After closing the census I had not taken on the office of Censor again, but as a prelude to my: restoration of the Republic had given the appointment to Vitellius. It was the first time for a century that the control of public morals had been out of the hands of the Caesars. One of Vitellius's first acts after arranging my marriage with Agrippinilla was to remove from the Senatorial Order one of the first-rank magistrates of the year, none other than my son-in-law, young Silanus! The reason he gave was Silanus's incest with his sister Calvina, who had been his own daughter-in-law, but had lately. been divorced by her husband, young Vitellius. Vitellius explained that his son had surprised the two in bed together some time before and had told him of it under the bonds of secrecy; but now that he had become Censor he could not con= scientiously conceal Silanus's guilt. I examined the case myself. Silanus and Calvina denied the charge, but it seemed proved beyond all dispute, so I dissolved the marriage-contract between Silanus and my daughter Octavia (or rather Messalina's daughter Octavia) and made him resign this magistracy. It had only a single day to run, but to show how strongly I felt I gave someone else the appointment for the last day. Of course Vitellius would never have dared to reveal the, incest if it had not been for Agrippinilla. Silanus stood in the way of her ambitions: she wanted her son Lucius to become my son-in-law. Well, I had been fond of Silanus, and, after all, he was a descendant of the God Augustus; so I told him that I would postpone judgement in his case - meaning that I expected him, to commit suicide. He delayed for some time, and eventually chose my, wedding-day for the deed; which was not inappropriate. Calvina I banished and advised the College of Pontiffs to offer sacrifices and atonements at the Grove of Diana, in revival of a picturesque institution of Tullus Hostilius, the third King of Rome.
Baba and Augurinus were in great form about this time. They parodied everything I did. Baba introduced three new letters into the alphabet: one to stand for a hawk of phlegm, one for the noisy sucking of teeth, and the third for `the indeterminate vowel halfway between a hiccup and a belch. He divorced the enormous negress who had hitherto acted the part of Messalina, whipped her through the streets and went through a mock ceremony of marriage with a cross-eyed albino woman whom he claimed to be his fraternal niece. He took a census of beggars, thieves, and vagabonds and removed from the Society all who had ever done a stroke of honest work in their lives. One of his jokes was resigning. his censorship and appointing Augurinus as his successor for the unexpired period of his office - exactly one hour by the waterclock. Augurinus boasted of all the glorious things that he professed to do in the hour. His one complaint was that Baba's waterclock didn't keep good time: he wanted to go off and fetch his own, which had hours that lasted at least three times as long. But Baba, imitating my: voice and gestures, quoted a phrase I had recently used in the law-courts, and was rather proud of, `One can
expect agreement between philosophers sooner than between clocks', and refused to let him go. Augurinus insisted that fair was fair; if he was going to be Censor, he needed a full hour of regulation size and weight. They carried on the argument hotly until Augurinus's term of office ended suddenly with nothing done. `And I was going to dip you in boiling tar and then fry you within an inch of your life, according to a picturesque institution of King Tullus Hostilius,' Augurinus grieved.
I allow Baba and Augurinus perfect freedom to parody and caricature me. They draw great audiences in their performances outside the Temple of Mercury: Mercury is, of course, the patron of thieves and practical jokers. Agrippinilla was highly offended by the insult to her of Baba's marriage to the albino, but I surprised her by-telling her firmly: `So long as I live Baba's life is to be spared, understand and Augurinus's too.'
`Exactly so long, to the very hour,'' Agrippina agreed in her most unpleasant tones.
There was a plague of vipers this year: I published an order informing the public of an infallible remedy against snake-bite, namely, the juice of a yew-tree. Augurinus and Baba republished it with the addition of the phrase `and contrariwise', which, it seems, is recognized as one of my stock expressions.
Chapter 31
I AM near the end of my long story. I have now been five years married to Agrippinilla, but they have been comparatively uneventful years, and I shall not write about them in too great detail. I have let Agrippinilla and my freedmen rule me. I have opened and shut my mouth and gestured with my arms like the little jointed marionettes they make in Sicily: but the voice has not been mine, nor the gestures. I must say at once that Agrippinilla has shown herself a remarkably able ruler of the tyrannical sort. When she comes into a room where a number of notables are gathered, and looks coldly around her, everyone quakes and springs to attention and studies how best to please her. She no longer needs to pretend affection for me. I soon made her realize that I had married her purely on political grounds, and, physically, she was repulsive to me. I was quite frank about it. I explained: 'The fact is that I got tired of being Emperor. I wanted, someone to do most of the work for me. I married you not for your heart but, for your head. It takes a woman to run an empire like this. There's no reason for us to pretend amorous devotion to each other.'
`That suits me,' she said.. `You're not the sort of lover one dreams about.'
`And you're not quite what you were twenty-two years ago; my dear, when you were a bride for the first time. Still, you'll last a little longer if you continue with that daily facial massage and those milk baths: Vitellius pretends to find you the most beautiful woman in Rome.'
`And perhaps you'll last too, if you don't exasperate the people you depend on.'
`Yes, we two have outlasted all, the rest of our family,' I agreed. ` I don't know how we've done it. I think we ought to congratulate each other, instead of quarrelling.'
`You always begin it,' she said, 'by being what you call "honest".'
Agrippinilla could not understand me. She soon found that, it was unnecessary to coax or cheat or bully me if she wanted things done her way. I accepted her suggestions on almost every point. She could hardly believe her luck when I consented to betroth Lucius to Octavia: she knew what I really thought of Lucius. She could not make out why I consented. She was emboldened to go further and suggest that I should adopt him as my son. But that was already my intention. She first let Pallas sound me on the subject. Pallas was tactful. He began speaking fondly of my brother Germanicus and of his adoption by my Uncle Tiberius at Augustus's request, though Tiberius had a son of his own, Castor. He enlarged on the remarkable brotherly love that had sprung up between Germanicus and Castor and the generosity that Castor had shown to Germanicus's widow and children. I knew at once what Pallas was driving at, and agreed that two loving sons were better than one. 'But remember,' I said, `that was not the end of the story. Germanicus and Castor were both murdered; and my Uncle. Tiberius in his old age, as it might be myself, named another pair of loving brothers as his joint heirs, Caligula and Gemellus. Caligula had the advantage of being the elder. When the old man died Caligula seized the monarchy and killed Gemellus.'
That silenced Pallas for a while. When he tried a slightly different line, this time telling me what fast friends Lucius and Britannicus had become, I said, as if quite irrelevantly : `Do you know that the Claudian family has kept its descent direct in the male line, without adoptions, ever since the day of the original Appius Claudius, five whole cycles ago? There's no other family in Rome can make the same boast.'