I, Claudius - Robert Graves [187]
This was the signal for an outburst of popular anger against Tiberius. "He stings like a dead wasp," someone shouted. Crowds gathered at the street corners for solemn condemnation services under the ward-masters, beseeching Mother Earth and the Judges of the Dead to grant the corpse and the ghost of that monster no rest or peace until the day of universal dissolution. Tiberius' body was brought to Rome under a strong escort of Guards. Caligula walked in the procession as a mourner and the whole countryside came flocking to meet him, not in mourning for Tiberius but in holiday clothes, weeping with gratitude that Heaven had preserved a son of Germanicus to rule over them. Old country women cried out, "O our sweet darling, Caligula! Our chicken! Our baby! Our star!" A few miles from Rome he rode ahead to make preparations for the solemn entry of the corpse into the City. But when he had passed, a big crowd gathered and barricaded the Appian Road with planks and blocks of building stone.
When the outriders of the escort appeared there was booing and groaning and cries of "Into the Tiber with Tiberius!"
"Throw him down the Stairs!"
"Eternal damnation to Tiberius!" The leader shouted: "Soldiers, we Romans won't allow that evil corpse into the City. It will bring us bad luck. Take it back to Atella and half-burn it in the amphitheatre there!" Half-burning, I should explain, was the usual fate of paupers and unfortunates, and Atella was a town celebrated for a kind of rough country masque or farce which had been performed there at the harvest festival every year from the very earliest times, Tiberius had a villa at Atella and used to attend the festival nearly every year. He had converted the innocent rural bawdry of the masque into a sophisticated vileness. He made the men of Atella build an amphitheatre to present the revised show, which was produced by himself.
Macro ordered his men to charge the barricade, and a number of citizens were killed and wounded, and three or four soldiers were knocked unconscious with paving stones.
Caligula prevented further disorders and Tiberius' body was duly burned on Mars Field. Caligula spoke the funeral oration. It was a very formal and ironical one and much appreciated, because there was a good deal in it about Augustus and Germanicus, but very little about Tiberius.
At a banquet that night Caligula told a story which made the whole country weep and gained him great credit. He said that early one morning at Misenum, being as usual sleepless with grief for the fate of his mother and brothers, he had determined, come what might, to be avenged at last on their murderer. He seized the dagger that had been his father's and went boldly into Tiberius' room. The Emperor lay groaning and tossing in nightmare on his bed.
Caligula slowly lifted the dagger to strike but a Divine Voice sounded in his ears: "Great-grandson, hold your handl To kill him would be impious." Caligula answered, "O God Augustus, he killed my mother and my brothers, your descendants. Should I not avenge them even at the price of being shunned by all men as a parricide?" Augustus answered, "Magnanimous son, who are to be Emperor hereafter, there is no need to do what you would do. By My orders the Furies