yields little, if anything, to Lollia for beauty. The Emperor's wife should have both good looks and outstanding intelligence: my choice is Agrippinilla.'
As though I had only just considered the matter I protested: `But, Vitellius, she's my niece. I can't marry my niece, can I?'
'If you wish me to approach the Senate, Caesar, I can undertake to obtain their consent. It's irregular, of course, but I can take the same line as you took the other day in your speech about the Autun franchise: I can point out that the marriage laws at Rome have become more and more plastic in course of time. A hundred years ago, for instance, it would have been considered monstrous for first cousins to marry, but now it is regularly done even in the best families. And why shouldn't uncle and niece marry? The Parthians do it, and theirs is a very old civilization. And in the Herod family there have been more marriages between uncle and niece than any other sort.'
`That's right,' I said. `Herodias married her uncle Philip, and then deserted him and ran off with her uncle Antipas. And Herod Agrippa's daughter Berenice married her uncle Herod Pollio, King of Chalcis, and now she's supposed to be living incestuously with her brother, young Agrippa. Why shouldn't the Caesars be as free as the Herods?'
Vitellius looked surprised but said quite seriously: `Incest between brother and sister is another matter. I cannot make out a' case for that. But it may well be that our very earliest ancestors allowed uncle and niece to marry; because there is nowhere any disgust expressed in ancient classical literature for Pluto's marriage with his niece Proserpine.'
`Pluto was a God;' I said. `But then, it seems, so am I now. Pallas, what does my niece Agrippinilla herself think about the matter?'
`She will be greatly honoured and altogether overjoyed, Caesar,' ' said Pallas, hardly able to conceal his elation. `And she is ready to swear that she will faithfully devote herself as long as she lives entirely: to you, your children, and the Empire.'
`Bring her to me.'
When Agrippinilla arrived she fell at my feet; I told her to rise and said that I was prepared to marry her, if she wished it. She° embraced me passionately, for answer, and said this was the happiest moment of her life. I believed her. Why not? She would now be able to rule the world through me.
Agrippinilla was no Messalina. Messalina had the gift of surrendering herself wholly to sensual pleasure. In this she took after her great-grandfather, Mark Antony. Agrippinilla was not that sort of woman. She took after her great-grandmother, the Goddess Livia: she cared only for power. Sexually, as I have. said, she was completely immoral; yet she was by no means prodigal of her favours. She only slept with men who could be useful to her politically. I have, for instance, every reason to suspect that she rewarded Vitellius for his gallant championship of her, and I know for certain (though I have never told her so) that Pallas was then, and is now, her lover. For Pallas controls the Privy Purse.
So Vitellius made his speech in the Senate (having first arranged a big public demonstration outside) and told them that he had suggested the marriage to me and that I had agreed about its political necessity, but had hesitated to make a definite decision until I had first heard what the Senate and People thought of the innovation. Vitellius spoke with old-fashioned eloquence. `And you will not have long to search, my Lords, before you find that among all the ladies of Rome this Agrippina stands pre-eminent for the splendour of her lineage, has given signal proof of her fruitfulness, and comes up to and even surpasses your requirements in virtuous accomplishments: it is indeed a singularly happy circumstance that, through the providence of the Gods, this paragon among women is a widow and may be readily united with a Person who has always hitherto been a model of husbandly virtue.'
You can perhaps guess how his speech was received. They voted for his motion without a single dissentient voice not by any means because they all loved Agrippinilla, but because nobody dared to earn her resentment now that it seemed likely that she would become my wife - and several senators sprang up in emulous zeal and said that if necessary they would compel me to bow to the consentient will of the whole country. I received their greetings and pleadings, and. congratulations in the Market Place and then proceeded to the Senate, where I demanded the passing of a decree permanently legalizing marriages between uncles and fraternal nieces. They passed it. At the New Year I married Agrippinilla. Only one person took advantage of the new law, a knight who had been a Guards captain. Agrippinilla paid him well for it.
I made a statement to the Senate about my temple in Britain. I explained that my deification had come about accidentally, and apologized to my fellow-citizens. But perhaps they would forgive me and confirm the incongruity in view of the political danger of cancelling it. `Britain is far away, and it is only a little temple,' I pleaded ironically._ `A tiny rustic temple with a mud floor and a turf roof, like the ones in which the Gods of Rome lived, back in Republican times, before the God Augustus rehoused them in their present palatial splendour. Surely you won't object to one little temple, so far away, and an old priest or two, and an occasional modest sacrifice? For my part I never intended to be a God. And I give you my word that it will be my only one....' But nobody, it seemed, grudged me the temple.
After closing the census I had not taken on the office of Censor again, but as a prelude to my: restoration of the Republic had given the appointment to Vitellius. It was the first time for a century that the control of public morals had been out of the hands of the Caesars. One of Vitellius's first acts after arranging my marriage with Agrippinilla was to remove from the Senatorial Order one of the first-rank magistrates of the year, none other than my son-in-law, young Silanus! The reason he gave was Silanus's incest with his sister Calvina, who had been his own daughter-in-law, but had lately. been divorced by her husband, young Vitellius. Vitellius explained that his son had surprised the two in bed together some time before and had told him of it under the bonds of secrecy; but now that he had become Censor he could not con= scientiously conceal Silanus's guilt. I examined the case myself. Silanus and Calvina denied the charge, but it seemed proved beyond all dispute, so I dissolved the marriage- contract between Silanus and my daughter Octavia (or rather Messalina's daughter Octavia) and made him resign this magistracy. It had only a single day to run, but to show how strongly I felt I gave someone else the appointment for the last day. Of course Vitellius would never have dared to reveal the, incest if it had not been for Agrippinilla. Silanus stood in the way of her ambitions: she wanted her son Lucius to become my son-in-law. Well, I had been fond of Silanus, and, after all, he was a descendant of the God Augustus; so I told him that I would postpone judgement in his case - meaning that I expected him, to commit suicide. He delayed for some time, and eventually chose my, wedding-day for the deed; which was not inappropriate. Calvina I banished and advised the College of Pontiffs to offer sacrifices and atonements at the Grove of Diana, in revival of a picturesque institution of Tullus Hostilius, the third King of Rome.
Baba and Augurinus were in great form about this time. They parodied everything I did. Baba introduced three new letters into the alphabet: one to stand for a hawk of phlegm, one for the noisy sucking of teeth, and the third for `the indeterminate vowel halfway between a hiccup and a belch. He divorced the enormous negress who had hitherto acted the part of Messalina, whipped her through the streets and went through a mock ceremony of marriage with a cross-eyed albino woman whom he claimed to be his fraternal niece. He took a census of beggars, thieves, and vagabonds and removed from the Society all who had ever done a stroke of honest work in their lives. One of his jokes was resigning. his censorship and appointing Augurinus as his successor for the unexpired period of his office - exactly one hour by the waterclock. Augurinus boasted of all the glorious things that he professed to do in the hour. His one complaint was that Baba's waterclock didn't keep good time: he wanted to go off and fetch his own, which had hours that lasted at least three times as long. But Baba, imitating my: voice and gestures, quoted a phrase I had recently used in the law-courts, and was rather proud of, `One can
expect agreement between philosophers sooner than between clocks', and refused to let him go. Augurinus insisted that fair was fair; if he was going to be Censor, he needed a full hour of regulation size and weight. They carried on the argument hotly until Augurinus's term of office ended suddenly with nothing done. `And I was going to dip you in boiling tar and then fry you within an inch of your life, according to a picturesque institution of King Tullus Hostilius,' Augurinus grieved.
I allow Baba and Augurinus perfect freedom to parody and caricature me. They draw great audiences in their performances outside the Temple of Mercury: Mercury is, of course, the patron of thieves and practical jokers. Agrippinilla was highly offended by the insult to her of Baba's marriage to the albino, but I surprised her by-telling her firmly: `So long as I live Baba's life is to be spared, understand and Augurinus's too.'
`Exactly so long, to the very hour,'' Agrippina agreed in her most unpleasant tones.
There was a plague of vipers this year: I published an order informing the public of an infallible remedy against snake-bite, namely, the juice of a yew-tree. Augurinus and Baba republished it with the addition of the
