Claudius the God (51 page)

‘Good. I’m glad ‘you said that.’

‘It was soon afterwards that Asiaticus resigned, and do you remember, then, that he asked the Senate’s permission to visit his estates in France?’

‘Yes, and he was away a long time. Trying to forget Poppaea, I suppose. There are a lot of pretty women in the South of France.’

‘Don’t you believe it. I have been finding out things about Asiaticus. The first thing is that lately he’s been giving large money presents to the Guards captains and sergeants and standard-bearers. He does it, he says, ‘because of his gratitude to them for their loyalty to you. Does that sound right?’

‘Well, he has more money than he knows what to do with,’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. Nobody has more money than they know what to do with. Then the second thing is that he and Poppaea still meet regularly; whenever poor Scipio’s out of town, and spend the night together.’

‘Where do they meet?’

‘At the house of the-Petra brothers. They’re cousins of hers.

The third thing is that Sosibius told me the other day, quite on his own, that he thought it most unwise of you to have allowed Asiaticus to pay so long a visit to his estates in France; When I asked him what he meant, he showed me a letter from a friend of his in Vienne: the friend wrote that Asiaticus had actually spent very little time on his estates. He had gone round visiting the most influential people in the province and had even been for a tour along the Rhine, where he showed great generosity to the officers of the garrison. Then, of course, you must remember that Asiaticus was born at Vienne; and Sosibius says - -‘

‘Call Sosibius at once, ‘Sosibius was the, man I had chosen as Britannicus’s tutor, so you can imagine that I had the greatest confidence in his, judgement. He was an Alexandrian Greek, but had long interested himself in the, study of early Latin authors and was the leading authority on the texts of Ennius: he was so much at home in the Republican period, which he knew far better than any Roman historian, including myself, that I considered that he would be a constant inspiration to my little boy. Sosibius came, and when I questioned him answered very frankly. Yes, he believed Asiaticus to be ambitious and capable of planning a revolution. Hadn’t he once offered himself as a candidate for the monarchy in opposition to me?

‘You forget, Sosibius,’ I said, ‘that those two days have been wiped off the City records by an amnesty.’

‘But Asiaticus was in the plot against your nephew, the late Emperor, and even boasted about it in the Market Place. When a man like that resigns his Consulship for no valid reason and goes off to France, where he already has great influence, and there tries to enlarge that influence by scattering money about, and no doubt saying that he was forced to resign his Consulship because of your jealousy, or because he stood up against you for the-rights of his fellow Frenchmen….

Messalina said: ‘It’s perfectly plain. He has promised Poppaea to marry her, and the only way that he can do that is by, getting rid of you and me. He’ll get leave to go, to France again, and start his revolt there with the native regiments, and then bring the Rhine regiments into it too. And the Guards will be as ready to acclaim him Emperor as they were ready, to acclaim you: it will mean another two hundred gold pieces a man for them.’

‘Who else do you think is in the plot?’

‘Let’s find out all about the Petra brothers. That lawyer Suilius has just been asked to undertake a case for them: and he is one of my best secret agents. If there’s anything against them besides their having-accommodated Poppaea and Asiaticus with a bedroom, Suilius will find it out, you can rely: on that’

‘I don’t like spying. I don’t like Suilius, either.’

‘We have got to defend ourselves, and Suilius is the handiest weapon we have.’

So Suilius was sent for, and a week. later he made his report, which confirmed Messalina’s suspicions. The Petra brothers were certainly in the plot. The elder of them had privately circulated an account of a vision which had appeared to him one early morning between sleeping and waking and which the astrologers had interpreted in an alarming fashion. The vision was of my head severed at the neck and crowned with a wreath of white vine-leaves: the interpretation was that I should die violently at the close of the autumn. The younger brother had been acting as Asiaticus’s go between with the Guards, of which he was a colonel. Apparently associated with Asiaticus and the Petra brothers were two old friends of mine, Pedo Pompey, who used often to play dice with me in the evenings, and Assario, maternal uncle of my son-in-law, young Pompey, who also had free access to the Palace. Suilius suggested that these would naturally have been given the task of murdering me over a friendly game of dice. Then there were Assario’s two nieces, the Tristonia sisters, who had an adulterous association with the Petra brothers.

There was nothing for it, I decided, but to strike first. I sent my Guards Commander, Crispinus, with a company of Guards whose loyalty seemed beyond question, down to Assario’s house at Baiae and there Asiaticus was arrested. He was handcuffed and fettered and brought before me at the Palace. I should, properly, have had him impeached before the Senate, but I could not be sure how far the plot extended. There might be a demonstration in his favour, and I did not wish to encourage that. I tried him in my own study, in the presence of Messalina, Vitellius, Crispinus, young Pompey, and my chief secretaries.

Suilius acted as public prosecutor, and I thought, as Asiaticus faced him, that if ever guilt was written on a man’s features it was written there. But I must admit that Crispinus had not warned him what were the charges against him - I had not even told Crispinus - and there are few men who if suddenly arrested would be able to face their judges with absolute serenity of conscience. I know how badly I once felt myself when I was arrested by Caligula’s orders on the charge of witnessing a forged will. Suilius was indeed a terrible and pitiless accuser: he had a thin, frosty face, white hair, dark eyes, and a long forefinger which probed and darted like a sword. He began with a mild rain of compliments and banter which we all recognized as a prelude to a thunderstorm of rage and invective. First he asked Asiaticus in a mockfriendly conversational tone, exactly when he proposed visiting his ‘French estates again - was it before the vintage? and what had he thought of agricultural conditions in the neighbourhood of Vienne and how had they compared with those of the Rhine valley? ‘But don’t trouble to answer my questions,’ he said. ‘I don’t really wish to know how high the barley grows in Vienne or how loud the cocks crow there, any more than you really wished to know yourself.’ Then about his presents to the Guards: how loyal Asiaticus had shown himself! but was there not perhaps a danger of the simple-witted military misunderstanding those gifts?

Asiaticus was growing anxious, and breathing heavily; Suilius came a few steps nearer him,” like a wildbeast hunter in the arena, some, of whose arrows, fired from a distance, have gone home: he comes nearer, because the beast is wounded, and brandishes his hunting-spear. ‘To think that I ever called you friend, that I ever dined at your board, that I ever allowed myself to be deceived by ‘your affable ways, your noble descent, the favour and confidence that you have falsely won from our gracious Emperor sand all honest citizens. Beast that you are filthy pathic, satyr of the stews! Bland corrupter of the loyal hearts and manly bodies of the very soldiers to whose trust the sacred person of our Caesar, the safety of the. City, the welfare of the world is committed. Where were you ion the might of the Emperor’s birthday that you could not attend the banquet to which you were invited? Sick, were you? Mighty sick, I have no doubt. I shall soon confront the court with a selection of your fellow invalids, young soldiers of the Guards, who caught their infection from you, you filth.’

There was a great deal more of this. Asiaticus had turned dead white now, and great drops of ‘sweat stood on his brow. The chain clanked, as he wiped them away. He was forbidden by the rules of the court to answer a word until the time came for him to make his defence, but at last he burst out in a hoarse voice: ‘Ask your own sons, Suilius! They will admit that I am a man.’ He was called to order. Suilius went on to speak of Asiaticus’s adultery with Poppaea, but put little emphasis on -this, as if it was the weakest point of his case, though really it was the strongest; and so tricked Asiaticus into making a general denial of all the charges against him. If Asiaticus had been wise he would have admitted the adultery and denied the, other charges. But. he denied everything, so his guilt seemed proved. Suilius called his witnesses, mostly soldiers. The chief witness; a young recruit from South Italy, was asked to identify Asiaticus. I suppose that he had been coached to recognize Asiaticus by his bald head, for he picked on Pallas as the man who had so unnaturally abused him. A great burst of laughter went up: Pallas was known to share with me a real hatred of this sort of vice, and, besides, everyone knew that he had acted as guest-master throughout my birthday banquet.

I nearly dismissed the case then and there, but reflected that the witness might have a bad memory for faces - I have myself - and that the other charges were not disproved by his failure to identify Asiaticus. But it was in a milder, voice that I asked Asiaticus to answer Suilius’s charges, point by point. He did so, but failed to account satisfactorily for his movements in France, and certainly perjured himself over the Poppaea business. The charge of corrupting the Guards I regarded as unproved. The soldiers testified in a formal, stilted way which suggested that they, had learned the testimony off by heart beforehand, and when I, questioned them merely repeated the same evidence. But then I have never heard a Guardsman testify in any other tones, they make a drill of everything.

I ordered everyone out of the room but Vitellius, young Pompey, and Pallas - Messalina had burst into tears and hurried off some minutes before - and told them that I would not sentence Asiaticus without first securing their approval. Vitellius said that, frankly, there seemed no reasonable doubt of Asiaticus’s guilt, and that he was as shocked and grieved as I was: Asiaticus was a very old friend and had been a favourite of my mother Antonia’s, who had used her interest at court to advance them both. Then he had had a most distinguished career and had never hung back where patriotic duty called: he had been one of the volunteers who came to Britain with me, and-though he had not arrived in time for the battle, that was the fault of the storm, not due to any cowardice on his part. So if he had now become mad and betrayed his own past it would not be showing too much clemency to allow him to be his own executioner: of course, strictly, he deserved to be hurled from the Tarpeian Rock, and to have his corpse dishonoured by being dragged off by a hook through the mouth and thrown into the Tiber. Vitellius told me too, that Asiaticus had practically confessed his guilt by sending him a message, as soon as he was arrested, begging him for old friendship’s sake to secure his acquittal or, if it came to the worst, permission to commit suicide. Vitellius added: ‘He knew that you would give him a fair trial: you have never.’ failed to give anyone a fair trial. So how; could my intercession be expected to help him? If he was guilty, then he would be pronounced guilty; or if he was innocent, he would be acquitted.’ Young Pompey protested that no mercy should be shown Asiaticus; but perhaps he was thinking; of his own safety. Assario and the Tristonia sisters, his relations, had, been mentioned as Asiaticus’s accomplices, and he wished to prove his own loyalty. I sent a message to Asiaticus to inform him that I was adjourning the trial for twenty-four hours, and that, meanwhile, he was released from his fetters. He would surely understand that message. Meanwhile Messalina had hurried to Poppaea to tell her that Asiaticus was on the point-of being condemned, and advised her to forestall her own trial and execution by immediate suicide. I knew nothing about this. Asiaticus died courageously enough. He spent his last day-winding up his affairs, eating and drinking as usual, and taking a walk in the Gardens of Lucullus (as they were still called), giving instructions to the gardeners about the trees and flowers and fishpools. ‘When he found that they had built his funeral pyre close I to a fine avenue of hornbeams he was most indignant and fined the freedman responsible for choosing the site a quarter’s pay. ‘Didn’t you realize, idiot, that the breeze would carry the flames into the foliage of those lovely old trees and spoil the whole appearance of the Gardens?’ His last words to his family before the surgeon severed an artery in his leg and let him bleed to death in a warm bath were, ‘Good-bye, my-dear-friends. It would have been less ignominious to have died by the dark artifices of Tiberiuss or the fury of Caligula, than now to fall a sacrifice to the imbecilic credulity of Claudius, betrayed by the woman I loved and by the friend I trusted.’ For he was now convinced that Poppaea and Vitellius had arranged for the prosecution.

Two days later I asked Scipio to dine with me, and inquired after his wife’s health, as a tactful way of indicating that if he still loved Poppaea and was-ready to forgive her, I would take no further action in the matter. ‘She’s dead, Caesar,’ he answered, and began sobbing with his head in his hands.

Asiaticus’s. family, the Valerians, to show that they did not wish to associate themselves with his treasonable words, were then obliged to present Messalina with, the Gardens of Lucullus as a peace-offering; though naturally I never suspected it at the time, they were the real cause of Asiaticus’s death. I tried the Petra brothers and executed them, and the Tristonia sisters then committed suicide. As for Assario, it seems that I signed his death-warrant: but I have no recollection of this. When I told Pallas to warn him for trial I was told that he had already been executed, and was shown the warrant, which was certainly not forged. The only explanation that I can offer is that Messalina, or possibly Polybius, who was her tool, smuggled the death-warrant in among a number of other unimportant ones that I had to sign, and that I signed it without reading it. I know now that this sort of trick. was constantly played on me that they, took advantage of the strain from which my eyes were again suffering (so much that I had to stop all reading by artificial light) to read out as official reports and letters for my signature improvisations that did not correspond at all with the written documents.