It was Vinicius who jumped up to answer him. `King Herod,' he cried, `the City Battalions are loyal to a man. You see their three colonels here among us to-night. We have great stores of weapons too and vast supplies of money with which to pay any further forces that, we may require to raise. There are many of us here who could, enlist a double company of troops from our own household slaves, and would gladly give them their liberty on their undertaking to fight for the Republic.'
Herod ostentatiously covered his mouth so that they should see that he was trying not to laugh. 'My friend Lord Vinicius,' he said, `my advice is don't you try it! What sort of a show do you think that your porters, and bakers and bath-attendants would make, against the Guards, the best troops in the Empire? I, mention the Guards because if they had been on your side you would certainly have told me about it. If you think that you can make a slave into a soldier by tying a breastplate on him, putting a spear in his hand, hanging a sword round his middle and saying:. ‘Now, fight, my boy!" - well, I repeat, don't you try it!' Then he addressed the Senate again as a whole. 'My Lords,' he said, `you tell me that the Guards have acclaimed as Emperor my friend Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus, the ex-Consul, but without first asking your consent. And I gather that the Guards have shown some hesitation in allowing him to obey your summons to attend this House. But I also gather that the message that was sent him did not emanate from you as a body but from an unofficial caucus of some two or three senators; and that only a small party of excited soldiers - no officers among them - were in attendance on Tiberius Claudius when it was delivered. Perhaps if another delegation were now sent to. him, with proper authority, the officers at the Guards' Camp would advise him to treat it with the respect that it deserves and would check the holiday spirit of the men under their command. I suggest that the same two Protectors of the People should be sent again, and I am ready, if you desire, to go with them and add my voice to theirs - in a quite disinterested way, of course. I believe that I have sufficient influence with my friend Tiberius Claudius, whom I have known from boyhood - we studied under the same venerable tutor - and sufficient interest with the officers at the Camp I am a frequent guest at their mess-table - and certainly, let me assure you, my Lords, I have sufficient eagerness for your good opinion, to be able to settle matters to the satisfaction of all parties concerned.'
So at about four o'clock that afternoon, as I was eating my long-delayed luncheon in the Colonels' Mess at the Guards' Camp, with every movement that I made silently, closely, though respectfully watched by my companions, a captain came in with the news that a delegation had arrived from the Senate and that King Herod Agrippa, who was here too, wished to speak to me privately beforehand.
`Bring King Herod in here,' said the Senior Colonel. `He's our friend.'
Presently Herod entered. He greeted each, of the Colonels by name and slapped one or two of them on the back and then came over to me and made me a most formal obeisance.
`May I speak to you in private, Caesar?' he asked, grinning.
I was disconcerted at being addressed as Caesar and asked him to call me by my proper name.
`Well, if you're not Caesar, I don't know who else is,' Herod answered, and the whole room laughed with him. He turned round. `My gallant friends,' he said, 'I thank you. But if you had been present at the meeting of the Senate this afternoon you really would have had something worth laughing at. I have never seen such a mob of infatuated enthusiasts in my life. Do you know what they think? They actually think that they are going to start a civil war and challenge you Guards to a pitched battle, with no one to help them but the City Battalions, and perhaps a Watchman or two, and their own household slaves masquerading as soldiers, under the command of sword-fighters from the amphitheatre! That's rich, eh? As a matter of fact, what I have come to tell the Emperor I can say in front of you all. They have now sent him a delegation of Protectors of the People, because, you see, there is not a single one of their own number who dares come himself: the Emperor is going to be asked to submit himself to the Senate's authority, and if he doesn't, why then they'll make him. What do you think of that? I came along with them after promising the Senate that I'd give the Emperor a few words of disinterested advice. I am now going to keep my promise.' He turned sharply round again and addressed me. `Caesar, my advice is, be rough with them! Stamp on the worms and watch them wriggle.'
I said stiffly: 'My friend King Herod, you seem to forget that I Am a Roman and that the powers even of an Emperor depend constitutionally on the will of the Senate. If the Senate' sends me a message which I am able to answer politely and submissively I shall not fail to do so.'
`Have it your own way,' Herod answered with a shrug, `but they won't treat you any the better for it. Constitutionally, eh? I must bow of course to your superior authority as an antiquarian, but has the word "constitution" any practical meaning to-day?'