at least a hundred times more than his opponent. The orator, enraged by the sympathy the cook got from the other customers, snatched the razor from the barber's hand and cut the cook'sthroat with it, crying: `I'll teach you to argue with one of Telegonius's men. Telegonius had therefore been fined the full value of the murdered cook, on the ground that his slave's violence was due to an obsession of argumental infallibility inculcated by the Institute in all its employees. Telegonius now appealed on the ground that the slave had not been incited, to murder by violence, for the very motto of the Institute was: `The tongue is mightier than the blade', which constituted a direct injunction to keep to that weapon in any dispute. He also pleaded that it had been a very hot day, that the slave had been subjected to a gross insult by the suggestion that he was not worth more than a miserable 100 gold pieces - the lowest value that could be put upon his services as a trained clerk would be fifty gold pieces annually - and that therefore the only fair view could be that the cook had invited death by provocative behaviour.
Vitellius appeared as a witness. `Caesar,' he said, `I see it this way. This Telegonius's slave has killed my head-cook, a gentle, dignified person, and a perfect artist in his way, as you will yourself agree, having often highly praised his sauces and cakes. It will cost me at least ten thousand gold pieces to replace him, and even then, you may be sure, I'll never get anyone half so good. His murderer used phrases, in praise of oratory and in dispraise of cookery, that have been proved to occur, word for word, in Telegonius's own handbooks and it has been further proved that in the same handbooks, in the sections devoted to 'Liberty'. many violent passages occur which seek to justify a person in resorting to armed force when arguments and reason fail.'
Telegonius cross-examined Vitellius, and I must admit that he was scoring heavily when a chance visitor to the court sprang a surprise. It was Alexander the Alabarch, who happened to be in Rome and had strolled into court for amusement. He passed me up a note:
The person who calls himself Telegonius of Athens and Rome is a runaway slave of mine named Joannes, born at Alexandria in my own household, of a Syrian mother. I lost him twenty-five years ago. You will find the letter A, within a circle, pricked on his left hip, which is my household brand.
Signed: ALEXANDER, ALABARCH
I stopped the case while Telegonius was taken outside by my yeomen and identified as indeed the Alabarch's property. Imagine he had been masquerading as a Roman citizen for nearly twenty years. His entire property should have gone to the State, except for the 10,000 gold pieces which had been awarded to Vitellius, but I let the Alabarch keep half of it. In return the Alabarch made me a present of Telegonius, whom I handed over to Narcissus for disposal: Narcissus set him to work at the useful, if humble, task of keeping court records.
This, then, was the sort of way I governed. And I widely extended the Roman citizenship, intending that no province whose inhabitants were loyal, orderly, and prosperous should long remain inferior in civic status to Rome and the rest of Italy. The first city of Northern France for which I secured the citizenship was Autun.
I then took the census of Roman citizens.
The total number of citizens, including women and children, now stood at 5,984,072, compared with the 4,937,000 given by the census of the year that Augustus died, and again with the 4,233,000 given by the census taken in the year after my father died. Written briefly on a page these numbers are not impressive, but think of them in human terms. If the whole Roman citizenry were to file past me at a brisk walk, toe to heel, it would be two whole years before the last one came in sight. And these were only the true citizens. If the entire population of the Empire went past, over 70,000,000 in number, now that Britain, Morocco, and Palestine had to be reckoned in, it would take twelve times as long, namely, twenty-four years, for them to pass, and in twenty-four years an entire new generation has time to be born, so that I might sit a lifetime and the stream would still glide on,
Would glide and slide with still perpetual flow, and never the same face appear twice. Numbers are a nightmare. To think that Romulus's first Shepherds' Festival was celebrated by no more than 3,300 souls. Where will it all end?
What I wish to emphasize most of all in this account of my activities as Emperor is that up to this point at least I acted, so
far as I knew how,, for the public good in the widest possible sense. I was no thoughtless revolutionary and no cruel tyrant and no obstinate reactionary: I tried to combine generosity with common sense wherever possible and nobody can accuse me of not having done my best.
Two Documents Illustrating Claudius's Legislative Practice, also his Epistolary and Oratorical Style
CLAUDIUS'S EDICT ABOUT CERTAIN TYROLESE TRIBES
Published at the Residence at Baiae in the year of the Consulship of Marcus Junius Silanus and of Quintus Sulpicius Camerius, on the fifteenth day of March, by order of Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus.
Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, High Pontiff, Protector of the People for the sixth time, Emperor, Father of the Country, Consul-Elect for the fourth time, issues the following official statement:
As regards certain ancient controversies, the settlement of which had already been left pending for some years when my uncle Tiberius was Emperor: my uncle had sent one Pinarius Apollinaris to inquire into such of these' controversies as concerned the Comensians (so far as I recall) and the Bergalians, but no others; and this Pinarius had neglected his commission because of my uncle's obstinate absence from Rome; and then when my nephew Gaius became Emperor and did not call for any report from him either, he offered none - he was no fool in the circumstances - and after that I had a report from Camurius Statutus to the effect that much of the agricultural and forest land in those parts was really under my own jurisdiction so then, to come down to the present day, I recently sent my good friend Planta Julius there and, when he called a meeting of my governors, both the local governors and those whose districts lay some distance away, he went thoroughly into all these questions and drew his conclusions. I now approve the wording of the following edict which - first justifying it with a lucid report - he has drawn up for my signature; though it embodies wider decisions than Pinarius was called upon to make:
`As regards the position of the Anaunians, the Tulliassians, and the Sindunians, I understand from authoritative sources that some of these have become incorporated in the government of the Southern Tyrol, though not all. Now although I observe that the claims of men of these tribes to Roman citizenship rest on none too secure a foundation, yet, since they may be said to have come into possession of it by squatter's right and to have mixed so closely with the Southern Tyrolese that they could not be separated from them now without serious injury being done to that distinguished body of citizens, I hereby, voluntarily grant - them permission to continue in the enjoyment of the rights which they have assumed. I do this all the more readily because a large number of the men whose legal status is affected are reported to be serving in the Guards Division - a few of them have risen to command companies - and some of their compatriots have been enrolled for jury-service at Rome and are carrying out their duties there.
`This favour carries with it retrospective legal sanction for whatever actions they have performed, and whatever contracts they have entered into under the impression that they were Roman citizens, either among themselves or among the Southern Tyrolese, or in any other circumstances; and such names as they have hitherto borne, as though they were Roman citizens, I hereby permit them to retain.'
SURVIVING FRAGMENTS OF CLAUDIUS'S SPEECH TO THE SENATE, PROPOSING THE-EXTENSION OF THE ROMAN CITIZENSHIP TO THE FRENCH OF THE AUTUN DISTRICT
I must beg you in advance, my Lords, to revise your first shocked impressions, on listening to the proposal I am about to make, that it is a most revolutionary one: such feelings, I foresee, will be the strongest obstacle which I shall encounter to-day. Perhaps the best way for me to negotiate this obstacle is to remind you how many changes have been made in our constitution in the course of Roman history, how extremely plastic, indeed, it has proved from the very beginning.
At one time Rome was ruled by kings, yet the monarchy never became hereditary. Strangers won the crown, and even foreigners: such as Romulus's successor, King Numa, who was a native of Sabinum (then still a foreign state though lying so close to Rome), and Tarquin the First, who succeeded Ancus Martins. Tarquin was of far from distinguished birth - his father was Demarathus, a Corinthian, and his mother was so poor that though she came of the noble Tarquin family she was forced to marry below her; so being debarred from holding honourable office at Corinth, Tarquin came here and was elected king. He and his son, or perhaps his grandson - historians are unable to agree even on this point - were succeeded by Servius Tullius, who, according to Roman accounts, was the son of Ocresia, a captive woman. Etruscan records make him the faithful companion of the Etruscan Caele Vipinas and sharer in all his misfortunes: they say that when Caele had been defeated, Servius Tullius left Etruria with the remnants of Caele's army
and seized the Caelian hill yonder, which he named after their former commander. He then changed his Etruscan name - it was Macstrna to Tullius, and won the Roman crown, and made a very good king too. Later,
