I, Claudius - Robert Graves [168]
Meanwhile, Tiberius' pulse nearly stopped and he lapsed into a coma. The physician told Macro that two days more, at the outside, were all that he had to live. So the whole Court was in a great bustle. Macro and Caligula were in perfect accord. Caligula respected Macro's popularity with the Guards, and Macro respected Caligula's popularity with the nation as a whole: each counted on the other's support. Besides, Macro was indebted to Caligula for his rise to power, and Caligula was carrying on an affair with Macro's wife, which Macro had been good enough to overlook. Tiberius had already commented sourly on Macro's cultivation of Caligula, saying, "You do well to desert the setting for the rising sun." Macro and Caligula began sending off messages to the commanders of different regiments and armies to tell them that the Emperor was sinking fast and had appointed Caligula as his successor: he had given him his signet ring. It was true that Tiberius in a lucid interval had called for Caligula and drawn the ring off his finger. But he had changed his mind and put the ring back on again and then clasped his hands tightly together as if to prevent anyone from robbing him of it. When he relapsed into unconsciousness and gave no further signs of life Caligula had quietly pulled the ring off and was now strutting about, flashing it in the faces of everyone he met and accepting congratulations and homage. But Tiberius was not yet dead even now. He groaned, stirred, sat up and called for his valets. He was weak because of his long fast, but otherwise quite himself. It was a trick that he had played before, to seem dead and then to come to life again. He called once more. Nobody heard him. The valets were all in the buttery, drinking Caligula's health. But soon an enterprising slave happened to come along to see what he could steal from the death-chamber in their absence. The room was dark and Tiberius frightened him nearly out of his senses by suddenly shouting: "Where in Hell's name are the valets? Didn't they hear me call? I want bread and cheese, an omelette, a couple of beef cutlets, and a drink of Chianwine at once! And a thousand Furies! Who's stolen my ring?" The slave dashed out of the room and nearly ran into Macro, who was passing.
"The Emperor's alive, sir, and calling for food and his ring." The news ran through the Palace and a ludicrous scene followed. The crowd around Caligula scattered in all directions. Cries went up, "Thank God, the news was false.
Long live Tiberius!" Caligula was in a miserable state of shame and terror. He pulled the ring off his finger and looked around for somewhere to hide it.
Only Macro kept his head. "It's a nonsensical lie," he shouted. "The slave must have lost his wits. Have him crucified, Caesarl We left the old Emperor dead an hour ago." He whispered something to Caligula, who was seen to nod in grateful relief. Then he hurried into Tiberius' room. Tiberius was on his feet, cursing and groaning and tottering feebly towards the door. Macro picked him up in his arms, threw him back on the bed and smothered him with a pillow. Caligula was standing by.
So Arruntius' fellow-prisoners were released, though most of them later wished that they had followed Arruntius' example. There were, besides, about fifty men and women who had been accused of treason in a separate batch from this. They had no influence in the Senate, being mostly shopkeepers who had baulked at paying the "protection money" that Macro's captains now levied on all the City wards. They were tried and condemned and were to be executed on the 16th of March. This was the very day that news came of Tiberius' death, and they, and their friends went nearly mad with joy to think that now they would be saved. But Caligula was away at Misenum and could not be appealed to in time and the prison governor was afraid of losing his job if he took the responsibility of postponing the executions. So they were killed and their bodies thrown on the Stairs in the usual way.
This was the signal for an outburst of popular anger against Tiberius. "He stings like a dead wasp," someone shouted. Crowds gathered at the street corners for solemn condemnation services under the ward-masters, beseeching Mother Earth and the Judges of the Dead to grant the corpse and the ghost of that monster no rest or peace until the day of universal dissolution. Tiberius' body was brought to Rome under a strong escort of Guards. Caligula walked in the procession as a mourner and the whole countryside came flocking to meet him, not in mourning for Tiberius but in holiday clothes, weeping with gratitude that Heaven had preserved a son of Germanicus to rule over them. Old country women cried out, "O our sweet darling, Caligula! Our chicken! Our baby! Our star!" A few miles from Rome he rode ahead to make preparations for the solemn entry of the corpse into the City. But when he had passed, a big crowd gathered and barricaded the Appian Road with planks and blocks of building stone.