Robert Graves - I, Claudius

by I, Claudius(Lit)

  Under Postumus's kingship I had the happiest two years of my youth, I may say of my life. He gave orders to the other boys that I was to be freely admitted to games in the cloisters, though not a member of the College, and that he would regard any incivility or injury to me as incivility or injury to himself. So I took part in whatever sports my health allowed and it was only when Augustus or Livia happened to come along that I slipped into the background. In place of Cato I now had good old Athenodoms for my tutor. I learned more from him in six months than I had learned from Cato in six years. Athenodoms never beat me and used the greatest patience. He used to encourage me by saying that my lameness should be a spur to my intelligence. Vulcan, the God of all clever craftsmen, was lame too. As for my stammer, Demosthenes the noblest orator of all time had been born with a stammer, but had corrected it by patience and concentration. Demosthenes had used the very method that he was now teaching me. For Athenodorus made me declaim with my mouth full of pebbles: in trying to overcome the obstruction of the pebbles I forgot about the stammer and then the pebbles were removed one at a time until none remained, and I found to my surprise that I could speak as well as anyone. But only in declamations. In ordinary conversation I still stammered badly. He made it a pleasant secret between himself and me that I could declaim so well. "One day, Cercopithecion, we shall surprise Augustus," he would say. "But wait a little longer." When he called me Cercopithecion ["little marmoset"], it was for affection, not scorn, and I was proud of the name. When I did badly he would shame me by rolling out, "Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus, remember who you are and what you are doing." With Postumus and Athenodorus and Germanicus as my friends I gradually began to win self-confidence.

  Athenodorus told me, the very first day of his tutorship, that he proposed to teach me not facts which I could pick up anywhere for myself, but the -proper presentation of facts. And this he did. One day, for example, he asked me, kindly enough, why I was so excited: I seemed unable to concentrate on my task. I told him that I had just seen a huge draft of recruits parading on Mars Field under Augustus's inspection before being sent off to Germany, where war had recently broken out again. "Well," said Athenodorus, still in the same kindly voice, "since this is so much on your mind that you can't appreciate the beauties of Hesiod, Hesiod can wait until to-morrow. After all, he's waited seven hundred years or more, so he won't grudge us another day. And meanwhile, suppose you were to sit down and take your tablets and write me a letter, a short account of all that you saw on Mars Field; as if I had been five years absent from Rome and you were sending me a letter across the sea, say to my home in Tarsus. That would keep your restless hands employed and be good practice too." So I gladly scribbled away on the wax, and then we read the letter through for faults of spelling and composition. I was forced to admit that I had told both too little and too much, and had also put my facts in the wrong order. The passage describing the lamentations of the mothers and sweethearts of the young soldiers, and how the crowd rushed to the bridgehead for a final cheer of the departing column, should have come last, not first. And I need not-have mentioned that the cavalry had horses: people took that for granted. And I had twice put in the incident of Augustus's charger stumbling: once was enough if the horse only stumbled once. And what Postumus had told me, as we were going home, about the religious practices of the Jews, was interesting, but did not belong here because the recruits were Italians, not Jews. Besides, at Tarsus he would probably have more opportunities of studying Jewish customs than Postumus had at Rome. On the other hand I had not mentioned several things that he would have been interested to hear-how many recruits there were in the parade, how far advanced their military training was, to what garrison town they were being sent, whether they looked glad or sorry to go, what Augustus said to them in his speech.

  Three days later Athenodorus made me write out a description of a brawl between a sailor and clothes dealer which we had watched together that day as we were walking in the rag-market; and I did much better. He first applied this discipline to my writing, then to my declamations, and finally to my general conversation with him. He took endless pains with me, and gradually I grew less scatter-brained, for he never let any careless, irrelevant, or inexact phrase of mine pass without comment.

  He tried to interest me in speculative philosophy, but when he saw that I had no bent that way he did not force me to exceed the usual bounds of polite education in the subject. It was he who first inclined me to history. He had copies of the first twenty volumes of Livy's history of Rome, which he gave me to read as an example of lucid and agreeable writing. Livy's stories enchanted me and Athenodorus promised me that as soon as I had mastered my stammer I should meet Livy himself, who was a friend of his. He kept his word. Six months later he took me into the Apollo Library and introduced me to a bearded stooping man of about sixty with a yellowish complexion, a happy eye and a precise way of speaking, who greeted me cordially as the son of a rather whom he had so much admired. Livy was at this time not quite half-way through his history, which was to be completed in one hundred and fifty volumes and to run from the earliest legendary times to the death of my father some twelve years previously. It was at this date that he had begun publishing his work, at the rate of five volumes a year, and he had now reached the date at which Julius Caesar was born. Livy congratulated me on having Athenodorus as my tutor. Athenodorus said that I well repaid the pains he spent on me; and then I told Livy what pleasure I had derived from reading his books since Athenodorus had recommended them to me as a model for writing. So everybody was pleased, especially Livy. "What! Are you to be a historian too, young man?" he asked "I should like to be worthy of that honourable name," I replied, though I had indeed never seriously considered the matter. Then he suggested that I should write a life of my father, and offered to help me by referring me to the most reliable historical sources. I was much flattered and determined to start the book next day. But Livy said that writing was the historian's last task: first he had to gather his materials and sharpen his pen. Athenodorus would lend me his little sharp penknife, Livy joked-

  Athenodorus was a stately old man with dark gentle eyes, a hooked nose and the most wonderful beard that surely ever grew on human chin. It spread in waves down to his waist and was as white as a swan's wing. I do not make this as an idle poetical comparison for I am not the sort of historian who writes in pseudo-epic style, I mean that it was literally as white as a swan's wing. There were some tame swans on an artificial lake in the Gardens of Sallust, where Athenodorus and I once fed them with bread from a boat, and I remember noticing that his beard and their wings as he leaned over the side were of exactly the same colour. Athenodorus used to stroke his beard slowly and rhythmically as he talked, and told me once that it was this that made it grow so luxuriantly. He said that invisible seeds of fire streamed off from his fingers, which were food for the hairs. This was a typical Stoic joke at the expense of Epicurean speculative philosophy.

  Mention of Athenodorus's beard reminds me of Sulpicius, who, when I was thirteen years old, was appointed by Livia as my special history-tutor. Sulpicius had, I think, the most wretched-looking beard I have ever seen: it was white, but the white of snow in the streets of Rome after a thaw-a dirty greyish-white streaked with yellow, and very ragged. He used to twist it in his fingers when he was worried and would even put the ends in his mouth and shew them. Livia chose him, I believe, because she thought him the most boring man in Rome and hoped by making him my tutor to discourage my historical ambitions; for she soon came to hear of them. Livia was right: Sulpicius had a genius for making the most interesting things seem utterly vapid and dead But even Sulpicius's dryness could not turn me away from my work, and there was this about him, that he had a most extraordinary accurate memory for facts. If I ever wanted some out-of-way information, such for instance, as the laws of succession to the chieftainship among one of the Alpine tribes against whom my Father had fought, or the meaning and etymology of their outla
ndish battle-cry, Sulpicius would know what authority had treated of these points, in which book, and from which shelf of which case in which room of which library they were to be obtained. He had no critical sense and wrote miserably, the facts choking each other, like Sowers in a seed-bed that has not been thinned out. But he proved an invaluable assistant when later I learned to use him as such instead of as a tutor; and he worked for me until his death it the age of eighty-seven, nearly thirty years later, his memory remaining unimpaired to the last, and his beard as discoloured and thin and disordered as ever.

  VI

  I MUST NOW CO BACK A FEW YEARS TO WRITE ABOUT MY uncle Tiberius, whose fortunes are by no means irrelevant to this story. He was in an unhappy position, forced against his will to be continually in the public eye, now as general in some frontier-campaign, now as Consul at Rome, now as special commissioner to the provinces; when all he wanted was a long rest and privacy. Public honours meant little to him, if only because they were awarded him, as he once complained to my rather, rather as being chief errand-boy to Augustus and Livia, than as one acting in his own right and on his own responsibility. Moreover, with the dignity of the Imperial family to maintain and Livia continually spying on him, he had to be very careful of his private morals. He had few friends, being, as I think I have said, of a suspicious, jealous, reserved and melancholy temperament, and those rather hangers-on than friends, whom he treated with the cynical contempt that they deserved. And, lastly, things had gone from bad to worse between him and Julia since his marriage with her five years before. A boy had been born but he had died; and then Tiberius had refused to sleep with her ever again; for three reasons. The first was that Julia was by now getting middle-aged and losing her slender figure-Tiberius preferred immature women, the more boyish the better, and Vipsania had been a little wisp of a thing. The second was that Julia made passionate demands on him which he was unwilling to meet and that she used to become hysterical when he repulsed her. The third was that he found, after repulsing her, that she was revenging herself by finding gallants to give her what he withheld.

  Unfortunately he could get no proof of Julia's infidelities apart from the evidence of slaves, for she managed things very carefully; and slave-evidence was not good enough to offer Augustus as grounds for divorcing his beloved only daughter. Rather than tell Livia about it, however, for he mistrusted her as much as he hated her, he preferred to suffer in silence. It occurred to him that, if he could once get away from Rome and Julia, the chances were that she would grow careless and Augustus would eventually find but for himself about her behaviour. His only chance of escape lay in another war breaking out somewhere on one of the frontiers important enough for him to be sent there in command. But no signs of war appeared in any quarter and, besides, he was sick of fighting. He had succeeded my brother in command of the German armies (Julia had insisted on accompanying him to the Rhine) and had now only been back in Rome for a few months: but Augustus had worked him like a slave ever since his return, giving rim the difficult and unpleasant task of investigating the administration of workhouses and labour conditions generally in the poorer quarters of Rome. One day, in an unguarded moment, he burst out to Livia: "O mother, to be free, for only a few months even, from this intolerable life." She frightened him by making no answer and laughtily leaving the room, but later in the same day ailed him to her and surprised him by saying that she had decided to grant his wish and obtain temporary leave of retirement for him from Augustus. She took the decision partly because she wanted to put him under a debt of gratitude to her, and partly because she now knew about Julia's love-affairs and had the same idea as Tiberius about giving her rope and letting her hang herself with it. But her chief reason was that Postumus's elder brothers, Gaius and Lucius, were growing up and relations between them and their stepfather Tiberius were strained.

  Gaius, who was not a bad fellow at bottom (and neither vas Lucius) had to some extent come to fill the place in Augustus's affections that Marcellus had once held. But he spoilt them both so shamelessly, in spite of Livia's warnings, that the wonder is that they did not turn out far worse than they did. They tended to behave insolently towards their elders, particularly men towards whom they knew Augustus would secretly like them to behave so, and to live with great extravagance. When Livia saw that it was useless trying to keep Augustus's nepotism in check she changed her policy and encouraged him to make greater favourites of them than ever. By doing so, and letting them know she was doing so, she hoped to gain their confidence. She calculated, too, that if their self-importance was increased only a little more they would forget themselves and try to seize the monarchy for themselves. Her spy-system was excellent and she would get wind of any such plot in good time to have them arrested. She encouraged Augustus to have Gaius elected Consul, for four years ahead, when he was only fifteen; though the youngest age at which a man could legally become Consul had been fixed by Sulla at forty-three, before which he had to fill three different magistratal offices of ascending importance. Later, Lucius was given the same honour. She also suggested that Augustus should present them to the Senate as "Leaders of Cadets". The title was not, as in the case of Marcellus, given them for a specific occasion only, but put them in a position of permanent authority over all their equals in age and rank. It seemed perfectly clear now that Augustus intended Gaius as his successor; so it was not to be wondered if that the same sort of young noblemen as had boasted the untried powers of young Marcellus against the ministerial and military reputation of the veteran Agrippa now did the same for Agrippa's son Gaius against the veteran reputation of Tiberius, whom they subjected to many slights. Livia intended Tiberius to follow the example of Agrippa. If he now retired, with so many victories and public honours to his credit, to some near-by Greek island and left the political field clear for Gaius and Lucius, this would create a better impression and win him far more popular sympathy than if he stayed behind to dispute it. (The historical parallel would become still closer if Gaius and Lucius were to die during Tiberius's retirement and Augustus were to feel the need of his services again.) So she promised to prevail on Augustus to grant him indefinite leave of absence from Rome and permission to resign from all his offices; but to give him the honorary rank of Protector of the People-which would make him secure against assassination by Gaius, should Gaius think of removing him.

  Livia found it extremely difficult to keep her promise, for Fiberius was Augustus's most useful minister and most successful general, and for a long time the old man refused to treat the request seriously. But Tiberius pleaded 31icalth and urged that his absence would relieve Gains and Lucius of much embarrassment: he admitted that he did lot get on well with them. Still Augustus would not listen. Gaius and Lucius were mere lads, totally inexperienced as yet in war or statecraft, and would be of no service to him it all should serious disturbances break out in the City, in the provinces, or on the frontier. He realized, perhaps for he first time, that Tiberius was now his only stand-by in such emergency. But he was irritated at having the realization forced on him. He refused Tiberius's request and said that he would listen to no arguments. Since there vas no help for it, therefore, Tiberius went to Julia and old her with studied brutality that their marriage had become such a farce that he could not bear to remain in the same house with her a day longer. He suggested that she should go to Augustus and complain that she had been ill treated by her ruffianly husband and would not be happy until she had a divorce. Augustus, he said, was for family reasons unlikely, worse luck, to consent to the divorce, but would probably banish him from Rome. He was ready even to go into exile rather than continue to live with her.

  Julia decided to forget that she had ever loved Tiberius. She had suffered much from him. Not only did he treat her with the greatest contempt whenever they were alone together, but he had by now begun cautiously experimenting in those ludicrously filthy practices which later made us name so detestable to all decent-minded people; and she had found out about it. So
she took him at his word and complained to Augustus in far stronger terms than Fiberius (who was vain enough to believe that she still loved him in spite of everything) could have foreseen. Augustus had always had great difficulty in concealing his dislike for Tiberius as a son-in-law-which had of course encouraged the Gaius faction-and now went storming up and down his study calling Tiberius all the names that he could lay his tongue on. But he nevertheless reminded Julia that she had only herself to blame for her disappointment in a husband about whose character he had never failed to warn her. And, much as he loved and pitied her, he could not dissolve the marriage. For his daughter and stepson to separate after a union that had been given such political importance would never do, and Livia would see the matter in the same light as himself, he was sure. So Julia begged that Tiberius should at least be sent away somewhere for a year or two, because at the moment she could not abide his presence within a hundred miles of her. To this he eventually agreed, and a few days later Tiberius was on his way to the island of Rhodes, which be had, long before this, chosen as the ideal place for retirement. But Augustus, while granting him the rank of Protector, at Livia's urgent insistence, had made it plain that if he never saw his face again it would be no grief to him.

  Nobody but the principals in this curious drama knew why Tiberius was leaving Rome, and Livia used Augustus's unwillingness to discuss the matter publicly, to Tiberius's advantage. She told her friends, "in confidence", that Tiberius had decided to retire as a protest against the scandalous behaviour of the party of Gaius and Lucius. She also said that Augustus had sympathized greatly with him, and had at first refused to accept his resignation, promising to silence the offenders; Tiberius had then insisted that he did not wish to make further bad blood between himself and his wife's sons, and had demonstrated the fixity of his purpose by going without food for four days. Livia kept up the farce by accompanying Tiberius to his ship at Ostia, the port of Rome, and beseeching him, in Augustus's name and her own, to reconsider his decision. She even arranged that all the members of her immediate family- Tiberius's young son Castor, and my mother, and Germanicus, Livilla and myself-should come along with her and increase the poignancy of the occasion by adding our pleas to hers. Julia did not appear, and her absence fitted in well with the impression that Livia was trying to create-that she had been siding with her sons against her husband. It was a ridiculous but well-staged scene. My mother played up well, and the three elder children, who had been carefully coached, really spoke their parts as if they meant them. I was bewildered and dumb until Livilla gave me a good pinching, at which I burst into tears and so did better than any of them. I was four years old when ill this happened, but I had turned twelve before Augustus was reluctantly compelled to recall my uncle to Rome, the political situation having by then greatly changed.