I, Claudius - Robert Graves [195]
He looked at me, uncomfortably, through narrowed eyelids. "Do you think I'm mad?" he asked, after a time.
I laughed nervously. "Mad, Caesar? You ask whether I think you mad? Why, you set the standard of sanity for the whole habitable world."
"It's a very difficult thing, you know, Claudius,'' he said confidentially, "to be a God in human disguise. I've often thought I was going mad. They say that the hellebore Cure at Anticyra is very good. What do you think of it?"
I said: "One of the greatest Greek philosophers, though I can't remember now which of them it was, took the hellebore cure just to make his clear brain still clearer. But if you are asking me to advise you, I should say, "Don't take it. Your brain is as clear as a pool of rock-water."
"Yes," he said. "but I wish I could get more than three hours' sleep a night."
"Those three hours are because of your mortal disguise, "I said. "Undisguised Gods never sleep at all."
So he was comforted and the next day drew up his army in order of battle on the sea-front: archers and slingers in front, then the auxiliary Germans armed with assegais, then the main Roman forces, with the French in the rear.
The cavalry were on the wings and the siege-engines, mangonels and catapults, planted on sand-dunes. Nobody knew what on earth was going to happen. He rode forward into the sea as far as Penelope's knees and cried: "Neptune, old enemy, defend yourself. I challenge you to mortal fight. You treacherously wrecked my father's fleet, did you? Try your might on me, if you dare." Then he quoted from Ajax's wrestling match with Ulysses, in Homer: Or let me lift thee, Chief, or lift thou me.
Prove we our force,..
A little wave came rolling past. He cut at it with his sword and laughed contemptuously. Then he coolly retired and ordered the "general engagement" to be sounded. The archers shot, the slingers slung, the javelin-men threw their javelins; the regular infantry waded into the waters as far as their arm-pits and hacked at the little waves, the cavalry charged on either flank and swam out some way, slashing with their sabres, the mangonels hurled rocks and the catapults huge javelins and iron-tipped beams. Caligula then put to sea in a war-vessel and anchored just out of range of the missiles, uttering absurd challenges to Neptune and spitting far out over the vessel's side. Neptune made no attempt to defend himself or to reply, except that one man was nipped by a lobster, and another stung by a jelly-fish.
Caligula finally had the rally blown and told his men to wipe the blood off their swords and gather the spoil. The spoil was the sea-shells on the beach. Each man was expected to collect a helmet-full, which was added to a general heap. The shells were then sorted and packed in boxes to be sent to Rome in proof of this unheard-of victory.
The troops thought it great fun, and when he rewarded them with four gold pieces a man cheered him tremendously. As a trophy of victory he built a very high lighthouse, on the model of the famous one at Alexandria, which has since proved a great blessing to sailors in those dangerous waters.
He then marched up the Rhine again. When we reached Bonn Caligula took me aside and whispered darkly: "The regiments have never been punished for the insult they once paid me by mutinying against my father, during my absence from this Camp. You remember, I had to come back and restore order for him."
"I remember perfectly." I said. "But that's rather long ago, isn't it? After twenty-six years there can't be many men still serving in the ranks who were then there. You and Cassius Chsrea are probably the only two veteran survivors of that dreadful day."
"Perhaps I shall only decimate them, then," he said.
The men of the First and Twentieth Regiments were ordered to attend a special assembly and told that they might leave their arms behind, because of the hot weather.
The Guards cavalry were also ordered to attend but instructed to bring their lances as well as their sabres. I found a sergeant who looked as though he might have fought at Philippi, he was so old and scarred. I said, "Sergeant, do you know who I am?"