eating boiled turnips with a will,
I propose that the God Claudius be regularly enrolled among the Olympians and enjoy the privileges and perquisites of Godhead in its fullest traditional sense, and that a note to that effect be inserted in Ovid's Metamorphoses.'
The House, was divided, and it looked as though Claudius would -', carry a majority of votes; because Hercules saw that he had a good chance now and went rushing about from one bench to another saying: .I, `Now, please don't oppose me. I am personally interested in this measure. If you vote my way now, I'll do as much for you some other day. You know the proverb, 'Hand washes hand.''
Then the God Augustus arose, for it was now his turn, and spoke with the greatest eloquence. 'I call on' you,, my Lords, to witness that ever since the day of my official deification I have not uttered a single word. I always mind my own business. But now I cannot keep up the pretence of impartiality any longer, or conceal the sorrow which shame makes deeper still. Was it for this that I made peace over land and sea, and put a truce to Civil War, and endowed Rome with a new constitution, and embellished her with stately public buildings, that ... that ... that ... Words fail me, my Lords. Nothing that I might: utter could possibly match the depth of my feelings in this matter. In, my indignation I must, borrow a phrase from the eloquent Messala Corvinus he was elected City Warden and resigned after a few days, saying 'I am ashamed of my authority''. I feel the same: when I see how the authority that I established has been abused I am ashamed of ever having exercised it. This fellow, my Lords, who looks as though he hadn't guts - enough to worry a fly, sat in my place and called himself by my name and ordered men off to execution just as easily as a dog squats. But I won't speak of all his victims, fine men though they were: I am so preoccupied with family disasters that really I have no time to waste over public ones. I'll only speak about family disasters,' then, because 'a radish* may know no Greek, but I do': I at least know one Greek proverb, 'The knee is nearer than the shin.' This impostor, this pseudo-Augustus, has done me the kindness of killing two great- granddaughters' of mine, Lesbia with the sword and Helen by starvation. And one great grandson, Lucius Silanus. (Here I expect you, my Lord Jove, to be fair in a bad cause, which after all is your own.) Now answer me, you God Claudius, why did you condemn; so many men and women to death without first calling on them to defend themselves? What sort of justice is that? Is it the sort that is done in Heaven? Why, here's Jove has been Emperor all these centuries and never did more than once: break Vulcan's leg:
Whom seizing by the foot, his anger high, He flung over the threshold of the sky, and once lose his temper with his wife and string her up. Did he ever actually kill a single member of his family? But you, you killed Messalina, your wife, whose grand-uncle I was as much as yours. ('Did I really?' you ask. A thousand plagues on you, of course you did! That makes it all the more disgraceful: you go about killing people and don't even know it.) Yes, my Lords, and he went on persecuting my great-grandson Gaius Caligula even when he was dead. It's true that Caligula killed his father-in-law, but Claudius, not content with following his example in that, killed a son-in-law too. And whereas Caligula would not allow young Pompey, Crassus Frugi's son, to take the title 'The Great', Claudius gave him his name back, but took off his head. In that one noble family he killed Crassus Frugi, young Pompey, Scribonia, the Tristionias, and Assario: Crassus, I own, was such a fool that he might almost have been made Emperor instead of Claudius. Do you really want this creature made a real God? Look at his body, born under the wrath of Heaven; and when it comes to that, listen to his talk! Why, if he can say as many as three words on end without stuttering over them, he can have me for a slave! Who is going to worship; a God of this sort? Will anyone believe in him? If you turn people like him into Gods, you can't expect anyone to believe in you. In brief, my Lords, if I have earned your respect, if I have never given any mortal too definite an answer to his prayer, I count on you to avenge my wrongs. So my motion is - he read it out from his notes - that insomuch as a certain God Claudius has killed his father-in-law Appius Silanus; his two sons-in-law, Pompey the Great and Lucius Silanus; his daughter's father-in-law Crassus Frugi (a man who resembled him as closely as one egg resembles another); Scribonia, his daughter's mother-in- law; his wife Messalina; with others too numerous to mention - I hereby move that he should be prosecuted with the utmost rigour of the law, that he should be refused bail; that he should be sentenced to immediate banishment, being allowed no more than thirty days to leave Heaven, and thirty hours to leave Olympus.'
A division was hurriedly taken and the motion. carried. As soon as the result was known Mercury seized, Claudius by the throat and dragged him off to Hell,
Whence none, 'tis said, returns to tell the tale.
As they came down along the Sacred Way, Mercury asked what all those crowds of people meant. Surely it wasn't Claudius's funeral? It was certainly a most marvellous procession and no expense had been spared to show that it was a God who was being buried. Flute music, blaring of horns, a great brass band made up of all sorts of instruments, - such a terrific noise, in fact, that even Claudius was able to hear it., Every face was wreathed in smiles: the whole Roman populace was walking about like free men again. Only Agatho and a few amateur banisters were in tears, and for once really meant it. The professional lawyers were slowly crawling out of dark corners, pale and gaunt, hardly alive, but reviving with every breath they drew. One of them, when he saw Agatho's group condoling with one another, came up to them, and said, 'I told you so. This All Fools' Festival had to come to an end some day or other.'
When Claudius saw his funeral go by, he understood at last that he was dead. A great choir was chanting his dirge in antiphonal chorus:
Weep, 0 Roman, beat thy breast,
Mournful be thy Market Place,
We bear a wise man to his rest,
The bravest, too, of all thy race.
With swift foot he could outrun
Any courser in the land:
He could the rebel Parthian stun,
No Persian might his darts withstand.
With steady grasp he bent his bow:
Away they streamed in headlong packs.
Slight was the wound, yet the Medes show
In rout their ornamental backs.
He sailed across an unknown sea
And into Britain's island strode: He battered down the shields, did he,
Of the Brigantians, blue with woad.
He chained them with a Roman chain,
Then with the Roman rods and axe
He disciplined the Ocean main
And took its tenor for a tax.
Mourn for the judge who could provide
Quick sentences to marvel at:
Who only listened to one side,
Who could, dispense with even that.
Where shall another such be found,
To sit and judge the whole year through?
Minos the Cretan, underground,
Must now resign his bench to you.
You barristers, who have your price,
Weep, and all small poets, weep,
And weep, you rattlers of the dice
Whom cogging does in plenty keep.
Claudius was charmed by this panegyric, and wanted to stay to see the show through to the end. But Mercury, the trusted messenger of the Gods, pulled him away, first muffling his head so that nobody should recognize him, and-took-him across Mars Field and finally down to Hell between the Tiber and the Subway. His freedman Narcissus had gone down ahead by a short cut, ready to receive him on his arrival, and now came smiling forward, fresh from a bath and exclaiming: 'Gods! Gods come to visit us mortals! What may I have the honour...?'
'Go and tell them that we're here. And hurry up about it.'
