I, Claudius - Robert Graves [138]
"Wr-r-riting a history of the ancient C-C-C-C-C-Carthaginians, if you please."
"Splendid! And what else? Hurry up with that stammer.
'I'm a busy man."
"At the m-m-moment I'm b-b-b-b—"
"Beginning a history of C-C-C-Cloud C-C-C-Cuckoo Land?"
"N-no, sir, b-b-b-backing Scarlet."
He looked at me very shrewdly and said: "I see, nephew, that you are not altogether a fool. What makes you back Scarlet?"
I was in difficulties, because I couldn't say that Sejanus had given me the tip. So I said: "I dreamed that Leek Green was d-disqualified for using his whip on his c-c-ccompetitors and Scarlet c-c-came in first with Sea-b-b-blue and White nowhere."
He gave me a purse of money and muttered in my ear: "Tell nobody that I'm staking you, but put this on Scarlet and let's see what happens."
It proved to be Scarlet's day, and by betting with young Nero on every race I won close on two thousand gold pieces. That evening I thought it wise to visit Tiberius at the Palace and to say: "Here's the lucky purse, sir, with a family of little purses which it littered during the day."
"All mine?" he exclaimed. "Well, I am in luck. Scarlet’s the colour, eh?"
This was just like my uncle Tiberius. He hadn't made it clear who was to keep the winnings and I had supposed that I was. But if I had lost all the money he would have said something to make me feel in his debt to that amount.
He might at least have given me a commission.
The next time I came up to Rome I found my mother in such a distracted state that I did not dare at first to utter a word in her presence for fear of her flying into a temper and boxing my ears. I gathered that her trouble was connected with Caligula, then aged twelve, and Drusilla, then aged thirteen, who were staying with her. Drusilla was confined to her room without food and Caligula was at liberty but looking thoroughly frightened. He visited me that evening and said: "Uncle Claudius. Beg your mother not to tell the Emperor. We were doing no wrong, I swear.
It was just a game. You can't believe it of us. Say you can't."
When he explained what he did not want told to the Emperor, and swore by his father's honour that he and Drusilla were entirely innocent, I felt bound to do what I could for the children. I went to my mother and said: "Caligula swears you are mistaken. He swears by his father's honour, and if there is the least possible doubt in your mind about his guilt you ought to respect that oath. For my part, I can't believe that a boy of twelve—"
"Caligula's a monster and Drusilla's a she-monster, and you're a blockhead, and I believe my eyes more than their oaths or your nonsense. I shall go to Tiberius the first thing to-morrow."
"But, Mother, if you tell the Emperor, it will not be only those two who will suffer. For once let's talk frankly, and be damned to informers! I may be a blockhead, but you know as well as I do that Tiberius suspects Agrippina of having poisoned Castor to get her elder boys made heirs to the monarchy, and that he lives in terror of a sudden rising in their favour. If you, as their grandmother, accuse these children of incest, do you suppose that he won't find a way of involving the elder members of the family in the charge?"
"You're a blockhead, I say, I can't bear the way your head twitches and your Adam's apple goes up and down."
But I could see that I had made an impression on her, and decided that if I kept out of her sight for the rest of my visit to Rome, so that my presence was not a reminder to her of my advice, it was likely that Tiberius would hear nothing from her about the matter. I packed up a few things and went to my brother-in-law Plautius' house, to ask him to put me up. [By now Plautius was well advanced in his career and in four years would be Consul.] Supper was long over by the time I called and he was reading legal documents in his study. His wife had gone to bed, he said.
I asked, "How is she? She looked rather worried when I saw her last."
He laughed. "Why, you rustic fellow, haven't you heard?
I divorced Numantina a month ago or more. When I said