‘If Calpurnia was a man, I’d say, Calpurnia. But since she’s not, the next best choice is myself. I’m a mere freedman, I know, but the Guards officers know me and like me, and it would only be for a single day.’
‘Very well, General-of-the-Day Narcissus. Tell Geta that he’s confined to bed by doctor’s orders until to-morrow. Give me pen and parchment. Wait a moment. What’s the date? September the fifth? Here’s your commission, then. Show it to the captains and send them on to Rome at once with their men to arrest the whole wedding party. No violence, though, except in self-defence; tell them. Let the Guards know that I’m coming and that I expect them to remain loyal to me, and that their loyalty won’t pass unrewarded.’
It is about eighteen miles from Ostia to Rome, but the soldiers covered the distance in an hour and a half, using fast gigs. As it happened, the wedding was just breaking up when they arrived. The cause was a knight called Vettius Valens, who had been one of Messalina’s lovers before Silius came on the scene, and was still in her favour. The party had come to the stage that parties reach when the first excitement of drink has worn off and everyone begins to feel a little tired and at a loss. Interest now centred on Vettius Valens: he was hugging a fine evergreen oak-tree which grew outside the house, and talking to an imaginary Dryad inside it. The Dryad had apparently fallen in love with him and was inviting him in a whisper, audible only to himself, to a rendezvous at the top of the tree. He finally consented to join her there and made his friends form a human pyramid to enable him to climb up to the first big bough. The pyramid collapsed twice amid shrieks of laughter, but Vettius persevered and at the third try got astride of the bough. From there slowly and dangerously he climbed higher and higher until he disappeared into the thick foliage at the summit. Everyone stood gazing up to watch what would happen next. Expectation ran high because Vettius was a famous comedian. Soon he began imitating the Dryad’s affectionate cries and making loud smacking kiss-noises and uttering little squeals of excitement. Then Vettius kept very quiet, until the crowd began calling up to him: ‘Vettius, Vettius, what are you doing?’
‘I’m just viewing the world. This is the best look-out anywhere in Rome. The Dryad’s sitting on my lap and pointing out places of interest; so don’t interrupt. Yes, that’s the Senate House. Silly girl, I knew that! And that’s Colchester! But surely you’re mistaken? You can’t see as far as Colchester from this tree, can you? You must mean the Guards Camp. No, it is Colchester, by God. I can see the name written up on a notice board and blue-faced Britons walking about. What’s that? What are they doing? No, I don’t believe it. What, worshipping Claudius as a God?’ And then in an imitation of my voice: ‘Why, though, I want to know why? Nobody else to worship? Have the other Gods refused to cross the Channel? I don’t blame them. I was dreadfully sea-sick myself, crossing the Channel.’
Vettius’s audience was entranced. When he was silent again they called out: ‘Vettius, Vettius! What are you doing now?’
He answered, imitating my voice again: ‘In the first place, if I don’t want to answer, I won’t answer. You can’t make me. I’m a free man, aren’t I? In fact one of the freest men in Rome.’
‘Oh, do tell us, Vettius.’
‘Look there! Look there! A thousand Furies and Serpents! Let me go, Dryad, let me go at once. No, no, another time. Can’t wait for that sort of thing now. Must get down. Hands off, Dryad!’
‘What’s happening, Vettius?’
‘Run for your lives. I’ve just seen a fearful sight. No, stop! Trogus, Proculus, help me down first! But everyone else run for your lives!’
‘What? What?’
‘A terrific storm coming up from Ostia! Run for your lives!’
And the crowd actually did scatter. Laughing and screaming and headed by the bride and bridegroom they rushed out of the garden into the street a few seconds before my soldiers came galloping up. Messalina got safely away, and so did Silius, but the soldiers had no difficulty in arresting about 200 of the guests, and later picked up about fifty more who were stumbling drunkenly home. Messalina was accompanied by only three companions. There had been twenty or more with her at first, but as soon as the alarm was raised that the Guards were coming they deserted her. She went on foot through the City until she came to the Gardens of Lucullus, by which time she had sobered somewhat. She decided that she must go to Ostia at once and try the effect of her beauty on me again – it had never hitherto failed to cheat me – and bring the children with her too as a reinforcement. She was still barefooted and wearing her vintage costume, which had earned her hisses and jeers as she hurried through the streets. She sent a maid to the Palace to fetch her the children, sandals, some jewellery, and a clean gown. The quality of the love between her and Silius was shown by their immediate desertion of each other at the first sign of danger. Messalina prepared to sacrifice him to my rage, and Silius went to the Market Place to resume his judicial work there as if nothing had happened. He was drunk enough to think that he could pretend complete innocence, and when the captains came to arrest him he told them that he was busy, and what did they want? Their answer was to handcuff him and lead him off to the Camp.
Meanwhile I had been joined by Vitellius and Caecina (my colleague in my second Consulship) who had accompanied me down to Ostia and after the sacrifice had gone off to visit friends on the other side of the town. I told them briefly what had happened and said that I was returning to Rome immediately: I expected them to support me and witness the impartiality with which I would visit judgement on the guilty of whatever rank or station. The Olympian effect of the drug continued. I talked calmly, fluently, and, I think, sensibly. Vitellius and Caecina made no reply at first, expressing astonishment and concern only in their looks. When I asked them what they thought about the whole business, Vitellius would still only utter exclamations of astonishment and horror such as, ‘They really told you that! Oh, how horrible! What vile treason!’ and Caecina followed his example. The carriage of state was announced and Narcissus, whom I had directed to write out a charge-sheet against Messalina, and who had been busy questioning the staff so as to make the list of her adulteries as full as possible, then showed himself a brave man and a faithful servant. ‘Caesar, please inform your noble friends who I am for to-day and give me a seat in this carriage with you. Until my Lords Vitellius and Caecina come out with an honest opinion, and refrain from making remarks that can be construed either as a condemnation of your wife or as condemnation of her accusers, it is my duty as your Guards Commander to remain by your side.’
I am glad that he came with me. As we drove towards the City I began telling Vitellius about Messalina’s pretty ways and how much I had loved her and how vilely she had deceived me. He sighed deeply and said: ‘A man would have to be stone, not to be melted by beauty like hers.’ I spoke about the children, too, and Caecina and Vitellius sighed in unison: ‘The poor, dear children! They must not be allowed to suffer.’ But the nearest that either of them came to expressing a real opinion was when Vitellius exclaimed: ‘It is almost impossible for anyone who has felt for Messalina the admiration and tenderness that I have felt, to believe these filthy accusations, though a thousand trustworthy witnesses were to swear that they were true.’ And when Caecina agreed, ‘Oh, what an evil and sorrowful world we live in!’ An embarrassment was in store for them. Two vehicles were seen approaching through the dusk. One was another carriage, drawn by white horses, and in it sat Vibidia, the oldest and most honoured of the Vestal Virgins: eighty-five years old and one of my dearest friends. Behind this carriage followed a cart with a big yellow L painted on it, one of the carts belonging to the Gardens of Lucullus and used for carrying soil and rubbish. In it were Messalina and the children. Narcissus took in the situation at a glance: he had better eyes than I have and stopped the carriage. ‘Here’s the Vestal Vibidia come to meet you, Caesar,’ he said. ‘No doubt she’ll ask you to forgive Messalina. Vibidia is a dear old soul, and I think the world of her, but for God’s sak
e don’t make her any rash promises. Remember how monstrously you’ve been treated and remember that Messalina and Silius are traitors to Rome. Be polite to Vibidia, by all means, but don’t give away anything at all. Here’s the charge-sheet. Look at it now, read the names. Look at the eleventh charge – Mnester. Are you going to forgive that? And Caesoninus, what about Caesoninus? What can you think of a woman who can play about with a creature like that?’
I took the parchment from him and as he stepped out of the carriage he whispered something in Vitellius’s ear. I don’t know what it was, but it decided Vitellius to keep his mouth shut in Narcissus’s absence. While I was reading the charges by the light of a lantern Narcissus ran along the road and met Vibidia and Messalina, who had also dismounted, coming towards him. Messalina was comparatively sober now: she called out gently to me from the distance: ‘Hullo, Claudius! I’ve been such a silly girl! You’d never believe it of me!’ For once my deafness was of service to me. I didn’t recognize her voice or hear a word. Narcissus greeted Vibidia courteously, but refused to let Messalina come any farther. Messalina cursed and spat in his face and tried to dodge past, but he ordered the two sergeants whom we had with us to escort her to her cart and see that it drove back to the City. Messalina screamed as if she were being murdered or outraged, and I looked up from the parchment to ask what was the matter. Vitellius said: ‘A woman in the crowd. Overcome by labour-pains, by the sound of it.’
Then Vibidia came slowly up to our carriage and Narcissus panted back after her. Narcissus did all the talking for me. He told Vibidia that Messalina’s notorious and unexampled whoredoms and treacheries made it ludicrous for a pious and aged Vestal to come and plead with me for her life. ‘You Vestals surely don’t approve of having the Palace turned into a brothel again, as in Caligula’s days, do you? You don’t approve of ballet-dancers and sword-fighters performing between the sheets of the High Pontiff’s bed, do you, with the active co-operation of the High Pontiff’s wife?’
That gave Vibidia a shock: Messalina had only confessed to an ‘indiscreet familiarity’ with Silius. She said: ‘I know nothing about that, but at least I must urge the High Pontiff to do nothing rashly, to shed no innocent blood, to condemn nobody unheard, to consider the honour of his house and his duty to the Gods.’
I broke in: ‘Vibidia, Vibidia, my dear friend, I shall deal justly with Messalina, you can count on that.’
Narcissus said: ‘Yes, indeed. The danger is that the High Pontiff may show his former wife an undeserved clemency. It is very difficult indeed for him to judge the case as impartially as it will be his official duty to do. I must therefore ask you on his behalf not to make things more painful for him than they already are. May I courteously suggest that you retire, my Lady Vibidia, and attend to the solemnities of the Goddess Vesta, which you understand so well?’
So she retired, and we drove on. As we came into the City, Messalina made another attempt to see me, I am told, but was restrained by the sergeants. She then tried to send Britannicus and little Octavia to plead with me for her, but Narcissus saw them running towards us and waved them back. I was sitting silent, brooding over the list of Messalina’s lovers. Narcissus had headed it: ‘Provisional and incomplete account of Valeria Messalina’s notorious adulteries, from the first year of her marriage to Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus Britannicus, Father of the Country, High Pontiff, etc., until the present day.’ It contained forty-four names, later extended to 156.
Narcissus sent a message ordering the cart back to the Gardens: the traffic regulations forbade it to be in the streets at this hour. Messalina saw that she was beaten, so allowed herself to be carried back to the Gardens. The children had been sent to the Palace but her mother Domitia Lepida, though lately there had been a coolness between the two, bravely joined her in the cart; otherwise Messalina would have been quite alone but for the carter. Narcissus then told our coachman to drive on to Silius’s house. When we reached it I said: ‘This isn’t the place, is it? Surely this is the family mansion of the Asinians?’
Narcissus explained: ‘Messalina bought it privately when Asinius Gallus was banished, and gave it to Silius as a wedding present. Come inside and see for yourself what has been going on’.
I went in and saw the litter of the wedding – the vine-leaf decorations, the wine-vats and presses, tables covered with food and dirty plates, trampled rose-leaves and garlands on the floor, discarded leopard-skins, and wine spilt everywhere. The house was deserted except for an old porter and two dead-drunk lovers lying in each other’s arms on the bed in the nuptial-chamber. I had them arrested. One was a staff-lieutenant called Montanus, the other was Narcissus’s own niece, a young married woman with two children. What shocked and distressed me most was to find the whole house full of Palace furniture, not merely things that Messalina had brought me as part of her dowry when we were married, but ancient heirlooms of the Claudian and Julian families, including the very statues of my ancestors and the family masks, cupboard and all! There could be no plainer proof of her intentions than that. So we climbed into the carriage again and drove on to the Guards Camp. Narcissus was gloomy and subdued now, because he had been very fond of his niece; but Vitellius and Caecina had made up their minds that it would be safer for them to believe the evidence of their eyes, and simultaneously began urging me to vengeance. We reached the Camp, where I found the whole Division on parade, by Narcissus’s orders, in front of the tribunal. It was dark now and the tribunal was lit by flaring torches. I climbed up on the platform and made a short speech. My voice was clear, but sounded very far away:
‘Guards, my friend the late King Herod Agrippa, who first recommended me to you as your Emperor and then persuaded the Senate to accept your choice, told me on the last occasion that I saw him alive, and also wrote to me in the last letter that I ever had from him, never to trust anyone, for nobody about me was worthy of my trust. I did not take his words literally. I continued to repose the fullest confidence in my wife, Valeria Messalina, whom I now know to have been a whore, a liar, a thief, a murderess, and a traitor to Rome. I don’t mean, Guards, that I don’t trust you. You’re the only people I do trust, you know. You’re soldiers and do your duty without question. I expect you to stand by me now and crush the plot which my former wife Messalina and her adulterer, the Consul-Elect Gaius Silius, have formed against my life under a pretence of restoring popular liberty to the City again. The Senate is rotten with conspiracy, as rotten as the entrails of the ram that I sacrificed this afternoon to the God Augustus; you never saw such an unholy sight. I am ashamed to talk as I do, but that’s right, isn’t it? Help me bring my enemies – our enemies – to book and, once Messalina’s dead, if I ever marry again I give you free and full leave to chop me to pieces with your swords, and use my head as a football at the Baths, like Sejanus’s. Three times married, and three times unlucky. Well, what about it, lads? Tell me what you think. I can’t get a straight answer from my other friends.’
‘Kill them, Caesar!’ – ‘No mercy!’ – ‘Strangle the bitch!’ – ‘Death to them all!’ – ‘We’ll stand by you!’ – ‘You’ve been too damned generous.’ – ‘Wipe them out, Caesar!’ There was no doubt what the Guards thought of the matter.
So I had the arrested men and women brought up before me there and then, and ordered the arrest of 110 more men now named in the charge-sheet as Messalina’s adulterers, and four women of rank who had prostituted themselves, at Messalina’s suggestion, in the course of that notorious Palace orgy. I finished the trial in three hours. But this was because all but thirty-four of the 360 persons who answered their names pleaded guilty to the charges brought against them. Those whose only crime was their attendance at the wedding I banished. Twenty knights, six senators, and a Guards colonel, who all pleaded guilty to adultery or attempted revolution, or both, demanded to be executed at once. I granted them this favour. Vettius Valens tried to buy his life by offering to reveal the names of the ringleaders of the plot. I told hi
m that I could find them out without his assistance and he was led off to execution. Montanus was mentioned in Narcissus’s list, but pleaded that Messalina had forced him to spend the night with her by showing him an order to do so signed and sealed by me: and that after that single night she had tired of him. Messalina must have got my signature to the document by reading it out to me – ‘just to save your precious eyes, my darling’ – as something quite different. However, I pointed out that he had no order from me to attend the wedding or to commit adultery with my friend Narcissus’s niece; so he was executed too. There were also fifteen suicides in the City that night by persons who had not been arrested but expected to be. Three intimate friends of mine, all knights, Trogus, Cotta, and Fabius, were among these. I suspect that Narcissus knew of their guilt but left them out of the charge-sheet for friendship’s sake, contenting himself with sending them a warning.
Mnester would not plead guilty: he reminded me that he was under orders from me to obey my wife in everything, and said that he had obeyed her much against his will. He pulled off his clothes and showed the marks of a lash on his back. ‘She gave me that because my natural modesty prevented me from carrying out your orders as energetically as she wished, Caesar.’ I was sorry for Mnester. He had once saved that theatre-audience from massacre by the Germans. And what can you expect from an actor? But Narcissus said: ‘Don’t spare him, Caesar. Look carefully at the bruises. The flesh isn’t cut open at all. It’s clear to anyone with eyes in his head that the lash wasn’t meant to hurt; it was just part of their vicious practices.’ So Mnester made a very graceful bow to the parade, his last bow, and spoke his usual little speech: ‘If I have ever pleased you, that is my reward. If I have offended you, I ask your forgiveness.’ They received it in silence, and he was led off to his death.
The only two people whom I spared except the obviously innocent were one Lateranus, who was accused of conspiracy but pleaded not guilty, and Caesoninus. The evidence against Lateranus was conflicting, and he was a nephew of Aulus Plautius, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Caesoninus I spared because he was so foul a wretch, though of good family, that I did not wish to insult his fellow-adulterers by executing him alongside of them: in Caligula’s reign he had prostituted himself as a woman. I don’t know what happened to him: he never reappeared in Rome. I also dismissed the charge against Narcissus’s niece: I owed him that.