I, Claudius - Robert Graves [184]
I am telling the Senate immediately to execute any person who can be proved to have made a living by such infamous conduct. Perhaps now you'll take something?"
When Nerva thanked him and praised his decision but said that he had still no appetite at all, Tiberius became most depressed. "You'll die if you don't eat, Nerva, and then what will I do? You know how much I value your friendship and your political advice. Please, please eat, I beseech you. If you were to die the world would think that it was my doing, or at least that you were starving yourself out of hatred for me. Oh, don't die, Nerva! You're my only real friend left."
Nerva said: "It's no use asking me to eat, Caesar. My stomach would refuse anything I gave it. And surely nobody could possibly say such ill-natured things as you suggest?
They know what a wise ruler and kind-hearted man you are and I am sure they have no reason for supposing me ungrateful, have they? If I must die, I must die, and that's all there is to it. Death is the common fate of all and at least I shall have the satisfaction of not outliving you."
Tiberius was not to be convinced, but soon Nerva was too weak to answer his questions: he died on the ninth day.
Thrasyllus died. His death was announced by a lizard. It was a very small lizard and ran across the stone table where Thrasyllus was at breakfast with Tiberius in the sun and straddled across his forefinger. Thrasyllus asked, "You have come to summon me, brother? I expected you at this very hour." Then turning to Tiberius he said: "My life is at an end, Caesar, so farewell! I never told you a lie. You told me many. But beware when your lizard gives you a warning." He closed his eyes and a few moments later was dead.
Now Tiberius had made a pet of the most extraordinary animal ever seen in Rome. Giraffes excited great admiration when first seen, and so did the rhinoceros, but this, though not so large was far more fabulous. It came from an island beyond India called Java, and it was like a lizard the size of a small calf, with an ugly head and a back like a saw. When Tiberius first looked at it he said that he would now no longer be sceptical about the monsters said to have been slain by Hercules and Theseus. It was called the Wingless Dragon and Tiberius fed it himself every day with cockroaches and dead mice and such-like vermin. It had a disgusting smell, dirty habits and a vicious temper. The dragon and Tiberius understood each other perfectly. He thought that Thrasyllus meant that the dragon would bite him one day, so he put it in a cage with bars too small for it to poke its ugly head through.
Tiberius was now seventy-eight years old, and constant use of myrrh and similar aphrodisiacs had made him very feeble; but he dressed sprucely and tried to behave like a man not yet past middle age. He had grown tired of Capri, now that Nerva and Thrasyllus were gone, and early in March the next year determined to defy Fate and visit Rome. He went there by easy stages, his last stopping place being a villa on the Appian Road, within sight of the City walls. But the day after he arrived there the dragon gave him the prophesied warning. Tiberius went to feed it at noon and found it lying in the cage, dead, and a huge swarm of large black ants running all over it, trying to pull away bits of soft flesh. He took this as a sign that if he went any further towards the City he would die like the dragon and the crowd would tear his body to pieces. So he hurriedly turned back. He caught a chill by travelling in an east wind, which he made worse by attending some Games exhibited by the soldiers of a garrison town through which he passed.
A wild boar was released in the arena and he was asked to throw a javelin at it from his box. He threw one and missed, and was annoyed with himself