I, Claudius - Robert Graves [150]
"I have always been taught to believe that they are."
"But the Immortal Gods are free from any fear of punishment, however many crimes they commit?"
"Well, Jove deposed his father and killed one of his grandsons and incestuously married his sister, and... yes, I agree.... They none of them have a good moral reputation. And certainly the Judges of the Mortal Dead have no jurisdiction over them."
"Exactly. You see now why it's all-important for me to become a Goddess. And this, if you must know, is the reason why I tolerate Caligula. He has sworn fhat if I keep his secret he will make a Goddess of me as soon as he's Emperor. And I want you to swear that you'll do all in your power to see that I become a Goddess as soon as possible, because—oh, don't you see?—until he makes me a Goddess I'll be in Hell, suffering the most frightful torments, the most exquisite ineluctable torments."
The sudden change in her voice, from cool Imperial arrogance to terrified pleading, astonished me more than anything I had yet heard. I had to say something so I said: "I don't see what influence poor Uncle Claudius is ever likely to have, either on the Emperor or on the Senate."
"Never mind about what you see or don't see, idiot! Will you swear to do as I ask? Will you swear by your own head?"
I said; "Grandmother, I’ll swear by my head—for what that's worth now—on one condition."
"You dare to make conditions to me?"
"Yes, after the twentieth cup; and it's a simple condition. After thirty-six years of neglect and aversion you surely don't expect me to do anything for you without making conditions, do you?"
She smiled. "And what is this one simple condition?"
"There are a lot of things that I'd like to know about. I want to know, in the first place, who killed my father, and who killed Agrippa, and who killed my brother Germanicus, and who killed my son Drusillus...."
"Why do you want to know all this? Some imbecile hope of avenging their deaths on me?"
"No, not even if you were the murderess. I never take vengeance unless I am forced to do so by an oath or in self-protection. I believe that evil is its own punishment.
All I want now is just to know the truth. I am a professional historian and the one thing that really interests me is to find out how things happen and why. For instance, I write histories more to inform myself than to inform my readers."
"Old Athenodorus has had a great influence on you, I see."
"He was kind to me and I was grateful, so I became a Stoic. I never meddled with philosophical argument—that never appealed to me—but I adopted the Stoic way of looking at things. You can trust me not to repeat a word of what you tell me."
I convinced her that I meant what I said, and so for four hours or more I asked her the most searching questions; and each question she answered without evasion and as calmly as if she had been some country steward relating the minor casualties of the farm-yard to the visiting owner.
Yes, she had poisoned my grandfather, and no, she had not poisoned my father in spite of Tiberius' suspicions—it was a natural gangrene; and yes, she had poisoned Augustus by smearing poison on the figs while they were still on the tree; and she told me the whole Julia story as I have related it, and the whole Postumus story—the details of which I was able to check; and yes, she had poisoned Agrippa and Lucius, as well as Marcellus and Gaius, and yes, she had intercepted my letters to Germanicus, but no, she had not poisoned him—Plancina had done that on her own initiative—but she had marked him out for death as she had marked out my father, and for the same reason.
"What reason was that, Grandmother?"
"He had decided to restore the Republic. No, don't mistake me: not in a way which violated his oath of allegiance to Tiberius, though it meant removing me. He was going to make Tiberius take the step himself voluntarily, and allow him all the credit for it, keeping in the background himself. He nearly persuaded Tiberius. You know what a coward Tiberius is. I had to work hard and forge a lot of documents and tell a lot of lies to keep Tiberius from making a fool of himself. I even had to come to an understanding with Sejanus. This republicanism is a persistent taint in the family. Your grandfather had it."