I sent a message to Asiaticus to inform him that I was adjourning the trial for twenty-four hours, and that, meanwhile, he was released from his fetters. He would surely understand that message. Meanwhile Messalina had hurried to Poppaea to tell her that Asiaticus was on the point- of being condemned, and advised her to forestall her own trial and execution by immediate suicide. I knew nothing about this.
Asiaticus died courageously enough. He spent his last day-winding up his affairs, eating and drinking as usual, and taking a walk in the Gardens of Lucullus (as they were still called), giving instructions to the gardeners about the trees and flowers and fishpools. 'When he found that they had built his funeral pyre close I to a fine avenue of hornbeams he was most indignant and fined the freedman responsible for choosing the site a quarter's pay. `Didn't you realize, idiot, that the breeze would carry the flames into the foliage of those lovely old trees and spoil the whole appearance of the Gardens?' His last words to his family before the surgeon severed an artery in his leg and let him bleed to death in a warm bath were, 'Good-bye, my-dear-friends. It would have been less ignominious to have died by the dark artifices of Tiberiuss or the fury of Caligula, than now to fall a sacrifice to the imbecilic credulity of Claudius, betrayed by the woman I loved and by the friend I trusted.' For he was now convinced that Poppaea and Vitellius had arranged for the prosecution.
Two days later I asked Scipio to dine with me, and inquired after his wife's health, as a tactful way of indicating that if he still loved Poppaea and was- ready to forgive her, I would take no further action in the matter. 'She's dead, Caesar,' he answered, and began sobbing with his head in his hands.
Asiaticus's. family, the Valerians, to show that they did not wish to associate themselves with his treasonable words, were then obliged to present Messalina with, the Gardens of Lucullus as a peace-offering; though naturally I never suspected it at the time, they were the real cause of Asiaticus's death. I tried the Petra brothers and executed them, and the Tristonia sisters then committed suicide. As for Assario, it seems that I signed his death-warrant: but I have no recollection of this. When I told Pallas to warn him for trial I was told that he had already been executed, and was shown the warrant, which was certainly not forged. The only explanation that I can offer is that Messalina, or possibly Polybius, who was her tool, smuggled the death-warrant in among a number of other unimportant ones that I had to sign, and that I signed it without reading it. I know now that this sort of trick. was constantly played on me that they, took advantage of the strain from which my eyes were again suffering (so much that I had to stop all reading by artificial light) to read out as official reports and letters for my signature improvisations that did not correspond at all with the written documents.
About this time Vinicius died, of poison. I heard, some years later, that he had refused to sleep with Messalina and that the poison was administered by her; certainly he died on the day after he had dined at the Palace. The story is quite likely to be true. So now Vinicius, Vinicianus, and Asiaticus, the three men who had offered themselves as Emperor instead of me, were all dead, and their deaths seemed to lie at my door. Yet I had a clean conscience about them. Vinicianus and Asiaticus were clearly traitors, and Vinicius, I thought, had died as the result of an accident. But the Senate and People knew Messalina better than I did, and hated me because of her. That was the invisible barrier between them and me, and nobody had the courage to break it down.
As the result of a strong speech that I made about Asiaticus, at a session in which Sosibius and Crispinus were voted cash presents for their services, the Senate voluntarily surrendered to me the power of granting its members permission to leave. Italy on any pretext.
Chapter 26
MY daughter Antonia had been married for some years to young Pompey but they had no children yet. One evening I visited her at her house, in Pompey's absence, and it occurred to me how disconsolate and bored she now, always looked. Yes, she agreed, she was bored, and very bored and more than bored. So I suggested that she' would feel much happier if she had a child and told her that I thought it was her duty as a healthy young woman with servants and plenty of money to have not only one child but several. With a family of young children she need never complain of boredom. She flared up and said: 'Father, only a fool would expect a field of corn to spring up where no seed has been sown. Don't blame the soil, blame the farmer. He sows salt, not seed.' And to my astonishment she explained that the marriage had never been properly consummated; and not only that, but she had been used in the vilest possible way by my son-in-law. I asked her why she had not told me of this before, and she said that she didn't think that I would believe her, because I had never really loved her, not as I loved her half-brother and half-sister; and that young Pompey had boasted to her that he stood so well with me now that he could make me do anything he wanted and believe anything that he told me. So what chance had she? Besides, there would be the shame of having to testify in court to the horrible things that he had done to her, and she could not face that.
I grew angry, as any father would, and assured her that I loved her dearly, and that it was chiefly on her account that I treated Pompey with such respect and confidence. I swore on my honour that if only half of what she had told me was true I would take immediate vengeance on the scoundrel. And that her modesty would be spared: the matter would never go to court. What was the use of being an Emperor if I couldn't use the privileges of my position to good private purpose occasionally, as a slight counterbalance to the responsibility and labour and pain that went with it? And at what hour was Pompey expected back?
`He'll be home at about midnight,' said Antonia, miserably, `and by one o'clock he'll be in his room. He'll have a few drinks first. It's nine chances in ten that he'll take that disgusting Lycidas to bed with him: he bought him at the Asiaticus sale for twenty thousand gold pieces and he's not had eyes for anyone else since. In a way it's been a great relief to me. So you know how: bad things must be when I say that I infinitely prefer him to sleep with Lycidas than with me. Yes, I was in love with Pompey once. Love's a funny thing, isn't it?'
`Very well, then, my poor, poor Antonia. When Pompey's in his room and settled down for the night, light a pair of oil lamps and put them on the window-sill of this room for a signal. Then leave the rest to me.'
She put the oil lamps on the window-sill an hour before dawn; then she came down and made the janitor open the front door. I was there. I brought Geta and a couple of Guards sergeants into the house with me and sent them upstairs while I waited in the hall below with Antonia. She had sent all the servants away except the janitor, who had been a slave-boy of mine. She was crying a little and we clasped hands as we anxiously listened for the sound of screams and scuffling from the bedroom.. Not a sound was heard, but presently. Geta came down with the sergeants and reported that my orders had been obeyed. Pompey and the slave Lycidas had been killed with a single javelin thrust.