I, Claudius - Robert Graves [194]
Bidding always started at the reserve price; for he would nod at some rich Frenchman and say, "I think you said forty thousand gold pieces for that alabaster casket? Thank you. But let's see if we can't do better. Who'll say forty-five thousand?" You can imagine that fear made the bidding brisk. He skinned the whole lot of all they had and celebrated the skinning by a magnificent ten-day festival.
He then continued his progress to the Rhine Provinces.
He swore that he was about to fight a war against the Germans that would only end in their total extermination. He would piously complete the task begun by his grandfather and father. He sent a couple of regiments over the river to locate the nearest enemy. About a thousand prisoners were brought back. Caligula reviewed them and after picking out three hundred fine young men for his bodyguard he lined up the remainder against a cliff. A bald-headed man was at either end of the line. Caligula gave Cassius the order: "Kill them, from bald head to bald head, in vengeance for the death of Varus." The news of this massacre reached the Germans and they withdrew into their thickest forests. Caligula then crossed the river with his entire army and found the countryside deserted. The first day of his march, just to make things more exciting, he ordered some of his German bodyguard into a neighbouring wood, and then had news brought to him at supper that the enemy was at hand. At the head of his "Scouts" and a troop of Guards Cavalry he then dashed out to the attack. He brought back the men as prisoners, loaded with chains and announced a crushing victory against overwhelming odds.
He rewarded his comrades-in-arms with a new sort of military decoration called "The Scouts' Crown", a golden coronet decorated with the Sun, Moon and stars in precious stones.
On the third day the road lay through a narrow pass.
The army had to move in column instead of in skirmishing order. Cassius said to Caligula, "It was in a place rather like this, Caesar, that Varus got ambushed. I shall never forget that day so long as I live—I was marching at the head of my company and had just reached a bend in the road, as it might be this one we are coming to, when suddenly there was a tremendous war-cry, as it might be from that clump of firs yonder, and three or four hundred assegais came whizzing down on us...."
"Quick, my mare!" called Caligula in a panic. "Clear the road!" He sprang from his sedan, mounted Penelope [Incitatus was at Rome, winning races] and galloped back down the column. In four hours' time he was at the bridge again, but found it so choked with baggage-wagons and was in such a hurry to cross that he dismounted and made soldiers hand him in a chair from wagon to wagon until he was safely on the other side. He recalled his army at once, announcing that the enemy were too cowardly to meet him in battle, and that he would therefore seek new conquests elsewhere. When the whole force had reassembled at Cologne he marched down the Rhine and then across to Boulogne, the nearest port to Britain. It so happened that the son of Cymbeline, the King of Britain, had quarrelled with his father and, hearing of Caligula's approach, he fled across the Channel with a few followers and put himself under Roman protection. Caligula, who had already informed the Senate of his total subjugation of Germany, now wrote to say that King Cymbeline had sent his son to acknowledge Roman suzerainty over the entire British archipelago from the Scilly Islands to the Orkneys.
I was with Caligula throughout this expedition and had a very difficult time trying to humour him. He complained of sleeplessness and said that his enemy Neptune was plaguing him all the time with sea-noises in his ears, and used to come by night and threaten him with a trident. I said: "Neptune? I wouldn't allow myself to be browbeaten by that saucy fellow if I were you. Why don't you punish him as you punished the Germans? You threatened him once before, I remember, and if he continues to flout you, it would be wrong to stretch your clemency any further."