I, Claudius - Robert Graves [142]
"All right," I said. "I'll do it."
"You don't sound very grateful."
"It's not ingratitude. You have taken great trouble on my account and I don't know how to thank you properly.
I was only feeling rather nervous. From what I know of Elia, she's rather critical, if you understand what I mean."
He burst out laughing. "She has a tongue like a sacking needle. But surely by now you're hardened against mere scolding? Your mother has given you a good enough training, hasn't she?"
"I am still a little thin-skinned," I said, "in places."
"Well, I mustn't stay here any longer, my dear Claudius.
Tiberius will be wondering where I've gone. So it's a bargain?"
"Yes, and I thank you very much."
"Oh, by the way, it was Urgulanilla, wasn't it, who killed poor Apronia? I rather expected a tragedy. Urgulanilla had a letter from Numantina begging her to avenge her. Numantina didn't really write it, you understand."
"I know nothing. I was sound asleep at the time."
"Like Plautius?"
"Sounder even than Plautius."
"Sensible fellow! Well, good-bye, Claudius."
"Good-bye, Elius Sejanus." He rode off.
I divorced Urgulanilla, after first writing to my grandmother for permission. Livia wrote that the child should be exposed as soon as born; this was her wish and the wish of Urgulania.
I sent a reliable freedman to Urgulanilla at Herculaneum to tell her the orders I had been given, warning her that if she wanted the child to live she must exchange it, as soon as born, for a dead baby; I had to have a baby of sorts to expose, and so long as it wasn't too long dead, any dead baby would serve the purpose. So the child was saved that way and later Urgulanilla took it back from its foster parents, from whom she had got the dead baby. I don't know what happened to Boter, but the child, who was a girl, grew up the living image of Numantina, they say. Urgulanilla has been dead many years now. When she died they had to break down a wall to get her enormous body out of the house—and it was all honest bulk, not dropsy. In her will she paid a curious tribute to me: "I don't care what people say, but Claudius is no fool." She left me a collection of Greek gems, some Persian embroideries, and her portrait of Numantina.
XXIV
TIBERIUS AND LIVIA NEVER MET NOW. Livia had offended Tiberius by dedicating a statue to Augustus in their joint names and putting her name first. He retaliated by doing the one thing that she could not even pretend to forgive—when ambassadors came to him from Spain asking that they might erect a temple to him and his mother he refused on behalf of both. He told the Senate that he had, perhaps in a moment of weakness, allowed the dedication of a temple in Asia to the Senate and its leader [namely, himself]—together symbolizing the paternal government of Rome. His mother's name also occurred in the dedicatory inscription as High Priestess of the cult of Augustus. But to assent to the deification of himself and his mother would be carrying indulgence too far.
"For myself, my Lords, that I am a mortal man, that I am bound by the trammels of human nature, and that I fill the principal place among you to your satisfaction—if I do—I solemnly assure you is quite enough for me: this is how I prefer to be remembered by posterity. If posterity believes me to have been worthy of my ancestors, watchful of your interest, unmoved in dangers and, in defence of the commonwealth, fearless of private enmities, I will be sufficiently remembered. The loving gratitude of the Senate and people of Rome and or our allies is the fairest temple I would raise—a temple not of marble but more enduring than marble, a temple of the heart. Marble temples, when the hallowed beings to whom they are raised fall into disrepute, are despised as mere sepulchres. I therefore invoke Heaven to grant me until the end of my life an untroubled spirit and the power of clear discernment in all duties human and sacred: and therefore too I implore our citizens and allies that whenever dissolution comes to this mortal body of mine, they will celebrate my life and deeds [if they are so worthy] with inward thankfulness and praise rather than the outward pomp and temple-building and annual sacrifice. The true love that Rome felt for my father Augustus when he was among us as a man is already obscured both by the awe which his Godhead excites in the religious-minded and by the indiscriminate use of his name as a market-place oath. And while we are on the subject, my Lords, I propose that we henceforth make it a criminal offence to use the sacred name of Augustus for any but the most solemn occasions and that we enforce this law vigourously." No mention of Livia's feelings in the matter. And the day before he had refused to appoint one of her nominees to a vacant Judgeship, unless he were permitted to qualify the appointment with: "This person is the choice of my mother, Livia Augusta, to whose importunities in his interest I have been forced to give way, against my better knowledge of his character and capacities."