Claudius the God (19 page)

My prohibition proved effective and pleased the great mass of the people; whenever I went out now I was always greeted enthusiastically. The citizens had never greeted Tiberius so cordially as this, nor Caligula, except in the first few months of his reign when he was all generosity and affability. But I did not, realize how beloved I was and how seemingly important to Rome the preservation of my life had become, until one day a rumour ran through the City that I had been ambushed on my way to Ostia by a party of senators and their slaves and murdered. The whole City began lamenting in the most dismal fashion, wringing their hands and mopping their eyes and sitting groaning on their doorsteps; but those whose indignation prevailed over their grief ran to the Market Place, crying out that the Guards were traitors and the Senate a parcel of parricides There were loud threats of vengeance and even talk of burning down the Senate House. The rumour had, not the slightest foundation except that I was indeed on my way to the Ostia docks that afternoon to inspect the facilities for unloading corn. (I had been informed that in bad weather a great deal of corn was always lost between ship and land, and wanted to see whether this could be avoided. Few great cities were cursed with so awkward a harbour as Rome with Ostia: when the wind blew strongly from the west and heavy tides swept up the estuary the corn-ships, had to ride at anchor for weeks on end,, unable to discharge their cargoes.) The rumour had been put about, I suspect, by the bankers, though I could get no proof of this: it was a trick to create a sudden demand for cash. It was common talk that if I happened to die civil commotion would immediately ensue, with bloody combats in the streets between the partisans of rival candidates for the monarchy. The bankers, aware of this nervousness, foresaw that property-holders who did not wish to be involved in such disorders would naturally hurry out of Rome as soon as a report of my death was started: and there would be a rush to the banks to offer land and house property, in exchange for immediate gold at a price far below its real value. This is what actually happened. But once more Herod saved the situation. He went to Messalina and insisted on her publishing an immediate order in my name for the closing of the banks until further notice. This was done. But the panic was not checked until I had received news at Ostia of what was happening in the City and had sent four or five of my staff - honest men, whose word the citizens would trust - at full speed back to the Market Place, to appear on the Oration Platform as witnesses that the whole story was a fabrication, put about by some enemy of the State for his own crooked ends.

The facilities for discharging corn at Ostia I found most inadequate. Indeed, the whole corn supply question was a very difficult one. Caligula had left the public granaries as empty as the Public Treasury. It was only by persuading the corn-factors to endanger the vessels that they owned by running cargoes even in bad weather, that I succeeded in tiding over the season. I had, of course, to compensate them heavily for their losses in vessels, crews, and corn. I determined to solve the matter once and for all by making Ostia a safe port even in the worst weather and sent for engineers to survey the place and draw up a scheme.

My first real trouble abroad started in Egypt. Caligula had given the Alexandrian Greeks tacit permission to chastise the Alexandrian Jews, as they thought fit, for their refusal to worship his Divine Person. The Greeks were not allowed to bear arms in the streets that was a Roman prerogative - but they performed countless acts of physical violence nevertheless. The Jews, many of whom were tax-farmers and therefore unpopular with the poorer and more improvident sort of Greek citizens, were exposed to daily humiliations and dangers. Being less numerous than the Greeks, they could not offer adequate resistance, and their leaders were in prison. But they sent word to their kinsmen in Palestine, Syria, and even Parthia, acquainting them of their plight, and begging them to send secret help in men, money, and munitions of war. An armed uprising was their only hope. Help came in abundance, and the Jewish revolt was planned for the day of Caligula’s arrival in Egypt, when the Greek population would be crowding in holiday dress to greet him at the, docks, and the whole Roman garrison would be there as a guard-of honour, leaving the city unprotected. The news of Caligula’s death had the effect of setting the rebellion off before its proper time in an ineffectual, and half-hearted manner. But the Governor of Egypt was alarmed and sent me an immediate appeal for reinforcements there were few troops in Alexandria itself. However, the next day he received a letter that I had written him a fortnight before in which I announced my elevation to the monarchy and ordered the release of the Alabarch, with the other Jewish elders, as also the suspension of Caligula’s religious decrees and his order penalizing the Jews, until such time as I should be able to inform the Governor of their complete abrogation. The Jews were jubilant, and even those who had hitherto taken no part in the rising now felt that they enjoyed my Imperial favour and could get their own back on the Greeks with impunity. They killed quite a large number of the most persistent Jew-baiters. Meanwhile I replied to the Governor of Egypt, ordering him to put an end to the disturbances, by armed force if necessary; but saying that in view of the letter which by now he must have received from me, and the sedative effects that I hoped from it, I did not consider it necessary to send reinforcements. I told him that it was possible that the Jews had acted under great provocation, and hoped that, being men; of sense, they would not continue hostilities, now that they knew that their wrongs were in process of being redressed.

This had the effect of ending the disturbances; and a few days later, after consulting the Senate, I definitely cancelled Caligula’s decrees and restored to the Jews all the privileges that they had held under Augustus. But many of the younger Jews were still smarting under the sense of injustice and went marching through the streets: of Alexandria carrying banners which read: ‘Now Our Persecutors Must Lose Their Civic Rights’, which was absurd, and ‘Equal: Rights For All Jews Throughout The Empire’, which was not so absurd. I published an edict which ran as follows: Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, High Pontiff, Protector of the People, Consul-Elect for the second time, issues the following, decree: I hereby very willingly comply with the petitions of King Agrippa, and his brother King Herod, personages whom I hold in the highest esteem, that. I should grant to the Jews throughout the Roman Empire the same rights and privileges as I have granted, or rather restored, to the Jews of Alexandria. I do, these other Jews this favour not, only for the gratification of the aforesaid royal petitioners, but because I consider them worthy of these rights and privileges: they have always shown themselves faithful friends of the Roman people. I should not consider it just, however, that any Greek city should-(as has been suggested) be deprived of any rights and privileges which were granted it by the Emperor Augustus (now the God Augustus), any more than that the Jewish colony in Alexandria should have been deprived of its rights, and privileges by my predecessor. What is justice for Jews is justice for Greeks; and contrariwise. I have therefore decided to permit all Jews throughout my Empire to keep their ancient customs - in so far as these do not confict with the conduct of Imperial business without hindrance from anyone. At the same time I charge them not to presume upon the favour that I am hereby granting them, by showing contempt for the religious beliefs or practices of other races: let them content themselves with keeping their own Law. It is my pleasure that this decision of mine shall forthwith be engraved on stone tablets at the instance of the governors of all kingdoms, cities, colonies, and municipalities, both in Italy and abroad, whether Roman officials or Allied Potentates, and that these tablets shall be posted for public reading, during a full month, in some prominent public place and at a height from which the words will be plainly legible from the ground.

Talking privately to Herod one night I said: ‘The fact is that the Greek mind and the Jewish mind work in quite different ways and are bound to come in conflict. The Jews are too serious and proud, the Greeks’ too vain and laughter-loving; the Jews hold too fast to the old, the Greeks are too restless in always seeking for something new; the Jews are too self-sufficient, the Greeks too accommodating. But though I might claim that we Romans understand the Greeks we know their limitations and potentialities and can make them very useful servants I should never claim that we understand the Jews. We have conquered them by our superior military strength but we have never felt ourselves their masters. We recognize that they retain the ancient virtues of their race, which goes back much farther in history than ours, and that we have lost our own ancient virtues; and the result is that we feel rather ashamed before them.’

Herod asked: ‘Do you know the Jewish version of Deucalion’s Flood? The Jewish Deucalion was called Noah, and he had three married sons who, when the Flood subsided, re-peopled the earth. The eldest was Shem, the middle one was Ham, and the youngest was Japhet. Ham was punished for laughing at his father when he accidentally got drunk and threw off all his clothes, by being fated to serve the other two, who behaved with greater decency. Ham is the ancestor of all the African peoples. Japhet is the ancestor of the Greeks and Italians, and Shem the ancestor of the Jews, Syrians,’ Phoenicians, Arabians, Edomites, Chaldeans, Assyrians, and the like. There is an ancient prophetic saying that if Shem and Japhet ever live under the same roof there will be endless bickering at the fireside, at the table, and in the bedchamber. That has always proved true. Alexandria is a neat example. And if the whole of Palestine were cleared of Greeks, who don’t belong there, it would be far easier to govern. The same with Syria.’

‘Not for a Roman governor,’ I smiled. ‘The Romans are not of the family of Shem and they count on Greek support. You’d have to get rid of us Romans too. But I agree with you so far as to wish that Rome had never conquered the East at all. She would have been much wiser if she had limited herself to ruling a federation of the descendants of Japhet. Alexander and Pompey have much to answer for. Both won the title “The Great” for their Eastern conquests, but I cannot see that either of them conferred a real benefit on his country.’

‘It will all settle itself one day, Caesar,’ said Herod thoughtfully,- ‘ if we have patience.’

Then I began telling Herod that I was about to betroth my daughter Antonia, who was now nearly old enough to marry; to young Pompey, a descendant of Pompey the Great. Caligula had taken away young Pompey’s title, saying that it was too magnificent a one for a boy of his age to bear, and that in any case there was only one ‘

‘Great’ in the world now: I had just restored the title, and all the other titles that Caligula had taken from noble Roman houses; together with such commemorative badges as the Torquatan Torque and the Cincinnatan Lock. Herod did not volunteer any more of his views on the subject. I did not realize that the future political relations of Shem and Japhet was the problem that had recently come to occupy his mind to the exclusion of all others.

WHEN Herod had established me in the monarchy and set me proper course to follow - this, I am sure, is how he put the situation to himself - and in return won a number of favours from me, he said that he must take his leave at last unless there was some work of real importance that I wished him to do, such as nobody but himself was capable of undertaking. I could not think of any excuse for detaining him, and I would have felt obliged to pay him with more territory for every extra month he remained, so after a farewell banquet, which was appropriately magnificent, I let him go. We were both rather drunk that evening, I must confess, and I shed tears at the thought of his departure. We recalled our schooldays together, and when nobody seemed to be listening I leant across and called him by his old nickname.

‘Brigand,’ I said quietly, ‘I always expected you to be a, king, but if anyone had ever told me that I’d be your Emperor I’d have called him a madman.’

‘Little Marmoset,’ he replied in the same low tones. ‘You’re a fool, as I’ve always told you. But you have fool’s luck. And fool’s luck holds. You’ll be an Olympian God when I’m only a dead hero; yes, don’t blush, for That’s how it will be, though there’s no question which of us two is the better man.’

It did me good to hear Herod speak in his old style again. For the last three months he had been addressing me in the most formal and distant way, never failing to call me Caesar Augustus and to express only the most profound admiration for my opinions, even if he. was often regretfully forced to disagree with them. ‘Little Marmoset’ (Cercopithecion) was the playful nickname Athenodorus had given me. I now begged him that when he wrote to me from Palestine he would always enclose with his official letter, signed with all his new titles, an unofficial letter signed ‘The Brigand’ and giving me his, private news. He agreed to this: on condition that I replied in the same vein, signing myself ‘Cercopithecion’. As we shook hands on the bargain he looked me steadily in the eyes and said: ‘Marmoset, do you want a little more of my excellent knavish advice? I’ll give it you absolutely free this time.’

‘Please, dear Brigand, let me have it.’

‘My advice to you, old fellow, is this: never trust anyone! Never trust your most grateful freedman, your most intimate friend, your dearest child, the wife of your bosom, or the ally joined to you by the most sacred oath. Trust yourself only. Or at least trust your fool’s luck, if you can’t honestly trust yourself.’

The earnestness of his tones penetrated the cheerful fumes of wine that were clouding my brain and roused my attention. ‘Why do you say that, Herod?’

‘ I asked sharply. ‘Don’t you trust your wife Cypros? Don’t you trust your friend Silas? Don’t you trust young Agrippa, your son? Don’t you trust Thaumastus and your freedman Marsyas, who got you the money at Acre, and brought you food in prison? Don’t you trust me, your ally? Why did you say that? Against whom are you putting me on my guard?’