Pedo brought him into Aeacus's court; Aeacus was the judge, who tried murder cases under the Cornelian Law. Pedo requested him to take the prisoner's name and then filled in the charge-sheet:
Senators murdered: 35.
Knights, Roman, murdered: 221.
Other persons: impossible to keep accurate records.
Claudius applied for counsel, but nobody volunteered to act for him. At last out stepped Publius Petronius, an old drinking friend who could talk the Claudian language quite well, and claimed a remand. Aeacus refused to grant it, so Pedo Pompey began his speech for the prosecution, shouting at the top of his voice. Counsel for the defence attempted to reply, but Aeacus, who is a most conscientious judge, ruled him out of order, and summed up on the case as presented by the prosecution. Then he pronounced:
As the rascal did, he must
Himself be done by. And that's just.
An extraordinary silence followed. Everyone was amazed at the decision, which was considered to be entirely, without precedent. Claudius himself, of course, could have quoted precedents, but thought it monstrously unjust nevertheless. Then there was a long argument about the sort of punishment he ought to be awarded. Some said that Sisyphus had been rolling his stone up that hill quite long enough now, and some said that Tantalus ought to be relieved before he died of thirst, and some again said that it was time for a drag to be put on the wheel on which Ixion was perpetually being broken. But Aeacus decided not to let, off any of these old hands for fear Claudius might count on getting a similar respite himself some day. Instead, some new sort of punishment had to be instituted: they must think of some utterly senseless task conveying the general idea of a greedy ambition perpetually disappointed. Aeacus finally, delivered the sentence, which was that Claudius should rattle dice for ever in a dice-cup with no bottom to it.
So the, prisoner began working out his sentence at once, fumbling for the dice as they fell and never getting any further with the game.
Ay, for so often as he shook the cup
And ready sat to cast them on the board,
The dice would vanish through the hole beneath.
Then would he gather them again,
and seek To rattle them and cast them as before.
But still they cheated him, and cheated him,
Retiring through the bottom of the cup.
And when once more he stooped to pick them up.
They slipped between his fingers and escaped,
And endlessly continued to escape
As when his rock with labour infinite
Sisyphus rolls unto Hell's mountain-peak
But down it comes, rebounding on his neck.
Suddenly who should come in but Gaius Caligula. 'Why, that's a slave of mine, said Caligula. 'I claim him!' He produced witnesses who testified that they had often seen him flogging Claudius with whips and birch-rods, and knocking him about with his fists. So the claim was allowed, and Claudius was handed over to his master. However, Caligula made a present of him to Aeacus, and Aeacus handed him over to his freedman Menander, who set him the task of keeping the court records.
[Trans. by R. G.]
SEQUEL
Seneca was forced to commit suicide in A.D. 65 at Nero's orders. He survived most of the other characters in this story. Britannicus was poisoned in A.D. 55. Pallas, Burrhus, Domitia, the surviving Silanuses, Octavia, Antonia, Faustus Sulla - all met violent deaths. Agrippinilla lost her hold on Nero after the first two years of his reign, but regained it for a while by allowing him to commit incest with her. He then tried to murder her by sending her to sea in a collapsible ship which broke in two at a considerable distance from the coast. She swam safely ashore. Finally he sent soldiers to kill her. She died courageously, ordering them to stab her in the belly which had once housed so monstrous a son. When in A.D. 68 Nero was declared a public enemy by the Senate and killed by a servant at his own request, no member of the Imperial family was left to succeed him. In A.D. 69, a year of anarchy and civil war, there were four successive Emperors: namely, Galba, Otho, Aulus Vitellius, and Vespasian. Vespasian ruled benevolently and founded the Flavian dynasty. The Republic was never restored.
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