Wipe, don't blow.' I have always taken Xenophon's advice, at least about nose-blowing: my colds don't last nearly so long now as they did. Of course, caricaturists and satirists soon made fun of me as having a permanently dripping nose, but what did I care for that? Messalina. told me that she thought I was extremely sensible to take such care of myself: if I were suddenly to die or fall seriously ill, what would become of the City and Empire, not to mention herself and our little boy?
Messalina said to me one day: `I am beginning to repent of my kind heart.'
'Do you mean that my niece Lesbia should after all have been left in exile?'
She nodded. `How, did you guess that I meant that? Now tell me, my dear, why does Lesbia go to your rooms in the Palace so often when I'm not about? What does she talk of? And why don't you let me know when she comes? You see, it's no good trying to keep secrets from me.'
I smiled reassuringly but felt a little awkward. `There's nothing secret about, it, nothing at all. You remember that about -a month ago I gave her back the remainder of the estates which Caligula had taken from her? The Calabrian ones that you and I decided not to give back until we saw how she and Vinicius would behave? Well, as I told you, when I gave them back she burst into tears and said how ungrateful she had been and swore that she was now going to change her way of living altogether and conquer her stupid pride:'
`Very touching, I am sure. But this is the first word I have heard of any such dramatic scene.'
`But I distinctly remember telling you the whole story, one morning at breakfast.'
`You must have dreamed it. Well, what was the whole story? Better late than never. When you gave her back the estates I certainly thought it rather queer that you should reward her insolence to, me. But I said nothing. It was your business, not mine.'
`I cannot understand this. I could have sworn I told you. My memory has the most extraordinary lapses, sometimes. I am very sorry indeed, my dearest. Well, I gave her back the estates, simply because she said that she had just gone to you and made a wholehearted apology and that you had said: 'I forgive you freely, Lesbia. Go and tell Claudius that I forgive you.''
`Oh, what a bare-faced lie! She never came to me at all. Are you sure, she said that? Or is your memory at fault again?'
'No, I'm positive about it. Otherwise I should never have given her back the estates.'
`You know the legal formula about evidence? 'False in one thing, false in all.' That fits Lesbia. But you haven't yet told me why she visits you. What is she trying to get out of you?'
`Nothing, so far as I know. She just comes occasionally for a friendly visit to repeat how grateful she is and to ask whether she can be of any use to me. She never stays long enough to be a nuisance and always asks how you are. When I say that you're working she says that she wouldn't dream of disturbing you and apologizes for disturbing me. Yesterday she said that she thought you were still a little suspicious of her. d said that I thought not. She chatters a little about things in general for a few minutes, kisses me like a good niece, and off she goes.. I quite enjoy her visits. But I was convinced that I'd mentioned them to you.'
`Never. That woman's a snake. I think I know her plan. She'll worm her way into your confidence - like a good niece, of course - and then begin slandering me. In a quiet, hinting sort of way at first and then more directly as she gets bolder. She'll probably make up a wonderful story about the double life I lead. She'll say that behind your back I live, a regular life of debauchery - swordfighters and actors and young gallants and the rest. And you'll believe her, of course, like a good uncle. 0 God, what cats women are! I believe she's begun already. Has she?'
`Certainly not. I wouldn't let her. I wouldn't believe anyone who told me that you were unfaithful to me in deed or word. I wouldn't believe it even if you told me so yourself with your own lips. There, does that satisfy you?'
'Forgive me, dear, for being so jealous. It's my nature. I hate you to have friendships with other women behind my back, even relations. I don't trust any woman alone with you. You're so simple-minded. And I'm going to make it my business to find what poisonous trick Lesbia has at the back of her mind. But I don't want her to know that I suspect her. Promise me that you won't let her know that you have caught her out in a falsehood, until I have some more serious charge against her.'
I promised. I told Messalina that I didn't believe in Lesbia's change of heart now and that I would report all conversational remarks that she made to me. This satisfied Messalina, who said that now she could continue her work with an easier mind.
I faithfully repeated to Messalina all Lesbia's remarks. They seemed to me of little importance, but Messalina found significance in many of them and caught especially at one - to me perfectly inoffensive remark that Lesbia had made about a senator called Seneca. Seneca was a magistrate of the second rank, and had once incurred the jealous dislike of Caligula by the eloquence with which he had conducted a case in the Senate.' He would certainly have lost; his head then but for me. I had done him the service of depreciating his oratorical abilities, saying to Caligula: `Eloquent? Seneca's not eloquent. He's just very well educated and has a prodigious memory. His father compiled those Controversies and Persuasories, school-exercises in oratory on imaginary cases. Childish stuff. He wrote a lot more which have remained unpublished. Seneca seems to have got the whole lot off by heart. He has a rhetorical key now to fit any lock. It's not eloquence. There's nothing behind it, not even strong personal character. I'll tell you what it is - it's like sand without lime. You can't build up a reputation for true eloquence out of that.' Caligula repeated my own words as his own judgement on Seneca. 'School-exercises only. Puerile declamations, borrowings from his father's unpublished papers. Sand without lime.' So Seneca was permitted to live.
Now Messalina asked me: `You are sure that she went out of her way to commend Seneca as an honest and unambitious man? You didn't bring up his name yourself first?'
'No.'
`Then you may depend on it, Seneca's her lover. I have known for some time that she was keeping a secret lover, but she hides her tracks so well that I couldn't be sure whether it was Seneca or her husband's cousin Vinicianus, or that fellow Asinius Gallus, Pollio's grandson. They all live in the same street.'
Ten days later she told me that she now had complete proof of adultery between Lesbia and Seneca during the recent absence from Rome of Vinicius, Lesbia's husband. She brought witnesses who swore that, they had seen Seneca leave his house late at night, in disguise; had followed him' to Lesbia's house, which he had entered by a side door; had seen a light suddenly appear at Lesbia's bedroom window and presently go out again; and three or four hours later had seen Seneca emerge and return home, still in disguise.
It was clear that Lesbia could not be allowed to stay at Rome any longer. She was my niece, and therefore an important public figure. She had already been banished once, on a charge of adultery and recalled by me only on an understanding that she would behave more discreetly in future. I expected all members of my family to set a high moral standard for the City. Seneca would have to be banished too. He was a married man and a senator, and though Lesbia was a beautiful woman I suspected that with a man of Seneca's character ambition was a stronger motive for the adultery than sexual passion. She was a direct descendant-of Augustus, of Livia, and of Mark Antony, a daughter of Germanicus, a sister of the late Emperor, a niece of the present one: while he was merely the son of a well-to-do provincial grammarian and had been born in Spain.
Somehow I did not wish to interview Lesbia myself, so I asked Messalina to do so. I felt that Messalina had more cause for resentment in the matter than I had, and wished to stand well with her again and show how sorry I was that I had given her occasion for the slightest twinge of jealousy. She gladly undertook the task of lecturing Lesbia for her ingratitude and acquainting her with her sentence; which was banishment to Reggio in the South of Italy, the town where her grandmother Julia had died in banishment for the same offence. Messalina afterwards reported that Lesbia had spoken most insolently, but had finally admitted adultery with Seneca, saying that her body was her own to do with as she liked. On being informed that she would be banished, she had flown into a passion and threatened us both: she said: 'One morning the Palace servants will enter the Imperial bed-chamber and find you both lying with your throats cut,' and 'How do you think my husband and his family will take this insult?'
`Only words, my dear,' I said. `I don't take them seriously, though perhaps we had better keep a careful watch on Vinicius and his party.'
On, the very night that Lesbia started out for Reggio, towards dawn, Messalina and I were awakened by a sudden cry and scuffle in the corridor, outside our door, some violent sneezing and shouts of, `Seize him! Murder! Assassins! Seize him!' I jumped out of bed, my heart pounding because of the sudden shock, and snatched up a stool as a weapon of defence, shouting to Messalina to get behind me. But my courage was not called in question. It was only one man and he had already been disarmed.
