This was the signal for an outburst of popular anger against Tiberius. 'He stings like a dead wasp,' someone shouted. Crowds gathered at the street corners for solemn commination-services under the ward-masters, beseeching Mother Earth and the Judges of the Dead to grant the corpse and the ghost of that monster no rest or peace until the day of universal dissolution. Tiberius' body was brought to Rome under a strong escort of Guards. Caligula walked in the procession as a mourner and the whole countryside came flocking to meet him, not in mourning for Tiberius but in holiday clothes, weeping with gratitude that Heaven had preserved a son of Germanicus to rule over them. Old country women cried out,
'O our sweet darling, Caligula! Our chicken! Our baby! Our star!' A few miles from Rome he rode ahead to make preparations for the solemn entry of the corpse into the City. But when he had passed, a big crowd gathered and barricaded the Appian Road with planks and blocks of building stone.
When the outriders of the escort appeared there was booing and groaning and cries of 'Into the Tiber with Tiberius!'
'Throw him down the Stairs!'
'Eternal damnation to Tiberius!' The leader shouted: 'Soldiers, we Romans won't allow that evil corpse into the City. It will bring us bad luck. Take it back to Atella and half-burn it in the amphitheatre there!' Half-burning, I should explain, was the usual fate of paupers and unfortunates, and Atella was a town celebrated for a kind of rough country masque or farce which had been performed there at the harvest festival every year from the very earliest times, Tiberius had a villa at Atella and used to attend the festival nearly every year. He had converted the innocent rural bawdry of the masque into a sophisticated vileness. He made the men of Atella build [353] an amphitheatre to present the revised show, which was produced by himself.
Macro ordered his men to charge the barricade, and a number of citizens were killed and wounded, and three or four soldiers were knocked unconscious with paving stones.
Caligula prevented further disorders and Tiberius' body was duly burned on Mars Field. Caligula spoke the funeral oration. It was a very formal and ironical one and much appreciated, because there was a good deal in it about Augustus and Germanicus, but very little about Tiberius.
At a banquet that night Caligula told a story which made the whole country weep and gained him great credit. He said that early one morning at Misenum, being as usual sleepless with grief for the fate of his mother and brothers, he had determined, come what might, to be avenged at last on their murderer. He seized the dagger that had been his father's and went boldly into Tiberius' room. The Emperor lay groaning and tossing in nightmare on his bed.
Caligula slowly lifted the dagger to strike but a Divine Voice sounded in his ears: 'Great-grandson, hold your handl To kill him would be impious.'
Caligula answered, 'O God Augustus, he killed my mother and my brothers, your descendants. Should I not avenge them even at the price of being shunned by all men as a parricide?' Augustus answered, 'Magnanimous son, who are to be Emperor hereafter, there is no need to do what you would do. By My orders the Furies nightly avenge your dear ones, while he dreams.' And so he had laid his dagger on the table beside the bed and walked out. Caligula did not explain what had happened next morning when Tiberius woke and saw the dagger on the table; the presumption was that Tiberius had not dared to mention the incident.
XXIX
CALIGULA WAS TWENTY-FIVE YEARS OLD WHEN HE BECAMB
Emperor. Seldom, if ever, in the history of the world has a prince been more enthusiastically acclaimed on his accession or had an easier task offered him of gratifying the modest wishes of his people, which were only for peace and security. With a bulging treasury, well-trained armies, an excellent administrative system that needed only a little care to get it into perfect order again--for in spite of Tiberius' neglect the Empire was still running along fairly well under the impetus given it by Livia--with all these advantages, added to the legacy of love and confidence he enjoyed as Germanicus' son, and the immense relief felt by Tiberius' removal, what a splendid chance he had of being remembered in history as 'Caligula the Good', or 'Caligula the Wise', or 'Caligula the Saviour'! But it is idle to write in this way. For if he had been the sort of man that the people took him for, he would never have survived his brothers or been chosen by Tiberius as his successor.
Claudius, remember what scorn old Athenodorus had for such impossible contingencies, he used to say, 'If the Wooden Horse of Troy had foaled, horses today would cost far less to feed.'
It amused Caligula at first to encourage the absurd misconception that everyone but myself and my mother and Macro and one or two others had of his character, and even to perform a number of acts in keeping with it. He wanted also to make sure of his position. There were two obstacles to his complete freedom of action. One was Macro, whose power made him dangerous. The other was Gemellus. For when Tiberius' will was read [which for secrecy's sake he had had witnessed by a few freedmen and illiterate fishermen] it was found that the old man, just to make trouble, had not appointed Caligula his first heir, with Gemellus as a second choice in case of accidents: he had made them [355] joint-heirs, to rule alternate years. However, Gemellus had not come of age and so was not even allowed yet to enter the Senate, while Caligula was already a magistrate of the second rank, some years before the legal age, and a pontiff. The Senate was therefore very ready to accept Caligula's view that Tiberius had not been of sound mind when he made the will and to give the whole power to Caligula without encumbrance. Except for this matter of Gemellus, from whom he also withheld his share in the Privy Purse, on the ground that the Privy Purse was an integral part of the sovereignty, Caligula observed all the terms of the will and paid every legacy promptly.
The Guards were to receive a bounty of fifty gold pieces a man; Caligula, to ensure their loyalty when the time came for Macro's removal, doubled the amount. He paid the people of Rome the four hundred and fifty thousand gold pieces bequeathed them and added three gold pieces a head; he said that he had intended to give them this when he came of age, but the old Emperor had forbidden it. The armies were awarded the same bounty as under Augustus' will, but this time it was paid promptly. What was more, he paid all the sums owing under Livia's will, which we legatees had long ago written off as bad debts. To me the two most interesting items in Tiberius' will were: the specific bequest to me of the historical books which Pollio had left me but which I had been cheated of, together with a number of other valuable volumes, and the sum of twenty thousand gold pieces; and a bequest to the Chief Vestal, the granddaughter of Vipsania, of a hundred thousand gold pieces to be spent as she pleased, either on herself or on the College. The Chief Vestal, as the granddaughter of the murdered Gallus, melted the coin down and made it into a great golden casket for his ashes.
With these bequests from Livia and Tiberius I was now quite well off.
Caligula astonished me by further paying me back the fifty thousand that I had found for Germanicus at the time of the mutiny: he had heard the story from his mother. He did not allow me to refuse it and said that if I made any further protest he would insist on paying me the accumulated interest too: it was a debt he owed his father's memory. When I told Calpurnia about my new wealth she seemed more sorry than pleased. 'It won't bring you any luck,' she said. 'Much better be modestly well off, as you have been, than run the risk of having your whole fortune stripped from you by informers on a charge of treason.'
Calpurnia was Acte's successor, you remember. She was very shrewd for her years--seventeen.
I said, 'What do you mean, Calpurnia? Informers?
There are no such things in Rome now, and no treason trials.'
She said; 'I didn't hear that the informers were packed off in the same boat with the Spintrians.' [For Tiberias' painted 'orphans' had been banished by Caligula. As a public gesture of pure-mindedness he had sent the whole crew of them off to Sardinia, a most unhealthy island, and told them to labour honestly for their living as roadmakers. Some of them just lay down and died when picks and shovels were put into their hands, but the rest were whipped into work, even the daintiest of them. Soon-they had a stroke of luck. A pirate vessel made a sudden raid, captured them, and carried them off to Tyre, where they were sold as slaves to rich Eastern profligates.]
'But they wouldn't dare to try their old tricks again, Calpurnia?'
She put down her embroidery. 'Claudius, I'm no politician or scholar, but I can at least use my prostitute's wit and do simple sums. How much money did the old Emperor leave?'
'About twenty-seven million gold pieces. That's a lot of money.'
'And how much has the new one paid out in legacies and bounties?'
'About three million and a half. Yes, at least that amount.'
'And since he has been Emperor how many panthers and bears and lions and tigers and wild bulls and things has he imported for the huntsmen to kill in the amphitheatres and the Circus?'
