I, Claudius - Robert Graves [163]
He said slowly: "I do not understand you. Which grandchildren of Augustus have I persecuted that he did not himself persecute?"
"I am not talking about Postumus and Julilla. I mean myself. You banished Sosia because she was my friend. You forced Silius to kill himself because he was my friend. And Calpurnius because he was my friend. And now my dear Pulchra is doomed too, though her only crime is her foolish fondness for me. People are beginning to avoid me, saying that I am unlucky."
Tiberius took her by the shoulders and said once more: And if you are not queen, my dear, think you that you are wronged?
Pulchra was condemned and executed. The Crown Prosecutor was a man called Afer, engaged because of his eloquence. A few days later Agrippina happened to see him outside the theatre. He appeared ashamed of himself and avoided meeting her eye. She went up to him and said: "There is no occasion for you to hide from me, Afer." Then she quoted from Homer, but with alterations to suit the context, Achilles' reassuring answer to the embarrassed heralds who came to him with a humiliating message from Agamemnon. She said: He forced you to it. Though you were well fee'd It was not yours but Agamemnon's deed.
This was reported to Tiberius [though not by Afer]; the word "Agamemnon" caused him fresh alarm.
Agrippina fell ill and thought that she was being poisoned. She went in her sedan to the Palace to make a last appeal to Tiberius for mercy. She looked so thin and pale that Tiberius was charmed: perhaps she would die soon. He said: "My poor Agrippina, you look seriously ill. What's wrong with you?"
She answered in a weak voice: "It may be that I have done you a wrong in thinking that you persecute my friends just because they are my friends. It may be that I am unlucky in my choice of them, or that my judgment is often at fault. But I swear you have done me equal wrong in thinking that I have the least feeling of disloyalty towards you or that I have any ambition to rule either directly or indirectly. All that I ask is to be left alone, and your forgiveness for any injuries that I have unintentionally done you, and... and.. -" She ended in sobs.
"And what else?"
"O Tiberius, be good to my children! And be good to me! Let me marry again. I am so lonely. Since Germanicus died I have never been able to forget my troubles. I can't sleep at night. If you let me marry I'll settle down and lose all my restlessness and be quite a different person, and then perhaps you won't suspect me of plotting against you.
I am sure it's only because I look so unhappy that you think I have bad feelings towards you."
"Who's the man you want to marry?"
"A good, generous, unambitious man, past middle age and one of your most loyal ministers."
"What's his name?"
"Gallus. He says that he is ready to marry me at once."
Tiberius turned on his heel and walked out of the room without another word.
A few days later he invited her to a banquet. He used often to invite people to dine with him whom he particularly mistrusted and stare at them throughout the meal as if trying to read their secret thoughts: which shook the self-possession of all but very few. If they looked alarmed he read it as a proof of guilt. If they met his eye steadily he read it as an even stronger proof of guilt, with insolence added. On this occasion Agrippina, still ill and unable to eat any but the lightest food without nausea, and stared constantly at by Tiberius, had a miserable time. She was not a talkative person, and the conversation, which was about the relative merits of music and philosophy, did not interest her in the least