'I stopped the night at Capri, and by morning the Emperor and I were better friends than ever - he had disregarded his doctors' advice and drunk with me all night. I thought that my fortunes were restored at last, when suddenly the single horse-hair, by which the- sword of Damocles had so long been suspended over my unlucky head, contrived to snap. A letter arrived for the Emperor from that idiot of a Governor at Anthedon reporting that he had served a warrant on me for non-payment of a twelve-thousand debt to the Privy Purse and that I had "eluded arrest by an artifice" and had escaped, kidnapping two of his garrison, who had not yet returned and had probably been murdered. I assured the Emperor-that the soldiers were alive and that they had stowed away in my vessel without my knowledge and that no warrant had been served on me. Perhaps they had been sent to serve it, I said, but had decided to go for a holiday to Egypt. At all events we found them hiding in the cargo when we were half-way to Alexandria. I assured the Emperor that at Alexandria I had returned them at once to Anthedon for punishment.'
`Herod Agrippa,' said my mother severely, `that was a deliberate lie and I am most ashamed of you.'
`Not so ashamed as I have been of myself since, dear. Lady Antonia,' said Herod. `How often have you told me that honesty is the best policy? But in the East everyone tells lies and one naturally discounts nine-tenths of what one hears, and expects one's hearers to do the same. For the moment I had forgotten that I was back in a country where it is considered dishonourable to deviate a hair's breadth from the strict-truth
`Did the Emperor believe you?' I asked.
'I hope so, with all my heart,' said Herod. `He asked me, "But what about the debt?" I told him that it was a loan granted me in proper, form and on good security by the Privy Purse, and that if a warrant had been issued for my arrest' on that account it must have been that traitor Sejanus's doing: I would speak to the Treasurer at once and settle the matter with him. But the Emperor said: "Herod, unless that debt is paid in full within a week you shall not be tutor to my grandson." You know how strict he is about debts to the Privy Purse. I said in as casual a tone as I could command, that I would certainly pay it within three days. But my heart was like lead. And so I immediately wrote to you, my dear benefactress, thinking that perhaps ...'
My mother said again, `It was very, very wrong of you, Herod, to tell the Emperor such lies.'
'I know it, I know it,' said Herod, feigning deep repentance. `If you had been, in my position you would undoubtedly have told the truth:' but I lacked the courage. And, as I say, these seven years in the East away from you have greatly blunted my moral sensibilities.'
`Claudius,' said my mother with sudden resolution, `how can we raise twelve thousand in a hurry? What about the letter you had from Aristobulus this morning?'
By a pretty coincidence I had had a letter from Aristobulus only that morning asking me to invest some money for him in landed property, which was going cheap at that time, because of the scarcity of coin. He had enclosed a banker's draft for. 10,000. My mother told Herod about it.
`Aristobulus!' cried Herod. `How in the world did he rake ten thousand together? The unprincipled fellow must have been making use of his influence with Flaccus to take bribes from the natives.'
`I consider, in that case,' said my mother, `that he behaved very shabbily towards you in reporting to my old friend Flaccus that the Damascenes were sending you a present for having pleaded their cause so well. I should have thought better of Aristobulus than that. And now perhaps it would only be justice if that ten, thousand were used as a temporary - temporary, mind you, Herod - loan to help you on your feet again. There will be no difficulty about the remaining two thousand - will there, Claudius?'
`You forget that Herod still has eight thousand from the Alabarch, Mother. Unless he has already spent it. He'll be better off than we are if we entrust Aristobulus's money to him.'
Herod was warned that he must repay the debt within three months without fail or I would be guilty of a breach of fiduciary trust. I did not like the business in the least, but I preferred it to mortgaging our house on the Palatine Hill to raise the money, which would have been the only other course. However, everything turned out unexpectedly well. Not only was Herod's appointment as tutor to Gemellus confirmed, as soon as he had paid the Privy Purse the 12,000, but he also repaid me the whole amount of the Aristobulus loan two days before it was due and, besides that, a former debt of 5,000 which we had never expected to see again. For Herod, as Gemellus's tutor, was thrown a great deal into the company of Caligula, whom Tiberius, now seventy-five years old, had adopted as his son and who was his heir-presumptive. Tiberius kept Caligula very short of money, and Herod, after gaining Caligula's confidence by some fine banquets, handsome, presents and the like, became his accredited agent for borrowing large sums, in the greatest secrecy, from rich men who wanted to stand in well with the new Emperor. For Tiberius was not expected to live much longer. When Caligula's confidence in Herod was thus proved and a matter of common knowledge in financial circles, he found it easy to borrow money in his own name as well as in Caligula's. His unpaid debts of seven years before had mostly settled themselves by the death of the creditors: for the ranks of the rich had been greatly thinned by Tiberius's treason trials under Sejanus, and under Macro, Sejanus's successor, the same destructive process continued. About the rest of his debts Herod was easy enough in his mind: nobody would dare to sue a man who stood so high in Court favour as himself. He paid me back with part of a loan of 40,000 gold pieces which he had negotiated with a freedman of Tiberius's, a fellow who, as a slave, had been one of the warders of Caligula's elder brother Drusus, when he was starved to death in the Palace cellars. Since his liberation he had become immensely rich by traffic in high-class slaves - he would buy sick slaves cheap and doctor them back to health in a hospital which he managed himself - and was afraid that Caligula when he became Emperor would take vengeance on him for his ill-treatment of Drusus; but Herod undertook to soften Caligula's heart towards him.