Robert Graves - I, Claudius

by I, Claudius(Lit)

  "I'll not forget a word, Postumus. Quick, tell it me from the beginning."

  "Well, you know that I've been out of favour with Augustus lately. I couldn't make out why, at first, but soon it was obvious that Livia was poisoning his mind against me. He is extraordinarily weak where she is concerned. Imagine living with her for nearly fifty years and still believing every word she says! But Livia was not the only one in this plot. Livilla was in it too."

  "Livilla! Oh, I am so sorry!"

  "Yes. You know how much I loved her and how much I have suffered on her account You hinted once, about a year ago, that she wasn't worth my troubling about and you remember how angry I was with you. I wouldn't talk to you for days. I am sorry now that I was angry, Claudius. But you know how it is when one is hopelessly in love with someone. I didn't explain to you then that just before she married Castor she told me that Livia had forced the marriage on her and that really she loved only me. I believed her. Why shouldn't I have believed her? I hoped that one day something would happen to Castor and she and I would be free to marry. That's been in my mind day and night ever since. This afternoon, just after seeing you, I was sitting with her and Castor in the grape-arbour by the big carp-pool. He began taunting me. I realize now that the whole thing had been carefully rehearsed beforehand between them. The first thing he said was: 'So Germanicus has been preferred to you, eh?' I told him that I considered it a wise appointment and that I had just congratulated Gennanicus. Then he said in a jeering way: 'So it has your princely approval, has it? By the way, do you still expect to succeed your grandfather as Emperor?' I kept my temper for Livilla's sake but said that I did not think it decent to discuss the succession while Augustus was still alive and in full possession of his faculties. Then I asked him ironically whether he was offering himself as a rival candidate. He said, with an unpleasant smile: 'Well, if I did, I expect I would have more chance of success than you. I usually get what I want. I use my brains. I won Livilla by using my brains. It makes me laugh when I think how easily I persuaded Augustus that you weren't a suitable husband for her. Perhaps I'll get other things I want too, that way. Who knows?' This made me really hot. I asked him whether he meant that he had been telling lies about me. He said: 'Why not, I wanted Livilla, and that's how I got her.' Then I turned to Livilla and asked her whether she had known about this. She pretended to be indignant and said that she knew nothing about it at all, but that she believed Castor capable of any crooked dealing. She forced out a tear or two and said that Castor was rotten through and through and that nobody could ever guess how much she had suffered from him, and that she wished she were dead."

  "Yes, that's an old trick of hers. She can cry whenever it suits her. It takes everyone in. If I'd told you all that I knew of her, you'd have hated me perhaps for a time, but it would have saved you all this. Then what happened?"

  "This evening she sent me a verbal message by her lady-in-waiting that Castor would probably be out all night on one of his usual debauches and that when I saw a light at her window shortly after midnight I was to come to her. A window would be left open immediately underneath the light and I was to climb in quietly. She wanted to tell me something very important. Of course, that could only mean one thing and it set my heart pounding. I waited in the garden for hours until I saw the light appear for a moment at her window. Then I found the window open below and climbed in. Livilla's maid was there and guided me upstairs, She showed me how to get into Livilla's room by climbing across from one balcony to another until I reached her window; this was to avoid the guard posted in the passage near her door. Well, I found Livilla waiting for me in her dressing-gown, with her hair down and looking infernally beautiful. She told me how cruelly Castor had behaved to her. She said that she owed him nothing as a wife, because on his own confession he had married her by fraud, and he had behaved most brutally to her. She flung her arms around me and I picked her up and carried her over to the bed. I was mad with desire for her. Then suddenly she began to scream and pummel me, I thought for the moment that she had gone mad, and put my hand over her mouth to quiet her.-She struggled free, knocking over a little table with a lamp and a glass jar on it. Then she screamed "Rape! Rape!" and then the door was battered down and in came the Palace guard with torches. Guess who was at their head?"

  "Castor?"

  "Livia. She brought us just as we were into Augustus's presence. Castor was with him, though Livilla had told me that he was dining at the other side of the City. Augustus dismissed the guard, and Livia, who had hardly said a word until then, began her attack on me. She told him that on his suggestion she had gone to my quarters to acquaint me privately with.Emilia's charges and ask me what explanation I had to offer."

  "Emilia! Which Emilia?"

  "My niece."

  "I didn't know she had anything against you."

  "She hasn't. She was in the plot too. So Livia said that, not finding me in my quarters, she had made enquiries and had been told that the patrol had seen me sitting in the garden under a pear tree on the south side. She sent a soldier to find me but he came back and said that I wasn't there but that he had something suspicious to report: a man climbing from one upper balcony to another just above the sundial. She knew whose rooms those were and was greatly alarmed. By good luck she had arrived just in time. She had heard Livilla's screams for help: I had broken into her bedroom by way of the balcony and was on the point of raping her. The guards had burst down the door and pulled me away from the terrified and half-naked young woman'. She had brought me here at once, and Livilla as a witness. While Livia was telling her story that whore Livilla was sobbing and hiding her face. Her dressing-gown was ripped across-she must have torn it herself deliberately. Augustus called me a beast and a satyr and "asked me whether I had gone mad. Of course, I couldn't deny that I had been in her bedroom or even that I had been making love to her. I said that I had come by invitation, and tried to explain things from the beginning, but Livilla began screaming, 'It's a lie. It's a lie. I was asleep and he came in by the window and tried to rape me.' Then Livia said, 'And I suppose your niece Emilia invited you to assault her too? You seem very popular with the young women.' That was clever of Livia. I had to justify myself about Emilia and leave the Livilla story. I told Augustus that I had dined with my sister Julilla the night before and that Emilia was there, but that this was the first time I had seen the girl for six months. I asked on what occasion I was supposed to have assaulted her and Augustus said that I knew very well when it was-after dinner in the temporary absence of her parents who were called away by an alarm of thieves-and that I had only been prevented by the return of her parents. The story was so ridiculous that, furious as I was, I could not help laughing; but this increased Augustus's rage. He was about to rise from his ivory chair and strike me."

  I said: "I don't understand? Was there really an alarm of thieves?"

  "Yes, and-Emilia and I were left alone for a few minutes, but the conversation was most blameless and her governess was there! We were discussing fruit-trees and garden-pests until Julilla and Smilius came back and said that it was a false alarm. Julilla and Emilias aren't in Livia's pay, you may be sure-they hate her-so Emilia must have arranged it. I began to think quickly what spite she held against me, but I could remember nothing. Suddenly the explanation occurred to me. Julilla had told me a secret that -Emilia was at last getting what she wanted: she was to marry Appius Silanus. You know that young dandy, don't you?"

  "Yes. But I don't follow."

  "It's quite simple, I said to Livia: 'Emilia's reward for this lie is to be marriage to Silanus, isn't it? And what does Livilla get? Did you promise to poison her present husband and provide her with a handsomer one?' Once I had mentioned poison I knew that I was doomed. So I decided to say as much as I could while I had the opportunity. I asked Livia just how she had arranged the poisoning of my father and brothers and whether she favoured slow poisons or quick ones. Claudius, do you think that she killed them? I'm sure of it."
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  "You dared ask her that? It's very probable I think she poisoned my father and my grandfather, too," I said, "and I don't suppose they were her only victims. But I have no proof."

  "Neither have I, but I enjoyed accusing her of it. I shouted at the top of my voice so that half the Palace must have heard. Livia hurried from the room and called the guard. I saw Livilla smiling. I made a grab at her throat but Castor got between us and she escaped. Then I grappled with Castor and broke his arm and knocked out two of his front teeth on the marble floor. But I did not struggle with the soldiers. It would have been undignified. Besides, they were armed. Two of them held each of my arms as Augustus thundered abuse and threats at me. He said that I am to be banished for life to the most desolate island in his dominions and that only his unnatural daughter could have borne him so unnatural a grandson. I told him that in name he was Emperor of the Romans but in fact he was less free than the girl slave of a drunken bawdmaster, and that one day his eyes would be opened to the unnatural crimes and deceits of his abominable wife. But

  I, CLAUDIUS {l) meanwhile, I said, my love and loyalty to him remained unchanged."

  The hue and cry was now sounding through the lower story of our house. Postumus said: "I don't want to compromise you, dear Claudius. I must not be found in your room. If I had a sword now I'd use it. Better to die fighting than to rot away on an island."

  "Patience, Postumus. Yield now and your chance will come later. I promise you it will come. When Germanicus knows the truth he'll not rest until you're free again, and neither will I. If you get yourself killed it will only be a cheap triumph for Livia."

  "You and Germanicus can't explain away all that evidence against me. You'd only get yourself into trouble if you tried."

  "The opportunity will come, I say. Livia has had things her own way too long and she'll grow careless. She's bound to make a slip soon. She wouldn't be human if she didn't."

  "I don't think she is human," Postumus said. "And when Augustus suddenly realizes how he has been deceived, don't you think he'll be as merciless towards her as he was towards your mother?"

  "She'll poison him first."

  "Gennanicus-and I will see that she doesn't. We'll warn him. Don't despair, Postumus. Everything will be all right in the end. I'll write you letters as often as I can, and send you books to read. I'm not afraid of Livia. If you don't get my letters you'll know that they are being held back. Look carefully at the seventh page of any sewn-sbeet book that reaches you from me. It I have a private message for you I'll write it in milk there. It's a trick that the Egyptians use. The writing is invisible until you warm it in front of a fire. Oh, listen to those doors banging. You must go now. They're at the end of the next corridor."

  Tears were in his eyes. He embraced me tenderly without another word and walked quickly to the balcony. He climbed over the edge, waved his hand in farewell and slid down the old vine up which he had climbed. I heard him running away through the garden and a moment later cries and shouts from the guard. I have no recollection at all of anything that happened for the next month or more. I was ill again: so ill that they talked of me as already dead. By the time that I began to recover, Germanicus was already at the wars and

  Postumus had been disinherited and banished for life. The island chosen for him was PIanasia.

  It lay about twelve miles from Elba in the direction of Corsica and had not been inhabited within human memory. But there were some prehistoric stone huts on it which were converted into living quarters for Postumus and a barracks for the guard. FIanasia was roughly triangular in shape, the longest side being about five miles long. It was treeless and rocky and only visited by the Elba boatmen in the summer when they came to bait lobster-pots. By Augustus's orders this practice was discontinued, for fear Postumus might bribe someone and escape.

  Tiberius was now Augustus's sole heir, with Germanicus and Castor to carry on the line after him-Livia's line.

  XII

  IF I WERE TO CONFINE MY ACCOUNT OF THE EVENTS OF THE next twenty-five years or more merely to my own performances it would not cost me much in paper and make very dull reading; but the later part of this autobiography, in which I figure more prominently, will only be intelligible if I continue here with the personal histories of Livia, Tiberius, Germanicus, Postumus, Castor, Livilla, and the rest, which are far from dull, I promise you.

  Postumus was in exile, and Germanicus was at the wars, and only Athenodorus remained of my true friends. Soon he left me too, returning to his native Tarsus. I did not grudge his going because he went at the urgent appeal of two of his nephews there who begged him to help him free the city from the tyranny of its governor. They wrote that this

  I, CLAUDIUS governor had insinuated himself so cleverly into their God Augustus's good graces that it would need the testimony of a man like Athenodorus, in whose integrity their God Augustus had complete confidence, to persuade their God Augustus that the fellow's expulsion was justified. Athenodorus succeeded in ridding the city of this blood-sucker, but afterwards found it impossible to return to Rome as he ' had intended. He was needed by his nephews to help them rebuild the city administration on a firm foundation. Augustus, to whom he wrote a detailed report of his actions, showed his gratitude and confidence by granting Tarsus, as a personal favour to him, a five years' remission from the Imperial tribute. I corresponded regularly with the good old man until his death two years later at the age of eighty-two. Tarsus honoured his memory with an annual festival and sacrifice; at which the leading citizens took turns to read his Short History of Tarsus through from beginning to end, starting at sunrise and finishing after sunset.

  Germanicus wrote to me occasionally, but his letters were as brief as they were affectionate: a really good commander has no time for writing letters home to his family, his entire time between campaigns being spent in getting to know his men and officers, in studying their comfort, in increasing their military efficiency, and in gathering information about the disposition and plans of his enemy. Germanicus was one of the most conscientious commanders who ever served in the Roman army-and more beloved even than our father. I was very proud when he wrote asking me to make for him, as quickly and thoroughly as I could, a digest of all reliable reports that I could find in the libraries on the domestic customs of the various Balkan tribes against whom he was fighting, the strength and geographical situation of their cities, and their traditional military tactics and ruses, particularly in guerrilla warfare. He said that he could not get enough reliable information locally: Tiberius had been most uncommunicative. With Sulpicius's help and a small group of professional researchmen and copyists working night and day I managed to get together exactly what he wanted and sent off a copy to him within a month or his asking for it. I was prouder than ever when he wrote to me not long afterwards for an edition of twenty copies of the book for circulation among his senior officers, for it had already proved of the greatest service to him. He said that every paragraph was clear and relevant, the most useful sections being those giving particulars of the secret extra-tribal military brotherhood against which, rather than against the tribes themselves, the war was being fought; and of the various sacred trees and bushes-a different sort was reverenced by each tribe-under whose protective shade the tribesmen were accustomed to bury their stores of corn, money and weapons when they had to abandon their villages in a hurry. He promised to tell Tiberius and Augustus of my valuable services.

  No public mention of this book was made, perhaps because if the enemy had heard of its existence they would have modified their tactics and dispositions. As it was, they believed that they were being constantly betrayed by informers, Augustus rewarded me unofficially by appointing me to a vacancy in the Augurs' College, but it was clear that he gave all the credit for the compilation to Sulpicius, though Sulpicius did not write a word-he merely found me some of the books. One of my chief authorities was Pollio, whose Dalmatian campaign bad been a model of military thoroughness combined with brilliant int
elligencework. Though his account of local customs and conditions seemed nearly fifty years out of date, Germanicus found my extracts from it more helpful than any more recent campaign-history. I wished Pollio had been alive to hear that. I told Livy instead, who said rather crossly that he had never denied Pollio credit for writing competent military textbooks; he had merely denied him the title of historian in the higher sense.

  I must add to this, that if I had been more tactful I am pretty sure that Augustus would have commended me in his speech to the Senate at the conclusion of the war. But my references to his own Balkan campaigns had been fewer than they might have been had he written a detailed account of it, as Pollio did of his; or, if the official historians had been less concerned with flattering their Emperor, and more with recording his successes and reverses in an unprejudiced, technical way. I could extract little or no useful matter from these eulogies and Augustus in reading my book must have felt himself slighted. He identified himself so closely with the success of the war that during the last two campaigning seasons he moved from Rome to a town on the North-East frontier of Italy, to be as near as he could to the fighting; and as Commander-in-Chief of the Roman Armies he was continually sending Tiberius not very helpful military advice.