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 [w] 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? Ah that the Emperor would set us the example of going out iys. 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 OUT of the theatre. A sedan was waiting to take him the long way round to the New Palace between double ranks of Guards. But Vinicius said: "Let's go by the short cut. The Greek boys are waiting there at the entrance, I believe."
"All right, then, come along," said Caligula. The people tried to follow him out but Asprenas dropped behind and forced them back. "The Emperor doesn't want to be bothered with you," he said. "Get back!" He told the gatekeepers to close the gates again.
Caligula went towards the covered passage. Cassius stepped forward and saluted. "The watchword, Caesar?"
Caligula said, "Eh? O yes, the watchword, Cassius. I'll give you a nice one to-day--'Old Man's Petticoat.'"
The Tiger called from behind Caligula, "Shall I?" It was the agreed signal.
"Do so!" bellowed Cassius, drawing his sword, and striking at Caligula with all his strength.
He had intended to split his skull to the chin, but in his rage he missed his aim and struck him between the neck and the shoulders. The upper breastbone took the chief force of the blow. Caligula was staggered with pain and astonishment. He looked wildly around him, turned and ran.
As he turned Cassius struck at him again, severing his jaw.
The Tiger then felled him with a badly-aimed blow on the side of his head.
He slowly rose to his knees. "Strike again!" Cassius shouted.
Caligula looked up to Heaven with a face of agony. "O Jove," he prayed.
"Granted," shouted The Tiger, and hacked off one of his hands.
A captain called Aquila gave the finishing stroke, a deep thrust in the groin, but ten more swords were plunged into his breast and belly afterwards, just to make sure o£ him.
A captain called Bubo dipped his hand in a wound in Caligula's side and then licked his fingers, shrieking, "I swore to drink his blood!"
A crowd had collected and the alarm went around, "The Germans are coming." The assassins had no chance against a whole battalion of Germans. They rushed into the nearest building, which happened to be my old home, lately borrowed from me by Caligula as guest-apartments for foreign ambassadors whom he did not want to have about in the Palace. They went in at the front door and out at the back door. All got away in time but The Tiger and Asprenas. The Tiger had to pretend that he was not one of the assassins and joined the Germans in their cries for vengeance. Asprenas ran into the covered passage, where the Germans caught him and killed him. They killed two other senators whom they happened to meet. This was only a small party of Germans. The rest of the battalion marched into the theatre and closed the gate behind them. They were going to avenge their murdered hero by a wholesale massacre. That was the roar and screaming I had heard. Nobody in the theatre knew that Caligula was dead or that any attempt had been made against his life. But it was quite clear what the Germans intended because they were going through that curious performance of patting and stroking their assegais and speaking to them as if they were human beings, which is their invariable custom before shedding blood with those terrible weapons. There was no escape. Suddenly from the stage the trumpet blew the Attention, followed by the six notes which mean Imperial Orders. Mnester entered and raised his hand.
And at once the terrible din died down into mere sobs and smothered groans, for when Mnester appeared on the stage it was a rule that nobody should utter the least sound on pain of instant death. The Germans too stopped their patting and stroking and incantations. The Imperial Orders stiffened them into statues.
Mnester shouted: "He's not dead, Citizens. Far from it. The assassins set on him and beat him to his knees, so! But he presently rose again, so! Swords cannot prevail against our Divine Caesar. Wounded and bloody as he was he rose. So! He lifted his august head and walked, so! with divine stride through the ranks of his cowardly and baffled assassins. His wounds healed, a miracle! He is now in the Market Place loudly and eloquently haranguing his subjects from the Oration Platform."
A mighty cheer arose and the Germans sheathed their swords and marched out. Mnester's timely lie [prompted, as a matter of fact, by a message from Herod Agrippa,
King of the Jews, the only man in Rome who kept his wits about him that fateful afternoon had saved sixty thousand lives or more].
But the real news had by now reached the Palace, where it caused the most utter confusion. A few old soldiers thought that the opportunity for looting was too good to be missed. They would pretend to be looking for the assassins. Every room in the Palace had a golden door-knob, each worth six months' pay, easy enough to hack off with a sharp sword. I heard the cries, "Kill them, kill thcm!
Avenge Caesar!" and hid behind a curtain. Two soldiers came in. They saw my feet under the curtain. "Come out of there, assassin. No use hiding from us."
I came out and fell on my face. "Don't k-k-k-k-kill me, Lords," I said. "I had n-nothing to d-d-d-d-do with it."
"Who's this old gentleman?" asked one of the soldiers who was new at the Palace. "He doesn't look dangerous."
"Why! Don't you know? He's Germanicus' invalid brother. A decent old stick. No harm in him at all. Get up, sir. We won't hurt you." This soldier's name was Gratus.