of his temper and his reputation for cruelty had made the City apprehensive of what would happen if he succeeded his father. Few believed in his recent reformation.

Most people thought it had merely [A.D. 25] been a trick to win popular affection, and that he would have been just as bad as his father as soon as he found himself in his father's place. And now Germanicus' three sons were growing up--Drusus, too, had just come of age--and were unquestionably Tiberius' heirs. But the Senate, out of respect for Tiberius, mourned for Castor as noisily as it could and voted the same honours in his memory as it had voted Germanicus. Tiberius made no pretence of sorrow on this occasion but pronounced the panegyric he had prepared for Castor in a firm resonant voice. When he saw tears rolling down the faces of several senators he remarked in an audible aside to Sejanus at his elbow:

"Faugh! The place smells of onions!" Gallus afterwards rose to compliment Tiberius on his mastery over his grief.

He recalled that even the God Augustus, during his presence among them in mortal shape, had so far given way to his feelings at the death of Marcellus, his adopted son [not even his real son], that when he was thanking the House for its sympathy he had to break off in the middle, unable to go on for emotion. Whereas the speech they had just heard was a masterpiece of restraint. [I may mention here that when four or five months later depuities arrived from Troy to condole with Tiberius on the death of his only son, Tiberius thanked them: "And I condole with you, gentlemen, on the death of Hector."] Tiberius then sent for Nero and Drusus, and when they arrived at the House he took them by the hand and introduced them: "My Lords, three years ago I committed these fatherless children to their uncle, my dear son whom to-day we are all so bitterly mourning, desiring him to adopt them as his sons, though he already had sons of his own, and bring them up as worthy inheritors of the family tradition. [Hear, hearl from Gallus, and general applause.] But now that he has been snatched from us by cruel fate [groans and lamentations]

I make the same request of you. In the presence of the Gods, in the face of your beloved Country, I beseech you, receive into your protection, take under your tuition, these noble great-grandchildren of Augustus, descended from ancestors whose names resound in Roman history: see that your duty and mine is honourably fulfilled towards them.

Grandsons, these senators are now in the place of fathers to you, and your birth is such that whatever good or evil may befall you will spell the good or evil of the entire State." [Resounding applause, tears, benedictions, shouts of loyalty.]

But instead of leaving off there he spoilt the whole effect by ending on a familiar note with his old stale phrases about presently retiring and restoring the Republic--when "the Consuls or someone else" would "take the burden of government off" his "aged shoulders". If he did not intend Nero and Drusus [or one or other of them] as his Imperial [279] successors, what did he mean by identifying their fortune so closely with that of the State?

Castor's funeral was less impressive than Germanicus', being marked by very few genuine expressions of grief, but on the other hand far more magnificent.

Every one of the family masks of the Caesars and Claudians was worn in the procession, beginning with those of ^Eneas, the founder of the Julian family, and Romulus, the founder of Rome, and ending with those of Gaius, Lucius and Germanicus. Julius Caesar's mask appeared because, like Romulus, he was only a demi-god, but Augustus' did not appear, because he was a major Deity.

Sejanus and Livilla had now to consider how to achieve their ambition of becoming Emperor and Empress, Nero, Drusus and Caligula stood in the way and would have to be removed. Three seemed rather many to get rid of safely, but, as Livilla pointed out, her grandmother had apparently managed to get rid of Gaius, Lucius and Postumus when she wanted to put Tiberius into power. And Sejanus was clearly in a much better position than Livia had been for carrying their plans through. To show Livilla that he really intended to marry her, as he had promised, Sejanus divorced his wife Apicata, by whom he had three children.

He charged her with adultery and said that she was about to become the mother of a child which was not his own.

He did not publicly name her lover but told Tiberius in private that he suspected Nero. Nero, he said, was getting a bad reputation for his affairs with the wives of prominent men and seemed to think that, as heir-presumptive to the monarchy, he could behave how he liked. Livilla meanwhile did her best to detach Agrippina from Livia's protection, by warning Agrippina that Livia was only using her as a weapon in her conflict with Tiberius--which happened to be true--and by warning Livia, through one of her ladies-in-waiting, that Agrippina was only using her as a weapon in her conflict with Tiberius--which was also true. She made each believe that the other had sworn to kill her as soon as her usefulness ended.

The twelve pontiffs now began to include Nero and Drusus in the customary prayers they offered for the health and prosperity of the Emperor, and the other priests followed their example. Tiberius as High Pontiff sent a letter of complaint to them, saying that they had made no difference between these boys and himself, a man who had honourably held most of the highest offices of State twenty years before they were bom, and all the rest since: it was not decent. He called them into his presence and there asked them whether Agrippina had merely coaxed them to make this addition to the prayer or whether she had frightened them into making it by using threats. They denied, of course, that she had done either, but he was not convinced; four of the twelve, including Gallus, were in some way connected with her by marriage and five others were on very friendly terms with her and her sons. He reprimanded them severely. In his next speech he warned the Senate to "award no further premature distinctions that might encourage the giddy minds of young men to indulge in presumptuous aspirations."

Agrippina found an unexpected ally in Calpurnius Piso.

He told her that he had defended his uncle Gnasus Piso merely out of regard for family honour and that he must not be thought of as her enemy; he would do all that he could to protect her and her children. But Calpurnius did not live long after this. He was charged in the Senate with "treasonable words spoken in private", and of keeping poison in his house, and of coming into the Senate armed with a dagger. These two last articles were so absurd that they were dropped, but a day was fixed for his trial on the "treasonable words" charge. He killed himself before the trial came off.

Tiberius believed Sejanus' story that there was a secret party, called the Leek Green party, now being formed by Agrippina, the sign of which was an extravagant partisanship of the Leek Green faction in the chariot-races in the Circus. In these races there were four colours--scarlet, white, sea-blue and leek-green. The Leek Green faction happened to be most in favour at this time and the Scarlet the most unpopular. So now when Tiberius went to watch the races on public holidays, as he was bound to do in his official position--though he had not hitherto been at all interested in them and discouraged idle racing-talk at the Palace or at banquets to which he was invited--and began [281] for the first time to notice what sort of support the different colours were being given he was greatly disturbed to hear the Leek Green so cried up. He had been also told by Sejanus that Scarlet was the secret symbol used by Leek Greens when they wished to refer to his own supporters, and he noticed that whenever a Scarlet chariot won, which was seldom, it came in for loud groans and hisses. Sejanus was clever; he knew that Germanicus had always backed the Leek Green and that Agrippina, Nero and Drusus, for sentimental reasons, continued to favour the colour.

There was a nobleman called Silius who had been for many years a corps-commander on the Rhine. I think I have mentioned him as the General of the four regiments in the Upper Province of Germany which did not take part in the great mutiny. He had been my brother's most capable lieutenant and had been granted triumphal ornaments for his successes against Hermann. Recently, at the head of the combined forces of the Upper and Lower Provinces he had put down a dangerous revolt of the French tribes in the neighbourhood of my birthplace, Lyons. He was not a modest man but not particularly boastful and if he had really said in public, as was reported, that but for his tactful handling of those four regiments in the mutiny they would have joined the other mutineers, and that therefore, but for him, Tiberius would not have had any Empire at all to rule over--well, that was not far from the truth. But naturally Tiberius did not like it, if only because the mutinous regiments were, as I explained, the ones with which he had himself had most to do. Silius' wife Sosia was Agrippina's best woman friend. It so happened that Silius at the great Roman Games, which were held early in September, was betting very heavily on the Leek Green. Sefanus shouted across to him: "I'll take you up to any amount. My money's on Scarlet." Silius shouted back:

"You're backing the wrong colour, my friend. The Scarlet charioteer hasn't the least idea of managing his reins. He tries to do it all with the whip. I'll bet you an even thousand that Leek Green wins. Young Nero here says he'll make it fifteen hundred; he's an enthusiastic Leek Greener." Sejanus looked significantly at Tiberius, who had heard the whole exchange and was astonished at Silius'

boldness. He took it as a good omen when the leader of the Leek Green chariot fell in rounding the mark on the last lap but one, and Scarlet came in an easy winner.

Ten days later Silius was impeached before the Senate.

The charge was high treason. He was accused of having connived in the French revolt during its earlier stages and having taken a third part of the plunder as payment for non-intervention, of making his victory the excuse for further plunder of loyal provincials, and of afterwards imposing excessive emergency taxes on the province for the expenses of the campaign. Sosia was accused of complicity in the same offences. Silius had been unpopular at the Palace ever since the French rebellion. Tiberius had come in for a good deal of criticism for not having taken the field against the rebels, and for having shown more interest in the treason trials that were going on at the time than in the campaign. He had excused himself to the Senate on the ground of age--and Castor had been engaged in important business--and explained that he had been keeping in touch with Silius'

headquarters all along, giving him valuable advice. Tiberius was very sensitive about the whole French revolt. When the French were beaten he had been made ridiculous by the motion of a waggish senator, an imitator of Gallus' tricks, that he should be awarded a triumph for being the man really responsible for victory. He was so displeased by this, taking the line that in any case the victory was not worth talking about, that nobody dared to vote Silius the triumphal ornaments which he thoroughly well deserved. Silius had been disappointed and what he had said about the Rhine mutiny had been said in resentment of Tiberius' ingratitude.

Silius disdained to reply to the charges of treason. He was not guilty of any understanding with the rebels and if the soldiers under his command had in some cases failed to distinguish between the property of rebels and the property of loyalists that was only to be expected: many pretended loyalists were secretly financing the rebellion. As for the taxation, the fact was that Tiberius had promised him a special grant from the Treasury to cover the expenses of the campaign and to indemnify Roman citizens for their loss of houses, crops and cattle. In anticipation of the payment [283] of this grant Silius had imposed a tax on certain Northern tribes, promising to refund the money when it was paid him by Tiberius: which it never was. Silius was a poorer man by twenty thousand gold pieces after the revolt than before it, because he had raised a troop of volunteer horse which he armed and paid at his own expense. His chief accuser, who was one of the Consuls of the year, pressed the charges of extortion with great malice.

He was a friend of Sejanus and was also the son of the military governor of the Lower Province who had wished to take supreme command of the Roman forces against the French and had been forced to stand aside in Silius' favour. Silius could not even produce evidence of Tiberius' promised grant, because the letter in which it was contained was sealed with the Sphinx. And the charges of extortion were in any case irrelevant, because the trial was for treason, not for extortion.

He finally burst out: "My Lords, I could say much in my defence but shall say nothing, because this trial is not being conducted in a constitutional manner and the verdict has been long ago decided. I understand that my real crime is having said that, but for my handling of them, the regiments in Upper Germany would have mutinied. I shall now put my culpability in this matter beyond question. I shall say that, but for Tiberius' previous handling of them, the troops in Lower Germany would not have mutinied.

My Lords, I am the victim of an avaricious, jealous, bloodthirsty, tyrannical..." The rest of his speech was drowned in a roar of horrified protest from the House.

Silius saluted Tiberius and walked out with his head high in the air. When he arrived at his house he embraced Sosia and his children, gave an affectionate message of farewell to Agrippina, Nero, Gallus, and his other friends, and going to his bedroom drove his sword into his throat.

His guilt was held to be proved by his insults to Tiberius.

His entire estate was confiscated, with a promise that the provincials should have the unjust tax repaid them out of it, and that his accusers should be given the fourth part of what remained, as the law required, and that the money which had been left him under Augustus' will as an earnest of his loyalty should return to the Treasury as paid him under a misapprehension. The provincials did not dare to press for the tax to be refunded, so Tiberius kept threequarters of the estate: for there was no longer any real distinction between the Military Treasury, the Public Treasury and the Privy Purse. This was the first time that he had benefited directly from the confiscation of an estate or that he had let a spoken insult to himself be construed as a proof of treason.

Sosia had property of her own and, to save her life and keep the children from becoming paupers, Gallus moved that she should be banished and that half of her effects should be forfeited to her accusers, half left to her children. But a cousin by marriage of Agrippina's, who was a confederate of Gallus, proposed that the accusers should only be paid one-fourth, which was the legal minimum, saying that Gallus was more loyal to the Emperor than just to Sosia; for Sosia was known, at least, to have reproved her husband, as he lay dying, for his treasonable and ungrateful utterances. So Sosia was only banished--she went to live in Marseilles; and since Silius as soon as he knew that he would be tried for his life had secretly given Gallus and certain other friends most of his money in cash to hold in trust for the children, the family came off quite well. His eldest son lived to cause me much distress.

From now onward Tiberius, who had hitherto made his accusations of treason hang on supposed blasphemies of Augustus, enforced more and more strongly the edict which had been passed in the first year of his monarchy, making it treason for anyone to assail his own honour and reputation in any way. He accused a senator, whom he suspected to be of Agrippina's party, of having recited a scurrilous epigram aimed against him. The fact was that the senator's wife one morning noticed a sheet of paper posted high up on the gate of the house. She asked her husband to read out what was on it--he was taller. He slowly spelt out:

"He is no drunkard now of wine As he was drunkard then: He warms him up with a richer cup--The blood of murdered men." She asked innocently what the verse meant and he said, "It's unsafe to explain in public, my dear." A professional informer was hanging about the gate on the chance that when the senator read the epigram, which was Livia's work, he would say something worth reporting. He went straight to Sejanus. Tiberius himself cross-examined the senator, asking what he meant by "unsafe", and to whom, in his opinion, the epigram referred. The senator shuffled and would not give direct answers. Tiberius then said that many libels had been current when he was a younger man, all accusing him of being a drunkard, and that in recent years he had been ordered by his doctors to abstain from wine because of a tendency to gout, and that several libels had lately been published accusing him of bloodthirstiness. He asked the accused whether he was not aware of these facts, and whether he thought that the epigram could refer to anyone but his Emperor. The wretched man agreed that he had heard the libels on Tiberius' drunkenness but knew them to have no foundation in truth and had not made any connection in his mind between them and the one on his gate. He was then asked why he had not reported the former libels to the Senate as it was his duty to do. He answered that when he had heard them it was not yet a punishable offence to utter or repeat any epigram, however scurrilous, written against anyone, however virtuous; nor treason to utter or repeat scurrilities directed even against Augustus so long as one did not publish them in writing.

Tiberius asked to what time he referred, for Augustus had late in life made an edict against scurrilities too. The senator answered: "It was during your third year at Rhodes."

Tiberius cried out, "My Lords, how can you permit this fellow to insult me so?" So the Senate actually condemned him to be thrown down the Tarpeian cliff, a punishment ordinarily reserved for the worst traitors--generals who sold battles to the enemy, and such-like.

Another man, a knight, was put to death for writing a tragedy about King Agamemnon in which Agamemnon's queen, who murdered him in his bath, cried as she swung the axe: "Know, bloody tyrant, 'tis no crime T'avenge my wrongs like this."

Tiberius said that he was intended by the character Agamemnon and that the line quoted was an incitement to assassinate him. So the tragedy, which everyone had laughed at because it was so lamely and wretchedly composed, won a sort of dignity by having all its copies called in and burned and its author executed.

This prosecution was followed two years later--but I put it down here because the Agamemnon story reminds me of it--by that of Cremutius Cordus, an old man who had come into collision with Sejanus some time [A.D. 25] before over a trifle. Sejanus entering the House one wet day had hung his cloak on the peg which had always been Cremutius', and Cremutius, when he came in, not knowing that it was Sejanus' cloak, had moved it to another peg to make room for his own. Sejanus' cloak had fallen down from this new peg and somebody with muddy sandals had trampled on it. Sejanus retaliated in a variety of malicious ways, and Cremutius came so to loathe the sight of his face and the sound of his name that when he heard that Sejanus' statue had been set up on the Theatre of Pompey he exclaimed: "That just about ruins the Theatre". So now he was named to Tiberius as one of Agrippina's principal adherents. But as he was a venerable, mild old man who had no enemy in the world but Sejanus and never spoke a word more than necessary, it was difficult to support any accusation against him with evidence that even a brow-beaten Senate could decently accept. In the end Cremutius was charged with having written in praise of Brutus and Cassius, the murderers of Julius Caesar. The evidence produced was an historical work which he had written thirty years before and which Augustus himself, Julius' adopted son, was known to have included in his private library and occasionally consulted.

Cremutius made a spirited defence against this absurd charge, saying that Brutus and Cassius had been dead so long and had been so frequently praised for their deed by subsequent historians that he could not believe that the trial was not a hoax--such a hoax as a young traveller recently suffered in the city of Larissa.

This young man was publicly accused of having murdered three men, though they were no more than wineskins, hanging outside a shop, [287] which he had slashed at in the dark, mistaking them for robbers. But this Larissan trial had taken place on the annual festival of Laughter, which gave some point to the proceedings, and the young man was a drunkard and much too ready with his sword and perhaps deserved a lesson.

But he, Cremutius Cordus, was too old and too sober to be made a fool of in this way, and this was no festival of Laughter but, on the contrary, the four hundred and seventy-sixth anniversary of the solemn promulgation of the Laws of the Twelve Tables, that glorious monument to the legislative genius and the moral rectitude of our forefathers. He went home and starved himself to death. All copies of his book were called in and burned except for two or three which his daughter hid away somewhere and republished many years later when Tiberius was dead. It was not very good writing; it got more fame than it really deserved.

I had been all this time saying to myself, "Claudius, you're a poor fellow and not much use in this world, and you have led a pretty miserable life with one thing and another, but at least your life is safe." So when old Cremutius whom I knew very well--we had often met and chatted in the Library--lost his life on a charge like this it was a great shock to me. I felt like a man living on the slopes of a volcano when it suddenly throws up a warning shower of ash and red hot stones.

I had written far more treasonable things in my time than Cremutius. My history of Augustus' religious reforms contained several phrases that could easily be made the subject of an accusation. And though my estate was so small that it would hardly be worth an accuser's while to impeach me for the sake of a fourth share, I realised well enough that all the recent victims of treason-trials were friends of Agrippina, whom I continued to visit whenever I went to Rome. I was not at all sure how far my being a brother-in-law of Sejanus would be sufficient protection to me.

Yes, I had lately become Sejanus' brother-in-law, and now I shall tell how it came about.

XXIII

ONE DAY SEJANUS HAD TOLD ME THAT I OUGHT TO MARRY again, as I did not seem to get on well with my wife. I said that Urgulanilla had been the choice of my grandmother Livia and that I could not divorce her without Livia's permission.

"Oh, no, of course not," he said. "I quite understand that, but it must be very unhappy for you without a wife."

"Thank you," I said, "I manage all right."

He pretended to find this a good joke and laughed loudly, calling me a very wise man, but afterwards said that if by any chance I found it possible to divorce my wife I was to come to him. He had just the woman for me in mind--well-born, young and intelligent. I thanked him but felt uncomfortable. As I was going away he said: "My friend Claudius, I have a word of advice to you. Back Scarlet tomorrow in every race and don't mind losing a bit of money at first; you'll not lose in the long run. And don't back Leek Green: it's an unlucky colour these days.

And don't tell anyone that I gave you the tip." I felt much relieved that Sejanus thought me still worth cultivating, but I couldn't make sense of what he told me.

However, at the chariot-race next day--it was the festival of Augustus--Tiberius saw me take my seat in the Circus and, being in an affable mood, sent for me and asked, "What are you doing these days, nephew?"

I stammered that I was writing a history of the ancient Etruscans, if it pleased him.

He said: "Oh, really? That does credit to your judgment. There's no ancient Etruscan left to protest and no modern Etruscan who cares: so you can write as you please. What else are you doing?"

"Wr-r-riting a history of the ancient C-C-C-C-C-Carthaginians, if you please."

"Splendid! And what else? Hurry up with that stammer.

'I'm a busy man."

"At the m-m-moment I'm b-b-b-b----"

"Beginning a history of C-C-C-Cloud C-C-C-Cuckoo Land?"

"N-no, sir, b-b-b-backing Scarlet."

He looked at me very shrewdly and said: "I see, nephew, that you are not altogether a fool. What makes you back Scarlet?"

I was in difficulties, because I couldn't say that Sejanus had given me the tip. So I said: "I dreamed that Leek Green was d-disqualified for using his whip on his c-c-ccompetitors and Scarlet c-c-came in first with Sea-b-b-blue and White nowhere."

He gave me a purse of money and muttered in my ear: "Tell nobody that I'm staking you, but put this on Scarlet and let's see what happens."

It proved to be Scarlet's day, and by betting with young Nero on every race I won close on two thousand gold pieces. That evening I thought it wise to visit Tiberius at the Palace and to say: "Here's the lucky purse, sir, with a family of little purses which it littered during the day."

"All mine?" he exclaimed. "Well, I am in luck. Scarlet’s the colour, eh?"

This was just like my uncle Tiberius. He hadn't made it clear who was to keep the winnings and I had supposed that I was. But if I had lost all the money he would have said something to make me feel in his debt to that amount.

He might at least have given me a commission.

The next time I came up to Rome I found my mother in such a distracted state that I did not dare at first to utter a word in her presence for fear of her flying into a temper and boxing my ears. I gathered that her trouble was connected with Caligula, then aged twelve, and Drusilla, then aged thirteen, who were staying with her. Drusilla was confined to her room without food and Caligula was at liberty but looking thoroughly frightened. He visited me that evening and said:

"Uncle Claudius. Beg your mother not to tell the Emperor. We were doing no wrong, I swear.

It was just a game. You can't believe it of us. Say you can't."

When he explained what he did not want told to the Emperor, and swore by his father's honour that he and Drusilla were entirely innocent, I felt bound to do what I could for the children. I went to my mother and said: "Caligula swears you are mistaken. He swears by his father's honour, and if there is the least possible doubt in your mind about his guilt you ought to respect that oath. For my part, I can't believe that a boy of twelve----"

"Caligula's a monster and Drusilla's a she-monster, and you're a blockhead, and I believe my eyes more than their oaths or your nonsense. I shall go to Tiberius the first thing to-morrow."

"But, Mother, if you tell the Emperor, it will not be only those two who will suffer. For once let's talk frankly, and be damned to informers! I may be a blockhead, but you know as well as I do that Tiberius suspects Agrippina of having poisoned Castor to get her elder boys made heirs to the monarchy, and that he lives in terror of a sudden rising in their favour. If you, as their grandmother, accuse these children of incest, do you suppose that he won't find a way of involving the elder members of the family in the charge?"

"You're a blockhead, I say, I can't bear the way your head twitches and your Adam's apple goes up and down."

But I could see that I had made an impression on her, and decided that if I kept out of her sight for the rest of my visit to Rome, so that my presence was not a reminder to her of my advice, it was likely that Tiberius would hear nothing from her about the matter. I packed up a few things and went to my brother-in-law Plautius' house, to ask him to put me up. [By now Plautius was well advanced in his career and in four years would be Consul.] Supper was long over by the time I called and he was reading legal documents in his study. His wife had gone to bed, he said.

I asked, "How is she? She looked rather worried when I saw her last."

He laughed. "Why, you rustic fellow, haven't you heard?

I divorced Numantina a month ago or more. When I said ‘my wife' I meant my new one, Apronia, daughter of the man who gave Tacfarinas such a beating recently!"

I apologised and said that I supposed I ought to offer my ["»']

congratulations. "But why did you divorce Numantina? I thought you two got on very well together."

"Not badly at all. But, to tell the truth, I've been in rather a fix lately with debts. I had bad luck some years ago as a junior magistrate. You know how much one is expected to spend out of one's own pockets on Games. Well, to begin with, I spent more than I could afford and had extremely bad luck besides, you may remember. Twice there was a mistake made in procedure halfway through the Games and I had to start all over again the next day. The first time it was my own fault: I used a form of prayer which had been altered by statute two years previously.

The next time a trumpeter who was blowing a long can had not taken a deep enough breath: he broke off short and that was enough to end things a second time. So I had to pay the sword-fighters and charioteers three times over. I have never been out of debt since. I had to do something about it at last, because my creditors were getting nasty.

Numantina's dowry was spent long ago, but I managed to arrange matters with her uncle. He has taken her back without it on condition that I let him adopt our younger son. He wants an heir and has taken a fancy to the boy.

And Apronia's very rich, so now I'm all right. Of course, Numantina didn't like leaving me at all. I had to tell her that I was only doing this because I had a hint from a Certain Friend of a Certain Personage that if I didn't marry Apronia, who has been in love with me and has interest at Court, I'd be charged with blasphemy against Augustus. You see, the other day one of my slaves tripped and dropped an alabaster bowl full of wine in the middle of the hall. I had a riding whip with me and when I heard the crash I rushed at the fellow and fairly laced into him. I was blind with fury. He said, "Steady on. Master, look where we arel"

And the brute had one foot within that holy white square of marble around Augustus' statue. I dropped my whip at once but half a dozen freedmen must have seen me. I am confident that I can trust them not to inform against me, but Numantina was worried by the incident, so I used it to reconcile her to the divorce.

By the way, this is entirely confidential. I trust you not to ^ CLAUDIU1 [292]

pass it on to Urgulanilla. I don't mind telling you she's rather annoyed about the Numantina business."

"I never see her now."

"Well, if you see her, you won't tell her what I've told you? Swear you won't."

"I swear by Augustus' Godhead."

"That's good enough. You know the bedroom that you used last time you were here?"

"Yes, thanks. If you're busy, I'll go to bed now. I've had a long journey from the country to-day and worries at home too. My mother practically threw me out of the house."

So we said good night and I went upstairs. A freedman gave me a lamp, with rather a queer look, and I went into the bedroom which was on the corridor nearly opposite Plautius', and after shutting myself in began undressing.

The bed was behind a curtain. I took off my clothes and washed my hands and feet in the little washplace at the other end of the room. Suddenly there was a heavy step behind me and my lamp was blown out. I told myself: "You're done for now, Claudius. Here's someone with a dagger." But I said aloud as calmly as I could: "Please light the lamp, whoever you may be, and see if we can't talk things over quietly. And if you decide to kill me you'll be able to see better with the lamp lit."

A deep voice answered: "Stay where you are."

There was shuffling and grunting and the sound of someone dressing and then of flint and steel struck together and at last the lamp was lit. It was Urgulanilla. I had not seen her since Drusillus' funeral and she had not grown any prettier in those five years. She was stouter than ever, colossally stout, and bloated faced; there was enough strength in this female Hercules to have overpowered a thousand Claudiuses. I am pretty strong in the arms; but she had only to throw herself on me and she would have crushed me to death.

She came towards me and said slowly: "What are you doing in my bedroom?"

I explained myself as well as I could, and said that it was a bad joke of Plautius', sending me into her room without telling me that she was there. I had the greatest respect for her, I said, and apologised sincerely for my intrusion and t'93]

would leave her at once and sleep on a couch in the Baths.

"No, my dear, now you're here you stay. It isn't often that I have the pleasure of my husband's company. Please understand that once you're here you can't escape. Get into bed and go to sleep and I'll join you later. I'm going to read a book until I feel sleepy. I've not been able to sleep properly for nights."

"I am very sorry if I woke you up just now..."

"Get into bed."

"I am very sorry indeed about Numantina's divorce. I knew nothing about it until the freedman told me a moment ago."

"Get into bed and stop talking."

"Good night, Urgulanilla. I am really very..."

"Shut up." She came over and drew the curtain.

Although I was dead tired and could hardly keep my eyes open I did my best to stay awake. I was convinced that Urgulanilla would wait until I went to sleep and then strangle me. Meanwhile she was reading to herself very slowly from a very dull book, a Greek love-story of the most idiotic sort, rustling the pages and spelling out each syllable slowly to herself in a hoarse whisper: "O

schol-ar," she said, "you have tasted now both hon-ey and g

"Pshaw," I returned, "My sweet-heart, I am read-y, if you give me an-oth-er kiss like that last one, to be roasted up-on a slow fire like a-ny chick-en or duckling."

She chuckled at this and then said aloud, "Go to sleep, husband. I'm waiting until I hear you snore."

I protested, "Then you shouldn't read such exciting stories."

I heard Plautius go to bed after a time. "O Heavens," I thought. "He'll be asleep in a few minutes and with two doors between us he won't hear my cries when Urgulanilla throttles me." Urgulanilla stopped reading and I had no muttering and crackling of paper to help me fight against ray sleepiness. I felt myself falling asleep. I was asleep. I knew that I was asleep and I simply must wake up. I struggled frantically to be awake. At last I was awake. There was a thud and a rustle of paper. The book had blown off the table on to the floor. The lamp had gone out; I was aware of a strong draught in the room. The door must be open. I listened attentively for about three minutes.

Urgulanilla was certainly not in the room.

As I was trying to make up my mind what to do I heard the most dreadful shriek ring out--from quite close it seemed. A woman screamed, "Spare me! Spare me! This is Numantina's doing! O! O!" Then came the bump of a heavy metal object falling, then the crash of splintering glass, another shriek, a distant thud, then hurried footsteps across the corridor. Somebody was in my room again.

The door was softly closed and barred. I recognised Urgulanilla's panting breath. I heard her clothes being taken off and laid on a chair, and soon she was lying beside me. I pretended to be asleep. She groped for my throat in the dark.

I said, as if half-waking: "Don't do that, darling. It tickles.

And I've got to go to Rome tomorrow to buy some cosmetics for you."

Then in a more wakeful voice: "O Urgulanilla! Is that you? What's all that noise?

What's the time?

Have we been asleep long?"

She said, "I don't know. I must have been asleep about three hours. It's just before dawn. It sounds as though something dreadful has happened. Let's go and see."

So we got up and put on our clothes in a hurry and unlocked the door.

Plautius, naked except for a coverlet hastily wrapped round him, stood in the middle of an excited crowd armed with torches. He was quite distracted and kept saying, "I didn't do it. I was asleep. I felt her torn from my arms and heard her borne through the air screaming for help, and then a crash of something falling and another crash as she went through the window. It was pitch dark. She called out:

'Spare mel It's Numantina's doing.'"

"Tell that to the judges," said Apronia's brother, striding up, "and see whether they'll believe you. You've killed her all right. Her skull's smashed in."

"I didn't do it," said Plautius. "How could I have done?

I was asleep. It was witchcraft. Numantina's a witch."

At dawn he was taken before the Emperor by Apronia's brother. Tiberius cross-examined him severely. He said now [^ that while he was sound asleep she had torn herself from his arms and leaped across the room, shrieking and crashed through the window into the courtyard below. Tiberius made Plautius accompany him at once to the scene of the murder. The first thing that he noticed in the bedroom was his own wedding-gift to Flautius, a beautiful bronze-and gold candelabra taken from the tomb of a queen, now lying broken on the ground. He glanced up and saw that it had been wrenched from the ceiling. He said: "She clung to it and it came down. She was being carried towards the window on somebody's shoulders. And look how high up in the window the hole is! She was pitched through, she did not jump through."

"It was witchcraft," said Plautius. "She was carried through the air by an unseen power. She shrieked and blamed my former wife Numantina."

Tiberius scoffed. Plautius' friends realised that he would be convicted of murder and executed, and his property confiscated. His grandmother Urgulania therefore sent him a dagger, telling him to think of his heirs, who would be allowed to keep the property if he anticipated the verdict by immediate suicide. He was a coward and could not bring himself to drive the dagger home. Eventually he got into a hot bath and ordered a surgeon to open his veins for him; he slowly and painlessly bled to death. I felt very badly about his death. I had not accused Urgulanilla of the murder at once because I would have been asked why when I heard the first shrieks I had not jumped up and rescued Apronia. I had decided to wait until the trial and only come forward if Plautius seemed likely to be condemned. I knew nothing about the dagger until it was too late. I comforted myself by the thought that he had treated Numantina very cruelly and had been a bad friend to me, besides.

To clear Plautius’ memory his brother brought a charge against Numantina of having disordered Plautius' wits by witchcraft. But Tiberius intervened and said that he was satisfied that Plautius had been in full possession of his faculties at the time. Numantina was discharged.

There was not another word spoken between Urgulanilla and myself. But a month later Sejanus paid me a surprise visit as he was passing through Capua. He was in Tiberius' company, on the way to Capri, an island near Naples, where Tiberius had twelve villas and frequently went for amusement. Sejanus said:

"You'll be able to divorce Urgulanilla now. She's due to have a child in about five months' time, so my agents inform me. You have me to thank for this. I knew Urgulanilla's obsession about Numantina. I happened to see a young slave, a Greek, who might have been Numantina's male twin. I made her a present of him and she fell in love with him at once. His name's Boter."

What could I do but thank him? Then I said, "And who's my new wife to be?"

"So you remember our conversation? Well, the lady I have in mind is my sister by adoption--ASIia. You know her of course?"

I did, but I hid my disappointment, and merely asked whether anyone so young, beautiful and. intelligent would be content to marry an old, lame, sick, stammering fool like myself.

"Oh," he answered brutally, "she won't mind it in the least. She'll be marrying Tiberius' nephew and Nero's uncle, that's all she thinks about. Don't imagine that she's in love with you. She might bring herself to have a child by you for the sake of its ancestry, but as for any sentiment----"

"In fact, apart from the honour of becoming your brother-in-law, I might just as well not divorce Urgulanilla for all the improvement it will make to my life?"

"Oh, you'll manage," he laughed. "You don't live too lonely a life here, by the look of this room. There's a nice woman about somewhere, I can see. Gloves, a hand-mirror, an embroidery frame, that box of sweets, flowers carefully arranged.

And -

"All right," I said. "I'll do it."

"You don't sound very grateful."

"It's not ingratitude. You have taken great trouble on my account and I don't know how to thank you properly.

I was only feeling rather nervous. From what I know of ,/Elia she's rather critical, if you understand what I mean."

He burst out laughing. "She has a tongue like a sacking [^P] needle. But surely by now you're hardened against mere scolding? Your mother has given you a good enough training, hasn't she?"

"I am still a little thin-skinned," I said, "in places."

"Well, I mustn't stay here any longer, my dear Claudius.

Tiberius will be wondering where I've gone. So it's a bargain?"

"Yes, and I thank you very much."

"Oh, by the way, it was Urgulanilla, wasn't it, who killed poor Apronia? I rather expected a tragedy. Urgulanilla had a letter from Numantina begging her to avenge her. Numantina didn't really write it, you understand."

"I know nothing. I was sound asleep at the time."

"Like

Plautius?"

"Sounder

even

than Plautius."

"Sensible fellow! Well, good-bye, Claudius."

"Good-bye, ^Elius Sejanus." He rode off.

I divorced Urgulanilla, after first writing to my grandmother for permission.

Livia wrote that the child should be exposed as soon as born; this was her wish and the wish of Urgulania.

I sent a reliable freedman to Urgulanilla at Herculaneum to tell her the orders I had been given, warning her that if she wanted the child to live she must exchange it, as soon as born, for a dead baby; I had to have a baby of sorts to expose, and so long as it wasn't too long dead, any dead baby would serve the purpose. So the child was saved that way and later Urgulanilla took it back from its foster parents, from whom she had got the dead baby. I don't know what happened to Boter, but the child, who was a girl, grew up the living image of Numantina, they say. Urgulanilla has been dead many years now. When she died they had to break down a wall to get her enormous body out of the house--and it was all honest bulk, not dropsy. In her will she paid a curious tribute to me: "I don't care what people say, but Claudius is no fool." She left me a collection of Greek gems, some Persian embroideries, and her portrait of Numantina.

XXIV

TIBERIUS AND LIVIA NEVER MET NOW. LIVIA HAD OFFENDED Tiberius by dedicating a statue to Augustus in their joint names and putting her name first.

He retaliated by doing the one thing that she could not even pretend to forgive--when ambassadors came to him from Spain asking [A.D. 25] that they might erect a temple to him and his mother he refused on behalf of both. He told the Senate that he had, perhaps in a moment of weakness, allowed the dedication of a temple in Asia to the Senate and its leader [namely, himself]--together symbolizing the paternal government of Rome. His mother's name also occurred in the dedicatory inscription as High Priestess of the cult of Augustus. But to assent to the deification of himself and his mother would be carrying indulgence too far.

"For myself, my Lords, that I am a mortal man, that I am bound by the trammels of human nature, and that I fill the principal place among you to your satisfaction--if I do--I solemnly assure you is quite enough for me: this is how I prefer to be remembered by posterity. If posterity believes me to have been worthy of my ancestors, watchful of your interest, unmoved in dangers and, in defence of the commonwealth, fearless of private enmities, I will be sufficiently remembered.

The loving gratitude of the Senate and people of Rome and or our allies is the fairest temple I would raise--a temple not of marble but more enduring than marble, a temple of the heart. Marble temples, when the hallowed beings to whom they are raised fall into disrepute, are despised as mere sepulchres. I therefore invoke Heaven to grant me until the end of my life an untroubled spirit and the power of clear discernment in all duties human and sacred: and therefore too I implore our citizens and allies that whenever dissolution comes to this mortal body of mine, they will celebrate my life and deeds [^ [if they are so worthy] with inward thankfulness and praise rather than the outward pomp and temple-building and annual sacrifice. The true love that Rome felt for my father Augustus when he was among us as a man is already obscured both by the awe which his Godhead excites in the religious-minded and by the indiscriminate use of his name as a market-place oath. And while we are on the subject, my Lords, I propose that we henceforth make it a criminal offence to use the sacred name of Augustus for any but the most solemn occasions and that we enforce this law vigourously." No mention of Livia's feelings in the matter. And the day before he had refused to appoint one of her nominees to a vacant Judgeship, unless he were permitted to qualify the appointment with: "This person is the choice of my mother, Livia Augusta, to whose importunities in his interest I have been forced to give way, against my better knowledge of his character and capacities."

Soon after this Livia invited all the noblewomen of Rome to an all-day entertainment. There were jugglers and acrobats and recitations from the poets and marvellous cakes and sweetmeats and liqueurs and a beautiful jewel for each guest as a memento of the occasion. To conclude the proceedings Livia gave a reading of Augustus' letters. She was now eighty-three years old and her voice was weak and she whistled a good deal on her s', but for an hour and a half she held her audience spellbound. The first letters she read contained pronouncements on public policy, all of which seemed especially written as warnings against the present state of affairs at Rome. There were some very apposite remarks about treason trials, including the following paragraph: "Though I have been bound to protect myself legally against all sorts of libel I shall exert myself to the utmost, my dear Livia, to avoid staging so unpleasant a spectacle as a trial, for treason, of any foolish historian, caricaturist or epigram-maker who has made me a target of his wit or eloquence. My father Julius Cassar forgave the poet Catullus the most filthy lampoons imaginable: he wrote to Catullus that if he were trying to show that he was no servile flatterer like most of his fellow-poets, he had now fully proved his case and could return to other more poetical subjects than the sexual abnormalities of a middleaged statesman: and would he come to dinner the next day and bring any friend he liked? Catullus came, and thenceforward the two were fast friends. To use the majesty of law for revenging any petty act of private spite is to make a public confession of weakness, cowardice and an ignoble spirit."

There was a notable paragraph about informers: "Except where I am convinced that an informer does not expect to benefit directly or indirectly by his accusations, but brings them from a sense of true patriotism and public decency, I not only discount their importance as evidence but I put a black mark against that informer's name and never afterwards employ him in any position of trust..."

And, to finish up, she read a series of very illuminating letters. Livia had tens of thousands of Augustus' letters, written over a stretch of fifty-two years, carefully sewn into book-form and indexed. She chose from these thousands the fifteen most damaging ones she could find. The series began with complaints against Tiberius' disgusting behaviour as a little boy, his unpopularity with his schoolfellows as a big boy, his close-fistedness and haughtiness as a young man, and so on, with signs of growing irritation and the phrase, often repeated, "and if it were not that he was your son, my dearest Livia, I would say----" Then came complaints of his brutal severity with the troops under his command--"almost an encouragement to mutiny"--and his dilatoriness in pressing his attacks on the enemy, with unfavourable comparisons between his methods and my father's.

Then an angry refusal to consider him as a son-in-law, and a detailed list of his moral shortcomings. Then more letters relating to the painful Julia story, written for the most part in terms of almost insane loathing and disgust for Tiberius. She read one important letter written on the occasion of Tiberius' recall from Rhodes:

"DEAREST LIVIA: "I take advantage of this forty-second anniversary of our marriage to thank you with all my heart for the extraordinary services you have rendered the State ever since we joined forces. If I am styled the Father of the Country it [y»] seems absurd to me that you should not be styled the Mother of the Country: I swear you have done twice as much as I have in our great work of public reconstruction.

Why do you ask me to wait another few years before asking the Senate to vote you this honour? The only way that I can show my absolute confidence in your disinterested loyalty and profound judgment is to give way at last to your repeated pleas for the recall of Tiberius, a man to whose character I confess I continue to feel the greatest repugnance, and I pray to Heaven that by giving way to you now I do not inflict lasting damage on the commonwealth."

Livia's last choice was a letter written about a year before Augustus' death:

"I had a sudden feeling of profoundest regret and despair, my dearest wife, when discussing State policy with Tiberius yesterday, that the people of Rome should be fated to be glared at by those protruding eyes of his and pounded by that bony fist of his and chewed by those dreadfully slow jaws of his and stamped on by those huge feet of his. But I was for the moment reckoning without yourself and our dear Germanicus. If I did not believe that when I am dead he will both be guided by you in all matters of State and shamed by Germanicus' example into at least a semblance of decent living, I would even now, I swear, disinherit him and ask the Senate to revoke all his titles of honour. The man's a beast and needs keepers."

When she had finished she rose and said: "Perhaps, ladies, it would be best to say nothing to your husbands about these peculiar letters. I did not realise, in fact, when I began to read, how--how peculiar they were. I am not asking you this on my own account but for the sake of the Empire."

Tiberius heard the whole story from Sejanus just as he was about to take his seat in the Senate, and he was overcome with shame and rage and alarm. It so happened that his business that afternoon was to hear a charge of treason brought against Lentulus, one of the pontiffs who had incurred his suspicion in the matter of the prayer for Nero and Drusus, and also because he had voted for the mitigation of Sosia's sentence. When Lentuhis, a simple old man, distinguished equally for his birth, his victories in Africa under Augustus and his unassuming mildness--his nickname was "The Bell-Wether"--heard that he was accused of plotting against the State, he burst out laughing. Tiberius, already distracted, lost all self-control and said, nearly weeping, to the House: "If Lentulus too hates me, I am unworthy to live,"

Gallus replied: "Cheer up. Your Majesty--I beg your pardon, I had forgotten that you dislike the title--I should say, cheer up, Tiberius Caesar!

Lentulus was not laughing at you, he was laughing with you. He was rejoicing with you that for once there should come before the Senate a charge of treason that was absolutely unfounded." So the charge against Lentulus was dropped. But Tiberius had already been the cause of Lentulus' father's death. He was immensely rich and was so frightened by Tiberius' suspicions of him that he had killed himself, and as a proof of loyalty had left his entire fortune to Tiberius, who thereafter could not believe that Lentulus, now left very poor, harboured no resentment against him.

Tiberius did not enter the Senate again for two whole months: he could not look the senators in the face with the knowledge that their wives had heard Augustus' letters about him. Sejanus suggested that it would be good for his health to leave Rome for awhile and stay a few miles away at one of his villas, where he would escape from the daily throng of Palace visitors and the noise and bustle of the City. He followed this advice. The action that he took against his mother was to superannuate her, to omit her name from all public documents, to discontinue her customary birthday honours, and to make it clear that any coupling of her name with his or any praise of her in the Senate would be regarded as little short of treason. More active vengeance he did not dare take. He knew that she still had the letter which he had written from Rhodes promising her his lifelong obedience and that she was quite capable of reading it, even though it might incriminate her as the murderess of Gaius and Lucius.

But this wonderful old woman was not defeated yet, as [3°3] you shall read.

One day I had a note from her. "The Lady Livia Augusta expects her dear grandson Tiberius Claudius to visit and dine with her on the occasion of her birthday: she hopes that he is in good health." I could not make it out. I her dear grandson! Tender enquiries after my health!

I did not know whether to laugh or be afraid. I had never in my life been allowed to visit her on her birthday. I had never even dined with her. I had not spoken to her, except ceremonially at the Augustan festival, for ten years. What could her motive be? Well, I would know in three days, and meanwhile I must buy her a really magnificent present.

I finally bought her something which I was sure she would appreciate--a gracefully-shaped wine-vase in bronze, with serpent-head handles and a complicated design of gold and silver inlay. It was, in my opinion, of far finer workmanship than any of the Corinthian vessels that collectors give such absurd prices for nowadays. It came from China! In the centre of the design had been sunk a gold medallion of Augustus which had somehow strayed to that wonderfully distant land. That vase cost me five hundred gold pieces, though it stood no more than eighteen inches high.

But before I tell of my visit and my long interview with her I must clear up a point on which I may perhaps have misled you. From my accounts of the treason-trials and similar atrocities it will probably be deduced that the Empire under Tiberius was intolerably misgoverned in all departments. This was far from being the case. Though he undertook no new public works worth speaking of, merely contenting himself with completing those begun by Augustus, he kept the Army and the Fleet efficient and up to strength, paid his officials regularly and made them send in detailed reports four times a year, encouraged trade, assured a regular supply of corn for Italy, kept the roads and aqueducts in repair, limited public and private extravagance in a variety of ways, stabilised food prices, put down piracy and banditry and built up a considerable reserve of public money in case of any national emergency.

He maintained his provincial governors in office for many years at a time, if they were any good, so as not to unsettle matters, keeping a careful watch on them however. One governor, to show his efficiency and loyalty, sent Tiberius more tribute than was due. Tiberius gave him a reprimand: "I want my sheep shorn, not shaved." As a result there were few frontier wars after the German trouble was settled by Maroboduus' welcome to Rome and Hermann's death.

Tacfarinas was the chief enemy. He was for a long time known as the

"Laurel-giver" because three generals--my friend Furius, and Apronius, the father of Apronia, and a third, Blaesus, Sejanus' maternal uncle, had each in turn defeated him and been awarded triumphal ornaments.

Blaesus, who scattered Tacfarinas' army and captured his brother, was given the unusual honour of being made a field-marshal, an honour reserved in general only for the Imperial family. Tiberius told the Senate mat he was glad to honour Blaesus in this way because of his kinship with his trusted friend Sejanus; and when, three years later, a fourth general, Dolabella, put a final end to the African War, which had broken out again with redoubled force, by not only defeating Tacfarinas but killing him, Dolabella was granted only triumphal ornaments "lest the laurels of Blaesus, uncle of my trusted friend Sejanus, should thereby lose their lustre".

But I was talking of Tiberius' good deeds, not his weaknesses: and really, from the point of view of the Empire as a whole, he had been for the last twelve years a wise and just ruler. That nobody can deny. The canker in the core of the apple--if the metaphor may be forgiven [A.D. 26] --did not show on the skin or impair the wholesomeness of the flesh. Of six million Roman citizens, a mere two or three hundred suffered for Tiberius' jealous fears. And I do not know how many scores of millions of slaves and provincials, and allies who were subjects in all but name, benefited solidly by the Imperial system as perfected by Augustus and Livia and carried on in this tradition by Tiberius. But I was living in the apple's core, so to speak, and I can be pardoned if I write more about the central canker than about the still unblemished and fragrant outer part.

Once you give way to a metaphor, Claudius, which is rare, you pursue it too far. Surely you remember Athenodorus' injunctions against this sort of thing?

Well, call [305] Sejanus the maggot and get it done with; then return to your usual homely style! Sejanus decided to use Tiberius' sense of shame as a means of keeping him away from the City for a longer time than a mere two months. He encouraged one of his Guards officers to accuse a celebrated wit called Montanus of blackening Tiberius' private character. Whereas hitherto the accusers had been restrained from reporting any but the most general abuse of Tiberius--as haughty, or cruel or domineering--this soldier came forward and credited Montanus with libels of a most particular and substantial kind.

Sejanus took care that the libels were as true as they were disgusting; though Montanus, not having Sejanus' knowledge of what went on in the Palace, had not uttered them.

The witness, who was the best drill-instructor in the Guards, bawled out Montanus' alleged obscenities at the top of his voice, not slurring over the most obscene words or phrases, and refusing to let himself be cried down by the shocked protests of the senators. "I swore to tell the whole truth," he bellowed,

"and for the honour of Tiberius Caesar I shall not omit a single article of the accused's loathsome conversation overheard by me on the said date and in the said circumstances. Accused further declared that our gracious Emperor is fast becoming impotent from said alleged debauches and said over-indulgence in aphrodisiac medicines, and that in order to rally his waning sexual powers he holds private exhibitions every three days or so in a specially decorated underground room of the Palace. Accused declared that the performers at these exhibitions, Spintrians as they are called, come prancing in, three at a time, stark naked..."

He went on in that strain for half an hour and Tiberius did not dare to stop him--or perhaps he wanted to find out just how much was known--until the witness said one thing too many [never mind what it was]. Tiberius, forgetting himself, leaped up suddenly, his face crimson, and declared that he would instantly clear himself of these monstrous charges or establish a judicial investigation. Sejanus tried to calm him down, but he remained on his feet glaring angrily about him, until Gallus rose and gently reminded him that it was Montanus, not he, who was the accused party, that his private character was beyond suspicion; and that if news that such an investigation was about to be held reached the frontier provinces and the allied states, it would be completely misunderstood.

Shortly afterwards Tiberius was warned by Thrasyllus--whether this was arranged by Sejanus, I do not know--that he would shortly leave the City and that it would be death for him to re-enter it. Tiberius told Sejanus that he would move to Capri and leave him to look after things at Rome.

He attended one more treason-trial--that of my cousin Claudia Pulchra, Varus' widow, who, now that Sosia was banished, was Agrippina's most intimate friend. She was charged with adultery, prostituting her daughters, and witchcraft against Tiberius, She was, I think, completely innocent of all these charges. As soon as Agrippina heard about it she hurried to the Palace and by chance found Tiberius sacrificing to Augustus. Almost before the ceremony was over she came close up to him and said: "Tiberius, this is illogical behaviour. You sacrifice flamingoes and peacocks to Augustus and you persecute his grandchildren."

He said slowly: "I do not understand you. Which grandchildren of Augustus have I persecuted that he did not himself persecute?"

"I am not talking about Postumus and Julilla. I mean myself. You banished Sosia because she was my friend. You forced Silius to kill himself because he was my friend. And Calpurnius because he was my friend. And now my dear Pulchra is doomed too, though her only crime is her foolish fondness for me. People are beginning to avoid me, saying that I am unlucky."

Tiberius took her by the shoulders and said once more: And if you are not queen, my dear, think you that you are wronged?

Pulchra was condemned and executed. The Crown Prosecutor was a man called Afer, engaged because of his eloquence. A few days later Agrippina happened to see him outside the theatre. He appeared ashamed of himself and avoided meeting her eye. She went up to him and said: "There is no occasion for you to hide from me, Afer." Then [?°7] she quoted from Homer, but with alterations to suit the context, Achilles' reassuring answer to the embarrassed heralds who came to him with a humiliating message from Agamemnon. She said: He forced you to it. Though you were well fee'd It was not yours but Agamemnon's deed.

This was reported to Tiberius [though not by Afer]; the word

"Agamemnon" caused him fresh alarm.

Agrippina fell ill and thought that she was being poisoned. She went in her sedan to the Palace to make a last appeal to Tiberius for mercy. She looked so thin and pale that Tiberius was charmed: perhaps she would die soon. He said: "My poor Agrippina, you look seriously ill. What's wrong with you?"

She answered in a weak voice: "It may be that I have done you a wrong in thinking that you persecute my friends just because they are my friends. It may be that I am unlucky in my choice of them, or that my judgment is often at fault. But I swear you have done me equal wrong in thinking that I have the least feeling of disloyalty towards you or that I have any ambition to rule either directly or indirectly. All that I ask is to be left alone, and your forgiveness for any injuries that I have unintentionally done you, and... and.. -" She ended in sobs.

"And what else?"

"O Tiberius, be good to my children! And be good to me! Let me marry again. I am so lonely. Since Germanicus died I have never been able to forget my troubles. I can't sleep at night. If you let me marry I'll settle down and lose all my restlessness and be quite a different person, and then perhaps you won't suspect me of plotting against you.

I am sure it's only because I look so unhappy that you think I have bad feelings towards you."

"Who's the man you want to marry?"

"A good, generous, unambitious man, past middle age and one of your most loyal ministers."

"What's his name?"

"Gallus. He says that he is ready to marry me at once."

Tiberius turned on his heel and walked out of the room without another word.

A few days later he invited her to a banquet. He used often to invite people to dine with him whom he particularly mistrusted and stare at them throughout the meal as if trying to read their secret thoughts: which shook the self-possession of all but very few. If they looked alarmed he read it as a proof of guilt. If they met his eye steadily he read it as an even stronger proof of guilt, with insolence added.

On this occasion Agrippina, still ill and unable to eat any but the lightest food without nausea, and stared constantly at by Tiberius, had a miserable time. She was not a talkative person, and the conversation, which was about the relative merits of music and philosophy, did not interest her in the least and she found it impossible to contribute anything to it. She made a pretence of eating, but Tiberius, who was watching her attentively, saw that she sent away plate after plate untouched. He thought that she suspected him of trying to poison her, and to test this he carefully picked an apple from the dish in front of him and said: "My dear Agrippina, you haven't made much of a meal. At any rate, try this apple. It's a splendid one. I had a present of young apple trees from the King of Parthia three years ago and this is the first time they have borne fruit."

Now almost everyone has a certain "natural enemy"--if I may call it that.

To some people honey is a violent poison. Others are made ill by touching a horse or entering a stable or even by lying on a couch stuffed with horse-hair.

Others again are most uncomfortably affected by the presence of a cat, and going into a room will sometimes say, "There has been a cat here, excuse me if I retire." I myself feel an overpowering repugnance to the smell of hawthorn in bloom. Agrippina's natural enemy was the apple.

She took the present from Tiberius and thanked him, but with an ill-concealed shudder, and said that she would keep it, if she might, to eat when she reached home.

"Just one bite now, to taste how good it is."

"Please forgive me, but really I could not." She handed the apple to a servant and told him to wrap it carefully in a napkin for her.

Why did Tiberius not immediately try her on a treason [309] charge, as Sejanus urged? Because Agrippina was still under Livia's protection.

XXV

AND SO I COME TO THE ACCOUNT OF MY DINNER WITH Livia. She greeted me very graciously, seeming genuinely delighted with my gift. During the meal, at which nobody else was present but old Urgulania and Caligula, now aged fourteen--a tall pale boy with a blotched complexion and sunken eyes--she surprised me by the sharpness of her mind and the clearness of her memory. She asked me about my work, and when I began talking about the First Punic War and discrediting certain particulars given by the poet Naevius [he had served in this war] she agreed with my conclusions but caught me out in a misquotation. She said: "You're grateful to me now, grandson, aren't you, for not letting you write that biography of your father! Do you think that you'd be dining here to-day if I hadn't intervened?"

Every time the slave filled my cup I had drunk it straight up, and now at the tenth or twelfth draught I felt like a lion. I answered boldly: "Extremely grateful.

Grandmother, to be safe among the Carthaginians and Etruscans. But will you tell me just why I'm dining here today?"

She smiled: "Well, I admit that your presence at table still causes me a certain amount of... But never mind.

If I have broken one of my oldest rules that is my affair, not yours. Do you dislike me, Claudius? Be frank."

"Probably as much as you dislike me. Grandmother."

[Could this be my own voice speaking?]

Caligula sniggered, Urgulania tittered, Livia laughed: "Frank enough! By the way, have you noticed that monster there? He's been keeping unusually quiet during the meal."

"Who,

Grandmother?"

"That nephew of yours."

"Is he a monster?"

"Don't pretend you don't know it. You are a monster aren't you, Caligula?"

"Whatever you say, Great-grandmother," Caligula said with downcast eyes.

"Well, Claudius, that monster there, your nephew--I'll tell you about him.

He's going to be the next Emperor."

I thought it was a joke. I said smilingly: "If you tell me so. Grandmother, it is so. But what are his recommendations? He's the youngest of the family and though he has given evidences of great natural talent..."

"You mean that they won't any of them stand a chance against Sejanus and your sister Livilla?"

I was astounded at the freedom of the conversation. "I didn't mean anything of the sort. I never concern myself with high politics. I only meant that he's young yet, much too young to be Emperor; and that as a prophecy it seems rather a long shot."

"Not a long shot at all. Tiberius will make him his successor. No question of it. Why? Because Tiberius is like that. He has the same vanity as poor Augustus had: he can't bear the idea of a successor who will be more popular than himself.

But at the same time he does all he can to make himself hated and feared. So, when he feels that his time's nearly up, he'll search for someone just a little worse than himself to succeed him. And he'll find Caligula. There is one deed that Caligula has already done which puts him in a far higher rank of criminality than Tiberius can ever now attain."

"Please, Great-grandmother..." Caligula pleaded.

"All right, monster, your secret's safe with me so long as you behave."

"Does Urgulania know the secret?" I asked.

"No. It's between the monster and myself."

"Did he confess it voluntarily?"

"Certainly not. He's not the confessing sort. I found out about it by accident. I was searching his bedroom one night to see if he was trying any schoolboy tricks on me-- [3"] whether he was doing any amateur black magic, for instance, or distilling poisons or anything of the sort. I came across...”

"Please,

Great-grandmother."

"A green object that told me a very remarkable story.

But I gave it back to him."

Urgulania said grinning: "Thrasyllus said I'm going to die this year, so I won't have the pleasure of living in your reign, Caligula, unless you hurry up and murder Tiberius!"

I turned to Livia: "Is he going to do that. Grandmother?"

Caligula said: "Is it safe for Uncle Claudius to be told things? Or are you going to poison him?"

She answered; "Oh, he's quite safe, without any poison.

I want you two to know each other better than you do.

That's one reason for this dinner. Listen, Caligula. Your uncle Claudius is a phenomenon. He's so old-fashioned that because he's sworn an oath to love and protect his brother's children you can always impose on him--as long as you live.

Listen, Claudius. Your nephew Caligula is a phenomenon. He's treacherous, cowardly, lustful, vain, deceitful, and he'll play some very dirty tricks on you before he's done: but remember one thing, he'll never kill you."

"Why's that?" I asked, draining my cup again. The conversation was like the sort one has in dreams--mad but interesting, "Because you're the man who's going to avenge his death."

"I? Who said so?"

"Thrasyllus."

"Does Thrasyllus never make mistakes?"

"No. Never. Caligula's going to be murdered and you're to avenge his death."

A gloomy silence suddenly fell and continued until dessert, when Livia said: "Come, Claudius, the rest of our talk shall be in private." The other two rose and left us alone.

I said: "That seemed to me a very odd conversation, Grandmother. Was it my fault? Had I been drinking too much? I mean, some jokes aren't safe, nowadays. It was rather dangerous fooling. I hope the servants..."

"Oh, they're deaf-mutes. No, don't blame the wine.

There's truth in wine, and the conversation was perfectly serious so far as I was concerned."

"But... but if you really think him a monster why do you encourage him?

Why not give Nero your support?

He's a fine fellow."

"Because Caligula, not Nero, is to be the next Emperor."

"But he'll make a marvellously bad one if he's what you say he is. And you, who have devoted your whole life to the service of Rome..."

"Yes. But you can't fight against Fate. And now that Rome has been ungrateful and mad enough to allow my blackguardly son to put me on the shelf, and insult me--me, can you imagine it, perhaps the greatest ruler that the world has ever known, and his mother, too..." Her voice grew shrill. I was anxious to change the subject. I said, "Please, calm yourself. Grandmother. As you say, you can't fight against Fate. But isn't there something particular that you want to tell me.

Grandmother, connected with all this?"

"Yes, it's about Thrasyllus. I consult him frequently.

Tiberius doesn't know that I do, but Thrasyllus has been here often. He told me some years ago what would happen between Tiberius and me--that he'd eventually rebel against my authority and take the Empire wholly into his own hands. I didn't believe it then. He also told me another thing: that though I would die a disappointed old woman I would be acknowledged a Goddess many years after my death. And previously he had said that one who must die in the year which I know now is the year in which I must die, will become the greatest Deity the world has ever known and that, finally, no temples at Rome or anywhere in the Empire will be dedicated to anyone else. "Not even to Augustus."

"When are you to die?"

"Three years hence, in the spring. I know the very day."

"But are you so anxious to become a Goddess? My uncle Tiberius isn't at all anxious, it seems."

"It is all I think about, now that my work is over. And [3^3] why not? If Augustus is a God, it's absurd for me to be merely his priestess. I did all the work, didn't I? He no more had it in him to be a great ruler than Tiberius has."

"Yes, Grandmother. But isn't it enough for you to know what you have done without wanting to be worshipped by the ignorant rabble?"

"Claudius, let me explain. I quite agree about the ignorant rabble. It's not so much my fame on earth that I'm thinking about as the position I am to occupy in Heaven.

I have done many impious things--no great ruler can do otherwise. I have put the good of the Empire before all human considerations. To keep the Empire free from factions I have had to commit many crimes. Augustus did his best to wreck the Empire by his ridiculous favouritism: Marcellus against Agrippa, Gaius against Tiberius. Who saved Rome from renewed Civil War? I did. The unpleasant and difficult task of removing Marcellus and Gaius fell on me. Yes, don't pretend you haven't ever suspected me of poisoning them. And what is the proper reward for a ruler who commits such crimes for the good of his subjects?

The proper reward, obviously, is to be deified. Do you believe that the souls of criminals are eternally tormented?"

"I have always been taught to believe that they are."

"But the Immortal Gods are free from any fear of punishment, however many crimes they commit?"

"Well, Jove deposed his father and killed one of his grandsons and incestuously married his sister, and... yes, I agree.... They none of them have a good moral reputation. And certainly the Judges of the Mortal Dead have no jurisdiction over them."

"Exactly. You see now why it's all-important for me to become a Goddess.

And this, if you must know, is the reason why I tolerate Caligula. He has sworn fhat if I keep his secret he will make a Goddess of me as soon as he's Emperor.

And I want you to swear that you'll do all in your power to see that I become a Goddess as soon as possible, because--oh, don't you see?--until he makes me a Goddess I'll be in Hell, suffering the most frightful torments, the most exquisite ineluctable torments."

The sudden change in her voice, from cool Imperial arrogance to terrified pleading, astonished me more than anything I had yet heard. I had to say something so I said: "I don't see what influence poor Uncle Claudius is ever likely to have, either on the Emperor or on the Senate."

"Never mind about what you see or don't see, idiot! Will you swear to do as I ask? Will you swear by your own head?"

I said; "Grandmother, I’ll swear by my head--for what that's worth now--on one condition."

"You dare to make conditions to me?"

"Yes, after the twentieth cup; and it's a simple condition. After thirty-six years of neglect and aversion you surely don't expect me to do anything for you without making conditions, do you?"

She smiled. "And what is this one simple condition?"

"There are a lot of things that I'd like to know about. I want to know, in the first place, who killed my father, and who killed Agrippa, and who killed my brother Germanicus, and who killed my son Drusillus...."

"Why do you want to know all this? Some imbecile hope of avenging their deaths on me?"

"No, not even if you were the murderess. I never take vengeance unless I am forced to do so by an oath or in self-protection. I believe that evil is its own punishment.

All I want now is just to know the truth. I am a professional historian and the one thing that really interests me is to find out how things happen and why.

For instance, I write histories more to inform myself than to inform my readers."

"Old Athenodorus has had a great influence on you, I see."

"He was kind to me and I was grateful, so I became a Stoic. I never meddled with philosophical argument--that never appealed to me--but I adopted the Stoic way of looking at things. You can trust me not to repeat a word of what you tell me."

I convinced her that I meant what I said, and so for four hours or more I asked her the most searching questions; and each question she answered without evasion and as calmly as if she had been some country steward relating the minor casualties of the farm-yard to the visiting owner.

Yes, she had poisoned my grandfather, and no, she had not [315] poisoned my father in spite of Tiberius' suspicions--it was a natural gangrene; and yes, she had poisoned Augustus by smearing poison on the figs while they were still on the tree; and she told me the whole Julia story as I have related it, and the whole Postumus story--the details of which I was able to check; and yes, she had poisoned Agrippa and Lucius, as well as Marcellus and Gaius, and yes, she had intercepted my letters to Germanicus, but no, she had not poisoned him--Plancina had done that on her own initiative--but she had marked him out for death as she had marked out my father, and for the same reason.

"What reason was that, Grandmother?"

"He had decided to restore the Republic. No, don't mistake me: not in a way which violated his oath of allegiance to Tiberius, though it meant removing me.

He was going to make Tiberius take the step himself voluntarily, and allow him all the credit for it, keeping in the background himself. He nearly persuaded Tiberius.

You know what a coward Tiberius is. I had to work hard and forge a lot of documents and tell a lot of lies to keep Tiberius from making a fool of himself. I even had to come to an understanding with Sejanus. This republicanism is a persistent taint in the family. Your grandfather had it."

"I have it."

"Still? That's amusing. Nero has it too, I understand. It won't bring him much luck. And it's no use arguing with you republicans. You refuse to see that one can no more reintroduce republican government at this stage than one can reimpose primitive feelings of chastity on modern wives and husbands. It's like trying to turn the shadow back on a sundial: it can't be done."

She confessed to having had Drusillus throttled. She told me how close I was to death when I first wrote to Germanicus about Postumus. The only reason that she had spared me was that there was a possibility of my writing him information as to Postumus' whereabouts. The most interesting account she gave me was of her poisoning methods. I asked her Postumus' question--whether she favoured slow poisons or quick ones--and she answered without the least embarrassment that she preferred repeated doses of slow tasteless poisons which gave the effect of consumption. I asked how she managed to cover up her traces so well and how she managed to strike at such long distances: for Gaius had been murdered in Asia Minor, and Lucius at Marseilles.

She reminded me that she had never contrived a murder which might be held to benefit her directly and immediately. She had not, for instance, poisoned my grandfather' until some time after being divorced from him, nor had she poisoned any of her female rivals--Octavia or Julia, or Scribonia. Her victims were mostly people by whose removal her sons and grandchildren were brought closer to the succession. Urgulania had been her only confidant, and she was so discreet and skilful and-so devoted that not only was it most unlikely that the crimes they planned together would ever be detected but, even if they were, they would never have been brought home to her. The annual confessions made to Urgulania in preparation for the festival of the Good Goddess had been a useful means of removing several people who stood in the way of her plans. She explained this fully. It happened sometimes thaf confession was made not merely to adultery but to incest with a brother or son. Urgulania would declare that the only possible penance was the death of the man. The woman then pleaded, was there no other possible penance? Urgulania would then say that there was perhaps an alternative that the Goddess would permit. The woman could purify herself by assisting the Goddess' vengeance--with the help of the man who had caused her shame. For, Urgulania would tell her, a similarly detestable confession had been made some time before by another woman, who had however shrunk from killing her ravisher, and so the wretch was still alive, though the woman herself had suffered. The

"wretch" was successively Agrippa, Lucius, and Gaius.

Agrippa was accused of incest with his daughter Marcellina--whose unexplained suicide gave colour to the story; Gaius and Lucius of incest with their mother before her banishment--and Julia's reputation gave colour to this story too.

In each case the woman was only too glad to plan the murder and the man to execute it. Urgulania assisted with advice and suitable poisons. Livia's safety lay in the remoteness of the agent, who if he were to be suspected or even [^7]

taken red-handed could not explain his motive for the murder without further incriminating himself. I asked whether she had had no compunction about murdering Augustus and either murdering or banishing so many of his descendants. She said: "I never for a moment forgot whose daughter I was." And that explained a great deal. Livia's father, Claudian, had been proscribed by Augustus after the Battle of Philippi and had committed suicide rather than fall into his hands.

In short, she told me everything that I wanted to know except about the haunting of Germanicus' house at Antioch. She repeated that she had not ordered it and that neither Plancina nor Piso had told her anything about it and that I was in as good a position to clear up the mystery as she was. I saw that it was useless to press her further, so I thanked her for her patience with me and at last took the oath by my head to do all in my power to make her a Goddess.

As I was going she handed me a small volume and told me to read it when I was in Capua. It was the collection of rejected Sibylline verses that I have written about in the first pages of this story, and when I came across the prophecy called

"The Succession of Hairy Ones" I thought I knew why Livia had invited me to dinner and made me swear that oath. If I had sworn it. It all seemed like a drunken dream.

XXVI

SEJANUS COMPOSED A MEMORIAL TO TIBERIUS, BEGGING TO be

remembered if a husband for Livilla was being looked for; saying that he was only a knight, he was aware, but Augustus had once spoken of marrying his only daughter to a knight, and Tiberius at least had no more loyal subordinate than himself. He did not aim at senatorial rank but was content to continue in his present station as a sleepless sentinel for his noble Emperor's safety. He added that such a marriage would be a serious blow to Agrippina's party, who recognised him as their most active opponent.

They would be afraid to offer violence to Castor's surviving son by Livilla--young Tiberius Gemellus. The recent death of the other twin must be laid at Agrippina's door. Tiberius answered graciously that he could not yet give a favourable answer to the request, in spite of his great sense of obligation to Sejanus, He thought it unlikely that Livilla, both of whose previous husbands had been men of the highest birth, would be content for him to remain a knight; but if he were advanced in rank as well as being married into the Imperial family this would cause a great deal of jealousy, and so strengthen the party of Agrippina.

He said that it was precisely to avoid such jealousies that Augustus had thought of marrying his daughter to a knight, a retired man who was not mixed up with politics in any way.

But he ended on a hopeful note: "I will forbear to tell I you yet precisely what plans I have for binding you closer to me in affinity. But I will say this much, that no recompense that I could pay you for your devotion would be too high, and that when the opportunity presents itself I shall have great pleasure in doing what I propose to do,"

Sejanus knew Tiberius too well not to realise that he had made the request prematurely--he had only written at all because Livilla had pressed him--and had given considerable offence. He decided that Tiberius must be persuaded to leave Rome at once, and must appoint him permanent City Warden--a magistrate from whose decisions the only appeal was to the Emperor. As Commander of the Guards he was also in charge of the Corps of Orderlies, the Imperial couriers, so he would have the handling of all Tiberius' correspondence. Tiberius would depend on him, too, for deciding what people to admit to his presence; and the fewer people he had to see the better he would be pleased. Little by little the City Warden would have all the real power, and could act as he pleased without danger of interference by the Emperor.

At last Tiberius left Rome. His pretext was the dedication of a temple at Capua to Jove, and one at Nola to Augustus. But he did not intend ever to return. It was known that he had taken this decision because of Thrasyllus' warning; and what Thrasyllus prophesied was accepted without question as bound to come to pass. It was assumed that Tiberius, now sixty-seven years of age--and an ugly sight he was, thin, stooping, bald, stiff-jointed, with an ulcered face patched with plasters--was to die within a very short time. Nobody could possibly have guessed that he was fated to live eleven years longer. This may have been because he never came nearer the City again than the suburbs. Well, anyway it was how it turned out.

Tiberius took with him to Capri a number of learned Greek professors, and a picked force of soldiers, including his German bodyguard, and Thrasyllus, and a number of painted strange-looking creatures of doubtful sex and, the most curious choice of all, Cocceius Nerva. Capri is an island in the Bay of Naples about three miles from the coast. Its climate is mild in winter and cool in summer.

There is only one possible landing place, the rest of the island being protected by steep cliffs and impassable thickets. How Tiberius spent his leisure time here--when he was not discussing poetry and mythology with the Greeks, or law and politics with Nerva--is too revolting a story even for history, I will say no more than that he had brought with him a complete set of the famous books of Elephantis, the most copious encyclopaedia of pornography ever gathered together. In Capri he could do what he was unable to do at Rome--practise obscenities in the open air among the trees and flowers or down at the water's edge, and make as much noise as he liked. As some of his fieldsports were extremely cruel, the sufferings of his playmates being a great part of his pleasure, he considered that the advantage of Capri's remoteness greatly outweighed the disadvantages. He did not live wholly there: he used to go for visits to Capua, Baise and Antium. But Capri was his headquarters.

After awhile he gave Sejanus authority to remove the leaders of Agrippina's party by whatever means seemed most convenient. He was in daily touch with Sejanus and approved all his acts in letters to the Senate.

[A.D. 28] One New Year's Festival he celebrated at Capua by speaking the customary prayer of blessing, as High Pontiff, and then suddenly turning on a knight called Sabinus, who was standing near, and accusing him of trying to seduce the loyalty of his freedmen. One of Sejanus' men at once pulled Sabinus'

gown up, muffled his head with it, and then threw a noose round his neck and dragged him away. Sabinus called out in a choking voice; "Help, friends, help!"

But nobody stirred, and Sabinus, whose only crime was that he had been Germanicus' friend and had been tricked by a tool of Sejanus' into privately expressing sympathy for Agrippina, was summarily executed. A letter from Tiberius was read the-next day in the Senate, reporting the death of Sabinus and mentioning Sejanus' discovery of a dangerous conspiracy. "My Lords, pity an unhappy old man, living a life of constant apprehension, with members of his own family plotting wickedly against his life. " It was clear that Agrippina and Nero were meant by this. Gallus rose and moved that the Emperor should be desired to explain his fears to the Senate, and to allow them to be set at rest; as no doubt they could easily be. But Tiberius did not yet feel himself strong enough to revenge himself on Gallus.

In the summer of this year there was an accidental meeting between Livia in a sedan-chair and Tiberius on a cob in the main street of Naples, Tiberius had just landed from Capri and Livia was returning from a visit to Herculaneum.

Tiberius wanted to ride past without a greeting but force of habit made him rein up and salute her with formal enquiries after her health. She said: "I'm all the better for your kind enquiries, my boy. And as a mother my advice to you is: be very careful of the barbel you eat on your island.

Some of the ones they catch there are highly poisonous."

"Thank you. Mother," he said. "As the warning comes from you I shall in future stick religiously to tunny and mullet."

Livia snorted and turning to Caligula, who was with her, said in a loud voice: "Well, as I was saying, my husband [your great-grandfather, my dear] and I came hurrying [3»] along this street one dark night sixty-five years ago, wasn't it, on our way to the docks where our ship was secretly waiting. We were expecting any moment to be arrested and killed by Augustus' men--how strange it seemsl My elder boy--we had had only one child so far--was riding on his father's back. Then what should that little beast do but set up a terriffic yowl: ‘0h, father, I want to go back to Peru-u-u-sia.' That gave the show away. Two soldiers came out of a tavern and called after us. We dodged into a dark doorway to let them pass. But Tiberius went on yowling, ‘I want to go back to Peru-u-u-sia.' I said, 'Kill him! Kill the brat! It's our only hope.' But my husband was a tender-hearted fool and refused. It was only by the merest chance we escaped."

Tiberius, who had stopped to hear the end of the story, dug his spurs into his cob and clattered off in a fury. They never saw each other again.

Livia's warning about fish was only intended to make him uncomfortable, to make him think that she had his fishermen or his cooks in her pay. She knew Tiberius' fondness for barbel, and that he would now have a constant conflict between his appetite and his fear of assassination. There was a painful sequel. One day Tiberius was sitting under a tree on a western slope of the island, enjoying the breeze and planning a verse-dialogue in Greek between the hare and the pheasant, in which each in turn claimed gastronomic pre-eminence. It was not an original idea: he had recently rewarded one of his court-poets with two thousand gold pieces for a similar poem, in which the rivals were a mushroom, a titlark, an oyster and a thrush.

In his introduction to the present piece he brushed all these claims aside as trifling, saying that the hare and pheasant alone had the right to dispute the parsley-crown--their flesh alone had dignity without heaviness, delicacy without paltriness, He was just searching for a discourteous adjective with which to qualify the oyster when he heard a sudden rustling from the thom-bushes below him and a tousleheaded wild-looking man appeared. His clothes were wet and torn to rags, his face bleeding and an open knife was in his hand. He burst through the thicket shouting: "Here you are, Caesar, isn't it a beauty?” From the sack he was carrying over his shoulder he pulled out a monstrous barbel and threw it, still kicking, on the turf at Tiberius' feet.

He was only a simple fisherman who had just made this remarkable catch and, seeing Tiberius at the cliff top, had decided to present it to him. He had moored his boat to a rock, swum to the cliff, struggled up a precipice path to the belt of thorn-bushes, and hacked himself a path through them with his clasp-knife.

But Tiberius had been startled nearly out of his senses.

He blew a whistle and shouted out in German: "Help, help! Come at once!

Wolfgang! Siegfried! Adelstan! An assassin! SchneW."

"Coming, all-highest, noblest-born, gift-bestowing Chief," the Germans instantly replied. They had been on sentry-duty to his left and right and behind him, but there was nobody posted in front, naturally. They came bounding along, brandishing their assegais.

The man did not understand German, and shutting his clasp-knife said cheerfully: "I caught him by the grotto yonder. What do you guess he weighs? A regular whale, eh? Nearly pulled me out of the boat."

Tiberius, somewhat reassured, but with his imagination now running on poisoned fish, shouted to the Germans: "No, don't spear him. Cut that thing in two and rub the pieces in his face."

Burly Wolfgang from behind clasped the fisherman around the middle so that he could not move his arms, while the other two scrubbed his face with raw fish. The unfortunate fellow called out: "Hey, stop it! That's no joke! What luck that I didn't first offer the Emperor the other thing in my sack."

"See what it is," Tiberius ordered.

Edelstein opened the sack and found in it an enormous lobster. "Rub his face with that," said Tiberius. "Rub it well in!"

The wretched man lost both his eyes. Then Tiberius said: "That's enough, men. You may let him go!" The fisherman stumbled about screaming and raving with pain, and there was nothing to be done but toss him into the sea from the nearest crag.

I am glad to say that I was never invited to visit Tiberius on his island and have carefully avoided going there since, though all evidences of his vile practices have long ago been removed and his twelve villas are said to be very beautiful.

I had asked Livia's permission to marry ^Elia and she had given it with malicious good wishes. She even attended the wedding. It was a very splendid wedding--Sejanus saw to that--and one effect of it was to alienate me from Agrippina and Nero and their friends. It was thought that I would not be able to keep any secrets from -[Elia and that ,/Elia would tell Sejanus all that she found out. This saddened me a great deal, but I saw that it was useless trying to reassure Agrippina [who was now in mourning for her sister Julilla, who had just died after a twenty-years exile in that wretched little island of Tremerus]. So gradually I stopped visiting her house, to avoid embarrassment. I and,/EIia were man and wife only in name. The first thing she said to me when we went into our bridal-chamber was: "Now understand, Claudius, that I don't want you to touch me and that if we ever have to sleep together again in one bed, like to-night, there'll be a coverlet between us, and the least movement you make--out you go. And another thing: you mind your own business, and I'll mind mine..."

I said. "Thank you: you have taken a great load off my mind."

She was a dreadful woman. She had the loud persistent eloquence of an auctioneer in the slave-market. I soon gave up trying to answer her back. Of course I still lived at Capua, and ^Elia never came to see me there, but Sejanus insisted that whenever I visited Rome I should be seen in her company as much as possible.

Nero had no chance against Sejanus and Livilla. Though Agrippina constantly warned him to weigh every word he spoke, he was of far too open a nature to conceal his thoughts. Among the young noblemen whom he trusted as his friends there were several secret agents of Sejanus, and these kept a register of the opinions he expressed on all public events. Worse still, his wife, whom we called Helen, or Heluo, was Livilla's daughter and reported all his confidences to her. But the worst of all was his own brother, Drusus, to whom he confided even more than to his wife, and who was jealous because Nero was the elder son, and Agrippina's favourite. Drusus went to Sejanus and said that Nero had asked him to sail secretly to Germany with him on the next dark night, where they would throw themselves on the protection of the regiments, as Germanicus' sons, and call for a march on Rome; that he had of course indignantly refused. Sejanus told him to wait a little longer and he would then be called on to tell the story to Tiberius: but the right moment had not yet come.

Meanwhile, Sejanus sent the rumour flying around that Tiberius was about to charge Nero with treason. Nero's friends began to desert him. As soon as two or three of them began excusing themselves from attending his dinners, and returning his greeting coldly when they met him in public, the rest followed their example.

After a few months only his real friends remained. Among them was Gallus, who now that Tiberius himself did not visit the Senate any more concentrated on teasing Sejanus. His method with Sejanus was constantly to propose votes of thanks for his services, and the granting of exceptional honours--statues and arches and titles and prayers and the public celebration of his birthday. The Senate did not dare to oppose these motions, and Sejanus, not being a senator, had no say in the matter, and Tiberius did not wish to go against the Senate by vetoing their vote for fear of antagonizing Sejanus or seeming to have lost confidence in him.

Whenever the Senate now wanted anything done they would first send representatives to Sejanus asking for permission to apply to Tiberius about it: and if Sejanus discouraged them the matter would be dropped. Gallus one day proposed that, as the descendants of Torquatus had a golden torque and those of Cincinnatus a curled lock of hair granted by the Senate as family badges in commemoration of their ancestors' service to the State, so Sejanus and his descendants should be awarded as their badge a golden key, in token of his faithful services as the Emperor's doorkeeper. The Senate unanimously voted this motion and Sejanus, growing alarmed, wrote to Tiberius and complained that Gallus had maliciously proposed all the previous honours in the hope of making the Senate jealous of [325] him, and even perhaps of making the Emperor suspect him of insolent ambitions. The present motion had been still more malicious--a suggestion to the Emperor that access to the Imperial presence was in the hands of someone who made use of it for his own private enrichment. He begged that the Emperor would find a technical reason for vetoing the decree, and a way to silence Gallus. Tiberius answered that he could not veto the decree without damaging Sejanus' credit, but that he would very soon take steps to silence Gallus: Sejanus need not be anxious about the matter and his letter had shown true loyalty and a fine delicacy of judgment. But Gallus' hint had struck home.

Tiberius suddenly realised that while all the goings and comings at Capri were known to Sejanus and could to a great extent be controlled by him, he himself only knew as much as Sejanus cared to tell him about the comings and goings by Sejanus' front door.

And now I have come to a turning point in my story--the death of my grandmother Livia at the age of eighty-six. She might well have lived many years longer, for she had kept her eyesight and hearing and the use of her limbs--not to mention her mind and memory--[A.D. 29] unimpaired. But recently she had suffered from repeated colds owing to some infection of the nose, and at last one of these settled on her lungs. She summoned me to her bedside at the Palace. I happened to be in Rome and came immediately. I could see that she was dying.

She reminded me of my oath again.

"I'll not rest until it's fulfilled. Grandmother," I said.

When a very old woman lies dying, one's grandmother too, one says whatever one can to please her. "But I thought Caligula was going to arrange it for you?"

She did not answer for a time. Then she said, raging weakly: "He was here ten minutes agol He stood and laughed at me. He said that I could go to Hell and stew there for ever and ever for all he cared. He said that now I was dying he had no need to keep in with me any longer, and that he did not consider himself bound by the oath, because it was forced on him. He said that he was going to be the Almighty God that has been prophesied, not I.

He

said..."

"That's all right. Grandmother. You'll have the laugh of him in the end.

When you're the Queen of Heaven and he's being slowly broken on an eternal wheel by Minos' men in Hell..."

"And to think that I ever called you a fool," she said.

"I'm going now, Claudius. Close my eyes and put the coin in my mouth that you'll find under the pillow. The Ferryman will recognise it. He'll pay proper respect...."

Then she died and I closed her eyes and put the coin in her mouth. It was a gold coin of a type I had never seen before, with Augustus' head and her own facing each other, on the obverse, and a triumphant chariot on the reverse.

Nothing had been said between us about Tiberius. I soon heard that he had been warned about her condition in plenty of time to pay her the last offices. He now wrote to the Senate excusing himself for not having visited her but saying he had been exceedingly busy and would at all events come to Rome for the funeral.

Meanwhile the Senate had decreed various extraordinary honours in her memory, including the title Mother of the Country, and had even proposed to make her a demi-goddess. But Tiberius reversed nearly all of these decrees, explaining in a letter that Livia was a singularly modest woman, averse to all public recognition of her services, and with a peculiar sentiment against having any religious worship paid to her after death. The letter ended with reflections on the unsuitability of women's meddling in politics "for which they are not fitted, and which rouse in them all those worst feelings of arrogance and petulance to which the female sex is naturally prone".

He did not of course come to the City for the funeral though, solely with the object of limiting its magnificence, he made all arrangements for it. And he took so long over them that the corpse, old and withered as it was, had reached an advanced stage of putrefaction before it was put on the pyre. To the general surprise, Caligula spoke the funeral oration, which Tiberius himself should have done, and if not Tiberius, then Nero, as his heir. The Senate had decreed an arch in Livia's memory--the first time in the history of Rome that a woman had been so honoured. Tiberius [^7] allowed this decree to stand but promised to build the arch at his own expense: and then neglected to build it. As for Livia's will, he inherited the greater part of her fortune as her natural heir, but she had left as much of it as she was legally permitted to members of her own household and other trusted dependents. He did not pay anybody a single one of her bequests. I was to have benefited to the extent of twenty thousand gold pieces.

XXVII

I COULD NEVER HAVE THOUGHT IT POSSIBLE THAT I WOULD miss Livia when she died. When I was a child I used secretly, night after night, to pray to the Infernal Gods to carry her off. And now I would have offered the richest sacrifices I could find--unblemished white bulls and desert antelopes and ibises and flamingoes by the dozen--to have had her back again. For it was clear that it had long been only the fear of his mother that had kept Tiberius within bounds. A few days after her death he struck at Agrippina and Nero. Agrippina had by now recovered from her illness. He did not charge them with treason. He wrote to the Senate complaining of Nero's gross sexual depravity and of Agrippina's "haughty bearing and mischief-making tongue", and suggested that severe steps should be taken for keeping both of them in order.

When the letter was read in the Senate nobody said a word for a long time.

Everyone was wondering on just how much popular support Germanicus' family could count now that Tiberius was preparing to victimise them; and whether it would not be safer to go against Tiberius than against the populace. At last a friend of Sejanus' rose to suggest that the Emperor's wishes should be respected and that some decree or other should be passed against the two persons mentioned. There was a senator who acted as official recorder of the Senate's transactions, and what he said carried great weight. He had hitherto voted without question whatever had been suggested in any letter of Tiberius', and Sejanus had reported that he could always be counted upon to do what he was told. Yet it was this Recorder who rose to oppose the motion. He said that the question of Nero's morals and Agrippina's bearing should not be raised at present. It was his opinion that the Emperor had been misinformed and had written hastily, and that in his own interest therefore, as well as that of Nero and Agrippina, no decree should be passed until he had been allowed time to reconsider such grave charges against his near relatives. The news of the letter had meanwhile spread all over the City, though all transactions in the Senate were supposed to be secret until officially published by the Emperor's orders, and huge crowds gathered around the Senate House making demonstrations in favour of Agrippina and Nero, and crying out, "Long Live Tiberius. The letter is forged! Long Live Tiberius! It's Sejanus' doing."

Sejanus sent a messenger at great speed to Tiberius, who had moved for the occasion to a villa only a few miles outside the City, in case of trouble. He reported that the Senate had, on the motion of the Recorder, refused to pay any attention to the letter; that the people were on the point of revolt, calling Agrippina the true Mother of the Country and Nero their Saviour; and that unless Tiberius acted firmly and decisively there would be bloodshed before the day was out.

Tiberius was frightened but he took Sejanus' advice and wrote a menacing letter to the Senate, putting the blame on the Recorder for his unparalleled insult to the Imperial dignity, and demanding that the whole affair should be left entirely to him to settle since they were so half-hearted in his interests. The Senate gave way.

Tiberius, after having the Guards marched through the City with swords drawn and trumpets blowing, threatened to halve the free ration of corn if any further seditious demonstrations were made.

He then banished Agrippina to Pandataria, the very island where her mother Julia had been first confined, and Nero to Fonza, another tiny rocky island, halfway between Capri [329] and Rome but far out of sight of the coast. He told the Senate that the two prisoners had been on the point of escaping from the City in the hope of seducing the loyalty of the regiments on the Rhine.

Before Agrippina went to her island he had her before him and asked her mocking questions about how she proposed to govern the mighty kingdom which she had just inherited from her mother [his virtuous late wife], and whether she would send ambassadors to her son, Nero, in his new kingdom, and enter into a grand military alliance with him. She did not answer a word. He grew angry and roared at her to answer, and when she still kept silent he told a captain of the guard to strike her over the shoulders.

Then at last she spoke. "Blood-soaked Mud is your name. That's what Theodoras the Gadarene called you, I'm told, when you attended his rhetoric classes at Rhodes." Tiberius seized the vine branch from the captain and thrashed her about the body and head until she was insensible. She lost the sight of an eye as a result of this dreadful beating.

Soon Drusus too was accused of intriguing with the Rhine regiments.

Sejanus produced letters in proof, which he said that he had intercepted, but which were really forged, and also the written testimony of Lepida, Drusus' wife [with whom he had a secret affair], that Drusus had asked her to get in touch with the sailors of Ostia, who, he hoped, would remember that Nero and he were Agrippa's grandsons. Drusus was handed over by the Senate to Tiberius to deal with and Tiberius had him confined to a remote attic of the Palace under Sejanus'

supervision.

Gallus was the next victim. Tiberius wrote to the Senate that Gallus was jealous of Sejanus and had done all that he could to bring him into disfavour with his Emperor by ironical praises and other malicious methods. The Senate were so upset by the news of the suicide of the Recorder, which reached them the same day, that they immediately sent a magistrate to arrest Gallus. When the magistrate went to Gallus' house he was told that Gallus was out of the City, at Baiaa. At Baiaa he was directed to Tiberius' villa and, sure enough, he came on him there at dinner with Tiberius. Tiberius was pledging Gallus in a cup of wine and Gallus was responding loyally, and there seemed such an air of good humour and jollity in the dining-hall that the magistrate was embarrassed and did not know what to say. Tiberius asked him why he had come. "To arrest one of your guests, Caesar, by order of the Senate."

"Which guest?" asked Tiberius. "Asinius Gallus," replied the magistrate,

"but it seems to be a mistake." Tiberius pretended to look grave; "If the Senate have anything against you, Gallus, and have sent this officer to arrest you, I'm afraid our pleasant evening must come to an end. I can't go against the Senate, you know. But I'll tell you what I'll do, now that you and I have come to such a friendly understanding: I'll write to ask the Senate, as a personal favour, not to take any action in your case until they hear from me. That will nwan that you will be under simple arrest, in the charge of the Consuls--no fetters or anything degrading.

I'll arrange to secure your acquittal as soon as I can."

Gallus felt bound to thank Tiberius for his magnanimity, but was sure that there was a catch somewhere, that Tiberius was paying back irony with irony; and he was right.

He was taken to Rome and put in an underground room in the Senate House. He was not allowed to see anyone, not even a servant, or send any messages to his friends or family. Food was given him every day through a grille.

The room was dark except for the poor light coming through the grille and unfurnished except for a mattress. He was told that these quarters were only temporary ones and that Tiberius would soon come to settle his case. But the days drew on into months, and months into years, and still he stayed there. The food was very poor--carefully calculated by Tiberius to keep him always hungry but never actually starving. He was allowed no knife to cut it up with, for fear he might use it to kill himself, or any other sharp weapon, or anything to distract himself with, such as writing materials or books or dice. He was given very little water to drink, none to wash in. If ever there was talk about him in Tiberius'

presence the old man would say, grinning: "I have not yet made my peace with Gallus."

When I heard of Gallus' arrest I was sorry that I had just quarrelled with him. It was only a literary quarrel. He had written a silly book called: A Comparison between my Father, Asinius Pollio and his Friend Marcus TvUius

[331] Cicero, as Orators. If the ground of the comparison had been moral character or political ability or even learning, Pollio would have easily come off the best.

But Gallus was trying to make out that his father was the more polished orator.

That was absurd, and I wrote a little book to say so; which, coming shortly after my criticism of Pollio's own remarks about Cicero, greatly annoyed Gallus. I would willingly have recalled my book from publication if by doing so I could have lightened Gallus' miserable prison life in the least degree. It was foolish of me, I suppose, to think in this way.

Sejanus was at last able to report to Tiberius that the power of the Leek Green Party was broken and that he need have no further anxieties. Tiberius rewarded him by saying that he had decided to marry him to his granddaughter Helen [whose marriage with Nero he had dissolved] and hinting at even greater favours. It was at this point that my mother who, you must remember, was Livilla's mother too, interposed. Since Castor's death Livilla had been living with her, and was now careless enough to let her find out about a secret correspondence which she was carrying on with Sejanus. My mother had always been very economical, and in her old age her chief delight was saving candle-ends and melting them down into candles again, and selling the kitchen refuse to pig-keepers, and mixing charcoal-dust with some liquid or other and kneading it into cake which, when dried, burned almost as well as charcoal, Livilla, on the other hand, was very extravagant and my mother was always scolding her for it.

One day my mother happened to pass Livilla's room and saw a slave coming out of it with a basket of wastepaper.

"Where are you going, boy?" she asked.

"To the furnace. Mistress; the Lady Livilla's orders."

My mother said: "It's most wasteful to stoke the furnace with perfectly good pieces of paper; do you know what paper costs? Why, three times as much as parchment, even.

Some of these pieces seem hardly written on at all."

"The

Lady

Livilla ordered most particularly..."

"The Lady Livilla must have been very preoccupied when she ordered you to destroy valuable paper. Give me the basket. The clean parts will be useful for household lists, and all sorts of things. Waste not, want not."

So she took the papers to her room and was 'about to clip the good pieces off one of them when it struck her that she might as well try to remove the ink from the whole thing. Until now she had honourably refrained from reading the writing; but when she began rubbing away at it, it was impossible to avoid doing so. She suddenly realised that these were rough draughts, or unsatisfactory beginnings, of a letter to Sejanus; and once she began reading she could not stop, and before she had done she knew the whole story.

Livilla was clearly angry and jealous that Sejanus had consented to marry someone else--her own daughter too! But she was trying to conceal her feelings--each draught of the letter was toned down a little more. She wrote that he must act quickly before Tiberius suspected that he really had no intention of marrying Helen: and if he was not yet ready to assassinate Tiberius and usurp the monarchy had she not better poison Helen herself?

My mother sent for Pallas, who was working for me at the Library, looking up some historical point about the Etruscans, and told him to go to Sejanus and, in my name and as if sent by me, ask his permission to see Tiberius at Capri, in order to present him with my "History of Carthage". [I had just finished this work and sent a fair copy to my mother before having it published.] At Capri he was to beg the Emperor, in my name again, to accept the dedication of the work. Sejanus gave permission readily; he knew Pallas as one of our family slaves and suspected nothing. But in the twelfth volume of the history my mother had pasted Livilla's letters and a letter of her own in explanation, and told Pallas not to let anybody handle the volumes [which were all sealed up] but to give them to Tiberius with his own hands. He was to add to my supposed greetings and my request for permission to dedicate the book the following message: "The Lady Antonia, too, sends her devoted greetings, but is of opinion that these books by her son are of no interest at all to the Emperor, except the twelfth volume which contains a very curious digression which will, she trusts, immediately interest him."

Pallas stopped at Capua to tell me where he was going.

He said that it was strictly against my mother's orders that he was telling me about his errand, but that after all I was his real master, not my mother, though she pretended to own him; and that he would do nothing willingly to get me into trouble; and that he was sure that I had no intention myself of offering the Emperor the dedication.

I was mystified, at first, especially when he mentioned the twelfth volume, so while he was washing and changing his clothes I broke the seal. When I saw what had been inserted I was so frightened that for the moment I thought of burning the whole thing. But that was as dangerous as letting it go, so eventually I sealed it up again. My mother had used a duplicate seal of my own, which I had given her for business uses, so nobody would know that I had opened the book, not even Pallas. Pallas then hurried on to Capri and on his way told me that Tiberius had picked up the twelfth volume and taken it out into the woods to look at. I might dedicate the book to him if I wished, he had said, but I must abstain from extravagant phrases in doing so.

This reassured me somewhat, but one could never trust Tiberius when he seemed friendly. Naturally I was in the deepest anxiety as to what would happen and felt very bitter against my mother for having put my life into such terrible danger by mixing me up in a quarrel between Tiberius and Sejanus. I thought of running away, but there was nowhere to run to.

The first thing that happened was that Helen became an invalid--we know now that there was nothing wrong with her, but Livilla had given her the choice of taking to her bed as if she were ill or of taking to her bed because she was ill. She was moved from Rome to Naples, where the climate was supposed to be healthier.

Tiberius gave leave for the marriage to be postponed indefinitely, but addressed Sejanus as his son-in-law as if it had already taken place. He elevated him to senatorial [A.D. 31] rank and made him his colleague in the Consulship and a pontiff. But he then did something else which quite cancelled these favours: he invited Caligula to Capri for a few days and then sent him back armed with a most important letter to the Senate. In the letter he said I, CLAUDXUS [334] that he had examined the young man, who was now his heir, and found him of a very different temper and character from his brothers and would, indeed, refuse to believe any accusations that might be brought against his morals or loyalty. He now entrusted Caligula to the care of Alius Sejanus, his fellow-Consul, begging him to guard the young man from all harm. He appointed him a pontiff too, and a priest to Augustus.

When the City heard about this letter there was great rejoicing. By making Sejanus responsible for Caligula's safety Tiberius was understood to be warning him that his feud with Germanicus' family had now been carried far enough.

Sejanus' Consulship was regarded as a bad omen for him: this was Tiberius' fifth time in office and every one of his previous colleagues had died in unlucky circumstances: Varus, Gnaeus Piso, Germanicus, Castor. So new hope arose that the nation's troubles would soon be over: a son of Germanicus would rule over them. Tiberius might perhaps kill Nero and Drusus but he had clearly decided to save Caligula: Sejanus would not be the next Emperor.

Everyone

whom

Tiberius now sounded on the subject seemed so genuinely relieved at his choice of a successor--for somehow they had persuaded themselves that Caligula had inherited all his father's virtues--that Tiberius, who recognised real evil whenever he saw it and had told Caligula frankly that he knew he was a poisonous snake and had spared him for that very reason, was much amused, and thoroughly pleased. He could use Caligula's rising popularity as a check to Sejanus and Livilla.

He now took Caligula somewhat into his confident and gave him a mission: to find out by intimate talks with Guardsmen, which of their captains had the greatest personal influence in the Guards' camp, next to Sejanus; and then to make sure that he was equally bloody-minded and fearless. Caligula dressed up in a woman's wig and clothes and, picking up a couple of young prostitutes, began frequenting the suburban taverns where the soldiers drank in the evening. With a heavily made up face and. padded figure he passed for a woman, a tall and not very attractive one, but still, a woman. The account that he gave of himself in the taverns was that he was being kept by a rich [335] shop keeper who gave him plenty of money--on the strength of which he used to stand drinks all round. This generosity made him very popular. He soon came to know a great deal of camp gossip, and the name that was constantly coming up in conversations was that of a captain called Macro. Macro was the son of one of Tiberius' freedmen, and from all accounts was the toughest fellow in Rome. The soldiers all spoke admiringly of his drinking feats and his wenching and his domination of the other captains and his presence of mind in difficult situations.

Even Sejanus was afraid of him, they said: Macro was the only man who ever stood up to him. So Caligula picked up with Macro one evening and secretly introduced himself: the two went off for a stroll together and had a long talk.

Tiberius then began writing a queer series of letters to the Senate, now saying that he was in a bad state of health and almost dying, and now that he had suddenly recovered and would arrive in Rome any moment. He wrote very queerly too about Sejanus, mixing extravagant praises with petulant rebukes; and the general impression conveyed was that he had become senile and was losing his senses. Sejanus was so puzzled by these letters that he could not make up his mind whether to attempt a revolution at once or to hold on to his position, which was still very strong, until Tiberius died or could be removed from power on the grounds of imbecility. He wanted to visit Capri and find out for himself just how things stood with Tiberius. He wrote asking permission to visit him on his birthday, but Tiberius answered that as Consul he should stay at Rome; it was irregular enough for himself to be permanently absent, Sejanus then wrote that Helen was seriously ill at Naples and had begged him to visit her: could he not be permitted to do so, just for a day? and from Naples it was only an hour's row to Capri. Tiberius answered that Helen had the best doctors and must be patient: and that he himself was really coming to Rome now and wanted Sejanus to be there to welcome him. At about the same time he quashed an indictment against an ex-Governor of Spain, whom Sejanus was accusing of extortion, on the grounds that the evidence was conflicting. He had never before failed to support Sejanus in a case of the sort. Sejanus began to be alarmed.

The term of his Consulship expired.

On the day set by Tiberius for his arrival in Rome, Sejanus was waiting, at the head of a battalion of Guards, outside the temple of Apollo, where the Senate happened to be sitting because of repairs that were being done at the time to the Senate House. Suddenly Macro rode up and saluted him. Sejanus asked him why he had left the Camp.

Macro replied that Tiberius had sent him a letter to deliver to the Senate.

"Why you?" Sejanus asked suspiciously.

"Why

not?"

"But why not me?"

"Because the letter is about you!" Then Macro whispered in his ear, "My heartiest congratulations, General.

There's a surprise for you in the letter. You're to be made Protector of the People. That means you're to be our next Emperor." Sejanus had not really expected Tiberius to appear, but he had been made very anxious by his recent silence. He now rushed, elated, into the Senate House.

Macro then called the Guards to attention. He said: "Boys, the Emperor has just appointed me your General in Sejanus' place. Here's my commission. You are to go straight back to the Camp now, excused all guard duties.

When you get there tell the other fellows that Macro's in charge now and that there's thirty gold pieces coming to every man who knows how to obey orders. Who's the senior captain? You? March the men off! But don't make too much row about it."

So the Guards went off and Macro called on the Commander of the Watchmen, who had already been warned, to furnish a guard in their place. Then he went in after Sejanus, handed the letter to the Consuls and came out at once before a word had been read. He satisfied himself that the Watchmen were properly posted and then hurried after the returning Guards to make sure that no disturbance arose in the Camp.

Meanwhile the news of Sejanus' Protectorship had gone round the House and everyone began to cheer him and offer their congratulations. The senior Consul called for order and began reading the letter. It began with Tiberius' usual

[337] excuses for not attending the meeting--pressure of work and ill-health--and went on to discuss general topics, then to complain slightly of Sejanus' hastiness in preparing the indictment of the ex-Govemor without proper evidence.

Here Sejanus smiled because this petulance of Tiberius had always hitherto been a prelude to the granting of some new honour. But the letter continued in the same strain of reproach, paragraph after paragraph, with gradually increasing severity, and the smile slowly left Sejanus' face.

The senators who had been cheering him grew silent and perplexed, and one or two who were sitting near him made some excuse and walked across to the other side of the House. The letter ended by saying that Sejanus had been guilty of grave irregularities, that two of his friends, his uncle Junius Blassus who had triumphed over Tacfarinas, and another, should, in his opinion, be punished and that Sejanus himself should be arrested. The Consul, who had been warned by Macro the night before what Tiberius wanted him to do, then called out, "Sejanus, come here!"

Sejanus could not believe his ears. He was waiting for the end of the letter and his appointment to the Protectorship. The Consul had to call him twice before he understood. He said: "Me? You mean me?"

As soon as his enemies realised that Sejanus had at last fallen they began loudly booing and hissing him; and his friends and relatives, anxious for their own safety, joined in. He suddenly found himself without a single supporter.

The Consul asked the question, whether the Emperor's advice should be followed"Ay, ay!" the whole House shouted. The Commander of the Watchmen was summoned, and when Sejanus saw that his own Guards had disappeared and that Watchmen had taken their places, he knew that he was beaten. He was marched off to prison and the populace, who had got wind of what was happening, crowded round him and shouted and groaned and pelted him with filth. He muffled his face with his gown but they threatened to kill him if he did not show it; and when he obeyed they pelted him all the harder. The same afternoon the Senate, seeing that no Guards were about and that the crowd was threatening to break into the gaol to lynch Sejanus, decided to keep the credit for themselves and condemned him to death.

Caligula sent Tiberius the news at once by beacon signal.

Tiberius had a fleet standing by prepared to take him to Egypt if his plans went astray. Sejanus was executed and his body thrown down the Weeping Stairs, where the rabble abused it for three whole days. When the time came for it to be dragged to the Tiber with a hook through the throat, the skull had been carried off to the Public Baths and used as a ball, and there was only half the trunk left. The streets of Rome were littered, too, with the broken limbs of his innumerable statues.

His children by Apicata were put to death by decree.

There was a boy who had come of age, and a boy under age, and the girl who had been betrothed to my son Drusillus--she was now fourteen years old. The boy under age could not legally be executed, so, following a Civil War precedent, they made him put on his manly-gown for the occasion. The girl being a virgin was still more strongly protected by law. There was no precedent for executing a virgin whose only crime was being her father's daughter.

When she was carried off to prison she did not understand what was happening and called out: "Don't take me to prison! Whip me if you like and I won't do it again!" She apparently had some girlish naughtiness on her conscience, Macro gave orders that, to avoid the ill-luck that would befall the City if they executed her while still a virgin, the public executioner should outrage her. As soon as I heard of this, I said to myself: "Rome, you are ruined; there can be no expiation for a crime so horrible," and I called the Gods to witness that though a relative of the Emperor I had taken no part in the government of my country and that I detested the crime as much as they did, though powerless to avenge it.

When Apicata was told what had happened to her children and saw the crowd insulting their bodies on the Stairs she killed herself. But first she wrote a letter to Tiberius telling him that Castor had been poisoned by Livilla and that Livilla and Sejanus had intended to usurp the monarchy. She blamed Livilla for everything. My mother had not known about the murder of Castor. Tiberius now called my mother to Capri, thanked her for her great services, and showed her Apicata's letter. He told her that any reward within reason was hers for the asking.

My mother said that the only reward that she would ask was that the family name should not be disgraced: that her daughter should not be executed and her body thrown down the Stairs.

"How is she to be punished then?" Tiberius asked sharply.

"Give her to me," said my mother. "I will punish her."

So Livilla was not publicly proceeded against. My mother locked her up in the room next to her own and starved her to death. She could hear her despairing cries and curses, day after day, night after night, gradually weakening; but she kept her there, instead of in some cellar out of earshot, until she died. She did this not from a delight in torture, for it was inexpressibly painful to her, but as a punishment to herself for having brought up so abominable a daughter. A whole crop of executions followed as a result of Sejanus' death--all his friends who had not been quick in making the change-over, and a great many of those who had.

The ones who did not anticipate death by suicide were hurled from the Tarpeian cliff of the Capitoline Hill.

Their estates were confiscated, Tiberius paid the accusers very little; he was becoming economical. On Caligula's advice he framed charges against those accusers who were entitled to benefit most heavily and so was able to confiscate their estates too. About sixty senators, two hundred knights and a thousand or more of the commons died at this time. My alliance by marriage with Sejanus'

family might easily have cost me my life, had I not been my mother's son. I was now allowed to divorce M\ia and to retain an eighth part of her dowry. As a matter of fact I returned it all to her. She must have thought me a fool.

But I did this as some compensation for taking our little child Antonia away from her as soon as she was born. For M}ia had allowed herself to become pregnant by me as soon as she felt that Sejanus' position was becoming insecure.

She thought that this would be some protection to her if he fell from power: Tiberius could hardly have her executed while she was with child of his nephew. I welcomed my divorce from ^Elia, but would not have robbed her of the child if my mother had not insisted on it: my mother wanted Antonia for herself as something to mother of her very own--grandmother-hunger, as it is called.

The only member of Sejanus' family who escaped was his brother, and he escaped for the strange reason that he had publicly made fun of Tiberius' baldness.

At the last annual festival in honour of Flora, at which he happened to be presiding, he employed only bald-headed men to perform the ceremonies, which were prolonged to the evening, and the spectators were lighted out of the theatre by five thousand children with torches in their hands and their heads shaved.

Tiberius was informed of this in Nerva's presence by a visiting senator and just to create a good impression on Nerva he said, "I forgive the fellow. If Julius Caesar did not resent jokes about his baldness, how much less should I?" I suppose that when Sejanus fell Tiberius decided, by the same kind of whim, to renew his magnanimity.

But Helen was punished, merely for having pretended to be ill, by being married to Blandus, a very vulgar fellow whose grandfather, a provincial knight, had come to Rome as a teacher of rhetoric. This was considered very base behaviour on Tiberius' part, because Helen was his granddaughter and he was dishonouring his own house by this alliance. It was said that one had not to go far back in the Blandus line before one came to slaves.

Tiberius realised now that the Guards, to whom he paid a bounty of fifty gold pieces each, not thirty as Macro had promised, were his one certain defence against the people and the Senate. He told Caligula: "There's not a man in Rome who would not gladly eat my flesh." The Guards, to show their loyalty to Tiberius, complained that they had been wronged by having the Watchmen preferred to them as Sejanus' prison escort, and as a protest marched out of Camp to plunder the suburbs. Macro let them have a good night out, but when the Assembly-call was blown at dawn the next day, the men who were not back within two hours he flogged nearly to death.

After a time Tiberius declared an amnesty. Nobody could now be tried for having been politically connected [34'] with Sejanus, and if anyone cared to go into mourning for him, remembering his noble deeds now that his evil ones had been fully punished, there would [A.D. 32] be no objection to this. A good many men did so, guessing that this was what Tiberius wanted, but they guessed wrong.

They were soon on trial for their lives, faced with perfectly groundless charges, the commonest being incest. They were all executed. It may be wondered how it happened that there were any senators or knights left after all this slaughter: but the answer is that Tiberius kept the Orders up to strength by constant promotion.

Free birth, a clean record, and so many thousands of gold pieces, were the only qualifications for admission into the Noble Order of Knights, and there were always plenty of candidates, though the initiation fee was heavy. Tiberius was becoming more grasping than ever: he expected rich men to leave him at least half their estates in their wills, and if they were found not to have done so he declared the wills technically invalid because of some legal flaw or other, and took charge of the entire estate himself; the heirs getting nothing. He spent practically no money on public works, not even completing the Temple of Augustus, and stinted the corn-dole and the allowance for public entertainments. He paid the armies regularly, that was all. As for the provinces, he did nothing at all about them any more, so long as the taxes and tribute came in regularly; he did not even trouble to appoint new governors when the old ones died. A deputation of Spaniards once came to complain to him that they had been four years now without a governor and that the staff of the last one were pillaging the province shamefully. Tiberius said: "You aren't asking for a new governor, are you? But a new governor would only bring a new staff, and then you'd be worse off than before. I'll tell you a story.

There was once a badly wounded man lying on the battle-field waiting for the surgeon to dress his wound, which was covered with flies.

A lightly wounded comrade saw the flies and was going to drive them away, 'Oh, no,' cried the wounded man, 'don't do that! These flies are almost gorged with my blood now and aren't hurting me nearly so much as they did at first: if you drive them away their place will be taken at once by hungrier ones, and that will be the end of me.”

He allowed the Parthians to overrun Armenia, and the trans-Danube tribes to invade the Balkans, and the Germans to make raids across the Rhine into France. He confiscated the estates of a number of allied chiefs and petty kings in France, Spain, Syria and Greece, using the most flimsy pretexts. He relieved Vonones of his treasure--you will recall that Vonones was the former king of Armenia, about whom my brother Germanicus had quarrelled with Gnaeus Piso--by sending agents to help him escape from the city in Cilicia where Germanicus had put him under guard and then having him pursued and killed.

The informers about this time began to accuse wealthy men of charging more than the legal interest on loans--one and a half per cent was all that they were allowed to charge. The statute about it had long fallen in abeyance and hardly a single senator was innocent of infringing it. But Tiberius upheld its validity. A deputation went to him and pleaded that everyone should be allowed a year and a half to adjust his private finances to conform with the letter of the law, and Tiberius as a great favour granted the request. The result was that all debts were at once called in, and this caused a great shortage of current coin. Tiberius' great idle hoards of gold and silver in the Treasury had been responsible for forcing up the rate of interest in the first place, and now there was a financial panic and land-values fell to nothing. Tiberius was eventually forced to relieve the situation by lending the bankers a million gold pieces of public money, without interest, to pay out to borrowers in exchange for securities in land. He would not even have done this much but for Cocceius Nerva's advice. He still used occasionally to consult Nerva who, living at Capri, where he was kept carefully away from the scene of Tiberius' debauches and allowed little news from Rome, was perhaps the only man in the world who still believed in Tiberius' goodness. To Nerva [Caligula told me some years later] Tiberius explained his painted favourites as poor orphans on whom he had taken pity, most of them a little queer in the head, which accounted for the funny way they dressed and behaved. But could Nerva really have [345]

been so simple as to have believed this, and so shortsighted?

XXVIII

OF THE LAST FIVE YEARS OF TIBERIUS' REIGN THE LESS told the better.

I cannot bear to write in detail of Nero, slowly starved to death; or of Agrippina, who was cheered by news of Sejanus' fall, but when she saw that it made matters no better for her refused to eat, and was forcibly fed for awhile, and then at last left to die as she wished; or of Gallus, who died of a consumption; or of Drusus who, removed some time before from his attic in the Palace to a dark cellar, was found dead with his mouth full of the flock from his mattress, which he had been gnawing in his starvation. But I must record at least that Tiberius wrote letters to the Senate rejoicing in the death of Agrippina and Nero--he accused her now of treason and of adultery with Gallus--and regretting, in the case of Gallus, that "the press of public business had constantly postponed his trial so that he had died before his guilt could be proved".

As for Drusus, he wrote that this young man was the lewdest and most treacherous rascal he had ever encountered. He ordered a record to be publicly read, by the Guards captain who had been in charge of him, of the treasonable remarks which Drusus had uttered while in prison. Never had such a painful document been read in the House before. It was clear from Drusus' remarks that he had been beaten and tortured and insulted by the captain himself, by common soldiers and even by slaves, and that he had very cruelly been given every day less and less food and drink, crumb by crumb, and drop by drop. Tiberius even ordered the captain to read Drusus' dying curse.

It was a wild but well-composed imprecation, accusing Tiberius of miserliness, treachery, obscene filthmess and delight in torture, of murdering Germanicus and Postumus, and of a whole series of other crimes [most of which he had committed but none of which had ever been publicly mentioned before]; he prayed the Gods that all the immeasurable suffering and distress that Tiberius had caused others should weigh upon him with increasing strength, waking or sleeping, night and day, for as long as he lived, should overwhelm him in the hour of his death, and should commit him to everlasting torture in the day of infernal Judgment.

The senators interrupted the reading with exclamations of pretended horror at Drusus' treason, but these oh, oh's and groans covered their amazement that Tiberius should voluntarily provide such a revelation of his own wickedness.

Tiberius was very sorry for himself at the time [I heard afterwards from Caligula], tormented by insomnia and superstitious fears; and actually counted on the Senate's sympathy. He told Caligula with tears in his eyes that the killing of his relatives had been forced on him by their own ambition and by the policy that he had inherited from Augustus [he said Augustus, not Livia] of putting the tranquillity of the realm before private sentiment. Caligula, who had never shown the slightest signs of grief or anger at Tiberius' treatment of his mother or brothers, condoled with the old man; and then quickly began telling him of a new sort of vice that he had heard about recently from some Syrians. Such talk was the only way to cheer Tiberius up when he had attacks of remorse. Lepida, who had betrayed Drusus, did not long survive him. She was accused of adultery with a slave and not being able to deny the charge [for she was found in bed with him]

took her own life.

Caligula spent most of his time at Capri but occasionally went to Rome on Tiberius' behalf to keep an eye on Macro. Macro did all Sejanus' work now, and very efficiently, but was sensible enough to let the Senate know that he wanted no honours voted to him and that any senator who proposed any such would soon find himself on trial for his life on some charge of treason, incest or forgery. Tiberius had indicated Caligula as his successor for several reasons. The first was that Caligula's popularity as Germanicus' son kept the people on their best behaviour for [345' fear that any disturbance on their part would be punished by his death.

The next was that Caligula was an excellent servant and one of the few people wicked enough to make Tiberius feel, by comparison, a virtuous man. The third was that he did not believe that Caligula would, as a matter of fact, ever become Emperor. For Thrasyllus, whom he still trusted absolutely [since no event had ever happened contrary to his predictions], had told him, "Caligula can no more become Emperor than he could gallop on horseback across yonder bay from

^Baias to Puteoli". Thrasyllus also said, "Ten years from now Tiberius Caesar will still be Emperor." This was true, as it turned out, but it was another Tiberius Caesar.

Tiberius knew a great deal, but some things Thrasyllus kept from him. He knew, for instance, the fate of his grandson Gemellus, who was not really his grandson because Castor was not the father, but Sejanus. He said to Caligula one day: "I am making you my principal heir.

I am making Gemellus my second heir in case you die before him, but this is only a formality. I know that you'll kill Gemellus; but then, others will kill you."

He said this expecting to outlive them both. Then he added, quoting from some Greek tragedian or other: "When I am dead, let Fire the Earth confound."

But Tiberius was not dead yet. The informers were still busy and every year more and more people were executed.

There was hardly a senator left who had kept his seat since the days of Augustus. Macro had a far greater appetite for blood and far less compunction in shedding it than Sejanus. Sejanus was at any rate the son of a knight; Macro's father had been born a slave. Among the new victims was Plancina who, now that Livia had died, had nobody to protect her. She was accused once more of poisoning Germanicus; for she was quite wealthy. Tiberius had not allowed her to be prosecuted until Agrippina was dead, because if Agrippina had heard the news it would have pleased her greatly.

I was not sorry when I heard that Plancina's body had been thrown on the Stairs, though she had anticipated execution by suicide.

One day at dinner with Tiberius, Nerva asked Tiberius' pardon, explaining that he was not feeling hungry and wanted no food. Nerva had been in perfect health and spirits all this time and apparently quite contented with his sheltered life at Capri. Tiberius thought at first that Nerva had taken a purge the night before and was resting his stomach; but when he carried his fast through into the second and third day, Tiberius began to fear that he had decided to commit suicide by starvation. He sat down at Nerva's side and begged him to tell him why he was not eating. But all Nerva would do was to apologise again and say that he was not hungry. Tiberius thought that perhaps Nerva was annoyed with him for not having taken his advice sooner about averting the financial crisis. He asked, "Would you eat with a better appetite if I repealed all laws limiting the interest on loans to a figure which you consider too low?"

Nerva said: "No, it isn't that. I'm just not hungry."

The next day Tiberius said to Nerva; "I have written to the Senate.

Someone has told me that two or three men actually make a living by acting as professional informers against wrongdoers. It never occurred to me that by rewarding loyalty to the State I should encourage men to tempt their friends into crime and then betray them, but this seems to have happened on more than one instance.

I am telling the Senate immediately to execute any person who can be proved to have made a living by such infamous conduct. Perhaps now you'll take something?"

When Nerva thanked him and praised his decision but said that he had still no appetite at all, Tiberius became most depressed. "You'll die if you don't eat, Nerva, and then what will I do? You know how much I value your friendship and your political advice. Please, please eat, I beseech you. If you were to die the world would think that it was my doing, or at least that you were starving yourself out of hatred for me. Oh, don't die, Nerva! You're my only real friend left."

Nerva said: "It's no use asking me to eat, Caesar. My stomach would refuse anything I gave it. And surely nobody could possibly say such ill-natured things as you suggest?

They know what a wise ruler and kind-hearted man you are and I am sure they have no reason for supposing me ungrateful, have they? If I must die, I must die, and that's all [347] there is to it. Death is the common fate of all and at least I shall have the satisfaction of not outliving you."

Tiberius was not to be convinced, but soon Nerva was too weak to answer his questions: he died on the ninth day.

Thrasyllus died. His death was announced by a lizard. It was a very small lizard and ran across the stone table where Thrasyllus was at breakfast with Tiberius in the sun and straddled across his forefinger. [A.D. 36] Thrasyllus asked,

"You have come to summon me, brother? I expected you at this very hour." Then turning to Tiberius he said: "My life is at an end, Caesar, so farewell! I never told you a lie. You told me many. But beware when your lizard gives you a warning."

He closed his eyes and a few moments later was dead.

Now Tiberius had made a pet of the most extraordinary animal ever seen in Rome. Giraffes excited great admiration when first seen, and so did the rhinoceros, but this, though not so large was far more fabulous. It came from an island beyond India called Java, and it was like a lizard the size of a small calf, with an ugly head and a back like a saw. When Tiberius first looked at it he said that he would now no longer be sceptical about the monsters said to have been slain by Hercules and Theseus. It was called the Wingless Dragon and Tiberius fed it himself every day with cockroaches and dead mice and such-like vermin. It had a disgusting smell, dirty habits and a vicious temper. The dragon and Tiberius understood each other perfectly. He thought that Thrasyllus meant that the dragon would bite him one day, so he put it in a cage with bars too small for it to poke its ugly head through.

Tiberius was now seventy-eight years old, and constant use of myrrh and similar aphrodisiacs had made him very feeble; but he dressed sprucely and tried to behave like a man not yet past middle age. He had grown tired of Capri, now that Nerva and Thrasyllus were gone, and early in March the next year determined to defy Fate and visit Rome. He went there by easy stages, [A.D. 37] his last stopping place being a villa on the Appian Road, within sight of the City walls.

But the day after he arrived there the dragon gave him the prophesied warning.

Tiberius went to feed it at noon and found it lying in the cage, dead, and a huge swarm of large black ants running all over it, trying to pull away bits of soft flesh.

He took this as a sign that if he went any further towards the City he would die like the dragon and the crowd would tear his body to pieces. So he hurriedly turned back. He caught a chill by travelling in an east wind, which he made worse by attending some Games exhibited by the soldiers of a garrison town through which he passed.

A wild boar was released in the arena and he was asked to throw a javelin at it from his box. He threw one and missed, and was annoyed with himself for missing, and called for another. He had always prided himself on his skill with the javelin and did not want the soldiers to think that old age had beaten him. So he got hot and excited, hurling javelin after javelin, trying to hit the boar from an impossible distance, and finally had to stop from exhaustion. The boar was untouched and Tiberius ordered it to be released as a reward for its skill in avoiding his shots.

The chill settled on his liver, but he continued travelling back to Capri. He reached Misenum: it lies at the nearer end of the Bay of Naples. The Western fleet has its headquarters here. Tiberius was annoyed to find the sea so rough that he could not cross. He had a splendid villa, however, on the promontory of Misenum-

-it had once belonged to the famous epicure Lucullus. He moved into it with his train. Caligula had accompanied him and so had Macro, and to show that there was nothing seriously amiss with him Tiberius gave a great banquet to all the local officials. The feasting had gone on for some time when Tiberius' private physician asked permission to leave the table and attend to some medical business: certain herbs, you know, have greater virtue when they are picked at midnight or when the moon is in such and such a position, and Tiberius was accustomed to the physician's rising during the meal to see to things of this sort. He took up Tiberius'

hand to kiss it, but held it rather longer than necessary. Tiberius thought, quite rightly, that the physician was feeling his pulse to see how weak he was, so he made him sit down again as a punishment and kept the banquet going all night, just to prove that he wasn't ill.

The next day Tiberius was in a state of prostration, and [349] the word went round Misenum, and spread from there to Rome, that he was about to die.

Now, Tiberius had told Macro that he wished evidence of treason found against certain leading senators whom he disliked and had given him orders to secure their conviction by whatever means he pleased. Macro wrote them all down as accomplices in a charge that he was preparing against a woman he had a grudge against, the wife of a former agent of Sejanus: she had repelled his advances.

They were all accused of adultery with her and of taking Tiberius' name in vain. By browbeating freedmen and torturing slaves Macro got the evidence that was needed--freedmen and slaves had by now all lost the tradition of fidelity towards their masters. The trial began. But the friends of the accused noticed that though Macro himself had conducted the examination of witnesses and the torture of slaves, the usual Imperial letter approving his actions was not laid on the table: so they concluded that perhaps Macro had added one or two private enemies of his own to the list given him by Tiberius. The chief victim of these obviously absurd charges was Arruntius, the oldest and most dignified member of the Senate.

Augustus, a year before his death, had said that he was the only possible choice for Emperor, failing Tiberius; Tiberius had already once tried to convict him of treason, but unsuccessfully. Old Arruntius was the only remaining link with the Augustan age. On the previous occasion sentiment had been so strong against his accusers, though it was believed that they were acting on Tiberius' instigation, that they were themselves tried, convicted of perjury and put to death. It was known now that Macro had recently had a dispute with Arruntius about money, so the trial was adjourned until Tiberius should have confirmed Macro's commission.

Tiberius neglected to reply to the Senate's enquiry, so Arruntius and the rest had been in prison for some time. At last Tiberius sent the necessary confirmation, and the day for the new trial was fixed. Arruntius had determined to kill himself before the trial came off so that his estate should not be confiscated and his grandchildren pauperized. He was saying good-bye to a few old friends when the news arrived of Tiberius' severe illness. His friends begged him to postpone suicide until the last moment, because if the news was true he had a very good chance of surviving Tiberius and being pardoned by his successor. Arruntius said: "No, I have lived too long; My life was difficult enough in the days when Tiberius shared his power with Livia. It was well nigh intolerable when he shared it with Sejanus. But Macro has shown himself more of a villain even than Sejanus and, mark my words, Caligula with his Capri education will make a worse Emperor even than Tiberius.

I cannot in my old age become the slave of a new master like him." He took a penknife and severed an artery of his wrist. Everyone was greatly shocked, for Caligula was a popular hero, and was expected to be a second and better Augustus.

Nobody thought of blaming him for his pretended loyalty to Tiberius: he was on the contrary greatly admired for his cleverness in surviving his brothers and for concealing so well what were supposed to be his real feelings.

Meanwhile, Tiberius' pulse nearly stopped and he lapsed into a coma. The physician told Macro that two days more, at the outside, were all that he had to live. So the whole Court was in a great bustle. Macro and Caligula were in perfect accord. Caligula respected Macro's popularity with the Guards, and Macro respected Caligula's popularity with the nation as a whole: each counted on the other's support. Besides, Macro was indebted to Caligula for his rise to power, and Caligula was carrying on an affair with Macro's wife, which Macro had been good enough to overlook. Tiberius had already commented sourly on Macro's cultivation of Caligula, saying, "You do well to desert the setting for the rising sun." Macro and Caligula began sending off messages to the commanders of different regiments and armies to tell them that the Emperor was sinking fast and had appointed Caligula as his successor: he had given him his signet ring. It was true that Tiberius in a lucid interval had called for Caligula and drawn the ring off his finger. But he had changed his mind and put the ring back on again and then clasped his hands tightly together as if to prevent anyone from robbing him of it.

When he relapsed into unconsciousness and gave no further signs of life Caligula had quietly pulled the ring I ^ [351] off and was now strutting about, flashing it in the faces of everyone he met and accepting congratulations and homage. But Tiberius was not yet dead even now. He groaned, stirred, sat up and called for his valets. He was weak because of his long fast, but otherwise quite himself. It was a trick that he had played before, to seem dead and then to come to life again. He called once more. Nobody heard him. The valets were all in the buttery, drinking Caligula's health. But soon an enterprising slave happened to come along to see what he could steal from the death-chamber in their absence. The room was dark and Tiberius frightened him nearly out of his senses by suddenly shouting: "Where in Hell's name are the valets? Didn't they hear me call? I want bread and cheese, an omelette, a couple of beef cutlets, and a drink of Chianwine at once! And a thousand Furies! Who's stolen my ring?" The slave dashed out of the room and nearly ran into Macro, who was passing.

"The Emperor's alive, sir, and calling for food and his ring." The news ran through the Palace and a ludicrous scene followed. The crowd around Caligula scattered in all directions. Cries went up, "Thank God, the news was false.

Long live Tiberius!" Caligula was in a miserable state of shame and terror.

He pulled the ring off his finger and looked around for somewhere to hide it.

Only Macro kept his head. "It's a nonsensical lie," he shouted. "The slave must have lost his wits. Have him crucified, Caesarl We left the old Emperor dead an hour ago." He whispered something to Caligula, who was seen to nod in grateful relief. Then he hurried into Tiberius' room. Tiberius was on his feet, cursing and groaning and tottering feebly towards the door. Macro picked him up in his arms, threw him back on the bed and smothered him with a pillow. Caligula was standing by.

So Arruntius' fellow-prisoners were released, though most of them later wished that they had followed Arruntius' example. There were, besides, about fifty men and women who had been accused of treason in a separate batch from this.

They had no influence in the Senate, being mostly shopkeepers who had baulked at paying the "protection money" that Macro's captains now levied on all the City wards. They were tried and condemned and were to be executed on the 16th of March. This was the very day that news came of Tiberius' death, and they, and their friends went nearly mad with joy to think that now they would be saved. But Caligula was away at Misenum and could not be appealed to in time and the prison governor was afraid of losing his job if he took the responsibility of postponing the executions. So they were killed and their bodies thrown on the Stairs in the usual way.

This was the signal for an outburst of popular anger against Tiberius. "He stings like a dead wasp," someone shouted. Crowds gathered at the street corners for solemn commination-services under the ward-masters, beseeching Mother Earth and the Judges of the Dead to grant the corpse and the ghost of that monster no rest or peace until the day of universal dissolution. Tiberius' body was brought to Rome under a strong escort of Guards. Caligula walked in the procession as a mourner and the whole countryside came flocking to meet him, not in mourning for Tiberius but in holiday clothes, weeping with gratitude that Heaven had preserved a son of Germanicus to rule over them. Old country women cried out,

"O our sweet darling, Caligula! Our chicken! Our baby! Our star!" A few miles from Rome he rode ahead to make preparations for the solemn entry of the corpse into the City. But when he had passed, a big crowd gathered and barricaded the Appian Road with planks and blocks of building stone.

When the outriders of the escort appeared there was booing and groaning and cries of "Into the Tiber with Tiberius!"

"Throw him down the Stairs!"

"Eternal damnation to Tiberius!" The leader shouted: "Soldiers, we Romans won't allow that evil corpse into the City. It will bring us bad luck. Take it back to Atella and half-burn it in the amphitheatre there!" Half-burning, I should explain, was the usual fate of paupers and unfortunates, and Atella was a town celebrated for a kind of rough country masque or farce which had been performed there at the harvest festival every year from the very earliest times, Tiberius had a villa at Atella and used to attend the festival nearly every year. He had converted the innocent rural bawdry of the masque into a sophisticated vileness. He made the men of Atella build [353] an amphitheatre to present the revised show, which was produced by himself.

Macro ordered his men to charge the barricade, and a number of citizens were killed and wounded, and three or four soldiers were knocked unconscious with paving stones.

Caligula prevented further disorders and Tiberius' body was duly burned on Mars Field. Caligula spoke the funeral oration. It was a very formal and ironical one and much appreciated, because there was a good deal in it about Augustus and Germanicus, but very little about Tiberius.

At a banquet that night Caligula told a story which made the whole country weep and gained him great credit. He said that early one morning at Misenum, being as usual sleepless with grief for the fate of his mother and brothers, he had determined, come what might, to be avenged at last on their murderer. He seized the dagger that had been his father's and went boldly into Tiberius' room. The Emperor lay groaning and tossing in nightmare on his bed.

Caligula slowly lifted the dagger to strike but a Divine Voice sounded in his ears: "Great-grandson, hold your handl To kill him would be impious."

Caligula answered, "O God Augustus, he killed my mother and my brothers, your descendants. Should I not avenge them even at the price of being shunned by all men as a parricide?" Augustus answered, "Magnanimous son, who are to be Emperor hereafter, there is no need to do what you would do. By My orders the Furies nightly avenge your dear ones, while he dreams." And so he had laid his dagger on the table beside the bed and walked out. Caligula did not explain what had happened next morning when Tiberius woke and saw the dagger on the table; the presumption was that Tiberius had not dared to mention the incident.

XXIX

CALIGULA WAS TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OLD WHEN HE BECAMB

Emperor. Seldom, if ever, in the history of the world has a prince been more enthusiastically acclaimed on his accession or had an easier task offered him of gratifying the modest wishes of his people, which were only for peace and security. With a bulging treasury, well-trained armies, an excellent administrative system that needed only a little care to get it into perfect order again--for in spite of Tiberius' neglect the Empire was still running along fairly well under the impetus given it by Livia--with all these advantages, added to the legacy of love and confidence he enjoyed as Germanicus' son, and the immense relief felt by Tiberius' removal, what a splendid chance he had of being remembered in history as "Caligula the Good", or "Caligula the Wise", or "Caligula the Saviour"! But it is idle to write in this way. For if he had been the sort of man that the people took him for, he would never have survived his brothers or been chosen by Tiberius as his successor.

Claudius, remember what scorn old Athenodorus had for such impossible contingencies, he used to say, "If the Wooden Horse of Troy had foaled, horses today would cost far less to feed."

It amused Caligula at first to encourage the absurd misconception that everyone but myself and my mother and Macro and one or two others had of his character, and even to perform a number of acts in keeping with it. He wanted also to make sure of his position. There were two obstacles to his complete freedom of action. One was Macro, whose power made him dangerous. The other was Gemellus. For when Tiberius' will was read [which for secrecy's sake he had had witnessed by a few freedmen and illiterate fishermen] it was found that the old man, just to make trouble, had not appointed Caligula his first heir, with Gemellus as a second choice in case of accidents: he had made them [355] joint-heirs, to rule alternate years. However, Gemellus had not come of age and so was not even allowed yet to enter the Senate, while Caligula was already a magistrate of the second rank, some years before the legal age, and a pontiff. The Senate was therefore very ready to accept Caligula's view that Tiberius had not been of sound mind when he made the will and to give the whole power to Caligula without encumbrance. Except for this matter of Gemellus, from whom he also withheld his share in the Privy Purse, on the ground that the Privy Purse was an integral part of the sovereignty, Caligula observed all the terms of the will and paid every legacy promptly.

The Guards were to receive a bounty of fifty gold pieces a man; Caligula, to ensure their loyalty when the time came for Macro's removal, doubled the amount. He paid the people of Rome the four hundred and fifty thousand gold pieces bequeathed them and added three gold pieces a head; he said that he had intended to give them this when he came of age, but the old Emperor had forbidden it. The armies were awarded the same bounty as under Augustus' will, but this time it was paid promptly. What was more, he paid all the sums owing under Livia's will, which we legatees had long ago written off as bad debts. To me the two most interesting items in Tiberius' will were: the specific bequest to me of the historical books which Pollio had left me but which I had been cheated of, together with a number of other valuable volumes, and the sum of twenty thousand gold pieces; and a bequest to the Chief Vestal, the granddaughter of Vipsania, of a hundred thousand gold pieces to be spent as she pleased, either on herself or on the College. The Chief Vestal, as the granddaughter of the murdered Gallus, melted the coin down and made it into a great golden casket for his ashes.

With these bequests from Livia and Tiberius I was now quite well off.

Caligula astonished me by further paying me back the fifty thousand that I had found for Germanicus at the time of the mutiny: he had heard the story from his mother. He did not allow me to refuse it and said that if I made any further protest he would insist on paying me the accumulated interest too: it was a debt he owed his father's memory. When I told Calpurnia about my new wealth she seemed more sorry than pleased. "It won't bring you any luck," she said. "Much better be modestly well off, as you have been, than run the risk of having your whole fortune stripped from you by informers on a charge of treason."

Calpurnia was Acte's successor, you remember. She was very shrewd for her years--seventeen.

I said, "What do you mean, Calpurnia? Informers?

There are no such things in Rome now, and no treason trials."

She said; "I didn't hear that the informers were packed off in the same boat with the Spintrians." [For Tiberias' painted "orphans" had been banished by Caligula. As a public gesture of pure-mindedness he had sent the whole crew of them off to Sardinia, a most unhealthy island, and told them to labour honestly for their living as roadmakers. Some of them just lay down and died when picks and shovels were put into their hands, but the rest were whipped into work, even the daintiest of them. Soon-they had a stroke of luck. A pirate vessel made a sudden raid, captured them, and carried them off to Tyre, where they were sold as slaves to rich Eastern profligates.]

"But they wouldn't dare to try their old tricks again, Calpurnia?"

She put down her embroidery. "Claudius, I'm no politician or scholar, but I can at least use my prostitute's wit and do simple sums. How much money did the old Emperor leave?"

"About twenty-seven million gold pieces. That's a lot of money."

"And how much has the new one paid out in legacies and bounties?"

"About three million and a half. Yes, at least that amount."

"And since he has been Emperor how many panthers and bears and lions and tigers and wild bulls and things has he imported for the huntsmen to kill in the amphitheatres and the Circus?"

"About twenty thousand, perhaps. Probably more."

"And how many other animals have been sacrificed in the temples?"

"I don't know. I should guess between one and two hundred thousand."

"Those flamingoes and desert antelopes and zebras and British beavers must have cost him something! So what with buying all those animals and paying the huntsmen in the amphitheatres, and then the gladiators, of course--gladiators get four times what they got under Augustus, I'm told--and all the State banquets and decorated cars and the theatre shows--they say that when he recalled the actors whom the old Emperor banished he paid them for all the years they were out of work--handsome, eh?--and my goodness the money he has spent on racehorses!

Well, what with one thing and the other he can't have much change left out of twenty million, can he?"

"I think you're right there, Calpurnia."

"Well, seven million in three months! How is the money going to last at that rate, even if all the rich men who die leave him all their money? The Imperial revenue is less now than it used to be when your old grandmother ran the business and went over the accounts."

"Perhaps he'll be more economical after the first excitement of having money to spend. He's got a good excuse for spending; he says that the stagnation of money in the Treasury under Tiberius had a most disastrous effect on trade. He wants to put a few million into circulation again."

"Well, you're better acquainted with him than I am.

Perhaps he'll know just when to stop. But if he goes on at this rate he won't have a penny left in a couple of years, and then who's going to pay? That's why I spoke of informers and treason-trials."

I said: "Calpurnia, I'm going to buy you a pearl necklace while I still have the money. You're as clever as you are beautiful. And I only hope you are as discreet."

"I'd prefer cash," she said, "if you don't mind." And I gave her five hundred gold pieces the next day. Calpurnia, a prostitute and the daughter of a prostitute, was more intelligent and loyal and kind-hearted and straightforward than any of the four noblewomen I have married. I soon began to take her into my confidence about my private affairs and I may say at once that I never regretted having done so.

The moment that Tiberius' funeral was over, Caligula had taken ship, in spite of very bad weather, to the islands where his mother and his brother Nero had been buried; he gathered up their remains, half-bumed, and brought them back, burned them properly, and piously interred them in Augustus' tomb. He instituted a new annual festival, with sword-fighting and horse races, in his mother's memory and annual sacrifices to her ghost and that of his brothers. He called the month of September "Germanicus", as the previous month had been called after Augustus. He also heaped on my mother by a single decree as many honours as Livia had been given in her lifetime, and appointed her High-Priestess of Augustus.

He next pronounced a general amnesty, recalling all banished men and women and releasing all political prisoners. He even brought together a large batch of criminal records covering the cases of his mother and brothers and publicly burned them in the Market Place, swearing that he had not read them and that anyone who had acted as informer or contributed in any other way to the deplorable fate of his loved ones need have no fear: all record of those evil days was destroyed. As a matter of fact, what he burned were only copies: he kept the originals. He followed Augustus' example by making a strict scrutiny of the Orders and rejecting all unworthy members of either, and Tiberius' example in refusing all titles of honour except those of Emperor and Protector of the People and in forbidding statues of himself to be set up. I wondered how long this mood of his would last, and how long he would keep by the promise he had made to the Senate on the occasion that they voted him the Imperial power, to share it with them and be their faithful servant.