As you may have guessed, the most painful consideration of all was that my little Britannicus and Octavia were perhaps, after all, not my children. Octavia, I was convinced, was not my child. She did not resemble the Claudian side of the family in the slightest. I looked at her a hundred times before I suddenly realized who her father must have been the Commander of the Germans under Caligula. I remembered now that when, a year after the amnesty, he had disgraced himself and lost his position and finally sunk so low that he became a sword-fighter, Messalina had pleaded for his life in the arena (he was disarmed and a net-man was standing over him with his trident raised) - pleaded for the wretch's life against the protests of the entire audience, who were yelling and booing and turning their thumbs down. I let him off, because she said that it would be bad for her health if I refused: this was just before Octavia's birth. However, a few months later he fought the same net-man and was killed at once.
Britannicus was a true Claudian and a noble little fellow, but the horrible thought came into my mind that he resembled my brother Germanicus far too closely. Could it be that Caligula was really his father? He had nothing of Caligula's nature, but heredity often skips a generation. The notion haunted me.. I could not rid myself of it for a long time. I kept him out of my sight as much as possible without seeming to disown him. He and Octavia must have suffered much at this time. They had been greatly attached to their mother, so I had given instructions that they should not be told in detail about her crimes; they were merely to know that their mother was dead. But they soon found out that she had been executed by my orders, and naturally they felt a childish resentment of me. But I could not yet bring myself to talk to them about it.
I have explained that my freedmen formed a very close guild and that a man who offended one of them offended all, and that a man who was taken under the protection of one enjoyed the favour of all. In this they set a good example to the Senate, but the Senate did not follow it, being always torn into factions and only united in their common servility to me. And though now, three months after Messalina's death, a rivalry started between my three chief ministers, Narcissus, Pallas, and Callistus, it had been agreed beforehand that the successful one would not use the strong position that he would win by pleasing me as a means of humiliating the other two. You would never guess what the rivalry was about. It was about choosing a fourth wife for me! `But,' you will exclaim, `I thought you gave the Guards full permission to chop you in pieces with their swords if you ever married again?' I did. But that was before I took my fateful decision, sitting there under the cedar in the Gardens of Lucullus. For now I had made up my mind, and once I do that, the thing is fixed with a nail. I set my freedmen a sort of guessing-game as to what my marital intentions were. It was a joke, for I had already chosen the lucky woman. I started them off one night-by remarking casually at supper: `I ought to do something better for little Octavia than put her in charge of freedwomen. I hanged all the maids who understood her ways, poor child. And I can't expect my daughter Antonia to look after her: Antonia's been very poorly ever since her own baby died.'
Vitellius said: 'No, what little Octavia needs is a mother. And so does Britannicus, though it's easier for a boy than a girl to look after himself.'
I made no answer, so everyone present knew that I was thinking of marrying again, and everyone knew too how easily I had been managed by Messalina, and thought that if he were the man to find me a wife-his fortune was made. Narcissus, Pallas, and
Callistus each offered a candidate in turn,: as soon as a favourable moment came for talking to me privately. It was most interesting to me to watch how their minds worked. Callistus remembered that Caligula had forced a Governor of Greece to divorce his wife, Lollia Paulina, and then married her himself (as his third wife) because someone had told him at a banquet that she was the most beautiful woman in the Empire: and he remembered further that this someone had been myself. He thought that since Lollia Paulina had not lost any of her looks in the ten years that had passed since, but had rather improved them, he was pretty safe in-suggesting her. He did so the very next day. I smiled and promised to give the matter my careful consideration.
Narcissus was next. He asked me first who it was that Callistus had suggested and when I told him `Lollia Paulina', he exclaimed that she would never suit me. She cared for nothing but jewels. `She never goes about with less than thirty thousand gold pieces around her neck in emeralds or rubies or pearls, never the same assortment either, and she's as stupid and obstinate as a miller's mule. Caesar, the one woman for you really, as we both know is Calpurnia. But you can hardly marry a prostitute:' it wouldn't look well. My suggestion therefore is that you marry some noblewoman just as a matter of form, but live with Calpurnia, as you did before you met Messalina, and enjoy real happiness for the rest of your life.'
`Whom do you suggest as my matter-of-form wife?'
'Aelia Paetina. After you divorced her she married again, you remember. Recently she lost her husband, and he left her very badly off. It would be a real charity to marry her.'
`But her tongue, Narcissus?'
'She's chastened by misfortune. That legal tongue of hers will never be heard again, I undertake that. I'll warn her about it and explain the conditions of marriage. She'll be paid all the respect due to her as your wife, and as your daughter Antonia's mother, and have a large private income, but she must sign a contract to behave like a deaf-mute in your presence, and not to be jealous of Calpurnia. How's that?'
'I shall give the matter my careful consideration, my dear Narcissus.'
But it was Pallas who made the correct guess. It was either extraordinarily stupid of him or extraordinarily clever. How could he suppose that I would do anything so monstrous as to marry my niece, Agrippinilla? In the first. place, the marriage would be incestuous in the second place she was the mother of Lucius Domitius, to whom I had taken the most violent dislike; in the third place, now that Messalina was dead, she could claim the title of the worst woman in Rome. Even in Messalina's lifetime it would have been a very nice question how to decide between these two: they were equally vicious, and if Messalina had been more promiscuous than Agrippinilla, she had at least never committed incest, as Agrippinilla, to my own knowledge, had. But Agrippinilla had one lonely virtue - she was very brave, while Messalina, as we have seen, was a coward. Pallas suggested Agrippinilla, with the same proviso that Narcissus had made, namely, that it need only be a marriage of form: I could keep any mistress I pleased. Agrippinilla, he said, was the only woman in Rome capable of taking over Messalina's political work, and would be a real-help to me.
I promised to give the matter my careful consideration.
I then arranged a regular debate between Callistus, Narcissus, and Pallas, after first giving them time to sound the willingness of their candidates to stand for the office of Caesar's wife. I called in Vitellius as umpire and the debate took place a few days later. Narcissus, in recommending Aelia, argued that by resuming an old connexion I should introduce no innovation into the family, and that she would be a good mother to little Octavia and to Britannicus, to whom she was already related by being the mother of their half-sister Antonia.
Callistus reminded Narcissus that Aelia had long been divorced from me, and suggested that if she was taken back her pride' would be inflamed and she would probably revenge herself privately on Messalina's children. Lollia was a much more eligible match: nobody could deny that she was the most beautiful woman in the world, and virtuous too.
Pallas opposed both choices. Aelia was an old shrew, he said, and Lollia a vacant-minded simpleton who went about looking like a jeweller's shop and would expect a whole new set of gewgaws, at the expense of the Treasury, as regularly as the sun rose. No, the only possible choice was the Lady Agrippina. [It was only I who still called her by the diminutive `Agrippinilla.'] She would bring with her the grandson of Germanicus, who was in every way worthy of the Imperial fortune; and it was of great political importance that a woman who had shown herself fruitful and was still young should not marry into another house and transfer to it the splendours of the Caesars.
I could see Vitellius sweating hard, trying to guess from my looks which of the three it was that I favoured, and wondering whether perhaps it would not be better to suggest a quite different name himself. But he guessed correctly, perhaps from the order in which I had given my freedmen leave to speak. He took a deep breath and said: `Between three such beautiful, wise, well-born, and distinguished candidates, I find it as difficult to judge as the Trojan shepherd, Paris, between the three Goddesses Juno, Venus, and Minerva. Let me keep this figure, which is a helpful one. Aelia Paetina stands for Juno. She has already been married and had a child by the Emperor; but as Jove was displeased with Juno, though she was the mother of Hebe, for her nagging tongue, so has the Emperor been displeased by Aelia Paetina, and we want no more domestic wars in this terrestrial Heaven of ours. It is claimed for Lollia Paulina that she is a very Venus, and certainly Paris awarded the prize to Venus; but Paris was an impression - able young swain, you will remember, and beauty unallied with intelligence can have no appeal for a mature ruler with great marltal as well as governmental experience. Agrippinilla is Minerva, for wisdom, and she
