Claudius the God and His Wife Messalina

  But, as I was saying, I was very proud indeed of the Alexandrian offer, for after all Alexandria is the cultural capital of the world, and had I not been addressed by its leading citizens as the most distinguished living historian? I regretted that I could not spare the time for a visit to Alexandria to be present at one of the readings. The day that the embassy came I sent for a professional reader and asked him to read over to me in private a few passages from each of the histories. He did so with so much expression and such beautiful articulation that, forgetting for the moment that I was the author, I began clapping loudly.

  Chapter 10

  MY immediate preoccupation abroad was with the Rhine frontier. Towards the end of Tiberius’s reign the Northern Germans had been encouraged by reports of his general inactivity to make raids across the river, into what we call the Lower Province. Small parties used to swim across at unguarded spots by night to attack lonely houses or hamlets, murder the occupants, and loot what gold and jewels they could find; and then swim back at dawn. It would have been difficult to stop them doing this, even if our men had been constantly on the alert – as in the North at least they certainly were not – because the Rhine is an immensely long river and most difficult to patrol. The only effective measure against the raiders would have been retaliation; but Tiberius had refused permission for any large-scale punitive expedition. He wrote: ‘If hornets plague you, burn their nest; but if it is only mosquitoes, pay no attention.’ As for the Upper Province, it may be recalled that Caligula during his expedition to France sent for Gaetulicus, the commander of the four regiments on the Upper Rhine, and executed him on the unfounded charge of conspiracy; that he crossed the river with an enormous army and advanced a few miles, the Germans offering no resistance; that he then grew suddenly alarmed and rushed back. The man whom he had appointed as Gaetulicus’s successor was commander of the French auxiliary forces at Lyons. His name was Galba,* and he was one of Livia’s men. She had marked him out for preferment when he was still a youngster, and he had amply justified the trust she had placed in him. He was a courageous soldier and a discerning magistrate, worked hard, and bore an exemplary private character. He had attained his Consulship six years before this. Livia, when she died, had left him a special legacy of 500,000 gold pieces; Tiberius, however, as Livia’s executor, pronounced that this must be a mistake. The sum had been written in figures, not in words, and he ruled that 50,000 was all the testatrix had intended. As Tiberius never paid a single one of Livia’s legacies, this did not make much difference at the time, but when Caligula became Emperor and paid Livia’s legacies in full, it was bad luck for Galba that Caligula was unaware of Tiberius’s fraud. Galba did not press for the whole 500,000, and perhaps it was as well for him that he did not, for if he had done so Caligula would have remembered the incident when he ran short of funds and, so far from giving him this important command on the Rhine, would probably have accused him of taking part in Gaetulicus’s conspiracy.

  How Caligula chose Galba makes a curious story. He had ordered a big parade at Lyons one day, and when it was over he called before him all the officers who had taken part in it and gave them a lecture on the necessity for keeping in good physical condition. ‘A Roman soldier,’ he said, ‘should be as tough as leather and as hard as iron, and all officers should set a good example to their men in this. I shall be interested to see how many of you will survive a simple test which I am about to set you. Come, friends, let us go for a little run in the direction of Autun.’ He was sitting in his chariot with a couple of fine French cobs in the shafts. His driver cracked his whip and off they went. The already sweating officers dashed after him with their heavy weapons and armour. He kept just far enough ahead of them not to let them drop behind out of sight, but never let his horses fall into a walk, for fear that the officers would follow their example. On and on he went. The line strung out. Many of the runners fainted and one dropped dead. At the twentieth milestone he finally pulled up. Only one man had survived the test – Galba. Caligula said: ‘Would you prefer to run back, General, or would you prefer a seat beside me?’ Galba had sufficient breath left to reply that as a soldier he had no preferences: he was accustomed to obey orders. So Caligula let him walk back, but the next day gave him his appointment. Agrippinilla became greatly interested in Galba when she met him at Lyons: she wanted to marry him, though he was married already to a lady of the Lepidan house. Galba was perfectly satisfied with his wife and behaved as coldly towards Agrippinilla as his loyalty to Caligula permitted. Agrippinilla persisted in her attentions and there was a great scandal one day at a reception given by Galba’s mother-in-law to which Agrippinilla came without an invitation. Galba’s mother-in-law called her out in front of all the noblemen and noblewomen assembled, abused her roundly as a shameless and lascivious hussy and actually struck her in the face with her fists. It would have gone badly for Galba if Caligula had not decided the next day that Agrippinilla was implicated in the plot against his life and banished her as I have described.

  When Caligula had fled back to Rome in terror of a reported German raid across the Rhine (a lie humorously put about by the soldiers) his forces were all concentrated at one point. Great stretches of the river were left unguarded. The Germans heard of this at once, and also of Caligula’s cowardice. They took the opportunity of crossing the Rhine in force and establishing themselves in our territory, where they did a great deal of damage. Those who crossed were the tribesmen called the Chattians, which means the Mountain Cats. The Cat was their tribal ensign. They had fortresses in the hill country between the Rhine and the Upper Weser. My brother Germanicus always used to give them credit for being the best fighting men in Germany. They kept their ranks in battle, obeyed their leaders almost like Romans and at night used to dig entrenchments and put outposts out – a precaution seldom taken by any other German tribe. It cost Galba several months and considerable losses in men to dislodge them and drive them back across the river.

  Galba was a strict disciplinarian. Gaetulicus had been a capable soldier but rather too lenient. The day that Galba arrived at Mainz to take over his command the soldiers were watching some games that were being held in Caligula’s honour. A huntsman had shown great skill in dispatching a leopard and the men all started clapping. The first words that Galba spoke on entering the General’s box were, ‘Keep your hands under your cloaks, men! I am in command now and I don’t permit any slovenliness.’ He kept this up, and for so severe a commander was extremely popular. His enemies called him mean, but that was unjust: he was merely most abstemious, discouraged extravagance in his staff, and exacted a strict account of expenditure from his subordinates. When news came of Caligula’s assassination his friends urged him to march on Rome at the head of his corps, saying that he was now the only fit person to take control of the Empire. Galba replied, ‘March on Rome and leave the Rhine unguarded? What sort of a Roman do you take me to be?’ And he continued: ‘Besides, from all accounts, this Claudius is a hard-working and modest man; and though some of you seem to think him a fool, I should hesitate to call any member of the Imperial family a fool who has successfully survived the reigns of Augustus, Tiberius, and Caligula. I think that in the circumstances the choice is a good one and I shall be pleased to take the oath of allegiance to Claudius. He is not a soldier, you say. So much the better. Campaigning experience is sometimes not altogether a blessing in a Commander-in-Chief. The God Augustus – I speak with all respect – was inclined, as an old man, to hamper his generals by giving them over-detailed instructions and advice: that last Balkan campaign would never have dragged on as it did, if he had not been so anxious to re-fight from far in the rear the battles that he had fought at the head of his troops some forty years previously. Claudius will not, I think, either take the field himself, at his age, or be tempted to override the decisions of his generals in matters of which he is ignorant. But at the same time he is a learned historian and has, I am told, a grasp of general strategical principles that many Com
manders-in-Chief with actual fighting experience might envy him.’

  These remarks of Galba’s were later reported to me by one of his staff, and I sent him a personal letter of thanks for his good opinion of me. I told him that he could count on me to give my generals a free hand in such campaigns as I ordered or authorized them to undertake. I would merely decide whether the expedition was to be one of conquest or whether it would have merely a punitive character. In the former case vigour was to be tempered with humanity – as little damage as possible was to be done to captured villages and towns and to standing crops, the local Gods were not to be humiliated, and no butchery must be allowed once the enemy was broken in battle. In the case, however, of a punitive expedition no mercy whatsoever need be shown: as much damage as possible must be done to crops, villages, towns, and temples, and such of the inhabitants as were not worth taking home as slaves were to be massacred. I would also indicate the maximum number of reserves that could be called upon and the maximum number of Roman casualties that would be permitted. I would decide beforehand, in consultation with the general himself, the precise objectives of attack and ask him to state how many days or months he would need for taking them. I would leave all strategical and tactical dispositions to him, and only exercise my right of taking personal command of the campaign, bringing with me such further reinforcements as I thought necessary, should the objectives not be reached within the agreed time, or should the Roman casualties rise beyond the stipulated figure.

  For I had a campaign in mind for Galba to make against the Chattians. It was to be a punitive expedition. I did not propose to enlarge the Empire beyond the natural and obvious frontier of the Rhine, but when the Chattians and the Northern tribesmen, the Istaevonians, failed to respect that frontier, a vigorous assertion of Roman dignity had to be made. My brother Germanicus always used to say that the only way to win the respect of Germans was to treat them with brutality; and that they were the only nation in the world of whom he would say this. The Spaniards, for example, could be impressed by the courtesy of a conqueror, the French by his riches, the Greeks by his respect for the arts, the Jews by his moral integrity, the Africans by his calm authoritative bearing. But the German, who is impressed by none of these things, must always be struck to the dust, and struck down again as he rises, and struck again as he lies groaning. ‘While his wounds still pain him he will respect the hand that dealt them.’

  At the same time as Galba was advancing, another punitive expedition was to be made against the Istaevonian raiders, by Gabinius, the General commanding the four regiments on the Lower Rhine. Gabinius’s expedition interested me far more than Galba’s, for its object was not merely punitive. Before ordering it I sacrificed in Augustus’s Temple and privately informed the God that I was bent on completing a task that my brother Germanicus had been prevented from completing, and which was, I knew, one in which He was Himself much interested: it was the rescue of the third and last of the lost Eagles of Varus, still in German hands after more than thirty years. My brother Germanicus, I reminded Him, had recaptured one Eagle in the year following His Deification and another in the campaigning season after that; but Tiberius had recalled him before he could avenge Varus in a last crushing battle and win back the Eagle that was still missing. I therefore begged the God to favour my arms and restore the honour of Rome. As the smoke of the sacrifice rose, the hands of Augustus’s statue seemed to move in a blessing and his head to nod. It may only have been a trick of the smoke, but I took it for a favourable omen.

  The fact was, I was now confident that I knew exactly where in Germany the Eagle was hidden, and proud of myself for the way I had discovered this secret. My predecessors could have done what I did if they had only thought of it; but they never did. It was always a pleasure to prove to myself that I was by no means the fool that they had all thought me, and that indeed I could manage some things better than they. It occurred to me that in my Household Battalion, composed of captured tribesmen from almost every district in Germany, there must be a half a dozen men at least who knew where the Eagle was hidden; yet when the question had once been put to them on parade by Caligula, with an offer of freedom and a large sum of money in return for the information, every face had immediately gone blank: it seemed that nobody knew. I tried a very different method of persuasion. I ordered them all out on parade one day and addressed them very kindly. I told them that as a reward for their faithful services I was going to do them an unprecedented kindness: I was going to send back to Germany – the dear, dear Fatherland about which they nightly sang such melancholy and tuneful songs – all members of the battalion who had completed twenty-five years’ service with it. I said that I should have liked to send them home with gifts of gold, weapons, horses, and the like, but unfortunately I was unable to do this or even to allow them to take back across the Rhine any possessions that they had acquired during their captivity. The obstacle was the still missing Eagle. Until this sacred emblem was returned, Roman honour was still in pawn, and it would create a bad impression in the City if I were to reward with anything beyond their bare freedom men who had in their youth taken part in the massacre of Varus’s army. However, to true patriots liberty was better than gold and they would, I felt sure, accept the gift in the spirit that it was made in. I did not ask them, I said, to reveal to me the whereabouts of the Eagle, because no doubt this was a secret which they had been bound by oaths to their Gods not to reveal: and I would not ask any man to perjure himself for the sake of a bribe, as my predecessor had done. In two days’ time, I promised, all the twenty-five-year veterans would be sent back across the Rhine under safe conduct.

  I then dismissed the parade. The sequel was as I had foreseen. These veterans were even less anxious to return to Germany than the Romans captured by the Parthians at Carrhae were to return to Rome when, thirty years later, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa bargained with the King for their exchange. Those Romans in Parthia had settled down, married, raised families, grown rich, and quite forgotten their past. And these Germans at Rome, though technically slaves, lived a most easy and enjoyable life, and their regret for home was not at all a sincere emotion, merely an excuse for tears when they were maudlin-drunk. They came to me in a body and begged for permission to remain in my service. Many of them were fathers, and even grandfathers, by slave-women attached to the Palace, and they were all comfortably off: Caligula had given them handsome presents from time to time. I pretended to be angry, called them ungrateful and base to refuse so priceless a gift as liberty and said that I had no further use for their services. They asked pardon and permission at least to take their families with them. I refused this plea, mentioning the Eagle again. One of them, a Cheruscan, cried out: ‘It’s all the fault of those cursed Chaucians that we have to go like this. Because they have sworn to keep the secret, we other innocent Germans are made to suffer.’

  This was what I wanted. I dismissed from my presence all but the representatives of the Greater and Lesser Chaucian tribes. (The Chaucians lived on the North German coast between the Dutch Lakes and the Elbe; they had been confederates of Hermann’s.) Then I said to these: ‘I have no intention of asking you Chaucians where the Eagle is, but if any of you have not sworn an oath about it, please tell me so at once.’ The Greater Chaucians, the western half of the nation, all declared that they had not sworn any such oath. I believed them, because the second Eagle that my brother Germanicus won back had been found in a temple of theirs. It was unlikely that one tribe would have been awarded two Eagles in the distribution of spoils that followed Hermann’s victory.

  I then addressed the chief man of the Lesser Chaucians: ‘I do not ask you to tell me where the Eagle is, or to what God you swore the oath. But perhaps you will tell me in what town or village you took that oath. If you tell me this I shall suspend my order for your repatriation.’