to the goddess Fides, his right hand covered with a white cloth. Some months after Messalina’s death, he had explained that he could not live without a wife and had chosen the most noble woman in Rome as his consort, his own niece Agrippina, the same person whose son Lucius Domitius had once sought my friendship.
New laws permitting incest were necessary for this marriage, but the Senate had willingly obliged. The most farsighted of the senators had begged Claudius to take back his sacred promise and benefit the state by marrying again. In Rome everything had been turned upside-down in a very short time. Vespasian was being careful not to burn his fingers in this mess.
“Agrippina is a beautiful and wise woman,” he said. “She will certainly have learned much from the bitter experiences of her youth and her first two marriages. I only hope she’ll be a good stepmother to Britannicus. Then she won’t abandon my son Titus, although I made the mistake of leaving him with Messalina when I went to war.”
Vespasian realized that with the completion of my book, I had had enough of Britain and was longing to return to Rome. The book had to be copied. I myself was restless and uncertain. More and more, as the spring in Britain bloomed, I was reminded of Lugunda.
After the feast of Flora, I received a letter in London, written on bark in faulty Latin. In it stood the hope that I should soon return to the Iceni country to take my newborn son on my knee. This astounding news terminated my longing for Lugunda abruptly, and instead roused in me a burning desire to see Rome again. I was still young enough to think that I could rid myself of guilt by changing abode.
Vespasian kindly gave me a courier’s plaque and several letters to take to Rome. Ignoring the high winds, I boarded the ship and on the journey vomited the whole of Britain into the foaming salt sea. More dead than alive, I landed in Gaul, and there is no more to tell about Britain. But I decided never to return there before it was possible to do so on foot. This is one of the decisions of my life I have been able to keep to.
Book IV
It is wonderful to be eighteen when one has risen to the rank of tribune, feels loved by the whole world and can read faultlessly one’s first work to a knowledgeable audience. It was as if Rome, like myself, were experiencing her most wonderful spring; as if her poisoned air had been cleansed when the noble, elegant Agrippina had succeeded the youthful Messalina as Claudius’ wife.
Living a gay life was no longer fashionable. Morals had become purer, for it was said that Agrippina, whenever Claudius was capable of it, sent for the rolls of both knights and senators and ruthlessly struck off the names of all those who were known for their immoral way of life or were guilty in other ways. Claudius, as usual, saw to his office of Censor, sighing heavily at his duties but gratefully accepting suggestions from a good and politically experienced woman.
Thanks to her, Claudius also attempted to pull himself together. His freedmen, especially his secretary Narcissus and treasurer, Procurator Pallas, were once again in his good graces. Pallas, exhausted by the demands of his office, was forced to consult with the indefatigable Agrippina for nights on end.
When I myself met Agrippina again, I thought she had acquired a new gentleness and beauty. She took the trouble to take me with her to the school at Palatine, summoning Vespasian’s son Titus to her and caressing her stepson, Britannicus, gently on the head. Britannicus seemed sullen and withdrawn for his nine years, but that was not surprising, as he missed his beautiful mother a great deal and not even the most loving attentions from a stepmother could compensate. When we left, Agrippina told me that Britannicus, to the sorrow of his father, suffered from epilepsy and so could not do physical exercises. The boy was especially affected at full moon and needed careful watching.
Even more enthusiastically, Agrippina took me to a sunny part of
Palatine to see her own family, the handsome, dashing Lucius Domitius, and introduce me to his tutor. One of the first of Agrippina’s actions after coming to power had been to summon Annaeus Seneca back from exile and ask him to take charge of her son’s education. Seneca’s stay in Corsica had obviously done him good and also cured his tuberculosis, whatever he may have said about his exile in his letters. He was about forty-five, a plump man, who greeted me in a friendly way. I saw from his soft red boots that he had also been made a senator.
Lucius Domitius surprised me by rushing up and kissing me as if he were meeting a longlost friend. He held my hand and sat beside me, asking about my experiences in Britain and marveling that the Noble Order of Knights at the temple of Castor and Pollux had confirmed my rank of tribune so soon.
Confused by all this graciousness, I took the liberty of mentioning my little book and humbly requesting Seneca to read it, largely to improve the writing of it before I read it in public. Seneca kindly agreed to do this and I visited the Palace several times as a result. In his honest opinion, my presentation lacked fluency, but he admitted that there was a place for a dry and factual style as I was mostly describing the geography and history of the Britons, their tribal customs, religious beliefs and their way of waging war. Lucius liked to read my book aloud to show me how one should read. He had an unusually fine voice and such an ability to become absorbed in a subject that I too became absorbed, as if my book were exceptionally remarkable.
“If you were to read it,” I said, “then my future would be assured.”
In the refined atmosphere of the Palace I felt I had had enough of the dreary life of camps and the crude habits of the legion. I was delighted to become Lucius’ pupil when he wished to teach me the pleasing gestures suited to an author reading out his work. On his advice, I went to the theater and often accompanied him on his walks in the Lucullus gardens on the Pincian hill which his mother had inherited from Messalina. Lucius used to run along, chattering away, but always paying attention to his movements. He might suddenly stop, as if in deep thought, and make such profound remarks that it was hard to believe he was so young that his voice had not yet broken. One could not help liking him, if he wished to please. And it was as if he needed to please everyone he met after his joyless childhood, even slaves. Seneca had taught him that slaves were also human beings, just as my father had taught me in Antioch.
It was as if this same atmosphere had spread from Palatine over the whole of Rome. Even Tullia received me in a friendly manner and did not try to stop me seeing my father when I wanted to. She dressed carefully now, as befitted the wife of a Roman senator with legal rights of a mother of three children, and she wore far fewer jewels than before.
My father took me by surprise. He was much thinner and less breathless and moody than before I had gone to Britain. Tullia had bought him a Greek physician educated in Alexandria whom my father had, of course, soon freed. The physician had ordered baths and massage for him, persuaded him to drink less and do ball exercises for a short time every day, so that now he wore his purple band with considerable dignity. His reputation for wealth and good humor had spread throughout Rome, so that groups of clients and people seeking help crowded into his hall every morning. He helped many people, but he refused to recommend anyone for citizenship, although as a senator he had a right to.
But it is about Claudia I must relate, however reluctantly and guiltily I went to see her. Outwardly she had not changed a bit. Nevertheless, I seemed at first to be looking at a stranger. She gave me a delighted smile to begin with and then her mouth narrowed and her eyes darkened.
“I’ve had bad dreams about you,” she said. “I see they were true. You are not the same as before, Minutus.”
“How could I be the same,” I cried, “after spending two years in Britain, writing a book, killing barbarians and earning my red plumes? You live in the country as if on a duck pond. You can’t expect the same of me.”
But Claudia looked in my eyes and raised her hand to touch my cheek.
“You know perfectly well what I mean, Minutus,” she said. “But I was stupid to have expected you to keep a promise which no man could keep.”
I should have been wiser if I had been angry at her words, broken off with her there and then and gone my way. It is much easier to be angry when one is in the wrong. But instead, when I saw her deep disappointment I took her in my arms, kissed her and caressed her, and was seized by the need to tell at least one person in the world about Lugunda and my experiences.
