SENECA
APOCOLOCYNTOSIS,
OR LUDUS DE MORTE CLAUDII:
THE PUMPKINIFICATION OF CLAUDIUS.
Virg. Aen. ii, 724
1
I wish to place on record the proceedings in heaven October 13
last, of the new year which begins this auspicious age. It shall
be done without malice or favour. This is the truth. Ask if you
like how I know it? To begin with, I am not bound to please you
with my answer. Who will compel me? I know the same day made me
free, which was the last day for him who made the proverb
true--One must be born either a Pharaoh or a fool. If I choose to
answer, I will say whatever trips off my tongue. Who has ever
made the historian produce witness to swear for him? But if an
authority must be produced, ask of the man who saw Drusilla
translated to heaven: the same man will aver he saw Claudius on
the road, dot and carry one. Will he nill he, all that happens in
heaven he needs must see. He is the custodian of the Appian Way;
by that route, you know, both Tiberius and Augustus went up to
the gods. Question him, he will tell you the tale when you are
alone; before company he is dumb. You see he swore in the Senate
that he beheld Drusilla mounting heavenwards, and all he got for
his good news was that everybody gave him the lie: since when he
solemnly swears he will never bear witness again to what he has
seen, not even if he had seen a man murdered in open market. What
he told me I report plain and clear, as I hope for his health and
happiness.
Now had the sun with shorter course drawn in his
risen light,
And by equivalent degrees grew the dark hours of night:
Victorious Cynthia now held sway over a wider space,
Grim winter drove rich autumn out, and now usurped his
place;
And now the fiat had gone forth that Bacchus must grow old,
The few last clusters of the vine were gathered ere the
cold:
I shall make myself better understood, if I say the month was
October, the day was the thirteenth. What hour it was I cannot
certainly tell; philosophers will agree more often than clocks;
but it was between midday and one after noon. "Clumsy creature!"
you say. "The poets are not content to describe sunrise and
sunset, and now they even disturb the midday siesta. Will you
thus neglect so good an hour?"
Now the sun's chariot had gone by the middle of his
way;
Half wearily he shook the reins, nearer to night than day,
And led the light along the slope that down before him
lay.
3
Claudius began to breathe his last, and could not make an end
of the matter. Then Mercury, who had always been much pleased
with his wit, drew aside one of the three Fates, and said: "Cruel
beldame, why do you let the poor wretch be tormented? After all
this torture cannot he have a rest? Four and sixty years it is
now since he began to pant for breath. What grudge is this you
bear against him and the whole empire? Do let the astrologers
tell the truth for once; since he became emperor, they have never
let a year pass, never a month, without laying him out for his
burial. Yet it is no wonder if they are wrong, and no one knows
his hour. Nobody ever believed he was really quite born[1]. Do what has to be done: Kill him, and let a better
man rule in empty court."
Virg. Georg iv. 90
Clotho replied: "Upon my word, I did wish to give him another
hour or two, until he should make Roman citizens of the half
dozen who are still outsiders. (He made up his mind, you know, to
see the whole world in the toga, Greeks, Gauls, Spaniards,
Britons, and all.) But since it is your pleasure to leave a few
foreigners for seed, and since you command me, so be it." She
opened her box and out came three spindles. One was for
Augurinus, one for Baba, one for Claudius[2].
"These three," she says, "I will cause to die within one year and
at no great distance apart, and I will not dismiss him
unattended. Think of all the thousands of men he was wont to see
following after him, thousands going before, thousands all
crowding about him, and it would never do to leave him alone on a
sudden. These boon companions will satisfy him for the
nonce."
4
This said, she twists the thread around his ugly
spindle once,
Snaps off the last bit of the life of that Imperial dunce.
But Lachesis, her hair adorned, her tresses neatly bound,
Pierian laurel on her locks, her brows with garlands
crowned,
Plucks me from out the snowy wool new threads as white as
snow,
Which handled with a happy touch change colour as they go,
Not common wool, but golden wire; the Sisters wondering
gaze,
As age by age the pretty thread runs down the golden days.
World without end they spin away, the happy fleeces pull;
What joy they take to fill their hands with that delightful
wool!
Indeed, the task performs itself: no toil the spinners
know:
Down drops the soft and silken thread as round the spindles
go;
Fewer than these are Tithon's years, not Nestor's life so
long.
Phoebus is present: glad he is to sing a merry song;
Now helps the work, now full of hope upon the harp doth
play;
The Sisters listen to the song that charms their toil away.
They praise their brother's melodies, and still the spindles
run,
Till more than man's allotted span the busy hands have
spun.
Then Phoebus says, "O sister Fates! I pray take none away,
But suffer this one life to be longer than mortal day.
Like me in face and lovely grace, like me in voice and
song,
He'll bid the laws at length speak out that have been dumb so
long,
Will give unto the weary world years prosperous and bright.
Like as the daystar from on high scatters the stars of
night,
As, when the stars return again, clear Hesper brings his
light,
Or as the ruddy dawn drives out the dark, and brings the
day,
As the bright sun looks on the world, and speeds along its
way
His rising car from morning's gates: so Caesar doth arise,
So Nero shows his face to Rome before the people's eyes,
His bright and shining countenance illumines all the air,
While down upon his graceful neck fall rippling waves of
hair."
Thus Apollo. But Lachesis, quite as ready to cast a
favourable eye on a handsome man, spins away by the
handful, and bestows years and years upon Nero out
of her own pocket. As for Claudius, they tell everybody
to speed him on his way
With cries of joy and solemn litany.
At once he bubbled up the ghost, and there was an end to that
shadow of a life. He was listening to a troupe of comedians when
he died, so you see I have reason to fear those gentry. The last
words he was heard to speak in this world were these. When he had
made a great noise with that end of him which talked easiest, he
cried out, "Oh dear, oh dear! I think I have made a mess of
myself." Whether he did or no, I cannot say, but certain it is he
always did make a mess of everything.
5
What happened next on earth it is mere waste of time to tell,
for you know it all well enough, and there is no fear of your
ever forgetting the impression which that public rejoicing made
on your memory. No one forgets his own happiness. What happened
in heaven you shall hear: for proof please apply to my informant.
Word comes to Jupiter that a stranger had arrived, a man well set
up, pretty grey; he seemed to be threatening something, for he
wagged his head ceaselessly; he dragged the right foot. They
asked him what nation he was of; he answered something in a
confused mumbling voice: his language they did not understand. He
was no Greek and no Roman, nor of any known race. On this Jupiter
bids Hercules go and find out what country he comes from; you see
Hercules had travelled over the whole world, and might be
expected to know all the nations in it. But Hercules, the first
glimpse he got, was really much taken aback, although not all the
monsters in the world could frighten him; when he saw this new
kind of object, with its extraordinary gait, and the voice of no
terrestrial beast, but such as you might hear in the leviathans
of the deep, hoarse and inarticulate, he thought his thirteenth
labour had come upon him. When he looked closer, the thing seemed
to be a kind of man. Up he goes, then, and says what your Greek
finds readiest to his tongue:
Od. i, 17
"Who art thou, and what thy people? Who thy parents,
where thy home?"
Claudius was delighted to find literary men up there, and
began to hope there might be some corner for his own historical
works. So he caps him with another Homeric verse, explaining that
he was Caesar:
Od. ix, 39
"Breezes wafted me from Ilion unto the Ciconian
land."
But the next verse was more true, and no less Homeric:
"Thither come, I sacked a city, slew the people every
one."
6
He would have taken in poor simple Hercules, but that Our Lady
of Malaria was there, who left her temple and came alone with
him: all the other gods he had left at Rome. Quoth she, "The
fellow's tale is nothing but lies. I have lived with him all
these years, and I tell you, he was born at Lyons. You behold a
fellow-burgess of Marcus[3]. As I say, he was
born at the sixteenth milestone from Vienne, a native Gaul. So of
course he took Rome, as a good Gaul ought to do. I pledge you my
word that in Lyons he was born, where Licinus [4] was king so many years. But you that have trudged
over more roads than any muleteer that plies for hire, you must
have come across the people of Lyons, and you must know that it
is a far cry from Xanthus to the Rhone." At this point Claudius
flared up, and expressed his wrath with as big a growl as he
could manage. What he said nobody understood; as a matter of
fact, he was ordering my lady of Fever to be taken away, and
making that sign with his trembling hand (which was always steady
enough for that, if for nothing else) by which he used to
decapitate men. He had ordered her head to be chopped off. For
all the notice the others took of him, they might have been his
own freedmen.
7
Then Hercules said, "You just listen to me, and stop playing
the fool. You have come to the place where the mice nibble
iron[5]. Out with the truth, and look sharp, or
I'll knock your quips and quiddities out of you." Then to make
himself all the more awful, he strikes an attitude and proceeds
in his most tragic vein:
"Declare with speed what spot you claim by
birth.
Or with this club fall stricken to the earth!
This club hath ofttimes slaughtered haughty kings!
Why mumble unintelligible things?
What land, what tribe produced that shaking head?
Declare it! On my journey when I sped
Far to the Kingdom of the triple King,
And from the Main Hesperian did bring
The goodly cattle to the Argive town,
There I beheld a mountain looking down
Upon two rivers: this the Sun espies
Right opposite each day he doth arise.
Hence, mighty Rhone, thy rapid torrents flow,
And Arar, much in doubt which way to go,
Ripples along the banks with shallow roll.
Say, is this land the nurse that bred thy
soul?"
These lines he delivered with much spirit and a bold front.
All the same, he was not quite master of his wits, and had some
fear of a blow from the fool. Claudius, seeing a mighty man
before him, saw things looked serious and understood that here he
had not quite the same pre-eminence as at Rome, where no one was
his equal: the Gallic cock was worth most on his own dunghill. So
this is what he was thought to say, as far as could be made out:
"I did hope, Hercules, bravest of all the gods, that you would
take my part with the rest, and if I should need a voucher, I
meant to name you who know me so well. Do but call it to mind,
how it was I used to sit in judgment before your temple whole
days together during July and August. You know what miseries I
endured there, in hearing the lawyers plead day and night. If you
had fallen amongst these, you may think yourself very strong, but
you would have found it worse than the sewers of Augeas: I
drained out more filth than you did. But since I want..."
(Some pages have fallen out, in which Hercules must have been
persuaded. The gods are now discussing what Hercules tells
them).
8
"No wonder you have forced your way into the Senate House: no
bars or bolts can hold against you. Only do say what species of
god you want the fellow to be made. An Epicurean god he cannot
be: for they have no troubles and cause none. A Stoic, then? How
can he be globular, as Varro says, without a head or any other
projection? There is in him something of the Stoic god, as I can
see now: he has neither heart nor head. Upon my word, if he had
asked this boon from Saturn, he would not have got it, though he
kept up Saturn's feast all the year round, a truly Saturnalian
prince. A likely thing he will get it from Jove, whom he
condemned for incest as far as in him lay: for he killed his
son-in-law Silanus, because Silanus had a sister, a most charming
girl, called Venus by all the world, and he preferred to call her
Juno. Why, says he, I want to know why, his own sister? Read your
books, stupid: you may go half-way at Athens, the whole way at
Alexandria. Because the mice lick meal at Rome, you say. Is this
creature to mend our crooked ways? What goes on in his own closet
he knows not; [6] and now he searches the
regions of the sky, wants to be a god. Is it not enough that he
has a temple in Britain, that savages worship him and pray to him
as a god, so that they may find a fool[7] to
have mercy upon them?"
9
At last it came into Jove's head, that while strangers were in
the House it was not lawful to speak or debate. "My lords and
gentlemen," said he, "I gave you leave to ask questions, and you
have made a regular farmyard [8] of the place.
Be so good as to keep the rules of the House. What will this
person think of us, whoever he is?" So Claudius was led out, and
the first to be asked his opinion was Father Janus: he had been
made consul elect for the afternoon of the next first of July,
[9] being as shrewd a man as you could find on
a summer's day: for he could see, as they say, before and
behind[10]. He made an eloquent harangue,
because his life was passed in the forum, but too fast for the
notary to take down. That is why I give no full report of it, for
I don't want to change the words he used. He said a great deal of
the majesty of the gods, and how the honour ought not to be given
away to every Tom, Dick, or Harry. "Once," said he, "it was a
great thing to become a god; now you have made it a farce.
Therefore, that you may not think I am speaking against one
person instead of the general custom, I propose that from this
day forward the godhead be given to none of those who eat the
fruits of the earth, or whom mother earth doth nourish. After
this bill has been read a third time, whosoever is made, said, or
portrayed to be god, I vote he be delivered over to the bogies,
and at the next public show be flogged with a birch amongst the
new gladiators." The next to be asked was Diespiter, son of Vica
Pota, he also being consul elect, and a moneylender; by this
trade he made a living, used to sell rights of citizenship in a
small way. Hercules trips me up to him daintily, and tweaks him
by the ear. So he uttered his opinion in these words: "Inasmuch
as the blessed Claudius is akin to the blessed Augustus, and also
to the blessed Augusta, his grandmother, whom he ordered to be
made a goddess, and whereas he far surpasses all mortal men in
wisdom, and seeing that it is for the public good that there be
some one able to join Romulus in devouring boiled turnips, I
propose that from this day forth blessed Claudius be a god, to
enjoy that honour with all its appurtenances in as full a degree
as any other before him, and that a note to that effect be added
to Ovid's Metamorphoses." The meeting was divided, and it looked
as though Claudius was to win the day. For Hercules saw his iron
was in the fire, trotted here and trotted there, saying, "Don't
deny me; I make a point of the matter. I'll do as much for you
again, when you like; you roll my log, and I'll roll yours: one
hand washes another."
10
Then arose the blessed Augustus, when his turn came, and spoke
with much eloquence[11]. "I call you to
witness, my lords and gentlemen," said he, "that since the day I
was made a god I have never uttered one word. I always mind my
own business. But now I can keep on the mask no longer, nor
conceal the sorrow which shame makes all the greater. Is it for
this I have made peace by land and sea? For this have I calmed
intestine wars? For this, laid a firm foundation of law for Rome,
adorned it with buildings, and all that--my lords, words fail me;
there are none can rise to the height of my indignation. I must
borrow that saying of the eloquent Messala Corvinus, I am ashamed
of my authority[12]. This man, my lords, who
looks as though he could not hurt a fly, used to chop off heads
as easily as a dog sits down. But why should I speak of all those
men, and such men? There is no time to lament for public
disasters, when one has so many private sorrows to think of. I
leave that, therefore, and say only this; for even if my sister
knows no Greek, I do: The knee is nearer than the shin[13]. This man you see, who for so many years has been
masquerading under my name, has done me the favour of murdering
two Julias, great-granddaughters of mine, one by cold steel and
one by starvation; and one great grandson, L. Silanus--see,
Jupiter, whether he had a case against him (at least it is your
own if you will be fair.) Come tell me, blessed Claudius, why of
all those you killed, both men and women, without a hearing, why
you did not hear their side of the case first, before putting
them to death? Where do we find that custom? It is not done in
heaven. Look at Jupiter: all these years he has been king, and
never did more than once to break Vulcan's leg,
11
Illiad i, 591
'Whom seizing by the foot he cast from the threshold of the
sky,'
and once he fell in a rage with his wife and strung her up:
did he do any killing? You killed Messalina, whose great-uncle I
was no less than yours. 'I don't know,' did you say? Curse you!
that is just it: not to know was worse than to kill. Caligula he
went on persecuting even when he was dead. Caligula murdered his
father-in-law, Claudius his son-in-law to boot. Caligula would
not have Crassus' son called Great; Claudius gave him his name
back, and took away his head. In one family he destroyed Crassus,
Magnus, Scribonia, the Tristionias, Assario, noble though they
were; Crassus indeed such a fool that he might have been emperor.
Is this he you want now to make a god? Look at his body, born
under the wrath of heaven! In fine, let him say the three words
[14] quickly, and he may have me for a slave.
God! who will worship this god, who will believe in him? While
you make gods of such as he, no one will believe you to be gods.
To be brief, my lords: if I have lived honourably among you, if I
have never given plain speech to any, avenge my wrongs. This is
my motion": then he read out his amendment, which he had
committed to writing: "Inasmuch as the blessed Claudius murdered
his father-in-law Appius Silanus, his two sons-in-law, Pompeius
Magnus and L. Silanus, Crassus Frugi his daughter's
father-in-law, as like him as two eggs in a basket, Scribonia his
daughter's mother-in-law, his wife Messalina, and others too
numerous to mention; I propose that strong measures be taken
against him, that he be allowed no delay of process, that
immediate sentence of banishment be passed on him, that he be
deported from heaven within thirty days, and from Olympus within
thirty hours."
This motion was passed without further debate. Not a moment
was lost: Mercury screwed his neck and haled him to the lower
regions, to that bourne "from which they say no traveller
returns." [15] As they passed downwards along
the Sacred Way, Mercury asked what was that great concourse of
men? could it be Claudius' funeral? It was certainly a most
gorgeous spectacle, got up regardless of expense, clear it was
that a god was being borne to the grave: tootling of flutes,
roaring of horns, an immense brass band of all sorts, such a din
that even Claudius could hear it. Joy and rejoicing on every
side, the Roman people walking about like free men. Agatho and a
few pettifoggers were weeping for grief, and for once in a way
they meant it. The Barristers were crawling out of their dark
corners, pale and thin, with hardly a breath in their bodies, as
though just coming to life again. One of them when he saw the
pettifoggers putting their heads together, and lamenting their
sad lot, up comes he and says: "Did not I tell you the Saturnalia
could not last for ever?"
When Claudius saw his own funeral train, he understood that he
was dead. For they were chanting his dirge in anapaests, with
much mopping and mouthing:
12
"Pour forth your laments, your sorrow declare,
Let the sounds of grief rise high in the air:
For he that is dead had a wit most keen,
Was bravest of all that on earth have been.
Racehorses are nothing to his swift feet:
Rebellious Parthians he did defeat;
Swift after the Persians his light shafts go:
For he well knew how to fit arrow to bow,
Swiftly the striped barbarians fled:
With one little wound he shot them dead.
And the Britons beyond in their unknown seas,
Blue-shielded Brigantians too, all these
He chained by the neck as the Romans' slaves.
He spake, and the Ocean with trembling waves
Accepted the axe of the Roman law.
O weep for the man! This world never saw
One quicker a troublesome suit to decide,
When only one part of the case had been tried,
(He could do it indeed and not hear either side).
Who'll now sit in judgment the whole year round?
Now he that is judge of the shades underground
Once ruler of fivescore cities in Crete,
Must yield to his better and take a back seat.
Mourn, mourn, pettifoggers, ye venal crew,
And you, minor poets, woe, woe is to you!
And you above all, who get rich quick
By the rattle of dice and the three card
trick."
Odes ii, 13, 35
13
Claudius was charmed to hear his own praises sung, and would
have stayed longer to see the show. But the Talthybius [16] of the gods laid a hand on him, and led him across
the Campus Martius, first wrapping his head up close that no one
might know him, until betwixt Tiber and the Subway he went down
to the lower regions. [17] His freedman
Narcissus had gone down before him by a short cut, ready to
welcome his master. Out he comes to meet him, smooth and shining
(he had just left the bath), and says he: "What make the gods
among mortals?" "Look alive," says Mercury, "go and tell them we
are coming." Away he flew, quicker than tongue can tell. It is
easy going by that road, all down hill. So although he had a
touch of the gout, in a trice they were come to Dis's door. There
lay Cerberus, or, as Horace puts it, the hundred-headed monster.
Claudius was a trifle perturbed (it was a little white bitch he
used to keep for a pet) when he spied this black shag-haired
hound, not at all the kind of thing you could wish to meet in the
dark. In a loud voice he cried, "Claudius is coming!" All marched
before him singing, "The lost is found, O let us rejoice
together!" [18] Here were found C. Silius
consul elect, Juncus the ex-praetor, Sextus Traulus, M. Helvius,
Trogus, Cotta, Vettius Valens, Fabius, Roman Knights whom
Narcissus had ordered for execution. In the midst of this
chanting company was Mnester the mime, whom Claudius for honour's
sake had made shorter by a head. The news was soon blown about
that Claudius had come: to Messalina they throng: first his
freedmen, Polybius, Myron, Harpocras, Amphaeus, Pheronactus, all
sent before him by Claudius that he might not be unattended
anywhere; next two prefects, Justus Catonius and Rufrius Pollio;
then his friends, Saturninus, Lusius and Pedo Pompeius and Lupus
and Celer Asinius, these of consular rank; last came his
brother's daughter, his sister's daughter, sons-in-law, fathers
and mothers-in-law, the whole family in fact. In a body they came
to meet Claudius; and when Claudius saw them, he exclaimed,
"Friends everywhere, on my word! How came you all here?" To this
Pedo Pompeius answered, "What, cruel man? How came we here? Who
but you sent us, you, the murderer of all the friends that ever
you had? To court with you! I'll show you where their lordships
sit."
Il. ix,385
14
Pedo brings him before the judgement seat of Aeacus, who was
holding court under the Lex Cornelia to try cases of murder and
assassination. Pedo requests the judge to take the prisoner's
name, and produces a summons with this charge: Senators killed,
35; Roman Knights, 221; others as the sands of the sea-shore for
multitude. Claudius finds no counsel. At length out steps P.
Petronius, an old chum of his, a finished scholar in the Claudian
tongue and claims a remand. Not granted. Pedo Pompeius prosecutes
with loud outcry. The counsel for the defence tries to reply; but
Aeacus, who is the soul of justice, will not have it. Aeacus
hears the case against Claudius, refuses to hear the other side
and passes sentence against him, quoting the line:
"As he did, so be he done by, this is justice
undefiled." [19]
A great silence fell. Not a soul but was stupefied at this new
way of managing matters; they had never known anything like it
before. It was no new thing to Claudius, yet he thought it
unfair. There was a long discussion as to the punishment he ought
to endure. Some said that Sisyphus had done his job of porterage
long enough; Tantalus would be dying of thirst, if he were not
relieved; the drag must be put at last on wretched Ixion's wheel.
But it was determined not to let off any of the old stagers, lest
Claudius should dare to hope for any such relief. It was agreed
that some new punishment must be devised: they must devise some
new task, something senseless, to suggest some craving without
result. Then Aeacus decreed he should rattle dice for ever in a
box with no bottom. At once the poor wretch began his fruitless
task of hunting for the dice, which for ever slipped from his
fingers.
15
"For when he rattled with the box, and thought he now
had got 'em.
The little cubes would vanish thro' the perforated bottom.
Then he would pick 'em up again, and once more set
a-trying:
The dice but served him the same trick: away they went
a-flying.
So still he tries, and still he fails; still searching long he
lingers;
And every time the tricksy things go slipping thro' his
fingers.
Just so when Sisyphus at last once gets there with his
boulder,
He finds the labour all in vain--it rolls down off his
shoulder."
All on a sudden who should turn up but Caligula, and claims
the man for a slave: brings witnesses, who said they had seen him
being flogged, caned, fisticuffed by him. He is handed over to
Caligula, and Caligula makes him a present to Aeacus. Aeacus
delivers him to his freedman Menander, to be his law-clerk.