Claudius the God and His Wife Messalina

  Agrippina was able to do this deed owing to the fact that she had previously sent Narcissus off to Campania, feigning that he needed to take the waters there for his gout. For had he been present, she would never have accomplished it, so carefully did he guard his master. As it was, however, his death followed hard upon that of Claudius. He was slain beside the tomb of Messalina, a circumstance due to mere chance, though it seemed to be in fulfilment of her vengeance.

  In such a manner did Claudius meet his end. It seemed as if this event had been indicated by the comet, which was seen for a very long time, by the shower of blood, by the thunderbolt that fell upon the standards of the Praetorians, by the opening of its own accord of the temple of Jupiter Victor, by the swarming of bees in the Camp, and by the fact that one incumbent of each political office died. The emperor received the state burial and all the other honours that had been accorded to Augustus. Agrippina and Nero pretended to grieve for the man whom they had killed, and elevated to heaven him whom they had carried out on a litter from the banquet. On this point Lucius Junius Gallio, the brother of Seneca, was the author of a very witty remark. Seneca himself had composed a work that he called ‘Pumpkinification’ – a word formed on the analogy of ‘deification’; and his brother is credited with saying a great deal in one short sentence. Inasmuch as the public executioners were accustomed to drag the bodies of those executed in the prison to the Forum with large hooks, and from there hauled them to the river, he remarked that Claudius had been raised to heaven with a hook. Nero, too, has left us a remark not unworthy of record. He declared mushrooms to be the food of the gods, since Claudius by means of the mushroom had become a god.

  At the death of Claudius the rule in strict justice belonged to Britannicus, who was a legitimate son of Claudius and in physical development was in advance of his years; yet by law the power fell also to Nero because of his adoption. But no claim is stronger than that of arms; for everyone who possesses superior force always appears to have the greater right on his side, whatever he says or does. And thus Nero, having first destroyed the will of Claudius and having succeeded him as master of the whole empire, put Britannicus and his sisters out of the way. Why, then, should one lament the misfortunes of the other victims?

  Dio Cassius, Book LXI

  as epitomized by Xiphilinus and Zonaras (tr. Cary)

  The Pumpkinification of Claudius

  A SATIRE IN PROSE AND VERSE

  BY LUCIUS ANNAEUS SENECA

  I MUST here put on record what took place in Heaven on the thirteenth day of October of this very year, the year that has ushered in so glorious a new age. No malice or favour whatsoever. That’s right, isn’t it? If anyone asks me how I get my information, well, in the first place if I don’t want to answer, I won’t answer. Who is going to compel me to do so? I am a free man, aren’t I? I was freed on the day that a well-known personage died, the man who made the proverb true, ‘Either be born an Emperor or an idiot’. If I do, however, choose to answer, I shall say the first thing that springs to my lips. Are historians ever compelled to produce witnesses in court to swear that they have told the truth? Still, if it were absolutely necessary for me to call on someone, I would call on the man who saw Drusilla’s soul on its way to Heaven; he will swear that he saw Claudius taking the same road, ‘with halting gait’ (as the poet says). That man simply cannot help observing everything that goes on in Heaven: he’s the custodian of the Appian Way, which of course is the road that both Augustus and Tiberius took on their way to join the Gods. If you ask him privately he will tell you the whole story, but he will say nothing when a lot of people are about. You see, ever since he swore before the Senate that he saw Drusilla going up to Heaven, and nobody believed the news, which was certainly a little too good to be true, he has solemnly engaged himself never again to bear witness to anything he has seen – not even if he sees a man murdered in the middle of the Market Place. But what he told me I now report, and all good luck to him.

  Great Phoebus had drawn in his daily course,

  And longer stretched the darksome hours of sleep.

  The conquering Moon enlarged had her domain

  And squalid Winter from rich Autumn now

  Usurped the throne. To Bacchus the command

  Was ‘Grow thou old!’ and the late vintager

  Gathered the few last clusters of the grape.

  You will probably understand me better if I say plainly that the month was October and the day the thirteenth. I cannot, however, be so precise about the hour – one can expect an agreement between philosophers sooner than between clocks – but it was between twelve noon and one o’clock in the afternoon. ‘You’re not much of a poet, Seneca,’ I can hear my readers say. ‘Your fellow-bards, not content with describing dawn and sunset, work themselves up about the middle of the day too. Why do you neglect so poetical an hour?’ Very well, then:

  Phoebus had parted the wide heavens in twain

  And somewhat wearily ‘gan shake the reins,

  Urging his chariot nightwards: down the slope

  Of day the grand effulgence, waning, slid.

  It was then that Claudius began to give up the ghost, but couldn’t bring the matter to a conclusion. So Mercury, who had always derived great pleasure from Claudius’s wit, took one of the three Fates aside and said: ‘I consider, Madam, that you are extremely cruel to allow the poor fellow to suffer so. Is he never to have any relief from torture? It’s sixty-four years now since he first started gasping to keep alive. Have you some grudge against him and against Rome? Please let the astrologers be right for once: ever since he became Emperor they have laid him out for burial regularly once a month. However, they can’t really be blamed for getting the hour of his death wrong, because nobody was ever quite sure whether he had really been born or not. Get on with the business, Clotho:

  Slay him, and in’s stead let a worthier rule.’

  Clotho replied: ‘I did so wish to give him just a little longer, just enough time to make Roman citizens of the few outsiders who still remain: he had set his heart, you know, on seeing the whole world dressed in the white gown – Greece, France, Spain, even Britain. Still, if you think that a few foreigners ought to be kept for breeding purposes, and you really order me to put an end to him, it shall be done.’ She opened her box and produced three spindles: one was for Augurinus, one for Baba, and the third for Claudius. ‘These are to die in the same year quite close to each other, because I don’t want him to go off unattended: it would be very wrong for him to be suddenly left alone, after always having had so many thousands marching before him and trailing behind him, and crowding up against him from either side. He will be grateful for these two friends of his as travelling companions.’

  She spoke, and round the ugly spindle twined

  The thread of that fool’s life, then snapped it close.

  But Lachesis, her tresses neatly prinked

  And on her brow Pierian laurel set,

  Plucks from a fleece new threads as white as snow

  Which, as she draws them through her happy hand,

  Change hue. Her sisters at the marvel gaze.

  Not common wool, this, but rich thread of gold,

  That runs on, century by century,

  Termless. They pluck the fleeces with good will,

  Rejoicing in their task, so dear the wool:

  Nay, the thread spins itself, no task for them,

  And as the spindle turns, drops silken down,

  Passing Tithonus’ lengthy count of years

  (Aurora’s husband) and old Nestor’s count.

  Phoebus attends, and from a hopeful breast

  Chants as they work, and plucks upon his lyre

  And otherwhiles himself assists the task.

  Thus the Three Sisters hardly know they spin:

  Too close intent on the sweet strains they hear,

  And rapt with praise of their great brother’s song,

  They spin more than the fated human span.


  Yet Phoebus cries: ‘My Sisters, be it thus:

  Cut no years short from this illustrious life,

  For he whose life you spin, my counterpart,

  Yields not to me either in face or grace

  For beauty, nor for sweetness in his song.

  He is it, who’ll restore the age of gold

  And break the ban has silenced all the laws.

  He is sweet Lucifer who puts to flight

  The lesser stars; or Hesperus is he

  Who swims up clear when back the stars return;

  Nay, rather he’s the Sun himself, what time

  The blushing Goddess of the Dawn leads in

  The earliest light of day, dispersed the shades –

  The Sun himself with shining countenance

  Who pores upon the world, and from the gates

  Of his dark prison whirls his chariot out.

  A very Sun is NERO and all Rome

  Shall look on NERO with bedazzled eyes,

  His face a-shine with regal majesty

  And lovelocks rippling on his shapely neck.’

  Apollo had spoken. But Lachesis, who had an eye for a handsome man herself, went on spinning and spinning and bestowed a great many years more on NERO as her own personal gift.

  As for Claudius, they tell everyone to

  Be of good cheer, and from these halls

  Speed him with not impious lips.

  And he really did bubble up the ghost at last, and that was the end even of the old pretence that he was alive. (He passed away while listening to a performance given by some comedians, so now you know that I have good cause to be wary of the profession.) The last words that he was heard to utter in this world followed immediately upon a tremendous noise from the part of his body with which he always talked most readily. They were: ‘O good Heavens, I believe I’ve made a mess of myself!’ Whether this was actually so or not, I cannot say: but everyone agrees that he always made a mess of things.

  It would be waste of time to relate what afterwards happened on earth. You all know very well what happened. Nobody forgets his own good luck, so there’s no fear of your ever forgetting the popular outburst of joy that followed the news of Claudius’s death. But let me tell you what happened in Heaven; and if you don’t believe me, there’s my informant to confirm it all. First, a message came to Jove that someone was at the gate, a tallish man, with white hair; he seemed to be uttering some threat or other because he kept on shaking his head; and when he walked he dragged his right foot. He had been asked his nationality and had answered in a confused nervous manner, and his language could not be identified. It was not Greek or Latin or any other known speech. Jove told Hercules, who had once travelled over the whole earth and so might be expected to know all nations in it, to go and find out where the stranger came from. Hercules went, and though he had never been daunted by all the monsters in the world, he really got quite a shock at the sight of this new sort of creature, with its curious mode of progression and its raucous inarticulate voice, which was like that of no known terrestrial animal but suggested some strange beast of the sea. Hercules thought that his Thirteenth Labour was upon him. However, he looked more closely and decided that it was some kind of a man. He went up to it and said what a Greek naturally would say:

  Most honoured stranger, let me now demand

  Thy name, thy lineage, thy paternal land.

  Claudius was pleased to find himself among literary men. He hoped to find some niche in Heaven for his historical works. So he replied with another quotation, also from Homer, which conveyed the fact that he was Claudius Caesar:

  The winds my vessel bore

  From ravaged Troy to the Ciconian shore.

  But the next verse was much truer and just as Homeric:

  And boldly disembarking there and then,

  I sacked a city, murdering all its men.

  And he would have made Hercules, who is not particularly bright-witted, take this literally, if there had not been someone in attendance on Claudius – the Goddess Fever. She alone of the Gods and Goddesses of Rome had left her temple and come along with him. And what she said was: ‘The man’s lying. I can tell you everything about him, because I have lived with him for very many years now. He was born at Lyons, a fellow citizen of Marcus’s. Yes, a native Celt, born at the sixteenth milestone from Vienne: so of course he conquered Rome, as any good Celt would. I give you my honest word that he was born at Lyons – you know Lyons, surely? It’s the place where Licinus* was king for so long. Surely you know Lyons, you who have covered more miles in the course of your travels than any country carrier? And you must know, too, that it’s a long way from the Lycian Xanthus to the Rhône.’

  This stung Claudius, and he registered his anger in the loudest roar he could command. Nobody could make out exactly what he was saying, but as a matter of fact he was ordering the Goddess Fever to be removed from his presence and making the customary sign with his trembling hand (always steady enough for that, though for practically nothing else) for her head to be cut off. But for all the attention that was paid to this order you might have thought that the people present were his own freedmen.

  Hercules said: ‘Now listen to me, you, and stop making a fool of yourself. Do you know what sort of place this is? It’s where mice nibble holes in iron, that’s the sort of place it is. So let’s have your story straight, or I’ll spill some of that nonsense from a hole in the top of your head.’ To impress his personality on Claudius still more strongly, he struck a melodramatic attitude and began rolling out the following lines:

  Quick, the whole truth! Where were you born and why?

  Tell me at once, or with this club you die,

  That’s cracked the skull of many a dusky king.

  (What’s that? Speak up! I can’t make out a thing.)

  Where did you get that wiggly-waggly head?

  Is there a town where freaks like you are bred?

  But stay, once in the course of my tenth quest

  (I had to travel out to the far West

  And bring back with me to a town of Greece

  The oxen of three-bodied Geryones),

  I noticed a large hill, which when he rises

  The very first thing that the Sun God spies is.

  I mean the place where headlong-tumbling Rhône

  Is met by shallow, wandering Saône,

  Most vague of streams – the town between these two,

  Tell me, was it responsible for you?

  His delivery was most bold and animated, but all the same he had little confidence in himself and feared the ‘fool’s blow’, as the saying is. However, Claudius, finding himself face to face with a big hero like Hercules, changed his tone, and began to realize that what he said here did not have anything like the same force as at Rome; that a cock, in fact, is worth most on its own dung-hill. So this is what he said, or at least what he was understood to say: ‘O Hercules, bravest of all the Gods, I had hoped you would stand by me; and when your fellow Gods called for someone to vouch for me, you were the person I was going to name. And you know me very well really, don’t you? Think for a moment. I’m the man who used to sit judging cases in front of your temple, day after day, even in July and August, the hottest months of the year. You know what a miserable time I had there, listening to the barristers talking on and on, all day and night. If you had fallen among that lot though you’re the strongest of the strong, I’m sure you’d have much preferred to clean out the Augean stables again. I reckon that I drained away far more sewage than you did. But since I want…’

  [Some pages are missing here. A group of Gods all talking together are now addressing Hercules: he has forcibly introduced Claudius, whom he has consented to champion, into the Heavenly Senate.]

  ‘… You even burgled Hell once and went off with Cerberus on your back: so it’s not surprising that you managed to burst your way into this House. No lock could ever keep you out.’

  ‘– But just tell us, what sort
of a God do you want this fellow to be made? He can’t be a God in the Epicurean style: for Diogenes Laertius says: “God is blessed and incorruptible and neither takes trouble nor causes trouble to anyone.” As for a Stoic God, that sort, according to Varro, is a perfectly rounded whole – in fact completely globular without either a head or sexual organs. He can’t be that sort.’

  ‘– Or can he? If you ask me, there is something of the Stoic God about him: he has no head, and no heart either.’

  ‘– Well, I swear that even if he had addressed this petition to Saturn instead of Jove he would never have been granted it – though when he was alive he kept Saturn’s All Fools’ Festival going all the year round, a truly Saturnalian Emperor.’

  ‘– And what sort of a chance do you think he has with Jove, whom he as good as condemned for incest? I mean, he killed his son-in-law Silanus just because Silanus had a sister, the most delightful girl in the world, whom everyone called Queen Venus, but he preferred to call Juno.’

  Claudius said: ‘Yes, why did he do it? I want to know why. Really, now, his own sister!’

  ‘– Look it up in the book, stupid! Don’t you know that you may sleep with your half-sister at Athens, and that at Alexandria it can be a whole one?’

  ‘Well, at Rome,’ said Claudius, ‘mice are just mice. They lick meal.…’

  ‘– Is this drawing-master teaching us to improve our curves? Why, he doesn’t even know what goes on in his own bedroom.’

  ‘– And now he’s “conning the secret realms of sky” and wanting to be a God.’