`This favour carries with it retrospective legal sanction for whatever actions they have performed, and whatever contracts they have entered into under the impression that they were Roman citizens, either among themselves or among the Southern Tyrolese, or in any other circumstances; and such names as they have hitherto borne, as though they were Roman citizens, I hereby permit them to retain.'
SURVIVING FRAGMENTS OF CLAUDIUS'S SPEECH TO THE SENATE, PROPOSING THE-EXTENSION OF THE ROMAN CITIZENSHIP TO THE FRENCH OF THE AUTUN DISTRICT
I must beg you in advance, my Lords, to revise your first shocked impressions, on listening to the proposal I am about to make, that it is a most revolutionary one: such feelings, I foresee, will be the strongest obstacle which I shall encounter to-day. Perhaps the best way for me to negotiate this obstacle is to remind you how many changes have been made in our constitution in the course of Roman history, how extremely plastic, indeed, it has proved from the very beginning.
At one time Rome was ruled by kings, yet the monarchy never became hereditary. Strangers won the crown, and even foreigners: such as Romulus's successor, King Numa, who was a native of Sabinum (then still a foreign state though lying so close to Rome), and Tarquin the First, who succeeded Ancus Martins. Tarquin was of far from distinguished birth - his father was Demarathus, a Corinthian, and his mother was so poor that though she came of the noble Tarquin family she was forced to marry below her; so being debarred from holding honourable office at Corinth, Tarquin came here and was elected king. He and his son, or perhaps his grandson - historians are unable to agree even on this point - were succeeded by Servius Tullius, who, according to Roman accounts, was the son of Ocresia, a captive woman. Etruscan records make him the faithful companion of the Etruscan Caele Vipinas and sharer in all his misfortunes: they say that when Caele had been defeated, Servius Tullius left Etruria with the remnants of Caele's army
and seized the Caelian hill yonder, which he named after their former commander. He then changed his Etruscan name - it was Macstrna to Tullius, and won the Roman crown, and made a very good king too. Later, when Tarquin the Proud and his sons began to be loathed for their tyrannical behaviour, the Roman people; please observe, grew tired of monarchical government and we had, Consuls, annually elected magistrates, instead.
Need I then remind you of the dictatorship, which our ancestors found a stronger form of government even than the consular power in difficult times of war or political discord? Or of the appointment of Protectors of the People to defend the rights of the commons against encroachment? Or of the Board of Ten which for a time took over the government from the Consuls? Or of the sharing of the consular power between several persons? Or of the irregular appointment of army colonels to the Consulship - it happened seven or eight times? Or of the granting to members of the commons not only the highest magistracies but admission to the priesthood too? However, I shall not dilate on the early struggles of our ancestors and what the outcome of it all has been; you might suspect that I was immodestly making this historical survey an excuse for boasting of our recent extension of the Empire beyond the northern seas....
It was the will of my uncle, the Emperor Tiberius, that all leading colonies and provincial towns in Italy should have representatives sitting in this House; and representatives were indeed found with the necessary qualifications of character and wealth. `Yes,' you will say, 'but there is a great difference between an Italian senator and a senator from abroad.' Well, when I begin justifying to you this part of my action, as Censor, in extending the full Roman citizenship to the provinces, I shall show you just how I feel about the matter. But let me say briefly that I do not think that we ought to debar provincials from a seat in this House, if they can be a credit to it, merely because they are provincials. The renowned and splendid colony of Vienne, in France, has been sending us senators for a long time now, has it not? My dear friend Lucius Vestinus comes from Vienne: he is one of the most distinguished members of the Noble Order of Knights and I employ him here to assist me in my administrative duties. (I have, by the way, a favour to ask from you for Vestinus's children; I wish to have the highest honours of the priesthood conferred on them - I trust that later they will earn distinctions by their own merits to add to those granted them on their father's account.) There is, however, one Frenchman whose name I shall keep out of this speech, because he was a rascally robber and I hate the very mention of him. He was a sort of wrestling-school prodigy and carried a Consulship back to his colony before the place had even been granted the Roman citizenship. I have an equally low opinion of his brother – such a miserable and unworthy wretch that he could not possibly be of any: use to you as a senator.
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But it is now high time, Tiberius Claudius Germanicus, for you reveal to the House the theme of your speech: you have already reached the frontiers of the South of France....
... This House should be no more ashamed of these noble gentlemen; now standing before me, were they raised to the quality of senators; than my distinguished friend Periscus is ashamed when he finds the French name Allobrogicus among the funeral masks of his ancestors. If you agree that all this is as I say, what more do you want of me? Do you want me to prove to you from the map, putting my finger on the very spot, that you are already getting senators from beyond the frontier of Southern France, that no shame, in fact, has been felt about introducing men into our order who were born at Lyons? * O my Lords, I protest that it is with the greatest timidity that I venture beyond the familiar home-boundaries of Southern France! However, the cause of the rest of that great country must now definitely be pleaded. I grant you that the French fought against Julius Caesar (now deified) for ten years, but in return you must grant me that for a whole century since then they have preserved a more devoted loyalty to us, in times of disorder too, than we could ever have believed possible. When my father Drusus was engaged in the conquest of Germany the entire land of France remained at peace in his rear; and that, too, at a time when he had been called away from the business of taking a census of property-holders - a new and disquieting experience for the French. Why, even today, as I have only too good reason to know by personal experience, this taking of the census is a most arduous task, though it now means no more than a public review of our material resources....
*A Joking reference to himself. - R.G.
Chapter 28
ONE morning in August, the year of the census, Messalina came early into my bedroom and woke me up. It always takes me a long time to collect my wits when I first wake up, especially if I have been unable to sleep between midnight and dawn, as is often the case. She bent over me and-kissed me and
stroked my hair and told me in tones of the greatest concern that she had terrible news for me. I asked drowsily and rather crossly what it was.
'Barbillus the astrologer - you know that he never makes a mistake, don't you? Well, I asked him to read my stars yesterday, because he'd not done it for two or three years, and he observed them last night, and do you know what he has just come and told me?'
'Of course I don't know. Out with it and let me go on sleeping. I've had a wretched night.'
`Darling, I wouldn't dare to disturb you like this if it wasn't terribly important. What he said was, "Lady Messalina, a frightful fate is in store for one very near to you. This is Saturn's baleful influence once more. He is in his most malignant aspect. The blow will fall within thirty days, not later than the Ides of September." I asked him whom he meant, but he wouldn't tell me. He just kept on hinting, and at last I dragged it out of him by threatening to have him flogged. And guess what he said!'