I, Claudius

by Robert Graves

  Vinicius went out by the stage-door and found Cassius and The Tiger in the court. "You'd better come back," he said. "He's sitting it out to the end."

  Cassius said: "Very well. Let's go back. I'm going to kill him where he sits. I expect you to stand by me."

  Just then a Guardsman came up to Cassius and said, "The boys are here at last, sir."

  Now, Caligula had lately sent letters to the Greek cities of Asia Minor ordering them each to send him ten boys of the noblest blood to dance the national sword-dance at the festival and sing a hymn in his honour. This was only an excuse for getting the boys in his power: they would be useful hostages when he turned his fury against Asia Minor. They should have arrived several days before this, but rough weather in the Adriatic bad held them up at Corfu. The Tiger said, "Inform the Emperor at once."

  The Guardsman hurried to the theatre.

  Meanwhile I was beginning to feel very hungry. I whispered to Vitellius who was sitting behind me, "I do wish that the Emperor would set us the example of going out for a little luncheon." Then the Guardsman came up with the message about the boys’ arrival and Caligula said to Asprenas: "Splendid! They'll be able to perform this afternoon. I must see them at once and have a short rehearsal of the hymn. Come on, friends! The rehearsal first, then a bathe, luncheon, and back again!"

  We went out. Caligula stopped at the gate to give orders about the afternoon performance. I walked ahead withVitellius, a senator named Sentius, and the two generals.

  We went by the covered passage. I noticed Cassius and The Tiger at the entrance. They did not salute me, which I thought strange, for they saluted the others. We reached the Palace. I said, "I am hungry. I smell venison cooking. I hope that rehearsal won't take too long." We were in the ante-room to the banqueting-hall. "This is odd," I thought. "No captains here, only sergeants." I fumed questioningly to my companions but—another odd thing—found that they had all silently vanished. Just then I heard distant shouting and screams, then more shouting. I wondered what on earth was happening. Someone ran past the window shouting, "It's all over. He's dead!" Two minutes later there came a most awful roar from the theatre, as if the whole audience was being massacred. It went on and on but after a time there was a lull followed by tremendous cheering. I stumbled upstairs to my little reading-room where I collapsed trembling on a chair.

  The pillared portrait-busts of Herodotus, Polybius, Thucydides, and Asinius Pollio stood facing me. Their impassive features seemed to say: "A true historian will always rise superior to the political disturbances of his day."

  I determined to comport myself as a true historian.

  XXXIV

  WHAT HAD HAPPENED WAS THIS. CALIGULA had come out of the theatre. A sedan was waiting to take him the long way round to the New Palace between double ranks of Guards. But Vinicius said: "Let's go by the short cut. The Greek boys are waiting there at the entrance, I believe."

  "All right, then, come along," said Caligula. The people tried to follow him out but Asprenas dropped behind and forced them back. "The Emperor doesn't want to be bothered with you," he said. "Get back!" He told the gatekeepers to close the gates again.

  Caligula went towards the covered passage. Cassius stepped forward and saluted. "The watchword, Caesar?"

  Caligula said, "Eh? O yes, the watchword, Cassius. I'll give you a nice one to-day—'Old Man's Petticoat.'"

  The Tiger called from behind Caligula, "Shall I?" It was the agreed signal.

  "Do so!" bellowed Cassius, drawing his sword, and striking at Caligula with all his strength.

  He had intended to split his skull to the chin, but in his rage he missed his aim and struck him between the neck and the shoulders. The upper breastbone took the chief force of the blow. Caligula was staggered with pain and astonishment. He looked wildly around him, turned and ran.

  As he turned Cassius struck at him again, severing his jaw.

  The Tiger then felled him with a badly-aimed blow on the side of his head. He slowly rose to his knees. "Strike again!" Cassius shouted.

  Caligula looked up to Heaven with a face of agony. "O Jove," he prayed.

  "Granted," shouted The Tiger, and hacked off one of his hands.

  A captain called Aquila gave the finishing stroke, a deep thrust in the groin, but ten more swords were plunged into his breast and belly afterwards, just to make sure o£ him.

  A captain called Bubo dipped his hand in a wound in Caligula's side and then licked his fingers, shrieking, "I swore to drink his blood!"

  A crowd had collected and the alarm went around, "The Germans are coming." The assassins had no chance against a whole battalion of Germans. They rushed into the nearest building, which happened to be my old home, lately borrowed from me by Caligula as guest-apartments for foreign ambassadors whom he did not want to have about in the Palace. They went in at the front door and out at the back door. All got away in time but The Tiger and Asprenas. The Tiger had to pretend that he was not one of the assassins and joined the Germans in their cries for vengeance. Asprenas ran into the covered passage, where the Germans caught him and killed him. They killed two other senators whom they happened to meet. This was only a small party of Germans. The rest of the battalion marched into the theatre and closed the gate behind them. They were going to avenge their murdered hero by a wholesale massacre. That was the roar and screaming I had heard. Nobody in the theatre knew that Caligula was dead or that any attempt had been made against his life. But it was quite clear what the Germans intended because they were going through that curious performance of patting and stroking their assegais and speaking to them as if they were human beings, which is their invariable custom before shedding blood with those terrible weapons. There was no escape. Suddenly from the stage the trumpet blew the Attention, followed by the six notes which mean Imperial Orders. Mnester entered and raised his hand. And at once the terrible din died down into mere sobs and smothered groans, for when Mnester appeared on the stage it was a rule that nobody should utter the least sound on pain of instant death. The Germans too stopped their patting and stroking and incantations. The Imperial Orders stiffened them into statues.

  Mnester shouted: "He's not dead, Citizens. Far from it. The assassins set on him and beat him to his knees, so! But he presently rose again, so! Swords cannot prevail against our Divine Caesar. Wounded and bloody as he was he rose. So! He lifted his august head and walked, so! with divine stride through the ranks of his cowardly and baffled assassins. His wounds healed, a miracle! He is now in the Market Place loudly and eloquently haranguing his subjects from the Oration Platform."

  A mighty cheer arose and the Germans sheathed their swords and marched out. Mnester's timely lie [prompted, as a matter of fact, by a message from Herod Agrippa, King of the Jews, the only man in Rome who kept his wits about him that fateful afternoon had saved sixty thousand lives or more].

  But the real news had by now reached the Palace, where it caused the most utter confusion. A few old soldiers thought that the opportunity for looting was too good to be missed. They would pretend to be looking for the assassins. Every room in the Palace had a golden door-knob, each worth six months' pay, easy enough to hack off with a sharp sword. I heard the cries, "Kill them, kill thcm! Avenge Caesar!" and hid behind a curtain. Two soldiers came in. They saw my feet under the curtain. "Come out of there, assassin. No use hiding from us."

  I came out and fell on my face. "Don't k-k-k-k-kill me, Lords," I said. "I had n-nothing to d-d-d-d-do with it."

  "Who's this old gentleman?" asked one of the soldiers who was new at the Palace. "He doesn't look dangerous."

  "Why! Don't you know? He's Germanicus' invalid brother. A decent old stick. No harm in him at all. Get up, sir. We won't hurt you." This soldier's name was Gratus.

  They made me follow them downstairs again into the banqueting-hall where the sergeants and corporals were holding a council-of-war. A young sergeant stood on a table waving his arms and shouting, "Republic be hanged! A new Emperor's our only ho
pe. Any Emperor so long as we can persuade the Germans to accept him."

  "Incitatus," someone suggested, guffawing.

  "Yes, by God! Better the old nag than no Emperor at all. We want someone immediately, to keep the Germans quiet. Otherwise they'll run amok."

  My two captors pushed their way through the crowd dragging me behind them. Gratus called out, "Hey, Sergeant! Look whom we have here! A bit of luck, I think. It's old Claudius. What's wrong with old Claudius for Emperor? The best man for the job in Rome, though he do limp and stammer a bit."

  Loud cheers, laughter, and cries of "Long live the Emperor Claudius!" The Sergeant apologised. "Why sir, we all thought you were dead. But you're our man, all right. Push him up, lads, where we can all see him!" Two burly corporals caught me by the legs and hoisted me on their shoulders. "Long live the Emperor Claudiusl"

  "Put me down," I cried furiously. "Put me down! I don't want to be Emperor. I refuse to be Emperor. Long live the Republic!"

  But they only laughed. "That's a good one. He doesn't want to be Emperor, he says. Modest, eh?"

  "Give me a sword," I shouted. "I'll kill myself sooner."

  Messalina came hurrying towards us. "For my sake, Claudius, do what they ask of you. For our child's sake!

  We'll all be murdered if you refuse. They've killed Caesonia already. And they took her little girl by the feet and bashed out her brains against a wall."

  "You'll be all right, sir, once you get accustomed to it,"

  Gratus said, grinning. "It's not such a bad life, an Emperor's isn't."

  I made no more protests. What was the use of struggling against Fate? They hurried me out into the Great Court, singing the foolish hymn of hope composed at Caligula's accession, "Germanicus is come Again, To Free the City from her Pain." For I had the surname Germanicus too.

  They forced me to put on Caligula's golden oak-leaf chaplet, recovered from one of the looters. To steady myself I had to cling tightly to the corporals' shoulders. The chaplet kept slipping over one ear. How foolish I felt. They say that I looked like a criminal being hauled away to execution.

  Massed trumpeters blew the Imperial Salute.

  The Germans came streaming towards us. They had just heard for certain of Caligula's death, from a senator who came to meet them in deep mourning. They were furious at having been tricked and wanted to go back to the theatre, but the theatre was empty now, so they were at a loss what to do next. There was nobody about to take vengeance on except the Guards, and the Guards were armed.

  The Imperial Salute decided them. They rushed forward shouting: "Long live the Emperor Claudius!" and began frantically dedicating their assegais to my service and struggling to break through the crowd of Guardsmen to kiss my feet. I called to them to keep back, and they obeyed, prostrating themselves before me. I was carried round and round the Court.

  And what thoughts or memories, would you guess, were passing through my mind on this extraordinary occasion?

  Was I thinking of the Sibyl's prophecy, of the omen of the wolf-cub, of Pollio's advice, or of Briseis' dream? Of my grandfather and liberty? Of my father and liberty? Of my three Imperial predecessors, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, their lives and deaths? Of the great danger I was still in from the conspirators, and from the Senate, and from the Guards battalions at Camp? Of Messalina and our unborn child? Of my grandmother Livia and my promise to deify her if ever I became Emperor? Of Postumus and Germanicus? Of Agrippina and Nero? Of Camilla? No, you would never guess what was passing through my mind. But I shall be frank and tell you what it was, though the confession is a shameful one. I was thinking, "So, I'm Emperor, am I? What nonsense! But at least I'll be able to make people read my books now. Public recitals to large audiences. And good books too, thirty-five years' hard work in them. It won't be unfair. Pollio used to get attentive audiences by giving expensive dinners. He was a very sound historian, and the last of Romans. My History of Carthage is full of amusing anecdotes. I'm sure they'll enjoy it."

  That was what I was thinking. I was thinking too, what opportunities I should have, as Emperor, for consulting the secret archives and finding out just what happened on this occasion or on that. How many twisted stories still remained to be straightened out. What a miraculous fate for a historian! And as you will have seen, I took full advantage of my opportunities. Even the mature historian's privilege of setting forth conversations of which he knows only the gist is one that I have availed myself of hardly at all.

  The End

  About the Author

  Although he is a primarily a poet, ROBERT GRAVES in over forty years of writing has also made distinguished contributions as a novelist, critic, translator, essayist, scholar, historian, lecturer and librettist. Born in London in 1895, Mr. Graves left school when World War I broke and served as a captain with the Royal Welsh Fusiliers in France. First recognised as a "war poet" along with his fellow officer Siegfried Sassoon, he won international acclaim in 1929 with the publication of Goodbye to All That, an autobiography vividly appraising the effect of the war years on his generation.

  After the war, Mr. Graves was granted a Classical scholarship at Oxford, and subsequently went to Egypt as the first Professor of English at the newly formed University of Cairo. Since 1932 he has lived with his wife and family in Deya, Majorca, except in time of war. I, Claudius first appeared in 1935 and won both the Tames Tait Black and Hawthorne prizes.