I, Claudius - Robert Graves [225]
"But we have plenty of time now Why not wait another three days?"
Cassius said: "If you won't carry that plan out to-day as you all swore you would, I shall have to work single-handed! won't have much of a chance against the Germans—but I'll do my best. If they are too strong for me I'll call out, 'Vinicius, Asprenas, Bubo, Aquila, Tiger, why aren't you here as you promised?' "
So they agreed to carry out the original plan. Caligula was to be persuaded by Vinicius and Asprenas to leave the theatre at noon for a plunge in the swimming pool and a quick lunch. Just before this Cassius, The Tiger, and the other captains who were in the plot were to slip out unobtrusively by the stage-door. They were to go round to the entrance of the covered passage which was the short cut from the theatre to the New Palace. Asprenas and Vinicius would persuade Caligula to take this short cut.
The play that day had been announced as Ulysses and Circe and Caligula had promised to scatter fruit and cakes and money at the end of it. He would naturally do this from the end nearest the gate, where his seat was, so everyone came as early as possible to the theatre to secure seats at that end. When the gates were opened the crowd rushed in and raced for the nearest seats. Usually all the women sat together in one part, and there were seats reserved for knights, and for senators, and for distinguished foreigners and so on. But to-day everyone was muddled up together. I saw a senator who had come in late forced to sit between an African slave and a woman with saffron-dyed hair and the dark-coloured gown that common prostitutes wear as their professional dress. "So much the better," said Cassius to The Tiger. "The more confusion there is, the better chance we have."
Apart from the Germans and Caligula himself almost the only person at the Palace who had not by now heard of the plot was poor Claudius. This was because poor Claudius was going to be killed too, as Caligula's uncle.
All Caligula's family were to be killed. The conspirators were afraid, I suppose, that I would make myself Emperor and avenge his death. They had determined to restore the Republic. If only the idiots had taken me into their confidence this story would have had a very different ending.
For I was a better Republican than any of them. But they mistrusted me, and very cruelly doomed me to death. Even Caligula knew more about the plot than I did, in a sense, for he had just been sent a warning oracle from the Temple of Fortune at Antium: "Beware of Cassius." He misunderstood it, and recalled Drusilla's first husband, Cassius Longinus, from Asia Minor, where he was Governor. He thought that Longinus was angry with him for murdering Drusilla and remembered that he was a descendant of that Cassius who helped to assassinate Julius Caesar.
I came into the theatre that morning at eight o'clock and found that a place had been reserved for me by the ushers.
I was between the Guards' Commander and the Commander of the Germans. The Guards' Commander leant across me and asked: "Have you heard the news?"
"What news?" said the Commander of the Germans.
"They are playing a new drama to-day."
"What is it?"
"The Tyrant's Death."
The Commander of the Germans gave him a quick look and quoted frowning: "Brave comrade, hold thy peace Lest someone hear thee, of the men of Greece."
I said: "Yes, there is a change in the programme.
Mnester is to give us The Tyrant's Death. It hasn't been played for years. It's about King Cinyras, who wouldn't come into the war against Troy, and got killed for his cowardice."
The play began and Mnester was at the top of his form.
When he died at the hands of Apollo he spurted blood all over his clothes from a little bladder concealed in his mouth. Caligula sent for him and kissed him on both cheeks. Cassius and The Tiger escorted him to his dressing-room as if to protect him from his admirers. Then they went out by the stage-door. The captains followed during the confusion of the largesse-throwing. Asprenas said to Caligula: "That was