I was expected to occupy a suite of rooms at the Palace and because of Caligula's stern speeches against all sorts of immorality (in the manner of Augustus) I could not have Calpumia there with me, though I was unmarried. She had to remain at Capua, much to my annoyance, and I was only able to get away occasionally to visit her. His own morals seemed not to come into the scope of his strictures. He was growing tired of Macro's wife, Ennia, whom Macro had divorced at his request and whom he had promised to marry, and used to go out at night to search of gallant adventures with a party of jolly fellows whom he called "The Scouts". They consisted usually of three young staff-officers, two famous gladiators, Apelles the actor, and Eutychus, the best charioteer in Rome, who won nearly every race in which he competed. Caligula had now come out strong as a partisan of the Leek Greens and sent all over the world in search of the fastest horses. He found a religious excuse for public chariot-racing, with twenty heats a day, almost whenever the sun shone. He made a lot of money by challenging rich men to take his bets against the other colours, which for politeness they did. But what he got this way was a mere drop, as the saying is? In the ocean of his expenses. At all events with these jolly "Scouts" he used to go out at night, disguised, and visit the lowest haunts of the City, usually coming into conflict with the night-watchmen and having riotous escapades which the Commander of the Watchmen was careful to hush up.
Caligula's three sisters, Drusilla, Agrippinilla and Lesbia, had all been married to noblemen; but he insisted on their coming to the Palace and living there. Agrippinilla and Lesbia were told to bring their husbands with them, but Drusilla had to leave hers behind; his name was Cassius Longinus and he was sent to govern Asia Minor. Caligula demanded that the three of them should be treated with the greatest respect and gave them all the privileges enjoyed by the Vestal Virgins. He had their names joined" with his own in the public prayers for his health and safety, and even in the public oath that officials and priests swore in his name on their consecration. "neither shall I value my own life or the lives of my children more highly than His life and the lives of His sisters." He behaved towards them in a way that puzzled people-rather as if they were his wives than his sisters.
Drusilla was his favourite. Although she was well rid of her husband, she always seemed unhappy now, and the unhappier she grew the more solicitous were Caligula's attentions. He now married her, for appearances only, to a cousin of his, Emilius Lepidus, whom I have already mentioned as a slack-twisted younger brother of the Emilia, Julilla's daughter, to whom I was nearly married when I was a boy. This.Emilius Lepidus, who was known as Ganymede because of his effeminate appearance and his obsequiousness to Caligula, was a valued member of the Scouts. He was seven years older than Caligula but Caligula treated him like a boy of thirteen, and he seemed to like it. Drusilla could not bear him. But Agrippinilla and Lesbia were always in and out of his bedroom laughing and joking and playing pranks. Their husbands did not seem to mind. Life at the Palace I found extremely disorderly. I don't mean that I wasn't made very comfortable or that the servants were not well trained or that the ordinary formalities and courtesies were not observed towards visitors. But I never quite knew what tender relations existed between this person and that: Agrippinilla and Lesbia seemed to have exchanged husbands at one time, and at another Apelles seemed somehow intimately connected with Lesbia and the charioteer with Agrippinilla. As for Caligula and Ganymede-but I have said enough to show what I mean by "disorderly". I was the only one among them past middle-age, and did not understand the ways of the new generation at all. Gemellus also lived in the Palace: he was a frightened, delicate boy who bit his nails to the quick and was usually to be found sitting in a comer and drawing designs of nymphs and satyrs and that sort of thing for vases. I can't tell you much more about Gemellus than that I got into talk with him once or twice, feeling sorry for him because he was not really one of the party, any more than I was; but perhaps he thought that I was trying to draw him out and force him into saying something against Caligula, for he would only answer in monosyllables. On the day that he put on his manly-gown Caligula adopted him as his son and heir, and appointed him Leader of Cadets; but that wasn't the same thing by any means as sharing the monarchy with him.
Caligula fell ill and for a whole month his life was despaired of. The doctors called it brain-fever. The popular consternation at Rome was so great that a crowd of not less than ten thousand people stood day and night around the Palace, waiting for a favourable bulletin. They kept up a quiet muttering and whispering together; the noise, as it reached my window, was like that of a distant stream running over pebbles. There were a number of most remarkable manifestations ' of anxiety. Some men even pasted up placards on their house-doors, to say that if Death held his hand and spared the Emperor, they vowed to give him their own lives in compensation. By universal consent all traffic noises and street cries and music ceased within half a mile or more of the Palace. That had never happened before, even during Augustus's illness, the one of which Musa was supposed to have cured him. The bulletins always read: "No change."
One evening Drusilla knocked at my door and said, "Uncle Claudius! The Emperor wants to see you urgently. Come at once. Don't stop for anything."
"What does he want me for?"
"I don't know. But for Heaven's sake humour him. He's got a sword there. He'll kill you if you don't say what he wants you to say. He had the point at my throat this morning. He told me that I didn't love him. I had to swear and swear that I did love him. 'Kill me, if you like, my darling,' I said. O Uncle Claudius, why was I ever born? He's mad. He always was. But he's worse than mad now.
He's possessed."
I went along to Caligula's bedroom, which was heavily curtained and thickly carpeted. One feeble oil-lamp was burning by the bedside. The air smelt stale. His querulous voice greeted me. "Late again? I told you to hurry," He didn't look ill, only unhealthy. Two powerful deaf-mutes with axes stood as guards, one on each side of his bed.
I said, saluting him, "Oh, how I hurried! If I hadn't had a lame leg I'd have been here almost before I started. What joy to see you alive and to hear your voice again, Caesar! Can I dare to hope that you're better?"
"I have never really been ill. Only resting. And undergoing a metamorphosis. It's the most important religious event in history. No wonder the City keeps so quiet."
I felt that he expected me to be sympathetic, nevertheless. "Has the metamorphosis been painful, Emperor? I trust not."
"As painful as if I were my own mother. I had a very difficult delivery. Mercifully, I have forgotten all about it. Or nearly all. For I was a very precocious child and distinctly remember the midwives' faces of admiration as they washed me after my emergence into this world, and the taste of the wine they put between my lips to refresh me after my struggles."
"An astounding memory. Emperor. But may I humbly enquire precisely what is the character of this glorious change that has come over you?"
"Isn't it immediately apparent?" he asked angrily.
Drusilla's word "possessed" and the conversation I had had with my grandmother Livia as she lay dying gave me the clue. I fell on my face and adored him as a God.
After a minute or two I asked from the floor whether I was the first man privileged to worship him. He said that I was and I burst out into gratitude. He was thoughtfully prodding me with the point of his sword in the back of my neck. I thought I was done for.
He said: "I admit I am still in mortal disguise, so it is not remarkable that you did not notice my Divinity at once."
"I don't know how I could have been so blind. Your face shines in this dim light like a lamp."
"Does it?" he asked with interest. "Get up and give me that mirror." I handed him a polished steel mirror and he agreed that it shone very brightly. In this fit of good humour he began to tell me a good deal about himself.
"I always knew that it would happen," he said. *T never felt anything but Divine. Think of it. At two years old I put d
own a mutiny of my father's army and so saved Rome. That was prodigious, like the stories told about the God Mercury when a child, or about Hercules who strangled the snakes in his cradle."
"And Mercury only stole a few oxen," I said, "and twanged a note or two on the lyre. That was nothing by comparison."
"And what's more, by the age of eight I had killed, my father. Jove himself never did that. He merely banished the old fellow."
I took this as raving on the same level, but I asked in a matter-of-fact voice, "Why did you do that?"'
"He stood in my way. He tried to discipline me-me, a young God, imagine it. So I frightened him to death. I smuggled dead things into our house at Antioch and hid them under loose tiles; and I scrawled charms, on the walls; and I got a cock in my bedroom to give him his marching orders. And I robbed him of his Hecate. Look, here she is! I always keep her under my pillow*" He held up the green jasper charm. My heart went as cold as ice when I recognized it. I said in a horrified voice: "You were the one then? And it was you who climbed into the bolted room by that tiny window and drew your devices there too?"
He nodded proudly and went rattling on: "Not only did I kill my natural father but I killed my father by adoption too-Tiberius, you know. And whereas Jupiter only lay with one sister of his, Juno, I have lain with all three of mine. Martina told me it was the right thing to do if I wanted to be like Jove."
"You knew Martina well then?"
"Indeed I did. When my parents were in Egypt I used to visit her every night. She was a very wise woman, I'll tell you another thing, Drusilla's Divine too. I'm going to announce it at the same time as I make the announcement about myself. How I love Drusilla! Almost as much as she loves me."
"May I ask what are your sacred intentions? This metamorphosis will surely affect Rome profoundly."
"Certainly. First, I'm going to put the whole world in awe of me. I won't allow myself to be governed by a lot of fussy old men any longer. I'm going to show. but you remember your old grandmother, Livia? That was a joke. Somehow she had got the notion that it was she who was to be the everlasting God about whom everyone has been prophesying in the East for the last thousand years. I think it was Thrasyllus who tricked her into believing that she was meant. Thrasyllus never told lies but he loved misleading people. You see, Livia didn't know the precise terms of the prophecy. The God is to be a man not a woman, and not born in Rome, though he is to reign at Rome (I was born at Antium), and born at a time of profound peace (as I was), but destined to be the cause of innumerable wars after his death. He is to die young and to be at first loved by his people and then hated, and finally to die miserably, forsaken of all. "His servants shall drink his blood." Then after his death he is to rule over all the other Gods of the world, in lands not yet known to us. That can only be myself. Maitina told me that many prodigies had been seen lately in the near East which proved conclusively that the God had been born at last. The Jews were the most excited. They somehow felt themselves peculiarly concerned. I suppose that this was because I once visited their city Jerusalem with my father and gave my first divine manifestation there." He paused.
"It would greatly interest me to know about that," I said.
"Oh, it was nothing much. Just for a joke I went into a house where some of their priests and doctors were talking theology together and suddenly shouted out: 'You're a lot of ignorant old frauds. You know nothing at all about it.' That caused a great sensation and one old white-bearded man said: 'Oh? And who are you. Child? Are you the prophesied one?* *Yes,' I answered boldly. He said, weeping for rapture: `Then teach us," I answered: 'Certainly not! It's beneath my dignity,' and ran out again. You should have seen their faces! No, Livia was a clever and capable woman in her way-a female Ulysses, as I called her once to her face-and one day perhaps I shall deify her as I promised, but there's no hurry about that. She will never make an important deity. Perhaps we'll make her the patron goddess of clerks and accountants, because she had a good head for figures. Yes, and we'll add poisoners, as Mercury has thieves under his protection as well as merchants and travellers."
"That's only justice," I said. "But what I am anxious to know at once is this: in what name am I to adore you? Is it incorrect, for instance, to call you Jove? Aren't you someone greater than Jove?"
He said: "Oh" greater than Jove, certainly, but anonymous as yet. For the moment, I think though, I'll call myself Jove-the Latin Jove to distinguish myself from that Greek fellow. I'll have to settle with him one of these days. He's had his own way too long."
I asked: "How does it happen that your father wasn't a God too? I never heard of a God without a divine father."
"That's simple. The God Augustus was my father."
"But he never adopted you, did he? He only adopted your elder brothers and left you to carry on your father's line."
"I don't mean that he was my father by adoption, I mean that I am his son by his incest with Julia. I must be. That's the only possible solution. I'm certainly no son of Agrippina: her father was a nobody. It's ridiculous."
I was not such a fool as to point out that in this case Germanicus wasn't his father and therefore his sisters were only his nieces. I humoured him as Drusilla advised and said: "This is the most glorious hour of my life. Allow me to retire and sacrifice to you at once, with my remaining strength. The divine air you exhale is too strong for my mortal nostrils. I am nearly fainting," The room was dreadfully stuffy. Caligula hadn't allowed the windows to be opened ever since he took to his bed.
He said: "Go in peace. I thought of killing you, but I won't now. Tell the Scouts about my being a God and about my face shining, but don't tell them any more. I impose holy silence on you for the rest."
I grovelled on the floor again and retired, backwards. Ganymede stopped me in the corridor and asked for the news. I said: "He's just become a God and a very important one, he says. His face shines."
"That's bad news for us mortals," said Ganymede. "But I saw it coming. Thanks for the tip, I'll pass it on to the other fellows. Does Drusilla know? No? Then I'll tell her."
"Tell her that she's a Goddess too," I said, "in case she hasn't noticed it."
I went back to my room and thought to myself, "This has happened for the best. Everyone will soon see that he's road, and lock him up. And there are no other descendants of Augustus left now of an age to become Emperor, except Ganymede, and he's not got the popularity or the necessary force of character. The Republic will be restored. Caligula's father-in-law is the man for that. He has the most influence of any man in the Senate. I'll back him up. If only we could get rid of Macro, and have a decent commander of the Guards in his place everything would be easy. The Guards are the greatest obstacle. They know very well that they'd never get bounties of fifty and a hundred gold pieces a man voted them by a Republican Senate. Yes, it was Sejanus's idea of turning them into a sort of private army for my uncle Tiberius that gave monarchy its oriental absoluteness. We ought to break up the Camp and billet the men in private houses again as we used to do."
But-would you believe it?-Caligula's divinity was accepted by everyone without question. For awhile he was content to let the news of it circulate privately, and to remain officially a mortal still. It would have spoilt his free and easy relations with the Scouts and curtailed most of his pleasure if everyone had had to lie face-down on the floor whenever he appeared. But within ten days of his recovery, which was greeted with inexpressible jubilation, he had taken on himself all the mortal honours that Augustus had accepted in a lifetime and one or two more besides. He was Caesar the Good, Cassar the Father of the Armies, and the Most Gracious and Mighty Cassar, and Father of the
Country, a title which Tiberius had steadfastly refused all his life.
Gemellus was the first victim of the terror, Caligula sent for a colonel of the Guards and told him, "Kill that traitor, my son, at once." The colonel went straight to Gemellus's rooms and struck his head off. The next victim was Caligula's father-in-law. He was one of the
Silanus family- Caligula had married his daughter Junia but she had died in child-birth a year before he became Emperor. Silanus enjoyed the distinction of being the only Senator whom Tiberius had never suspected of disloyalty: Tiberius had always refused to listen to any appeal from his judicial sentences. Caligula now sent him a message, "By dawn tomorrow you must be dead." The unfortunate man thereupon said good-bye to his family and cut his throat with a razor. Caligula explained in a letter to the Senate that Gemellus bad died a traitor's death: the insolent lad had refused to come to sea with him that stormy day when he had sailed to Pandataria and Ponza to collect the remains of his mother and brothers, and had stayed behind in the hope of seizing the monarchy if tempests wrecked his ship; and during his recent dangerous illness had offered, no prayer for his recovery but tried to ingratiate himself with the officers of his body-guard. His father-in-law, he wrote, was another traitor: he had taken antidotes against poison whenever he came to dine at the Palace so that his whole person smelt of them. "But is there any antidote against Caesar?" These explanations were accepted by the Senate. The truth of the matter was, that Gemellus was so bad a sailor that he nearly died of sea-sickness every time he went out in a boat, even in fine weather, and it was Caligula himself who had kindly refused his offer to accompany him on that voyage. As for his father-in-law he had an obstinate cough and smelt of the medicine that he took to soothe his throat, so as not to be a nuisance at table.
Robert Graves - I, Claudius Page 42
