I was expected to occupy a suite of rooms at the Palace and because of Caligula's stern speeches against all sorts of immorality [in the manner of Augustus] I could not have Calpurnia there with me, though I was unmarried.
She had to remain at Capua, much to my annoyance, and I was only able to get away occasionally to visit her. His I, CLAUDIUB [?6o] own morals seemed not to come into the scope of his strictures. He was growing tired of Macro's wife, Ennia, whom Macro had divorced at his request and whom he had promised to marry, and used to go out at night in search of gallant adventures with a party of jolly fellows whom he called "The Scouts". They consisted usually of three young staff-officers, two famous gladiators, Apelles the actor, and Eutychus, the best charioteer in Rome, who won nearly every race in which he competed. Caligula had now come out strong as a partisan of the Leek Greens and sent all over the world in search of the fastest horses. He found a religious excuse for public chariot-racing, with twenty heats a day, almost whenever the sun shone. He made a lot of money by challenging rich men to take his bets against the other colours, which for politeness they did. But what he got this way was a mere drop, as the saying goes, in the ocean of his expenses. At all events with these jolly "Scouts"
he used to go out at night, disguised, and visit the lowest haunts of the City, usually coming into conflict with the night-watchmen and having riotous escapades which the Commander of the Watchmen was careful to hush up.
Caligula's three sisters, Drusilla, Agrippinilla and Lesbia, had all been married to noblemen; but he insisted on their coming to the Palace and living there. Agrippinilla and Lesbia were told to bring their husbands with them, but Drusilla had to leave hers behind; his name was Cassius Longinus and he was sent to govern Asia Minor. Caligula demanded that the three of them should be treated with the greatest respect and gave them all the privileges enjoyed by the Vestal Virgins. He had their names joined with his own in the public prayers for his health and safety, and even in the public oath that officials and priests swore in his name on their consecration... "neither shall I value my own life or the lives of my children more highly than His life and the lives of His sisters." He behaved towards them in a way that puzzled people--rather as if they were his wives than his sisters.
Drusilla was his favourite. Although she was well rid of her husband, she always seemed unhappy now, and the unhappier she grew the more solicitous were Caligula's [36i] attentions. He now married her, for appearances only, to a cousin of his, ^Emilius Lepidus, whom I have already mentioned as a slack-twisted younger brother of the ^Emilia, Julilla's daughter, to whom I was nearly married when I was a boy. This./Emilius Lepidus, who was known as Ganymede because of his effeminate appearance and his obsequiousness to Caligula, was a valued member of the Scouts. He was seven years older than Caligula but Caligula treated him like a boy of thirteen, and he seemed to like it.
Drusilla could not bear him. But Agrippinilla and Lesbia were always in and out of his bedroom laughing and joking and playing pranks. Their husbands did not seem to mind.
Life at the Palace I found extremely disorderly. I don't mean that I wasn't made very comfortable or that the servants were not well trained or that the ordinary formalities and courtesies were not observed towards visitors. But I never quite knew what tender relations existed between this person and that: Agrippinilla and Lesbia seemed to have exchanged husbands at one time, and at another Apelles seemed somehow intimately connected with Lesbia and the charioteer with Agrippinilla. As for Caligula and Ganymede--but I have said enough to show what I mean by "disorderly". I was the only one among them past middle-age, and did not understand the ways of the new generation at all. Gemellus also lived in the Palace: he was a frightened, delicate boy who bit his nails to the quick and was usually to be found sitting in a corner and drawing designs of nymphs and satyrs and that sort of thing for vases. I can't tell you much more about Gemellus than that I got into talk with him once or twice, feeling sorry for him because he was not really one of the party, any more than I was; but perhaps he thought that I was trying to draw him out and force him into saying something against Caligula, for he would only answer in monosyllables. On the day that he put on his manly-gown Caligula adopted him as his son and heir, and appointed him Leader of Cadets; but that wasn't the same thing by any means as sharing the monarchy with him.
Caligula fell ill and for a whole month his life was despaired of. The doctors called it brain-fever. The popular consternation at Rome was so great that a crowd of never less than ten thousand people stood day and [A.D. 38] night around the Palace, waiting for a favourable bulletin. They kept up a quiet muttering and whispering together; the noise, as it reached my window, was like that of a distant stream running over pebbles.
There were a number of most remarkable manifestations of anxiety. Some men even pasted up placards on their house-doors, to say that if Death held his hand and spared the Emperor, they vowed to give him their own lives in compensation. By universal consent all traffic noises and street cries and music ceased within half a mile or more of the Palace. That had never happened before, even during Augustus' illness, the one of which Musa was supposed to have cured him. The bulletins always read: "No change."
One evening Drusilla knocked at my door and said, "Uncle Claudius! The Emperor wants to see you prgently.
Come at once. Don't stop tor anything."
"What does he want me for?"
"I don't know. But for Heaven's sake humour him. He's got a sword there.
He'll kill you if you don't say what he wants you to say. He had the point at my throat this morning. He told me that I didn't love him. I had to swear and swear that I did love him. 'Kill me, if you like, my darling,' I said .O Uncle Claudius, why was I ever born?
He's mad. He always was. But he's worse than mad now.
He's
possessed."
I went along to Caligula's bedroom, which was heavily curtained and thickly carpeted. One feeble oil-lamp was burning by the bedside. The air smelt stale. His querulous voice greeted me. "Late again? I told you to hurry," He didn't look ill, only unhealthy. Two powerful deaf-mutes with axes stood as guards, one on each side of his bed.
I said, saluting him, "Oh, how I hurried! If I hadn't had a lame leg I'd have been here almost before I started. What joy to see you alive and to hear your voice again, Caesar! Can I dare to hope that you're better?"
"I have never really been ill. Only resting. And undergoing a metamorphosis. It's the most important religious event in history. No wonder the City keeps so quiet."