This was my first visit to France since my infancy and I wished I was not making it. I had to take money from Calpurnia for travelling expenses, for my estate and home had not yet found a buyer, and I could not count on Caligula's being pleased to see me. I went by sea from Ostia, landing at Marseilles. It appears that after banishing my nieces Caligula had auctioned the jewellery and ornaments and clothes they had brought with them. These fetched such high prices that he also sold their slaves and then their freedmen, pretending that these were slaves too. The bids were made by rich provincials who wanted the glory of saying, "Yes, such and such belonged to the Emperor's sister. I bought it from him personally!"
This gave Caligula a new idea. The old Palace where Livia had lived was now shut up. It was full of valuable furniture and pictures and relics of Augustus. Caligula sent for all this stuff to Rome and made me responsible tor its safe and prompt arrival at Lyons. He wrote: "Send it by road, not by sea. I have a quarrel on with Neptune." The letter arrived only the day before I sailed, so I put Pallas in charge of the job. The difficulty was that all the surplus horses and carts had already been commandeered for the transport of Caligula's army. But Caligula had given the order, and horses and conveyances had somehow to be found. Pallas went to the Consuls and showed them Caligula's orders. They were forced to commandeer public mail-coaches and bakers' vans and the horses that turned the corn-mills, which was a great inconvenience to the public.
So it happened that one evening in May just before sunset Caligula, sitting on the bridge at Lyons engaged in [401] imaginary conversation with the local river-god, saw me coming along the road in the distance. He recognized my sedan by the dice-board I have [A.D. 40] fitted across it: I beguile long journeys by throwing dice with myself. He called out angrily: "Hey, you sir, where are the carts? Why haven't you brought the carts?"
I called back: "Heaven bless your Majesty! The carts won't be here for a few days yet, I fear. They are coming by land, through Genoa. My colleagues and I have come by water."
"Then back by water you’ll go, my man,” he said.
"Come
here!"
When I reached the bridge I was pulled out of my sedan by two German soldiers and carried to the parapet above the middle arch, where they sat me with my back to the river. Caligula rushed forward and pushed me over. I turned two back-somersaults and fell what seemed like a thousand feet before I struck the water. I remember saying to myself: "Born at Lyons, died at Lyons!" The river Rhône is very cold, very deep and very swift. My heavy robe entangled my arms and legs, but somehow I managed to keep afloat, and to clamber ashore behind some boats about half a mile downstream, out of sight of the bridge.
I am a much better swimmer than I am a walker: I am strong in the arms and being rather fat from not being able to take exercise and from liking my meals I float like a cork. By the way, Caligula couldn't swim a stroke.
He was surprised, a few minutes later, to see me come hobbling up the road, and laughed hugely at the stinking muddy mess I was in. "Where have you been, my dear Vulcan?" he called.
I had the answer pat: I felt the Thunderer's might, Hurled headlong downward from th'etherial height Tost all the day in rapid circles round Nor till the sun descended touch'd the ground.
Breathless I fell, in giddy motions lost; The Sinthians raised me on the Lemnian coast.
"For 'Lemnian' read 'Lyonian'," I said. He was sitting on the parapet with my three fellow-envoys lying on the ground face-downwards in a row before him.
He had his feet on the necks of two and his swordpoint balanced between the shoulders of the third, Lesbia's husband, who was sobbing for mercy. "Claudius,"
he groaned, hearing my voice, "beseech the Emperor to set us free: we only came to offer him our loving congratulations."
"I want carts, not congratulations," said Caligula.
It seemed as if Homer had written the passage from which I had just quoted on purpose for this occasion. I said to Lesbia's husband: Be patient and obey.
Dear as you are, if Jove his arm extend
I can but grieve, unable to defend.
What soul so daring in your aid to move
Or lift his hand against the might of Jove?
Caligula was delighted. He said to the three suppliants: "What are your lives worth to you? Fifty thousand gold pieces each?"
"Whatever you say, Caesar," they answered faintly.
"Then pay poor Claudius that sum as soon as you get back to Rome. He's saved your lives by his ready tongue."
So they were allowed to rise and Caligula made them sign a promise, then and there, to pay me one hundred and fifty thousand gold pieces in three months'
time. I said to Caligula: "Most gracious Caesar, your need is greater than mine.
Will you accept one hundred thousand gold pieces from me, when they pay me, in gratitude for my own salvation? If you condescended to take that gift, I would still have fifty thousand left, which would enable me to pay my initiation fee in full. I have worried a great deal about that debt."
He said, "Anything that I can do that will contribute to your peace of mind!" and called me his Golden Farthing.
So Homer saved me. But Caligula a few days later warned me not to quote Homer again. "He's a most overrated author. I am going to have his poems called in and burned. Why shouldn't I put Plato's philosophical recommendations into practice? You know The Republic? An |f [4°3] admirable piece of argument. Plato was for keeping all poets whatsoever out of his ideal state: he said that they were all liars, and so they are."
I asked: "Is your Sacred Majesty going to bum any other poets besides Homer?"
"Oh, indeed, yes. All the over-rated ones. Virgil for a start. He's a dull fellow. Tries to be a Homer and can't do it."
"And
any
historians?"
"Yes, Livy. Still duller. Tries to be a Virgil and can't do it."
XXXII
HE CALLED FOR THE MOST RECENT OFFICIAL PROPERTY census and after examining it summoned all the richest men in France to Lyons, so that when the Palace-stun! arrived there from Rome he would be sure to get good prices for it. Just before the auction started, he made a speech.
He said that he was a poor bankrupt with enormous liabilities, but trusted that, for the sake of the Empire, his affectionate provincial friends and grateful allies would not take advantage of his financial plight. He begged them not to offer less than the true value of 'the family heirlooms which, much to his grief, he was being forced to put up for sale.
There was no ordinary auctioneer's trick that he had not learned, and he invented a great many new ones too beyond the scope of the market-place cheap-jacks from whom he borrowed so much of his patter. For instance, he sold the same article several times over to different buyers with each time a different account of its quality and usefulness and history. And by "true value" he expected bidders to understand "sentimental value" which always turned out to be a hundred times greater than the intrinsic value. For instance he would say: "This was the favourite easy-chair of my great-grandfather Mark Antony"--"the God Augustus drank out of this wine-cup at his marriage feast"--"this dress was worn by my sister, the Goddess Panthea, at a reception given to King Herod Agrippa in celebration of his release from prison"--and so forth. And he sold what he called
"blind bargains", small articles wrapped up in cloth. When he had inveigled a man into buying an old sandal or a piece of cheese for two thousand gold pieces, he was tremendously pleased with himself.