I, Claudius (62 page)

We were married in October. By December she was pregnant by me. She appeared very fond of my little Antonia, who was aged about ten, and it was a relief to me that the child now had someone whom she could call mother, someone who was near enough to her in age to be a friend and could explain the ways of society to her and take her about, as Calpurnia had not been able to do.

Messalina and I were invited to live at the Palace again.

We arrived at an unfortunate time. A merchant called Bassus had been asking questions of a captain of the Palace Guards about Caligula's daily habits--was it true that he walked about the cloisters at night because he could not sleep?

At what time did he do this? Which cloisters did he usually choose? What guard did he have with him? The captain reported the incident to Cassius and Cassius reported it to Caligula. Bassus was arrested and cross-examined. He was forced to admit that he had intended to kill Caligula but denied even under torture that he had any associates. Caligula then sent a message to Bassus' old father, ordering him to attend his son's execution. The old man, who had no notion that Bassus had been planning to assassinate Caligula or even that he had been arrested, was greatly shocked to find his son groaning on the Palace floor, his body broken by torture. But he controlled himself and thanked Caligula for his graciousness in summoning him to close his son's eyes. Caligula laughed. "Close his eyes indeed!

He's going to have no eyes to close, the assassin! I'm going to poke them out in a moment. And yours too."

Bassus' father said: "Spare our lives. We are only tools in the hands of powerful men. I'll give you all the names."

This impressed Caligula, and when the old man mentioned the Guards'

Commander, the Commander of the Germans, Callistus the Treasurer, Caesonia, Mnester, and three or four others, he grew pale with alarm. "And whom would they make Emperor in my place?" he asked. "Your uncle Claudius."

"Is he in the plot too?"

"No, they were merely going to use him as a figurehead." Caligula hurried away and summoned the Guards' Commander, the Commander of the Germans, the Treasurer and myself to a private room. He asked the others, pointing to me;

"Is that creature fit to be Emperor?"

They answered in surprised tones, "Not unless you say so, Jove."

Then he gave them a pathetic smile and exclaimed, "I am one and you are three. Two of you are armed and I am defenceless. If you hate me and want to kill me, do so at once and put that poor idiot into my place as Emperor."

We all fell on our faces and the two soldiers handed him their swords from the floor, saying, "We are innocent of any such treacherous thought. Lord. If you disbelieve us, kill us!"

Do you know, he was actually about to kill us! But while he hesitated I said; "Almighty God, the colonel who summoned me here told me of the charge brought against these loyal men by Bassus' father. Its falsity is evident. If Bassus had really been employed by them, would it have been necessary for him to question the captain about your movements? Would he not have been able to get all the necessary information from these generals themselves? No, Bassus' father has tried to save his own life and Bassus' by a clumsy lie."

Caligula appeared to be convinced by my argument. He gave me his hand to kiss, made us all rise, and handed the swords back. Bassus and his father were thereupon hewn to pieces by the Germans. But Caligula could not rid his mind of the dread of assassination, which was presently increased by a number of unlucky omens. First the porter's lodge at the Palace was struck by lightning. Then Incitatus, when he was brought in to dinner one evening, reared up and cast a shoe which broke an alabaster cup that had belonged to Julius Caesar, spilling the wine on the floor. The worst omen of all was what happened at Olympus, when, in accordance with Caligula's orders, the temple workmen began to take the statue of Jove to pieces for conveyance to Rome. The head was to come off first, to be used as a measure for the new head of Caligula that would be substituted when the statue was reassembled. They had got the pulley fixed to the temple roof and a rope knotted around the neck and were just about to haul, when suddenly a thunderous peal of laughter roared out through the whole building. The workmen rushed away in panic. Nobody could be found bold enough to take their places.

Caesonia now advised him, since by his immovable rigour he had made everyone tremble at the very sound of his name, to rule mildly and earn the people's love instead of their fear. For Caesonia realised how dangerously he was placed and that if anything happened to him she would [4^9] certainly lose her life too, unless she was known to have done her best to dissuade him from his cruelties. He was behaving in a most imprudent way now. He went in turn to the Guards' Commander, the Treasurer and the Commander of the Germans and pretended to take each of them into his confidence saying, "I trust you, but the others are plotting against me and I want you to regard them as my deadliest enemies." They compared notes; and that is why when a real plot was formed they shut their eyes to it. Caligula said that he approved Caesonia's advice and thanked her for it; he would certainly follow it when he had made his peace with his enemies. He called the Senate together and addressed us in this strain: "Soon I shall grant you all an amnesty, my enemies, and reign with love and peace a thousand years. That is the prophecy.

But before that golden time comes heads must roll along the floor of this House and blood spurt up to the beams. A wild five minutes that will be." If the thousand years of peace had come first, and then the wild five minutes, we should have preferred it.

The plot was formed by Cassius Chaerea. He was an old-fashioned soldier, accustomed to blind obedience to the orders of his superiors. Things have to be extraordinarily bad before a man of this stamp can think of plotting against the life of his Commander-in-Chief, to whom he has sworn allegiance in the most solemn terms imaginable.

Caligula had treated Cassius extremely badly. He had definitely promised him the command of the Guards and then without a word of explanation or apology had given it to a captain of short service and no military distinction as a reward for a remarkable drinking feat at the Palace: he had volunteered to drain a three-gallon jar of wine without removing it from his lips, and had really done so--I was watching--and kept the wine down into the bargain. Caligula had also made this man a senator. And Caligula employed Cassius on all his most unpleasant errands and tasks--collection of taxes that were not really due, the seizure of property for offences never committed, the execution of innocent men. Recently he had made him torture a beautiful girl, well born too, called Quintilia. The story was as follows. Several young men had wanted to marry her, but the one whom her guardian had proposed, a member of the Scouts, she did not like at all. She begged him to let her choose one of the others; he consented, and the day for the marriage was fixed. The rejected Scout went to Caligula and brought an accusation against his rival, saying that he had blasphemed, speaking of his August Sovereign as "that bald-headed madame". He cited Quintilia as a witness.

Quintilia and her betrothed were brought before Caligula. Both denied the charge.

Both were sentenced to the rack. Cassius' face revealed his disgust, for only slaves could legally be put to torture. So Caligula ordered him to supervise Quintilia's racking and turn the screws with his own hands. Quintilia did not utter a word or a cry throughout her ordeal and afterwards said to Cassius, who was so affected that he was weeping, "Poor Colonel, I bear you no grudge. Sometimes it must be hard to obey orders."

Cassius said bitterly: "I wish I had died that day with Varus in the Teutoburger Forest."

She was taken again into Caligula's presence and Cassius reported that she had made no confession and not allowed a cry to escape her. Caesonia said to Caligula, "That was because she was in love with the man. Love conquers all. You might cut her to pieces but she would never betray him."

Caligula said: "And would you too be so gloriously brave on my account, Caesonia?"

"You know that I would," she said.

So Quintilia's betrothed was not tortured but given a free pardon, and Quintilia was awarded a dowry of eight thousand gold pieces from the estate of the Scout, who was executed for perjury. But Caligula heard that Cassius had wept during Quintilia's torture and jeered at him for an old cry-baby. "Cry-baby" was not the worst he found.

He pretended that Cassius was an effeminate old pathic, and was always making dirty jokes about him to the other Guards officers, who were obliged to laugh heartily at them. Cassius used to come to Caligula for the watchword every day at noon. It had always been "Rome" or "Augustus" or "Jove" or "Victory" or something of the sort; but now to annoy Cassius, Caligula would give him absurd words like "Stay-laces" or "Lots of Love" or "Curling irons" [4"] or "Kiss me.

Sergeant," and Cassius had to take them back to his brother-officers and stand their chaff. He decided to kill Caligula.

Caligula was madder than ever. He came into my room one day and said without any introductory remark: "I shall have three Imperial cities, and Rome won't be one of them.

I shall have my city on the Alps, and I shall rebuild Rome at Antium because that's where I was bom and deserves the honour, and because it's on the sea, and then I shall have Alexandria in case the Germans capture the other two.

Alexandria is a very cultivated place."

"Yes, God," I said humbly.

He then suddenly remembered that he had been called a bald-headed madame--his hair was certainly very thin on top now--and shouted out, "How dare you go about with a great ugly bush of hair in my presence? It's blasphemy."

He turned to his German guard, "Cut his head off!"

Once more I thought I was done for. But I had the presence of mind to say sharply to the Guard who was running at me with his sword, "What are you doing, idiot? The God didn't say 'head', he said 'hair'! Run off and fetch the shears at once!" Caligula was taken aback and perhaps really thought that he had said

"hair". He allowed the German to fetch the shears. My crown was shorn clean. I asked permission to dedicate the clippings to his Deity and he graciously gave consent. So now he had everyone in the Palace shorn, except the Germans. When it came to Cassius' turn Caligula said, "Oh, what a pity! Those darling little ringlets that the Sergeant loves so much!"

That evening Cassius met Lesbia's husband. He had been Ganymede's best friend and from something that Caligula had said that morning was not likely to live much longer. He said, "Good evening Cassius Chasrea, my friend.

What's

the

watchword

to-day?"

Cassius had never been called "my friend" before by Lesbia's husband and looked intently at him.

Lesbia's husband--his name was Marcus Vinicius--said again, "Cassius, we have much in common and when I call you 'friend', I mean it. What's the watchword?"

Cassius answered, "The watchword to-night is 'Little Ringlets'. But, my friend Marcus Vinicius, if I may indeed call you friend, give me the watchword

'Liberty' and my sword is at your service."

Vinicius embraced him. "We are not the only two who are ready to strike for Liberty. The Tiger is also with me."

'The Tiger"--his real name was Cornelius Sabinus--was another Guards colonel, who relieved Cassius whenever he went off duty.

The great Palatine Festival started the next day. This festival in honour of Augustus had been instituted by Livia at the beginning of Tiberius' monarchy and was held annually in the Southern Court of the Old Palace.

AJ] .41] It began with sacrifices to Augustus and a symbolic procession, and continued for three days with theatrical pieces, dancing, singing, juggling and the like. Wooden stands were erected with seating for sixty thousand people.

When the festival ended the stands were taken down and stored away until the following year. This year Caligula had prolonged the three days to eight, interspersing the performances with chariot-races in the Circus and sham naval-fights in the Basin. He wanted to be continuously amused until the day he sailed for Alexandria, which was to be the twenty-fifth of January. For he was going to Egypt to see the sights, to raise money by immovable rigour and the same sort of trickery he had used in France, to make plans for the rebuilding of Alexandria and, lastly, so he boasted, to put a new head on the Sphinx.

The Festival started. Caligula sacrificed to Augustus, but in a somewhat perfunctory and disdainful way--like a master who in some emergency or other has to perform some menial service for one of his slaves. When this was over he proclaimed that if any citizen present asked a boon that it was in his power to grant he would graciously grant it. He had been angry with the people lately for their lack of enthusiasm at the last wild-beast show and had punished them by shutting the city granaries for ten days; but perhaps he had forgiven them now because he had just scattered largesse from the Palace roof. So a glad shout went up, "More bread, less taxes, Caesar! More bread, less taxes!"

Caligula was very angry. He sent a platoon of Germans along the benches and a hundred heads were chopped off.

This incident disturbed the conspirators; it was a reminder [423] of the barbarity of the Germans and the marvellous devotion that they paid Caligula. By this time, there can hardly have been a citizen in Rome who did not long for the death of Caligula, or would not willingly have eaten his flesh, as the saying is; but to these Germans he was the most glorious hero the world had ever known. And if he dressed as a woman; or galloped suddenly away from hu; army on the march; or made Caesonia appear naked before them and boasted of her beauty; or burned down his most beautiful villa at Herculaneum on the ground that his mother Agrippina had been imprisoned there for two days on her way to the island where she died--this inexplicable sort of behaviour only made him the more worthy of their worship as a divine being. They used to nod wisely to each other and say,