I, Claudius - Robert Graves [206]
Mnester shouted: "He's not dead, Citizens. Far from it. The assassins set on him and beat him to his knees, so! But he presently rose again, so! Swords cannot prevail against our Divine Caesar. Wounded and bloody as he was he rose. So! He lifted his august head and walked, so! with divine stride through the ranks of his cowardly and baffled assassins. His wounds healed, a miracle! He is now in the Market Place loudly and eloquently haranguing his subjects from the Oration Platform."
A mighty cheer arose and the Germans sheathed their swords and marched out. Mnester's timely lie [prompted, as a matter of fact, by a message from Herod Agrippa, King of the Jews, the only man in Rome who kept his wits about him that fateful afternoon had saved sixty thousand lives or more].
But the real news had by now reached the Palace, where it caused the most utter confusion. A few old soldiers thought that the opportunity for looting was too good to be missed. They would pretend to be looking for the assassins. Every room in the Palace had a golden door-knob, each worth six months' pay, easy enough to hack off with a sharp sword. I heard the cries, "Kill them, kill thcm! Avenge Caesar!" and hid behind a curtain. Two soldiers came in. They saw my feet under the curtain. "Come out of there, assassin. No use hiding from us."
I came out and fell on my face. "Don't k-k-k-k-kill me, Lords," I said. "I had n-nothing to d-d-d-d-do with it."
"Who's this old gentleman?" asked one of the soldiers who was new at the Palace. "He doesn't look dangerous."
"Why! Don't you know? He's Germanicus' invalid brother. A decent old stick. No harm in him at all. Get up, sir. We won't hurt you." This soldier's name was Gratus.
They made me follow them downstairs again into the banqueting-hall where the sergeants and corporals were holding a council-of-war. A young sergeant stood on a table waving his arms and shouting, "Republic be hanged! A new Emperor's our only hope. Any Emperor so long as we can persuade the Germans to accept him."
"Incitatus," someone suggested, guffawing.
"Yes, by God! Better the old nag than no Emperor at all. We want someone immediately, to keep the Germans quiet. Otherwise they'll run amok."
My two captors pushed their way through the crowd dragging me behind them. Gratus called out, "Hey, Sergeant! Look whom we have here! A bit of luck, I think. It's old Claudius. What's wrong with old Claudius for Emperor? The best man for the job in Rome, though he do limp and stammer a bit."
Loud cheers, laughter, and cries of "Long live the Emperor Claudius!" The Sergeant apologised. "Why sir, we all thought you were dead. But you're our man, all right. Push him up, lads, where we can all see him!" Two burly corporals caught me by the legs and hoisted me on their shoulders. "Long live the Emperor Claudiusl"
"Put me down," I cried furiously. "Put me down! I don't want to be Emperor. I refuse to be Emperor. Long live the Republic!"
But they only laughed. "That's a good one. He doesn't want to be Emperor, he says. Modest, eh?"
"Give me a sword," I shouted. "I'll kill myself sooner."
Messalina came hurrying towards us. "For my sake, Claudius, do what they ask of you. For our child's sake!
We'll all be murdered if you refuse. They've killed Caesonia already. And they took her little girl by the feet and bashed out her brains against a wall."
"You'll be all right, sir, once you get accustomed to it,"
Gratus said, grinning. "It's not such a bad life, an Emperor's isn't."
I made no more protests. What was the use of struggling against Fate? They hurried me out into the Great Court, singing the foolish hymn of hope composed at Caligula's accession, "Germanicus is come Again, To Free the City from her Pain." For I had the surname Germanicus too.
They forced me to put on Caligula's golden oak-leaf chaplet, recovered from one of the looters. To steady myself I had to cling tightly to the corporals' shoulders. The chaplet kept slipping over one ear. How foolish I felt. They say that I looked like a criminal being hauled away to execution.