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Title: Apocolocyntosis

Author: Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Translator: W. H. D. Rouse

Release date: November 1, 2003 [eBook #10001]
                Most recently updated: November 7, 2024

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Ted Garvin, Ben Courtney and PG Distributed Proofreaders


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK APOCOLOCYNTOSIS ***
                       SENECA

                  APOCOLOCYNTOSIS

          WITH AN ENGLISH TRANSLATION BY

            W.H.D. ROUSE, M.A. LITT. D.

                       MCMXX





INTRODUCTION

This piece is ascribed to Seneca by ancient tradition; it is impossible
to prove that it is his, and impossible to prove that it is not. The
matter will probably continue to be decided by every one according to
his view of Seneca's character and abilities: in the matters of style
and of sentiment much may be said on both sides. Dion Cassius (lx, 35)
says that Seneca composed an ἀποκολοκύντωσις or Pumpkinification of
Claudius after his death, the title being a parody of the usual
ἀποθέωσις; but this title is not given in the MSS. of the Ludus de
Morte Claudii, nor is there anything in the piece which suits the title
very well.

As a literary form, the piece belongs to the class called
_Satura Menippea_, a satiric medley in prose and verse.

This text is that of Buecheler, with a few trifling changes, which are
indicated in the notes. We have been courteously allowed by Messrs
Weidmann to use this text. I have to acknowledge the help of Mr Ball's
notes, from which I have taken a few references; but my translation was
made many years ago.

W.H.D. ROUSE.





BIBLIOGRAPHY

_Editio Princeps:_ Lucii Annaei Senecae in morte
  Claudii Caesaris Ludus nuper repertus: Rome,
  1513.

_Latest critical text:_ Franz Buecheler, Weidmann, 1904 (a reprint with
a few changes of the text from a larger work, Divi Claudii
Ἀποκολοκύντωσις in the Symbola Philologorum Bonnensium, fasc. i, 1864).

_Translations and helps:_ The Satire of Seneca on the
  Apotheosis of Claudius, by A.P. Ball (with introduction,
  notes, and translations): New York:
  Columbia University Press; London, Macmillan,
  1902.




SENECA

APOCOLOCYNTOSIS, OR LUDUS DE MORTE CLAUDII: THE PUMPKINIFICATION OF
CLAUDIUS.

I wish to place on record the proceedings in heaven                       1
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. [Sidenote: Virg. Aen. ii, 724] 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,           2
  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.

Claudius began to breathe his last, and could not                         3
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. [Footnote: A proverb for a
nobody, as Petron, 58 _qui te natum non putat._] Do what has to be done:
Kill him, and let a better man rule in empty court."
[Sidenote: 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. [Footnote: "Augurinus" unknown.
Baba: see Sep. Ep. 159, a fool.] "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."

  This said, she twists the thread around his ugly spindle once,          4
  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.

What happened next on earth it is mere waste of                           5
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:

  "Who art thou, and what thy people? Who thy
  parents, where thy home?"
  [Sidenote: Od. i, 17]

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:

  "Breezes wafted me from Ilion unto the Ciconian land."
  [Sidenote: Od. ix, 39]

But the next verse was more true, and no less Homeric:

  "Thither come, I sacked a city, slew the people every one."

He would have taken in poor simple Hercules, but                          6
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. [Footnote:
Reference unknown.] 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
[Footnote: A Gallic slave, appointed by Augustus Procurator of Gallia
Lugudunensis, when he made himself notorious by his extortions. See Dion
Cass. liv, 21.] 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.

Then Hercules said, "You just listen to me, and                           7
stop playing the fool. You have come to the place where the mice nibble
iron. [Footnote: A proverb, found also in Herondas iii, 76: apparently
fairy-land, the land of Nowhere.] 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).

"No wonder you have forced your way into the                              8
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;[Footnote: Perhaps alluding to a mock marriage of
Silius and Messalina.] 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
[Footnote: Again μωροῦ for θεοῦ  as in ch. 6.] to have mercy upon them?"

At last it came into Jove's head, that while strangers                    9
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 [Footnote: Proverb: meaning unknown.] 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,[Footnote: Perhaps an allusion to the shortening
of the consul's term, which was done to give more candidates a chance of
the honour.] being as shrewd a man as you could find on a summer's day: for
he could see, as they say, before and behind. [Footnote 8: II, iii, 109;
alluding here to Janus's double face.] 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."

Then arose the blessed Augustus, when his turn                           10
came, and spoke with much eloquence. [Footnote: The speech seems to contain
a parody of Augustus's style and sayings.] "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. [Footnote: M.
Valerius Messala Corvinus, appointed praefectus urbi, resigned within a
week.] 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. [Footnote: A proverb, like "Charity
begins at home." The reading of the passage is uncertain; "sister" is only
a conjecture, and it is hard to see why his sister should be mentioned.]
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                             11
king, and never did more than once to break Vulcan's leg,

  'Whom seizing by the foot he cast from the threshold of the sky,'
  [Sidenote: Illiad i, 591]

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 [Footnote: Some formula such as _ais
esse meum_.] 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." [Footnote: Catullus iii, 12.]
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:

  "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."

Claudius was charmed to hear his own praises sung,                       13
and would have stayed longer to see the show. But the Talthybius
[Footnote: Talthybius was a herald, and _nuntius_ is obviously a gloss on
this. He means Mercury.] 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.
[Footnote: By the Cloaca?] 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. [Sidenote: Odes ii, 13, 35] 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!" [Footnote: With a slight change, a cry used in the
worship of Osiris.] 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."

Pedo brings him before the judgement seat of                             14
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. [Sidenote:  Il. ix,
385] 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."
  [Footnote: A proverbial line.]

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.

  "For when he rattled with the box, and thought he now had got 'em.     15
  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.



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