murdered men.' She asked innocently what the verse meant and he said, 'It's unsafe to explain in public, my dear.' A professional informer was hanging about the gate on the chance that when the senator read the epigram, which was Livia's work, he would say something worth reporting. He went straight to Sejanus. Tiberius himself cross- examined the senator, asking what he meant by 'unsafe', and to whom, in his opinion, the epigram referred. The senator shuffled and would not give direct answers. Tiberius then said that many libels had been current when he was a younger man, all accusing him of being a drunkard, and that in recent years he had been ordered by his doctors to abstain from wine because of a tendency to gout, and that several libels had lately been published accusing him of bloodthirstiness. He asked the accused whether he was not aware of these facts, and whether he thought that the epigram could refer to anyone but his Emperor. The wretched man agreed that he had heard the libels on Tiberius' drunkenness but knew them to have no foundation in truth and had not made any connection in his mind between them and the one on his gate. He was then asked why he had not reported the former libels to the Senate as it was his duty to do. He answered that when he had heard them it was not yet a punishable offence to utter or repeat any epigram, however scurrilous, written against anyone, however virtuous; nor treason to utter or repeat scurrilities directed even against Augustus so long as one did not publish them in writing.
Tiberius asked to what time he referred, for Augustus had late in life made an edict against scurrilities too. The senator answered: 'It was during your third year at Rhodes.'
Tiberius cried out, 'My Lords, how can you permit this fellow to insult me so?' So the Senate actually condemned him to be thrown down the Tarpeian cliff, a punishment ordinarily reserved for the worst traitors-- generals who sold battles to the enemy, and such-like.
Another man, a knight, was put to death for writing a tragedy about King Agamemnon in which Agamemnon's queen, who murdered him in his bath, cried as she swung the axe: 'Know, bloody tyrant, 'tis no crime T'avenge my wrongs like this.'
Tiberius said that he was intended by the character Agamemnon and that the line quoted was an incitement to assassinate him. So the tragedy, which everyone had laughed at because it was so lamely and wretchedly composed, won a sort of dignity by having all its copies called in and burned and its author executed.
This prosecution was followed two years later--but I put it down here because the Agamemnon story reminds me of it--by that of Cremutius Cordus, an old man who had come into collision with Sejanus some time [A.D. 25] before over a trifle. Sejanus entering the House one wet day had hung his cloak on the peg which had always been Cremutius', and Cremutius, when he came in, not knowing that it was Sejanus' cloak, had moved it to another peg to make room for his own. Sejanus' cloak had fallen down from this new peg and somebody with muddy sandals had trampled on it. Sejanus retaliated in a variety of malicious ways, and Cremutius came so to loathe the sight of his face and the sound of his name that when he heard that Sejanus' statue had been set up on the Theatre of Pompey he exclaimed: 'That just about ruins the Theatre'. So now he was named to Tiberius as one of Agrippina's principal adherents. But as he was a venerable, mild old man who had no enemy in the world but Sejanus and never spoke a word more than necessary, it was difficult to support any accusation against him with evidence that even a brow- beaten Senate could decently accept. In the end Cremutius was charged with having written in praise of Brutus and Cassius, the murderers of Julius Caesar. The evidence produced was an historical work which he had written thirty years before and which Augustus himself, Julius' adopted son, was known to have included in his private library and occasionally consulted.
Cremutius made a spirited defence against this absurd charge, saying that Brutus and Cassius had been dead so long and had been so frequently praised for their deed by subsequent historians that he could not believe that the trial was not a hoax--such a hoax as a young traveller recently suffered in the city of Larissa.
This young man was publicly accused of having murdered three men, though they were no more than wineskins, hanging outside a shop, [287] which he had slashed at in the dark, mistaking them for robbers. But this Larissan trial had taken place on the annual festival of Laughter, which gave some point to the proceedings, and the young man was a drunkard and much too ready with his sword and perhaps deserved a lesson.
But he, Cremutius Cordus, was too old and too sober to be made a fool of in this way, and this was no festival of Laughter but, on the contrary, the four hundred and seventy-sixth anniversary of the solemn promulgation of the Laws of the Twelve Tables, that glorious monument to the legislative genius and the moral rectitude of our forefathers. He went home and starved himself to death. All copies of his book were called in and burned except for two or three which his daughter hid away somewhere and republished many years later when Tiberius was dead. It was not very good writing; it got more fame than it really deserved.
I had been all this time saying to myself, 'Claudius, you're a poor fellow and not much use in this world, and you have led a pretty miserable life with one thing and another, but at least your life is safe.' So when old Cremutius whom I knew very well--we had often met and chatted in the Library--lost his life on a charge like this it was a great shock to me. I felt like a man living on the slopes of a volcano when it suddenly throws up a warning shower of ash and red hot stones.
I had written far more treasonable things in my time than Cremutius. My history of Augustus' religious reforms contained several phrases that could easily be made the subject of an accusation. And though my estate was so small that it would hardly be worth an accuser's while to impeach me for the sake of a fourth share, I realised well enough that all the recent victims of treason-trials were friends of Agrippina, whom I continued to visit whenever I went to Rome. I was not at all sure how far my being a brother-in-law of Sejanus would be sufficient protection to me.
Yes, I had lately become Sejanus' brother-in-law, and now I shall tell how it came about.
XXIII
ONE DAY SEJANUS HAD TOLD ME THAT I OUGHT TO MARRY again, as I did not seem to get on well with my wife. I said that Urgulanilla had been the choice of my grandmother Livia and that I could not divorce her without Livia's permission.
'Oh, no, of course not,' he said. 'I quite understand that, but it must be very unhappy for you without a wife.'
'Thank you,' I said, 'I manage all right.'
He pretended to find this a good joke and laughed loudly, calling me a very wise man, but afterwards said that if by any chance I found it possible to divorce my wife I was to come to him. He had just the woman for me in mind--well-born, young and intelligent. I thanked him but felt uncomfortable. As I was going away he said: 'My friend Claudius, I have a word of advice to you. Back Scarlet tomorrow in every race and don't mind losing a bit of money at first; you'll not lose in the long run. And don't back Leek Green: it's an unlucky colour these days.
And don't tell anyone that I gave you the tip.' I felt much relieved that Sejanus thought me still worth cultivating, but I couldn't make sense of what he told me.
However, at the chariot-race next day--it was the festival of Augustus--Tiberius saw me take my seat in the Circus and, being in an affable mood, sent for me and asked, 'What are you doing these days, nephew?'
I stammered that I was writing a history of the ancient Etruscans, if it pleased him.
He said: 'Oh, really? That does credit to your judgment. There's no ancient Etruscan left to protest and no modern Etruscan who cares: so you can write as you please. What else are you doing?'
'Wr-r-riting a history of the ancient C-C-C-C-C-Carthaginians, if you please.'
'Splendid! And what else? Hurry up with that stammer.
'I'm a busy man.'
'At the m-m-moment I'm b-b-b-b----'
'Beginning a history of C-C-C-Cloud C-C-C-Cuckoo Land?'
'N-no, sir, b-b-b-backing Scarlet.'
He looked at me very shrewdly and said: 'I see, nephew, that you are not altogether a fool. What makes you back Scarlet?'
I was in difficulties, because I couldn't say that Sejanus had given me the tip. So I said: 'I dreamed that Leek Green was d-disqualified for using his whip on his c-c-ccompetitors and Scarlet c-c-came in first with Sea-b-b-blue and White nowhere.'
He gave me a purse of money and muttered in my ear: 'Tell nobody that I'm staking you, but put this on Scarlet and let's see what happens.'
It proved to be Scarlet's day, and by betting with young Nero on every race I won close on two thousand gold pieces. That evening I thought it wise to visit Tiberius at the Palace and to say: 'Here's the lucky purse, sir, with a family of little purses which it littered during the day.'
