I, Claudius - Robert Graves [226]
"No.'' said Caligula, ''I want to see those girl acrobats.
They're said to be pretty good. I think I'll sit the show out.
It's the last day." He was in an extremely affable mood.
So Vinicius rose. He was going to tell Cassius, The Tiger, and the rest, not to wait. Caligula pulled at his cloak. "My dear fellow, don't run away. You must see those girls. One does a dance called the fish-dance which makes you feel as if you were ten fathoms under water."
Vinicius sat down and saw the fish-dance. But first he had to sit through a short melodramatic interlude called Laureolus, or The Robber Chief. There was a lot of slaughter in it and the actors, a second-rate lot, had all found blood-bladders to put in their mouths in imitation of Mnester. You never saw such an ill-omened mess as they made of the stage! When the fish-dance was over Vinicius rose again: "To tell the truth, Lord, I would love to stay but Cloacina calls me. It's some confounded thing I ate.
"Soft but cohesive let my offerings flow, Not roughly swift, nor impudently slow.,."
Caligula laughed. "Don't blame it on me, my dear fellow. You're one of my best friends. I wouldn't doctor your food for the world."
Vinicius went out by the stage-door and found Cassius and The Tiger in the court. "You'd better come back," he said. "He's sitting it out to the end."
Cassius said: "Very well. Let's go back. I'm going to kill him where he sits. I expect you to stand by me."
Just then a Guardsman came up to Cassius and said, "The boys are here at last, sir."
Now, Caligula had lately sent letters to the Greek cities of Asia Minor ordering them each to send him ten boys of the noblest blood to dance the national sword-dance at the festival and sing a hymn in his honour. This was only an excuse for getting the boys in his power: they would be useful hostages when he turned his fury against Asia Minor. They should have arrived several days before this, but rough weather in the Adriatic bad held them up at Corfu. The Tiger said, "Inform the Emperor at once."
The Guardsman hurried to the theatre.
Meanwhile I was beginning to feel very hungry. I whispered to Vitellius who was sitting behind me, "I do wish that the Emperor would set us the example of going out for a little luncheon." Then the Guardsman came up with the message about the boys’ arrival and Caligula said to Asprenas: "Splendid! They'll be able to perform this afternoon. I must see them at once and have a short rehearsal of the hymn. Come on, friends! The rehearsal first, then a bathe, luncheon, and back again!"
We went out. Caligula stopped at the gate to give orders about the afternoon performance. I walked ahead withVitellius, a senator named Sentius, and the two generals.
We went by the covered passage. I noticed Cassius and The Tiger at the entrance. They did not salute me, which I thought strange, for they saluted the others. We reached the Palace. I said, "I am hungry. I smell venison cooking. I hope that rehearsal won't take too long." We were in the ante-room to the banqueting-hall. "This is odd," I thought. "No captains here, only sergeants." I fumed questioningly to my companions but—another odd thing—found that they had all silently vanished. Just then I heard distant shouting and screams, then more shouting. I wondered what on earth was happening. Someone ran past the window shouting, "It's all over. He's dead!" Two minutes later there came a most awful roar from the theatre, as if the whole audience was being massacred. It went on and on but after a time there was a lull followed by tremendous cheering. I stumbled upstairs to my little reading-room where I collapsed trembling on a chair.
The pillared portrait-busts of Herodotus, Polybius, Thucydides, and Asinius Pollio stood facing me. Their impassive features seemed to say: "A true historian will always rise superior to the political disturbances of his day."
I determined to comport myself as a true historian.
XXXIV
WHAT HAD HAPPENED WAS THIS. CALIGULA had come