exactly guilty, but ...' I would cut him short. I would pronounce, `Fined a thousand gold pieces' or `Banished to the Island of Sardinia' or just `Death', and then turn to the beadle: 'Next case, please.' The man and his lawyer were naturally vexed that they had not been able to charm me with their extenuating circumstance pleas. There was one case in which the defendant claimed to be a Roman citizen and so appeared in a gown, but the plaintiff's lawyer objected and said that he was really a foreigner and should be wearing a cloak. It made no difference to this particular case whether or not he was a Roman citizen, so I silenced the lawyers by ordering the man to wear a cloak during all speeches for the prosecution and a gown during all speeches for the defence. The lawyers did not like me for that and told each other that I was ridiculing justice. Perhaps I was. On the whole they treated me very badly. Some mornings if I had been unable to settle as many eases as I had hoped and it was long past the time for my dinner they would make quite a disturbance when I adjourned proceedings until next day. They would call to me quite rudely to come back and not keep honest citizens waiting for justice, and would even catch me by the gown or foot as if forcibly to prevent me from leaving the court.
I did not discourage familiarity, provided that it was not offensive, and found that an easy atmosphere in court encouraged witnesses to give proper evidence. If anyone answered me back with spirit when I had expressed an ill-advised opinion I never took it ill. On one occasion - the counsel for the defence explained that his client, a man of sixty-five, had recently married. His wife was a witness in the case, and was quite a young woman. I remarked that the marriage was illegal. According to the Poppaean-Papian Law (with which I happened to be familiar) a man over sixty was not allowed to marry a woman under fifty: the legal assumption was that a man over sixty is unfit for parentage. I quoted the Greek epigram
The old man weds, for Nature's rule he scorns - `Father a weakly stock, or else wear horns'.
The lawyer considered for a few moments and then extemporized.
And that old man, yourself, is a plain fool To foist on Nature this unnatural rule. A sturdy old man fathers sturdy sons; A weakly young man fathers weakly ones.
This was so just a point and so neatly made that I forgave the poet-lawyer for calling me a plain fool, and at the next meeting of the Senate amended the Poppaean-Papian Law accordingly. The severest anger to which I ever remember having given way in court was roused by- a court official whose duty it was to summon witnesses and see that they arrived punctually. I had given a fraud case a hearing but had been forced to adjourn it for lack of evidence, the principal witness having fled too Africa to avoid being charged with complicity in the fraud. When the case-came on again I called for this witness; but he was not in court. I asked the court official whether this man had been duly subpoenaed to attend.
',Oh, yes, indeed, Caesar.'
`Then why is he not here.?
`He is unfortunately prevented from attending.!
'There is no excuse for non-attendance, except illness so serious that he cannot be carried into court without danger to his life.' 'I quite agree, Caesar. No, the witness is not ill now. He has been very ill, I understand. But that is all over.' `What was wrong with him?'
`He was mauled by a lion, I am informed, and afterwards gangrene set in.'
`It's a wonder he recovered,' I said.
He. didn't,' sniggered the fellow. 'He's dead. I think that death can stand as an excuse for non-attendance.' Everyone laughed.
I was so furious that I flung my writing-tablet at him, took away his citizenship, and banished him to Africa. `Go and hunt lions,' I shouted, 'and I hope they maul you properly, and I hope gangrene sets in.' However, six months later I pardoned him and re-instated him in his position. He made no more jokes at my expense.
It is only fair at this point to mention the severest anger that was ever directed in court against myself. A young nobleman was charged with unnatural acts against women. The real complainants were the Guild of Prostitutes, an unofficial but well-managed organization which protected its members pretty effectively from abuse by cheats or ruffians. The prostitutes could not very well bring a charge against the nobleman themselves, so they went to a man who had been done a bad turn by him and wanted revenge - prostitutes know everything and offered to give evidence if he brought the charge: a prostitute was a capable witness in a lawcourt. Before the case came on, I sent a message to my friend Calpurnia, the pretty young prostitute who had lived with me before I married Messalina and had been so tender and faithful to me in my misfortunes: I asked her to interview the women who were to give evidence and privately find out whether the nobleman had really abused them in the manner alleged, or whether they had been bribed by the person who was bringing the charge. Caipurnia sent me word a day or two later that the nobleman had really behaved in a very brutal and disgusting way, and that the women who had complained to the Guild were decent girls, one of whom was a personal friend of hers.
I tried the case, took sworn evidence (overruling the objection of the defending lawyer that prostitutes' oaths were both proverbially and actually worth nothing) and had this put in writing by the court recorder. When one girl repeated some very filthy and vulgar remark that the accused had made to her, the recorder asked, `Shall I put that down, Caesar?' and I answered, `Why not?' The young nobleman was so angry that he did just what I had done to the court official who teased me - he threw his writing-tablet at my head. But whereas I had missed my aim, his aim was true. The sharp edge-of the tablet gashed my cheek and drew blood. But all I said was, `I am glad to see, my Lord, that you still have some shame left.' I found him guilty and put a black mark against his name in the Roll, which disqualified him from becoming a candidate for public office. But he was a relative by marriage of Asiaticus, who asked me some months later to scratch out the black mark; because his young relative had lately reformed, his ways. `I'll scratch it out, to please you,' I answered, `but it will still show.' Asiaticus later repeated this remark of mine to his friends as a proof of my stupidity. He could not understand, I suppose, that a reputation was, as my mother used to say, like an earthenware plate. `The plate is cracked; the reputation is damaged by a criminal sentence: The plate is then mended with rivets, and becomes 'as good as new'; the reputation is mended by an official pardon. A mended plate or a mended reputation is better than a cracked plate or a damaged reputation. But a plate that has never been cracked and a reputation that has never been damaged, are better still.'
A schoolmaster always appears a very queer fellow to his pupils. He has certain stock-phrases which they come to notice-and giggle at whenever he uses them. Everyone in the world has stock-phrases or tricks of speech, but unless he is in a position of authority - as a schoolmaster; or an army captain or a judge - nobody notices, them particularly. Nobody noticed them in my case until I became Emperor, but, then of course they became world- famous. I had only to remark in court, `No malice or favour whatsoever' (turning to my legal secretary after summing-up a case), `That's right, isn't it?' or `When once my mind is made up, the thing is fixed with a nail,' or quote the old tag:
As the rascal did he must
Himself be done by And that's just;
or utter the family oath, 'Ten thousand furies and serpents!' and a great roar of laughter would go up about me as though I had let fall either the most absurd solecism imaginable or the most exquisitely witty epigram.
In the course of my first year in the courts I must have made hundreds of ridiculous mistakes, but I did get the: cases settled and sometimes surprised myself by my brilliance. There was one case, I remember, where one of the witnesses for the defence, a woman, denied any relationship with the accused man, who was alleged by the prosecution to be really her son. When I told her that I would take her word for it and that in my quality as High Pontiff I would immediately join her and him in marriage she was so frightened by the prospect of having incest forced upon her that she pleaded guilty to perjury. She said that she had concealed her relationship in order to seem an impartial witness. That gave me a great reputation, which I lost almost at once in a case where the treason charge covered one of forgery. The prisoner was a freedman of one of Caligula's freedmen, and there were no extenuating circumstances to his crime. He had forged his master's, will just before his death - whether he was responsible for the death could not be proved - and had, left his mistress and her children completely destitute. I grew very angry with this man as I heard-his story unfolded and determined to inflict the maximum penalty. The defence was very weak no denial of the charge, only a stream of Telegonian irrelevancies. It was long past my dinner-time and I had been sitting in judgement solidly for six hours. A delicious whiff of cooking came floating into my nostrils from the dining-chamber of the Priests of Mars near by. They eat better than any other priestly fraternity : Mars never lacks for sacrificial victims. I felt faint with hunger. I said to the` senior of the magistrates who were sitting with me, `Please take over this, case from me and impose the maximum penalty, unless the defence has any better evidence evidence to offer than has yet been produced.'
`Do you really mean the maximum penalty?' he asked.
