I, Claudius - Robert Graves [214]
I asked: "Is your Sacred Majesty going to bum any other poets besides Homer?"
"Oh, indeed, yes. All the over-rated ones. Virgil for a start. He's a dull fellow. Tries to be a Homer and can't do it."
"And any historians?"
"Yes, Livy. Still duller. Tries to be a Virgil and can't do it."
XXXII
HE CALLED FOR THE MOST RECENT OFFICIAL property census and after examining it summoned all the richest men in France to Lyons, so that when the Palace staff arrived there from Rome he would be sure to get good prices for it. Just before the auction started, he made a speech.
He said that he was a poor bankrupt with enormous liabilities, but trusted that, for the sake of the Empire, his affectionate provincial friends and grateful allies would not take advantage of his financial plight. He begged them not to offer less than the true value of 'the family heirlooms which, much to his grief, he was being forced to put up for sale.
There was no ordinary auctioneer's trick that he had not learned, and he invented a great many new ones too beyond the scope of the market-place cheap-jacks from whom he borrowed so much of his patter. For instance, he sold the same article several times over to different buyers with each time a different account of its quality and usefulness and history. And by "true value" he expected bidders to understand "sentimental value" which always turned out to be a hundred times greater than the intrinsic value. For instance he would say: "This was the favourite easy-chair of my great-grandfather Mark Antony"—"the God Augustus drank out of this wine-cup at his marriage feast"—"this dress was worn by my sister, the Goddess Panthea, at a reception given to King Herod Agrippa in celebration of his release from prison"—and so forth. And he sold what he called "blind bargains", small articles wrapped up in cloth. When he had inveigled a man into buying an old sandal or a piece of cheese for two thousand gold pieces, he was tremendously pleased with himself.
Bidding always started at the reserve price; for he would nod at some rich Frenchman and say, "I think you said forty thousand gold pieces for that alabaster casket? Thank you. But let's see if we can't do better. Who'll say forty-five thousand?" You can imagine that fear made the bidding brisk. He skinned the whole lot of all they had and celebrated the skinning by a magnificent ten-day festival.
He then continued his progress to the Rhine Provinces.
He swore that he was about to fight a war against the Germans that would only end in their total extermination. He would piously complete the task begun by his grandfather and father. He sent a couple of regiments over the river to locate the nearest enemy. About a thousand prisoners were brought back. Caligula reviewed them and after picking out three hundred fine young men for his bodyguard he lined up the remainder against a cliff. A bald-headed man was at either end of the line. Caligula gave Cassius the order: "Kill them, from bald head to bald head, in vengeance for the death of Varus." The news of this massacre reached the Germans and they withdrew into their thickest forests. Caligula then crossed the river with his entire army and found the countryside deserted. The first day of his march, just to make things more exciting, he ordered some of his German bodyguard into a neighbouring wood, and then had news brought to him at supper that the enemy was at hand. At the head of his "Scouts" and a troop of Guards Cavalry he then dashed out to the attack. He brought back the men as prisoners, loaded with chains and announced a crushing victory against overwhelming odds.
He rewarded his comrades-in-arms with a new sort of military decoration called "The