Robert Graves - I, Claudius

by I, Claudius(Lit)

  Tiberius never understood Gennanicus, nor Gennanicus Tiberius. Tiberius, as I have said, was one of the bad Claudians. Yet he was, at times, easily tempted to virtue, and in a noble age might well have passed for a noble character: for he was a man of no mean capacity. But the age was not a noble one and his heart had been hardened, and for that hardening Livia must, you will agree, bear the chief blame. Germanicus, on the other hand, was wholly inclined to virtue and, however evil the age into which he had been born, could never have behaved any differently from the way he did. So it was that when he refused the monarchy offered him by the German regiments, and made them swear allegiance to Tiberius, Tiberius could not make out why he should have done so. He decided that he must be even more subtle than himself and playing some very deep game indeed. The simple explanation, that Germanicus put honour above all other considerations and that he was bound to Tiberius by military allegiance and by having been adopted as his son, never occurred to him. But Germanicus, since he did not suspect Tiberius of complicity in Livia's designs and since Tiberius never offered him any slights or injuries, but on the contrary praised him greatly for his handling of the mutiny and decreed him a full triumph for his campaign in M�nster, believed him to be as honourably-intentioned as himself, only a little simpleminded not to have seen through Livia's designs yet. He determined to have a frank talk with Tiberius as soon as he went home for the triumph. But Varus's death was not yet avenged; it was three years before Germanicus came back. The tone of the letters exchanged between Germanicus and Tiberius during this period was set by Germanicus, who wrote with dutiful affection. Tiberius replied in the same friendly strain because he thought that by so doing he was beating Germanicus at his own clever game. He undertook to repay him the amount of the doubled bequest and to extend the bounty to the Balkan regiments too. As a matter of policy he did pay the Balkan regiments this extra three gold pieces a man-there were threats of another mutiny-but excused himself from repaying Germanicus for a few months on the grounds of financial embarrassment. Naturally Gennanicus did not press him for the money and naturally Tiberius never gave it him. Germanicus wrote again to ask me whether he might wait to repay me until Tiberius repaid him, and I wrote back that I really meant the money as a gift.

  Shortly after Tiberius's accession I wrote to him and said that I had been studying law and administration-as was the case-for some time, in the hope that I would at last be given an opportunity of serving my country in some responsible capacity. He wrote back to say that it certainly was an anomaly for a man who was the brother of Germanicus and his own nephew to go about as a mere knight, and that since I was now being made a priest of Augustus I must certainly be allowed to wear the dress of a senator: in fact, if I could undertake not to make a fool of myself in it he would ask permission for me to adopt the brocaded gown now worn by Consuls and ex-Consuls. I wrote back at once to say that I would even prefer office without dress to dress without office; but his only answer to this was to send me a present of forty gold pieces "to buy toys with next All Fools' Day". The Senate did vote me the brocaded grown, and as a mark of honour to Gennanicus, who was now in the middle of a new successful campaign in Germany, proposed to decree me a seat in the House among the ex-Consiris. But Tiberius here interposed his veto, telling them that I was in his opinion incapable of delivering a speech on matters of State which would not be a trial of his fellow-members' patience. There was another decree proposed at the same time, which he also vetoed. The circumstances were as follows:

  Agrippina had been delivered of her child, a girl called Agrippinilla, at Cologne; and I must say at once that this Agrippinilla turned out one of the very worst of the Claudians-in fact, I may say that she shows signs of outdoing all her ancestors and ancestresses in arrogance and vice. Agrippina was ill for some months after her delivery, and unable to keep Caligula in hand properly, so he was sent away on a visit to Rome as soon as Gennanicus began his spring campaign. The child became a sort of national hero. Whenever he went out for a walk with his brothers he was cheered and stared at and made much of. Not yet three years old but marvellously precocious, he was a most difficult case, only pleasant when flattered and only docile when treated firmly. He came to stay with his great-grandmother Livia, but she had no time to look after him properly, and because he was always getting into mischief and quarrelling with his elder brothers, he came from her to live with my mother and me. My mother never flattered him, but neither did she treat him with enough firmness, until one day he spat at her in a fit of temper and she gave him a good spanking. "You horrid old German woman," he said, "I'll bum your German house down!" He used '"German" as the worst insult he knew. And that afternoon he sneaked away into a lumber-room, which was next to the slaves' attic and full of old furniture and rubbish, and there set fire to a heap of worn-out straw mattresses. The fire soon swept the whole upper storey, and since it was an old house with dry-rot in the beams and draught-holes in the flooring there was no putting it out even with an endless bucket-chain to the carp pool. I managed to save all my papers and valuables and some of the furniture, and no lives were lost except two old slaves who were lying sick in bed, but nothing was left of the house except the bare walls and the cellars. Caligula was not punished, because the fire had given him such a great fright. He nearly got caught in it himself, hiding guiltily under his bed until the smoke drove him screaming out.

  Well, the Senate wanted to decree that my house should be rebuilt at the expense of the State, on the ground that it had been the home of so many distinguished members of my family: but Tiberius would not allow this. He said that the outbreak of fire had been due to my negligence and that the damage could easily have been confined to the attics if I had acted in a responsible way; and rather than that the State should pay he undertook to rebuild and refurnish the house himself. Loud applause from the House. This was most unjust and dishonest, particularly as he had no intention of keeping his undertaking. I was forced to sell my last important piece of property in Rome, a block of houses near the Cattle Market and a large building site adjoining, to rebuild the house at my own expense. I never told Gennanicus that Caligula had been the incendiary, because he would have felt obliged to make good the damage himself; and, I suppose it was, in a way, an accident, because one couldn't hold so young a child responsible.

  When Germanicus's men went out to fight the Germans again they had a new addition to that ballad of Augustus's Three Griefs, of which I recall two or three verses and odd lines of others, most of them ridiculous:

  Six gold bits a man he left us

  For to buy us pork and beans, For to buy us cheese and craknels

  In the German dry canteens. and

  God Augustus walks in Heaven,

  Ghost Marcellus swims in Styx, Julia's dead and gone to join him-

  That's the end of Julia's tricks.

  But our Eagles still are straying

  And by shame and sorrow stirred To the tomb of God Augustus

  We'll bring back each wandering bird.

  There was another which began;

  German Hermann lost his sweetheart And his little pot of beer but I can't remember the finish, and the verse is not important except as reminding me to tell of Hermann's "sweetheart". She was the daughter of a chieftain called, in German, Siegstoss or something of the sort; but his Roman name was Segestes. He had been to Rome, like Hermann, and enrolled among the Knights, but unlike Hermann had felt morally bound by the oath of friendship he had sworn to Augustus. It was this Segestes who had warned Varus about Hermann and Segimerus and suggested that Varus should arrest them at the banquet to which he had invited them just before his unfortunate expedition started. Segestes had a favourite daughter whom Hermann had carried off and married and Segestes never forgave him for this injury. He could not, however, come out openly on the side of the Romans against Hermann, who was a national hero; all that he had been able to do as yet was to maintain a secret correspondence with Germanicus, giving him intelligence
of military movements and constantly assuring him that he had never wavered in his loyalty to Rome and was only waiting for an opportunity to make proof of it. But now he wrote to Gennanicus that he was being besieged in his stockaded village by Hermann, who had sworn to give no quarter; and that he could not hold out much longer. Gennanicus made a forced march, defeated the besieging force, which was not numerous- Hermann himself was away, wounded-and rescued Segestes: when he found that he had a valuable prize awaiting him-Hermann's wife who had been visiting her rather when the quarrel broke out between Aim and her husband, and who was far gone in pregnancy. Gennanicus treated Segestes and his household very kindly, giving them an estate on the Western side of the Rhine. Hermann, who was enraged at his wife's capture, feared that Germanicus's clemency might induce other German chieftains to make overtures of peace. He built up a strong new confederation of tribes, including some which had always hitherto been friendly to Rome. Gennanicus was undaunted. The more Germans he had in the field openly against him, the better he was pleased. He never trusted them as allies.

  And before the summer was out he had beaten them in a series of battles, forced Segimerus to surrender and won back the first of the three lost Eagles, that of the Nineteenth Regiment. He also visited the scene of Varus's defeat and gave the bones of his comrades-in-arms a decent burial, laying the first sod of their tomb with his own hands..The General who had behaved so supinely in the mutiny fought bravely at the bead of his corps, and on one occasion turned what had seemed a hopeless defeat into a creditable victory. Premature news that this battle was lost and that the conquering Germans were marching towards the Rhine caused such consternation at the nearest bridge that the captain of the guard gave his men orders to retreat across it and then break it down: which would have meant abandoning everyone on the other side to their fate. But Agrippina was there and countermanded the order. She told the men that she was captain of the guard now and would remain so until her husband returned to relieve her of her command. When eventually the victorious troops came marching back she was at her post to welcome them. Her popularity now almost equalled that of her husband. She had organized a hospital for the wounded as Germanicus sent them back after each battle and had given them the best available medical treatment. Ordinarily, wounded soldiers remained with their units until they either died or recovered. The hospital she paid for out of her own purse.

  But I mentioned the death of Julia. When Tiberius became Emperor, Julia's daily supply of food at Reggio was reduced to four ounces of bread a day and one ounce of cheese. She was already in a consumption from the unhealthiness of her quarters and this starvation diet soon carried her off. But there was still no news of Postumus, and Livia, until she was certain of his death, could not be easy in her mind.

  XVII

  TIBERIUS CONTINUED TO RULE WITH MODERATION AND consulted the Senate before taking any step of the least political importance. But the Senate had been voting according to direction for so long that they seemed to have lost the power of independent decision; and Tiberius never made it plain which way he wanted them to vote even when he was very anxious for them to vote one way or another.

  He wanted to avoid all appearance of tyranny and yet to keep his position at the head of affairs. The Senate soon found that if he spoke with studied elegance in favour of a motion he meant that he wanted it voted against, and that if he spoke with studied elegance against it this meant that he wanted it passed; and that on the very few occasions when he spoke briefly and without any rhetoric he meant to be taken literally. Callus and an old wag called Haterius used to delight in making speeches in warm agreement with Tiberius, enlarging his arguments to a point only just short of absurdity and then voting the way he really wanted them to vote; thus showing that they understood his tricks perfectly. This Haterius in the debate about Tiberius's accession had cried out: "O Tiberius, how long will you allow unhappy Rome to remain without a head?" -which had offended him because he knew that Haterius saw through his intentions. The next day Haterius pursued the joke by falling at Tiberius's feet and pleading for pardon for not having been warm enough. Tiberius started back in disgust, but Haterius grabbed at his knees and Tiberius went over, catching the back of his head a bang on the marble floor. Tiberius's German bodyguard did not understand what was happening and sprang forward to slaughter their master's assailant; Tiberius only just stopped them in time,

  Haterius excelled in parody. He had an enormous voice, a comic face, and great fertility of invention. Whenever Tiberius in his speeches introduced any painfully farfetched or archaic phrase Haterius would pick it up and make it the key-word of his reply. (Augustus had always said that the wheels of Haterius's eloquence needed a dragchain even when he was driving uphill.) The slow-witted Tiberius was no match for Haterius. Callus's gift was for mock zeal. Tiberius was extremely careful not to appear a candidate for any divine honours and refused to allow himself to be spoken about as if he had any superhuman attributes: he did not even allow the provincials to build him temples. Gallus was therefore fond of referring, as if accidentally, to Tiberius as "His Sacred Majesty". When Haterius, who was always ready to carry on the gag, rose to rebuke him for this incorrect way of speaking he would apologize profusely and say that nothing was farther from his mind than to do anything in disobedience of the orders of His Sacred. oh, dear, it was so easy to fall into that mistaken way of speaking, a thousand apologies once more. he meant, contrary to the wishes of his honoured friend and fellow-senator Tiberius Nero Caesar Augustus.

  "Not Augustus, fool," Haterius would say in a stage whisper. "He's refused that title a dozen times. He only uses it when he writes letters to other monarchs."

  They had one trick which annoyed Tiberius more than any other. If he made a show of modesty when thanked by the Senate for performing some national service-such as undertaking to complete the temples which Augustus had left unfinished-they would praise his honesty in not taking credit for his mother's work, and congratulate Livia on having so dutiful a son. When they saw that there was nothing that Tiberius hated so much as hearing Livia praised they kept it up. Haterius even suggested that just as the Greeks were called by their fathers' names, so Tiberius should be named after his mother and that it should be a crime to call him other than Tiberius Liviades-or perhaps Livigena would be the more correct Latin form. Callus found another weak spot in Tiberius's armour, and that was his hatred of any mention of his stay at Rhodes. The most daring thing he did was to praise Tiberius one day for his clemency-it was the very day that news reached the city of Julia's death-and to tell the story of the teacher of rhetoric at Rhodes who had refused Tiberius's modest application to join his classes, on the ground that there was no vacancy at present, saying that he must come back in seven days. Gallus added, "And what do you think His Sacred. I beg your pardon, I should say, what do you think my honoured friend and fellow-senator Tiberius Nero Caesar did on his recent accession to the monarchy, when the same impertinent fellow arrived to pay his respects to the new divinity? Did he cut off that impudent head. and give it as a football to his German bodyguard? Not at all: with a wit only equalled by his clemency he told him that he had no vacancies at present in his corps of flatterers and that he must come back in seven years." This was an invention, I think, but the Senate had no reason to disbelieve it and applauded so heartily that Tiberius had to let it go by as the truth.

  Tiberius at last silenced Haterius by saying very slowly one day: "You will please forgive me, Haterius, if I speak rather more frankly than it is usual for one senator to speak to another, but I must say that I think you are a dreadful bore and not in the least witty." Then he turned to the House: "You will forgive me, my lords, but I have always said and will say again that since you have been good enough to entrust such absolute power to me I ought not to be ashamed to use it for the common good. If I use it now to silence buffoons who insult you as well as myself by their silly performances, I trust that I will earn your approval, You have always been very kind a
nd patient with me." Without Haterius, Callus had to play a lone game.