I, Claudius - Robert Graves [193]
He was surprised, a few minutes later, to see me come hobbling up the road, and laughed hugely at the stinking muddy mess I was in. "Where have you been, my dear Vulcan?" he called.
I had the answer pat: I felt the Thunderer's might, Hurled headlong downward from th'etherial height Tost all the day in rapid circles round Nor till the sun descended touch'd the ground.
Breathless I fell, in giddy motions lost; The Sinthians raised me on the Lemnian coast.
"For 'Lemnian' read 'Lyonian'," I said. He was sitting on the parapet with my three fellow-envoys lying on the ground face-downwards in a row before him. He had his feet on the necks of two and his swordpoint balanced between the shoulders of the third, Lesbia's husband, who was sobbing for mercy. "Claudius," he groaned, hearing my voice, "beseech the Emperor to set us free: we only came to offer him our loving congratulations."
"I want carts, not congratulations," said Caligula.
It seemed as if Homer had written the passage from which I had just quoted on purpose for this occasion. I said to Lesbia's husband: Be patient and obey.
Dear as you are, if Jove his arm extend
I can but grieve, unable to defend.
What soul so daring in your aid to move
Or lift his hand against the might of Jove?
Caligula was delighted. He said to the three suppliants: "What are your lives worth to you? Fifty thousand gold pieces each?"
"Whatever you say, Caesar," they answered faintly.
"Then pay poor Claudius that sum as soon as you get back to Rome. He's saved your lives by his ready tongue."
So they were allowed to rise and Caligula made them sign a promise, then and there, to pay me one hundred and fifty thousand gold pieces in three months' time. I said to Caligula: "Most gracious Caesar, your need is greater than mine. Will you accept one hundred thousand gold pieces from me, when they pay me, in gratitude for my own salvation? If you condescended to take that gift, I would still have fifty thousand left, which would enable me to pay my initiation fee in full. I have worried a great deal about that debt."
He said, "Anything that I can do that will contribute to your peace of mind!" and called me his Golden Farthing.
So Homer saved me. But Caligula a few days later warned me not to quote Homer again. "He's a most overrated author. I am going to have his poems called in and burned. Why shouldn't I put Plato's philosophical recommendations into practice? You know The Republic? An admirable piece of argument. Plato was for keeping all poets whatsoever out of his ideal state: he said that they were all liars, and so they are."
I asked: "Is your Sacred Majesty going to bum any other poets besides Homer?"
"Oh, indeed, yes. All the over-rated ones. Virgil for a start. He's a dull fellow. Tries to be a Homer and can't do it."
"And any historians?"
"Yes, Livy. Still duller. Tries to be a Virgil and can't do it."
XXXII
HE CALLED FOR THE MOST RECENT OFFICIAL property census and after examining it summoned all the richest men in France to Lyons, so that when the Palace staff arrived there from Rome he would be sure to get good prices for it. Just before the auction started, he made a speech.
He said that he was a poor bankrupt with enormous liabilities, but trusted that, for the sake of the Empire, his affectionate provincial friends and grateful allies would not take advantage of his financial plight. He begged them not to offer less than the true value of 'the family heirlooms which, much to his grief, he was being forced to put up for sale.
There was no ordinary auctioneer's trick that he had not learned, and he invented a great many new ones too beyond the scope of the market-place cheap-jacks from whom he borrowed so much of his patter. For instance, he sold the same article several times over to different buyers with each time a different account of its quality and usefulness and history. And by "true value" he expected bidders to understand "sentimental value" which always turned out to be a hundred times greater than the intrinsic value. For instance he would say: "This was the favourite easy-chair of my great-grandfather Mark Antony"