I, Claudius

by Robert Graves

  I had no reason to feel sorry for my nieces. They were as bad as Caligula, in their way, and treated me very spitefully. When Agrippinilla's baby was born three years before she had asked Caligula to suggest a name for it. Caligula said, "Call it Claudius and it will be sure to turn out a beauty." Agrippinilla was so furious that she nearly struck Caligula; instead she turned quickly round and spat towards me—and then burst into tears. The baby was called Lucius Domitius. Lesbia was too proud to pay attention to me or acknowledge my presence in any way. If I happened to meet her in a narrow passage she used to walk straight on down the middle without slackening her pace, making me squeeze against the wall. It was difficult for me to remember that they were the children of my dear brother and that I had promised Agrippina to do my very best to protect them, I had the embarrassing duty assigned to me of going to France, at the head of an embassy of four ex-Consuls, to congratulate Caligula on his suppression of the conspiracy.

  This was my first visit to France since my infancy and I wished I was not making it. I had to take money from Calpurnia for travelling expenses, for my estate and home had not yet found a buyer, and I could not count on Caligula's being pleased to see me. I went by sea from Ostia, landing at Marseilles. It appears that after banishing my nieces Caligula had auctioned the jewellery and ornaments and clothes they had brought with them. These fetched such high prices that he also sold their slaves and then their freedmen, pretending that these were slaves too. The bids were made by rich provincials who wanted the glory of saying, "Yes, such and such belonged to the Emperor's sister. I bought it from him personally!" This gave Caligula a new idea. The old Palace where Livia had lived was now shut up. It was full of valuable furniture and pictures and relics of Augustus. Caligula sent for all this stuff to Rome and made me responsible tor its safe and prompt arrival at Lyons. He wrote: "Send it by road, not by sea. I have a quarrel on with Neptune." The letter arrived only the day before I sailed, so I put Pallas in charge of the job. The difficulty was that all the surplus horses and carts had already been commandeered for the transport of Caligula's army. But Caligula had given the order, and horses and conveyances had somehow to be found. Pallas went to the Consuls and showed them Caligula's orders. They were forced to commandeer public mail-coaches and bakers' vans and the horses that turned the corn-mills, which was a great inconvenience to the public.

  So it happened that one evening in May just before sunset Caligula, sitting on the bridge at Lyons engaged in imaginary conversation with the local river-god, saw me coming along the road in the distance. He recognized my sedan by the dice-board I have fitted across it: I beguile long journeys by throwing dice with myself. He called out angrily: "Hey, you sir, where are the carts? Why haven't you brought the carts?"

  I called back: "Heaven bless your Majesty! The carts won't be here for a few days yet, I fear. They are coming by land, through Genoa. My colleagues and I have come by water."

  "Then back by water you’ll go, my man,'' he said.

  "Come here!"

  When I reached the bridge I was pulled out of my sedan by two German soldiers and carried to the parapet above the middle arch, where they sat me with my back to the river. Caligula rushed forward and pushed me over. I turned two back-somersaults and fell what seemed like a thousand feet before I struck the water. I remember saying to myself: "Born at Lyons, died at Lyons!" The river Rhône is very cold, very deep and very swift. My heavy robe entangled my arms and legs, but somehow I managed to keep afloat, and to clamber ashore behind some boats about half a mile downstream, out of sight of the bridge.

  I am a much better swimmer than I am a walker: I am strong in the arms and being rather fat from not being able to take exercise and from liking my meals I float like a cork. By the way, Caligula couldn't swim a stroke.

  He was surprised, a few minutes later, to see me come hobbling up the road, and laughed hugely at the stinking muddy mess I was in. "Where have you been, my dear Vulcan?" he called.

  I had the answer pat: I felt the Thunderer's might, Hurled headlong downward from th'etherial height Tost all the day in rapid circles round Nor till the sun descended touch'd the ground.

  Breathless I fell, in giddy motions lost; The Sinthians raised me on the Lemnian coast.

  "For 'Lemnian' read 'Lyonian'," I said. He was sitting on the parapet with my three fellow-envoys lying on the ground face-downwards in a row before him. He had his feet on the necks of two and his swordpoint balanced between the shoulders of the third, Lesbia's husband, who was sobbing for mercy. "Claudius," he groaned, hearing my voice, "beseech the Emperor to set us free: we only came to offer him our loving congratulations."

  "I want carts, not congratulations," said Caligula.

  It seemed as if Homer had written the passage from which I had just quoted on purpose for this occasion. I said to Lesbia's husband: Be patient and obey.

  Dear as you are, if Jove his arm extend

  I can but grieve, unable to defend.

  What soul so daring in your aid to move

  Or lift his hand against the might of Jove?

  Caligula was delighted. He said to the three suppliants: "What are your lives worth to you? Fifty thousand gold pieces each?"

  "Whatever you say, Caesar," they answered faintly.

  "Then pay poor Claudius that sum as soon as you get back to Rome. He's saved your lives by his ready tongue."

  So they were allowed to rise and Caligula made them sign a promise, then and there, to pay me one hundred and fifty thousand gold pieces in three months' time. I said to Caligula: "Most gracious Caesar, your need is greater than mine. Will you accept one hundred thousand gold pieces from me, when they pay me, in gratitude for my own salvation? If you condescended to take that gift, I would still have fifty thousand left, which would enable me to pay my initiation fee in full. I have worried a great deal about that debt."

  He said, "Anything that I can do that will contribute to your peace of mind!" and called me his Golden Farthing.

  So Homer saved me. But Caligula a few days later warned me not to quote Homer again. "He's a most overrated author. I am going to have his poems called in and burned. Why shouldn't I put Plato's philosophical recommendations into practice? You know The Republic? An admirable piece of argument. Plato was for keeping all poets whatsoever out of his ideal state: he said that they were all liars, and so they are."

  I asked: "Is your Sacred Majesty going to bum any other poets besides Homer?"

  "Oh, indeed, yes. All the over-rated ones. Virgil for a start. He's a dull fellow. Tries to be a Homer and can't do it."

  "And any historians?"

  "Yes, Livy. Still duller. Tries to be a Virgil and can't do it."

  XXXII

  HE CALLED FOR THE MOST RECENT OFFICIAL property census and after examining it summoned all the richest men in France to Lyons, so that when the Palace staff arrived there from Rome he would be sure to get good prices for it. Just before the auction started, he made a speech.

  He said that he was a poor bankrupt with enormous liabilities, but trusted that, for the sake of the Empire, his affectionate provincial friends and grateful allies would not take advantage of his financial plight. He begged them not to offer less than the true value of 'the family heirlooms which, much to his grief, he was being forced to put up for sale.

  There was no ordinary auctioneer's trick that he had not learned, and he invented a great many new ones too beyond the scope of the market-place cheap-jacks from whom he borrowed so much of his patter. For instance, he sold the same article several times over to different buyers with each time a different account of its quality and usefulness and history. And by "true value" he expected bidders to understand "sentimental value" which always turned out to be a hundred times greater than the intrinsic value. For instance he would say: "This was the favourite easy-chair of my great-grandfather Mark Antony"—"the God Augustus drank out of this wine-cup at his marriage feast"—"this dress was worn by my sister, the Goddess Panthea, at a recepti
on given to King Herod Agrippa in celebration of his release from prison"—and so forth. And he sold what he called "blind bargains", small articles wrapped up in cloth. When he had inveigled a man into buying an old sandal or a piece of cheese for two thousand gold pieces, he was tremendously pleased with himself.

  Bidding always started at the reserve price; for he would nod at some rich Frenchman and say, "I think you said forty thousand gold pieces for that alabaster casket? Thank you. But let's see if we can't do better. Who'll say forty-five thousand?" You can imagine that fear made the bidding brisk. He skinned the whole lot of all they had and celebrated the skinning by a magnificent ten-day festival.

  He then continued his progress to the Rhine Provinces.

  He swore that he was about to fight a war against the Germans that would only end in their total extermination. He would piously complete the task begun by his grandfather and father. He sent a couple of regiments over the river to locate the nearest enemy. About a thousand prisoners were brought back. Caligula reviewed them and after picking out three hundred fine young men for his bodyguard he lined up the remainder against a cliff. A bald-headed man was at either end of the line. Caligula gave Cassius the order: "Kill them, from bald head to bald head, in vengeance for the death of Varus." The news of this massacre reached the Germans and they withdrew into their thickest forests. Caligula then crossed the river with his entire army and found the countryside deserted. The first day of his march, just to make things more exciting, he ordered some of his German bodyguard into a neighbouring wood, and then had news brought to him at supper that the enemy was at hand. At the head of his "Scouts" and a troop of Guards Cavalry he then dashed out to the attack. He brought back the men as prisoners, loaded with chains and announced a crushing victory against overwhelming odds.

  He rewarded his comrades-in-arms with a new sort of military decoration called "The Scouts' Crown", a golden coronet decorated with the Sun, Moon and stars in precious stones.

  On the third day the road lay through a narrow pass.

  The army had to move in column instead of in skirmishing order. Cassius said to Caligula, "It was in a place rather like this, Caesar, that Varus got ambushed. I shall never forget that day so long as I live—I was marching at the head of my company and had just reached a bend in the road, as it might be this one we are coming to, when suddenly there was a tremendous war-cry, as it might be from that clump of firs yonder, and three or four hundred assegais came whizzing down on us...."

  "Quick, my mare!" called Caligula in a panic. "Clear the road!" He sprang from his sedan, mounted Penelope [Incitatus was at Rome, winning races] and galloped back down the column. In four hours' time he was at the bridge again, but found it so choked with baggage-wagons and was in such a hurry to cross that he dismounted and made soldiers hand him in a chair from wagon to wagon until he was safely on the other side. He recalled his army at once, announcing that the enemy were too cowardly to meet him in battle, and that he would therefore seek new conquests elsewhere. When the whole force had reassembled at Cologne he marched down the Rhine and then across to Boulogne, the nearest port to Britain. It so happened that the son of Cymbeline, the King of Britain, had quarrelled with his father and, hearing of Caligula's approach, he fled across the Channel with a few followers and put himself under Roman protection. Caligula, who had already informed the Senate of his total subjugation of Germany, now wrote to say that King Cymbeline had sent his son to acknowledge Roman suzerainty over the entire British archipelago from the Scilly Islands to the Orkneys.

  I was with Caligula throughout this expedition and had a very difficult time trying to humour him. He complained of sleeplessness and said that his enemy Neptune was plaguing him all the time with sea-noises in his ears, and used to come by night and threaten him with a trident. I said: "Neptune? I wouldn't allow myself to be browbeaten by that saucy fellow if I were you. Why don't you punish him as you punished the Germans? You threatened him once before, I remember, and if he continues to flout you, it would be wrong to stretch your clemency any further."

  He looked at me, uncomfortably, through narrowed eyelids. "Do you think I'm mad?" he asked, after a time.

  I laughed nervously. "Mad, Caesar? You ask whether I think you mad? Why, you set the standard of sanity for the whole habitable world."

  "It's a very difficult thing, you know, Claudius,'' he said confidentially, "to be a God in human disguise. I've often thought I was going mad. They say that the hellebore Cure at Anticyra is very good. What do you think of it?"

  I said: "One of the greatest Greek philosophers, though I can't remember now which of them it was, took the hellebore cure just to make his clear brain still clearer. But if you are asking me to advise you, I should say, "Don't take it. Your brain is as clear as a pool of rock-water."

  "Yes," he said. "but I wish I could get more than three hours' sleep a night."

  "Those three hours are because of your mortal disguise, "I said. "Undisguised Gods never sleep at all."

  So he was comforted and the next day drew up his army in order of battle on the sea-front: archers and slingers in front, then the auxiliary Germans armed with assegais, then the main Roman forces, with the French in the rear.

  The cavalry were on the wings and the siege-engines, mangonels and catapults, planted on sand-dunes. Nobody knew what on earth was going to happen. He rode forward into the sea as far as Penelope's knees and cried: "Neptune, old enemy, defend yourself. I challenge you to mortal fight. You treacherously wrecked my father's fleet, did you? Try your might on me, if you dare." Then he quoted from Ajax's wrestling match with Ulysses, in Homer: Or let me lift thee, Chief, or lift thou me.

  Prove we our force,..

  A little wave came rolling past. He cut at it with his sword and laughed contemptuously. Then he coolly retired and ordered the "general engagement" to be sounded. The archers shot, the slingers slung, the javelin-men threw their javelins; the regular infantry waded into the waters as far as their arm-pits and hacked at the little waves, the cavalry charged on either flank and swam out some way, slashing with their sabres, the mangonels hurled rocks and the catapults huge javelins and iron-tipped beams. Caligula then put to sea in a war-vessel and anchored just out of range of the missiles, uttering absurd challenges to Neptune and spitting far out over the vessel's side. Neptune made no attempt to defend himself or to reply, except that one man was nipped by a lobster, and another stung by a jelly-fish.

  Caligula finally had the rally blown and told his men to wipe the blood off their swords and gather the spoil. The spoil was the sea-shells on the beach. Each man was expected to collect a helmet-full, which was added to a general heap. The shells were then sorted and packed in boxes to be sent to Rome in proof of this unheard-of victory.

  The troops thought it great fun, and when he rewarded them with four gold pieces a man cheered him tremendously. As a trophy of victory he built a very high lighthouse, on the model of the famous one at Alexandria, which has since proved a great blessing to sailors in those dangerous waters.

  He then marched up the Rhine again. When we reached Bonn Caligula took me aside and whispered darkly: "The regiments have never been punished for the insult they once paid me by mutinying against my father, during my absence from this Camp. You remember, I had to come back and restore order for him."

  "I remember perfectly." I said. "But that's rather long ago, isn't it? After twenty-six years there can't be many men still serving in the ranks who were then there. You and Cassius Chsrea are probably the only two veteran survivors of that dreadful day."

  "Perhaps I shall only decimate them, then," he said.

  The men of the First and Twentieth Regiments were ordered to attend a special assembly and told that they might leave their arms behind, because of the hot weather.

  The Guards cavalry were also ordered to attend but instructed to bring their lances as well as their sabres. I found a sergeant who looked as though he might have fought at Philippi, he was so old and
scarred. I said, "Sergeant, do you know who I am?"

  "No, sir. Can't say that I do, sir. You seem to be an ex-Consul, sir."

  "I am the brother of Germanicus."

  "Indeed, sir. Never knew that there was such a person, sir."

  "No, I'm not a soldier or anyone important. But I've got an important message for you fellows. Don't leave your swords too far away when you go to this afternoon's assembly!"

  "Why, sir, if I may ask?"

  "Because you may need them. Perhaps there will be an attack by the Germans. Perhaps by someone else."

  He stared hard at me and then saw that I really meant it.

  "Much obliged to you, sir, I'll pass the word around," he answered.

  The infantry were massed in front of the tribunal platform and Caligula spoke to them with an angry scowling face, stamping his feet and sawing with his hands. He began reminding them of a certain night in early autumn, many years before, when under a starless and bewitched sky... Here some of the men began sneaking away through a gap between two troops of cavalry. They were going to fetch their swords. Others boldly pulled theirs out from under their military cloaks where they had been hiding them. Caligula must have noticed what was happening, for he suddenly changed his tone, in the middle of a sentence. He began drawing a happy contrast between those bad days, happily forgotten, and the present reign of glory, wealth and victory. "Your little playfellow grew to manhood," he said, "and became the mightiest Emperor this world has ever known. No foeman however fierce, dares challenge his unconquerable arms."