THE ACCESSION OF CLAUDIUS.
A.D. 41-47
Ultimate design of the conspirators.--Effect produced by the tidings of
Caligula's death.--Chaerea and the conspirators secrete themselves.--The
senate is convened.--Two parties formed.--Account of Claudius.--His
apparent imbecility.--Every one against him.--Mode of teasing him.--His
situation and position at court.--The wives of Claudius.--His son
strangled by a pear.--Claudius terrified.--His hiding place.--He
is discovered by a soldier.--Claudius proclaimed emperor.--His
surprise.--He is borne to the camp and proclaimed emperor.--Agrippina
recalled.--Messalina.--Messalina's intrigues.--Her hatred of
Silanus.--Plan for destroying Silanus.--Narcissus's pretended
dream.--Messalina's confirmation of it.--Claudius alarmed.--Silanus
is executed.--Unbounded influence of Messalina.--Caius
Silius.--Messalina's attachment to him.--Hesitation of Silius.--His
decision.--Claudius.--Public works at Ostia.--The obelisk.--Immense
ship.--Messalina continues her wicked career.--Silius intoxicated
with his elevation.
In the assassination of Caligula, the conspirators who combined to
perpetrate the deed, had a much deeper design than that of merely
gratifying their personal resentment and rage against an individual
tyrant. They wished to effect a permanent change in the government,
by putting down the army from the position of supreme and despotic
authority which it had assumed, and restoring the dominion to the
Roman Senate, and to the other civil authorities of the city, as it
had been exercised by them in former years. Of course, the death of
Caligula was the commencement, not the end, of the great struggle.
The whole country was immediately divided into two parties. There
was the party of the Senate, and the party of the army; and a long
and bitter conflict ensued. It was for some time doubtful which
would win the day.
In fact, immediately after Caligula was killed, and the tidings of
his death began to spread about the palace and into the streets of
the city, a considerable tumult arose, the precursor and earnest of
the dissensions that were to follow. Upon the first alarm, a body of
the emperor's guards that had been accustomed to attend upon his
person, and whom he had strongly attached to himself by his lavish
generosity in bestowing presents and rewards upon them, rushed
forward to defend him, or if it should prove too late to defend him,
to avenge his death. These soldiers ran toward the palace, and when
they found that the emperor had been killed, they were furious with
rage, and fell upon all whom they met, and actually slew several
men. Tidings came to the theater, and the word was spread from rank
to rank among the people that the emperor was slain. The people did
not, however, at first, believe the story. They supposed that the
report was a cunning contrivance of the emperor himself, intended to
entrap them into some expression of pleasure and gratification, on
their part, at his death, in order to give him an excuse for
inflicting some cruel punishment upon them. The noise and tumult in
the streets soon convinced them, however, that something
extraordinary had occurred; they learned that the news of the
emperor's death was really true, and almost immediately afterward
they found, to their consternation, that the furious guards were
thundering at the gates of the theater, and endeavoring to force
their way in, in order to wreak their vengeance on the assembly, as
if the spectators at the show were accomplices of the crime.
In the mean time Chaerea and the other chief conspirators had fled to
a secret place of retreat, where they now lay concealed. As soon as
they had found that the object of their vengeance was really dead,
and when they had satisfied themselves with the pleasure of cutting
and stabbing the lifeless body, they stole away to the house of one
of their friends in the neighborhood, where they could lie for a
time secreted in safety. The life-guards sought for them everywhere,
but could not find them. The streets were filled with tumult and
confusion. Rumors of every kind, false and true, spread in all
directions, and increased the excitement. At length, however, the
consuls, who were the chief magistrates of the republic, succeeded
in organizing a force and in restoring order. They took possession
of the forum and of the capitol and posted sentinels and guards
along the streets. They compelled the emperor's guards to desist
from their violence, and retire. They sent a herald clothed in
mourning into the theater, to announce officially to the people the
event which had occurred, and to direct them to repair quietly to
their homes. Having taken these preliminary measures they
immediately called the Senate together, to deliberate on the
emergency which had occurred, and to decide what should next be
done. In the mean time the emperor's guards, having withdrawn from
the streets of the city, retired to their camp and joined their
comrades. Thus there were two vast powers organized--that of the
army in the camp, and that of the Senate in the city--each jealous
of the other, and resolute in its determination not to yield, in the
approaching conflict.
In times of sudden and violent revolution like that which attended
the death of Caligula, the course which public affairs are to take,
and the question who is to rise and who is to fall, seem often to be
decided by utter accident. It was strikingly so in this instance, in
respect to the selection, on the part of the army, of the man who
was to take the post of supreme command in the place of the murdered
emperor. The choice fell on Claudius, Agrippina's uncle. It fell
upon him, too, as it would seem, by the merest chance, in the
following very extraordinary manner.
Claudius, as has already been said, was Caligula's uncle; and as
Caligula and Agrippina were brother and sister, he was, of course,
Agrippina's uncle too. He was at this time about fifty years of age,
and he was universally ridiculed and contemned on account of his
great mental and personal inferiority. He was weak and ill-formed at
his birth, so that even his mother despised him. She called him "an
unfinished little monster," and whenever she wished to express her
contempt for any one in respect to his understanding, she used to
say, "You are as stupid as my son Claudius." In a word, Claudius was
extremely unfortunate in every respect, so far as natural endowments
are concerned. His countenance was very repulsive, his figure was
ungainly, his manners were awkward, his voice was disagreeable, and
he had an impediment in his speech. In fact, he was considered in
his youth as almost an idiot. He was not allowed to associate with
the other Roman boys of his age, but was kept apart, in some
secluded portion of the palace, with women and slaves, where he was
treated with so much cruelty and neglect that what little spirit
nature had given him was crushed and destroyed. In fact, by common
consent all seemed to take pleasure in teasing and tormenting him.
Sometimes, when he was coming to the table at an entertainment, the
other guests would combine to exclude him from the seats, in order
to enjoy his distress as he ran about from one part of the table to
another, endeavoring to find a place. If they found him asleep they
would pelt him with olives and dates, or awaken him with the blow of
a rod or a whip; and sometimes they would stealthily put his sandals
upon his hands while he was asleep, in order that when he awoke
suddenly they might amuse themselves with seeing him rub his face
and eyes with them.
After all, however, the inferiority of Claudius was not really so
great as it seemed. He was awkward and ungainly, no doubt, to the
last degree; but he possessed some considerable capacity for
intellectual pursuits and attainments, and as he was pretty
effectually driven away from society by the jests and ridicule to
which he was subjected, he devoted a great deal of time in his
retirement to study, and to other useful pursuits. He made
considerable progress in the efforts which he thus made to cultivate
his mind. He, however, failed to acquire the respect of those around
him; and as he grew up he seemed to be considered utterly incapable
of performing any useful function; and during the time when his
nephew Caligula was emperor, he remained at court, among the other
nobles, but still neglected and despised by all of them. It is said
that he probably owed the preservation of his life to his
insignificance, as Caligula would probably have found some pretext
for destroying him, if he had not thought him too spiritless and
imbecile to form any ambitious plans. In fact, Claudius said himself
afterward, when he became emperor, that a great part of his apparent
simplicity was feigned, as a measure of prudence, to protect himself
from injury. When Claudius grew up he was married several times. The
wife who was living with him at the time of Caligula's death was his
third wife; her name was Valeria Messalina. She was his cousin.
Claudius and Messalina had one child--a daughter, named Octavia.
Claudius had been extremely unhappy in his connection with the wives
preceding Messalina. He had quarreled with them and been divorced
from them both. He had had a daughter by one of these wives and a
son by the other. The son was suddenly killed by getting choked with
a small pear. He had been throwing it into the air and attempting to
catch it in his mouth as it came down, when at last it slipped down
into his throat and strangled him. As for the daughter, Claudius was
so exasperated with her mother at the time of his divorce from her,
that he determined to disown and reject the child; so he ordered the
terrified girl to be stripped naked, and to be sent and laid down in
that condition at her wretched mother's door.
Claudius, as has already been stated, was present with Caligula at
the theater, on the last day of the spectacle, and followed him into
the palace when he went to look at the Asiatic captives; so that he
was present, or at least very near, at the time of his nephew's
assassination. As might have been expected from what has been said
of his character, he was overwhelmed with consternation and terror
at the scene, and was utterly incapacitated from taking any part,
either for or against the conspirators. He stole away in great
fright and hid himself behind the hangings in a dark recess in the
palace. Here he remained for some time, listening in an agony of
anxiety and suspense to the sounds which he heard around him. He
could hear the cries and the tumult in the streets, and in the
passages of the palace. Parties of the guards, in going to and fro,
passed by the place of his retreat from time to time, alarming him
with the clangor of their weapons, and their furious exclamations
and outcries. At one time peeping stealthily out, he saw a group of
soldiers hurrying along with a bleeding head on the point of a pike.
It was the head of a prominent citizen of Rome whom the guards had
intercepted and killed, supposing him to be one of the conspirators.
This spectacle greatly increased Claudius's terror. He was wholly in
the dark in respect to the motives and the designs of the men who
had thus revolted against his nephew, and it was of course
impossible for him to know how he himself would be regarded by
either party. He did not dare, therefore, to surrender himself to
either, but remained in his concealment, suffering great anxiety,
and utterly unable to decide what to do.
[Illustration: DISCOVERY OF CLAUDIUS.]
At length, while he was in this situation of uncertainty and terror,
a common soldier of the guards, named Epirius, who happened to pass
that way, accidentally saw his feet beneath the hangings, and
immediately, pulling the hangings aside, dragged him out to view.
Claudius supposed now, of course, that his hour was come. He fell on
his knees in an agony of terror, and begged the soldier to spare his
life. The soldier, when he found that his prisoner was Claudius, the
uncle of Caligula, raised him from the ground and saluted him
emperor. As Caligula left no son, Epirius considered Claudius as his
nearest relative, and consequently as the heir. Epirius immediately
summoned others of the guard to the place, saying that he had found
the new emperor, and calling upon them to assist in conveying him to
the camp. The soldiers thus summoned procured a chair, and having
placed the astonished Claudius in it, they raised the chair upon
their shoulders, and began to convey it away. As they bore him thus
along the streets, the people who saw them supposed that they were
taking him to execution, and they lamented his unhappy fate.
Claudius himself knew not what to believe. He could not but hope
that his life was to be saved, but then he could not wholly dispel
his fears.
In the mean time, the soldiers went steadily forward with their
burden. When one set of bearers became fatigued, they set down the
chair, and others relieved them. No one molested them, or attempted
to intercept them in their progress, and at length they reached the
camp. Claudius was well received by the whole body of the army. The
officers held a consultation that night, and determined to make him
emperor. At first he was extremely unwilling to accept the proffered
honor, but they urged it upon him, and he was at length induced to
accept it. Thus the army was once more provided with a head, and
prepared to engage anew in its conflict with the civil authorities
of the city.
The particulars of the conflict that ensued we can not here
describe. It is sufficient to say that the army prevailed, and that
Claudius soon found himself in full possession of the power from
which his nephew had been so suddenly deposed.
One of the first measures which the new emperor adopted, was to
recall Agrippina from her banishment at Pontia, where Caligula had
confined her, and restore her to her former position in Rome. Her
husband, Brazenbeard, died about this time, and young Brazenbeard,
her son, afterward called Nero, the subject of this history, was
three years old. Octavia, the daughter of Claudius and Messalina,
was a little younger.
Messalina, the wife of Claudius, hated Agrippina, considering her,
as she did, her rival and enemy. The favor which Claudius showed to
Agrippina, in recalling her from her banishment, and treating her
with consideration and favor at Rome, only inflamed still more
Messalina's hatred. She could not, however, succeed in inducing
Claudius to withdraw his protection from his niece; for Claudius,
though almost entirely subject to the influence and control of his
wife in most things, seemed fully determined not to yield to her
wishes in this. Agrippina continued, therefore, to live at Rome, in
high favor with the court, for several years,--her little son
advancing all the time in age and in maturity, until at length he
became twelve years old. At this time, another great change took
place in his own and his mother's condition. Messalina became
herself, by her wickedness and infatuation, the means of raising her
rival into her own place as wife of the emperor. The result was
accomplished in the following manner.
Messalina had long been a very dissolute and wicked woman, having
been accustomed to give herself up to criminal indulgences and
pleasures of every kind, in company with favorites whom she selected
from time to time among the courtiers around her. For a time she
managed these intrigues with some degree of caution and secrecy, in
order to conceal her conduct from her husband. She gradually,
however, became more and more open and bold. She possessed a great
ascendency over the mind of her husband, and could easily deceive
him, or induce him to do whatever she pleased. She persuaded him to
confer honors and rewards in a very liberal manner upon those whom
she favored, and to degrade, and sometimes even to destroy, those
who displeased her. She would occasionally resort to very cunning
artifices to accomplish her ends. For example, she conceived at one
time a violent hatred against the husband of her mother. His name
was Silanus. He was not the father of Messalina, but a second
husband of Messalina's mother; and, being young and attractive in
person, Messalina at first loved him, and intended to make him one
of her favorites and companions. Silanus, however, would not accede
to her wishes, and her love for him was then changed into hatred and
thirst for revenge. She accordingly determined on his destruction;
but as she knew that it would be difficult to induce Claudius to
proceed to extremities against him, on account of his intimate
relationship to the family, she contrived a very artful plot to
accomplish her ends. It was this:
She sent word to Silanus, on a certain evening, that the emperor
wished him to come to the palace, to his private apartment, the next
morning, at a very early hour. The emperor wished to see him, the
messenger said, on business of importance.
Just before the time which had been appointed for Silanus to appear,
a certain officer of the household, named Narcissus, whom Messalina
had engaged to assist her in her plot, came into the emperor's
apartment, with an anxious countenance, and in a very hurried
manner, and said to Claudius, whom he waked out of sleep by his
coming, that he had had a very frightful dream--one which he deemed
it his duty to make known to his master without any delay. He
dreamed, he said, that a plot had been formed for assassinating the
emperor; that Silanus was the contriver of it, and that he was
coming early that morning to carry his design into effect.
Messalina, who was present with her husband at the time, listened to
this story with well-feigned anxiety and agitation, and then
declared, with a countenance of great mysteriousness and solemnity,
that she had had precisely the same dream for two or three nights in
succession, but that, not being willing to do Silanus an injury, or
to raise any unjust suspicions against him, she had thus far
forborne to speak of the subject to her husband. She was, however,
now convinced, she said, that Silanus was really entertaining some
treasonable designs, and that the dreams were tokens sent from
heaven to warn the emperor of his danger.
Claudius, who was of an extremely timid and nervous temperament, was
very much alarmed by these communications; and his terrors were
greatly increased by the appearance of a servant who announced to
him at that moment that Silanus was then coming in. The coming of
Silanus to the palace at that unseasonable hour was considered by
the emperor as full confirmation of the dreams which had been
related to him, and as proof of the guilt of the accused; and under
the impulse of the sudden passion and fear which this conviction
awakened in his mind, he ordered Silanus to be seized and led away
to immediate execution. These commands were obeyed. Silanus was
hurried away and dispatched by the swords of the soldiers, without
ever knowing what the accusation was that had been made against him.
Thus Messalina succeeded by artifice and cunning in accomplishing
her ends, in cases where she could not rely on her direct influence
upon the mind of the emperor. In one way or the other she almost
always effected whatever she undertook, and gradually came to
exercise almost supreme control. Whom she would she raised up, and
whom she would she put down. In the mean time she lived herself, a
life of the most guilty indulgence and pleasure. For a long time she
concealed her wickedness from the emperor. He was very easily
deceived, and though Messalina's character was perfectly well known
to others, he himself continued blind to her guilt. At length,
however, she began to grow more and more bold. She became satiated,
as one of her historians says of her, with the common and ordinary
forms of vice, and wished for something new and unusual to give
piquancy and life to her sensations. At length, however, she went
one step too far, and brought upon herself in consequence of it a
terrible destruction.
It was about seven years after the accession of Claudius that the
event occurred. The favorite of Messalina at this time was a young
Roman senator named Caius Silius. Silius was a very distinguished
young nobleman, and a man of handsome person and of very graceful
and accomplished manners and address. He was in fact a very general
favorite, and Messalina, when she first saw him, conceived a very
strong affection for him. He was, however, already married to a
beautiful Roman lady named Junia Silana. Silana had been, and was
still at this time, an intimate friend of Agrippina, Nero's mother;
though in subsequent times they became bitter enemies. Messalina
made no secret of her love for Silius. She visited him freely at his
house, and received his visits in return; she accompanied him to
public places, evincing everywhere her strong regard for him in the
most undisguised and open manner. At length she proposed to him to
divorce his wife, in order that she herself might enjoy his society
without any limitation or restraint. Silius hesitated for a time
about complying with these proposals. He was well aware that he must
necessarily incur great danger, either by complying or by refusing
to comply with them. To accede to the empress's proposals, would be
of course to place himself in a position of extreme peril; and the
fate of Silanus was a warning to him of what he had to fear from her
wrath, in case of a refusal. He concluded that the former danger was
on the whole the least to be apprehended, and he accordingly
divorced his wife, and gave himself up wholly to Messalina's will.
This arrangement being made, all things for a time went on smoothly
and well. Claudius himself lived a very secluded life, and paid very
little attention to his wife's pursuits or pleasures. He lived
sometimes in retirement in his palace, devoting his time to his
studies, or to the plans and measures of government. He seems to
have honestly desired to promote the welfare and prosperity of the
republic, and he made many useful regulations and laws which
promised to be conducive to this end. Sometimes he was absent for a
season from the city,--visiting fortresses and encampments, or
inspecting the public works, such as aqueducts and canals, which
were in progress of construction. He was particularly interested in
certain operations which he planned and conducted at the mouths of
the Tiber for forming a harbor there. The place was called Ostia,
that word in the Latin tongue denoting _mouths_. To form a port
there he built two long piers, extending them in a curvilinear form
into the sea, so as to inclose a large area of water between them,
where ships could lie at anchor in safety. Light-houses were built
at the extremities of these piers. It is a curious circumstance that
in forming the foundation of one of these piers, the engineers whom
Claudius employed sunk an immense ship which Caligula had formerly
caused to be built for the purpose of transporting an obelisk from
Egypt to Rome,--the obelisk which now stands in front of St. Peter's
Church, and is the admiration and wonder of all visitors to Rome. As
the obelisk was formed of a single stone, a vessel of a very large
size and of an unusual construction was necessary for the
conveyance of it; and when this ship had once delivered its
monstrous burden, it had no longer any useful function to perform on
the surface of the sea, and the engineers accordingly filled it with
stones and gravel, and sunk it at the mouth of the Tiber, to form
part of the foundation of one of Claudius's piers. As it is found
that there is no perceptible decay, even for centuries, in timber
that is kept constantly submerged in the water of the sea, it is not
impossible that the vast hulk, unless marine insects have devoured
it and carried it away, lies imbedded where Claudius placed it,
still.
While the emperor was engaged in these and similar pursuits and
occupations, Messalina went on in her career of dissipation and
indulgence from bad to worse, growing more and more bold and open
every day. She lived in a constant round of entertainments and of
gayety--sometimes receiving companies of guests at her own palace,
and sometimes making visits with a large retinue of attendants and
friends, at the house of Silius. Of course, every one paid court to
Silius, and assumed, in their intercourse with him, every appearance
that they entertained for him the most friendly regard. It is
always so with the favorites of the great. While in heart they are
hated and despised, in form and appearance they are caressed and
applauded. Silius was intoxicated with the emotions that the giddy
elevation to which he had arrived so naturally inspired. He was not,
however, wholly at his ease. He could not but be aware that lofty as
his position was, it was the brink of a precipice that he stood
upon. Still he shut his eyes in a great measure to his danger and
went blindly on. The catastrophe, which came very suddenly at last,
will form the subject of the next chapter.