asked Urgulania.
'"Why, don't you know? God destroyed the whole world with a flood, except Deucalion and his family, and a few animals that took refuge on the mountain tops. Haven't you read Aristophanes' Flood? It's my favourite play of his. The scene is laid on Mount Parnassus. Various animals are assembled, unfortunately only one of each kind, and each thinks himself the sole survivor of his species. So in order to replenish the earth somehow with animals they have to mate with one another in spite of moral scruples and obvious difficulties. The Camel is betrothed by Deucalion to the She-Elephant."
"Camel and Elephant! That's a fine one!" cackled Urgulania. "Look at Tiberius Claudius' long neck and skinny body and long silly face. And my Urgulanilla's great feet and great flapping ears, and little pig-eyes! Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha!
And what was their offspring? Giraffe? Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha!"
"The play doesn't get that far. Iris comes on the stage for the messenger speech and reports another refuge of animals on Mount Atlas. Iris breaks off the nuptials just in time."
"Was the Camel disappointed?"
"Oh, most bitterly."
"And the Elephant?"
"The Elephant just scowled."
"Did they kiss on parting?'*
"Aristophanes does not tell. But I'm sure they did.
Come on, Beasts. Kiss!"
I smiled foolishly, Urgulanilla scowled.
"Kiss, I say," Livia insisted in a voice that meant that we had to obey.
So we kissed, and started the old women on their hys'• terics again. When we were outside the room again I whispered to Urgulanilla: "I'm sorry. It's not my fault." But she did not answer except to scowl more deeply than before.
There was still a year before we were actually to marry, for the family had decided that I should not come of age until I was fifteen and a half, and much might happen in that time. If only Iris would come!
But she didn'tPostumus had his troubles too: he had already come of age now and it was only a few months before Domitia would be of marriageable age.
My poor Postumus, he was still in love with Livilla, though she was married. But before I continue with the story of Postumus I must tell of my meeting with the
"Last of the Romans".
IX
HIS NAME WAS POLLIO AND I WILL RECALL THE EXACT circumstances of our meeting, which took place }ust a week after my betrothal to Urgulanilla. I was reading in the Apollo Library when along came Livy and a little brisk old man in the robe of a senatoi. Livy was saying: "It seems then, that we may as well abandon all hope of finding it, unless perhaps.... Why, there's Sulpiciusl He'll know if anyone does. Good morning, Sulpicius. I want you to do a favour for Asinius Polho and myself. There's a book we want to look at, a commentary by a Greek called Polemocles on Polybius' Military Tactics. I seem to remember coming across it here once, but the catalogue does [107] not mention it and the librarians, here are perfectly useless." Sulpicius gnawed his beard for awhile and then said: "You've got the name wrong. Polemocrates was the name and he wasn't a Greek, in spite of his name, but a Jew.
Fifteen years ago I remember seeing it on that top shelf, the fourth from the window, right at the back, and the title tag had just 'A Dissertation on Tactics' on it. Let me get it for you. I don't expect it's been moved since then."
Then Livy saw me. "Hullo, my friend, how goes it? Do you know the famous Asinius Pollio?"
I saluted them and Pollio said: "What's that you're reading, boy? Trash, I'll be bound, by the shamefaced way you hide it. Young fellows nowadays read only trash." He turned to Livy: "I bet you ten gold pieces that it's some wretched 'Art of Love', or Arcadian pastoral nonsense, or something of that sort."
"I'll take the bet," said Livy. "Young Claudius is not that sort of young man at all. Well, Claudius, which of us wins?"
I said, stammering, to Pollio: "I'm glad to say, sir, that you lose."
Pollio frowned angrily at me; "What's that you say?
Glad that I lose, eh? Is that a proper way to speak to an old man like me, and a senator too?"
I said: "I said it in all respect, sir. I am glad that you lose. I should not like to hear this book called trash. It's your own history of the Civil Wars and, if I may venture to praise it, a very fine book indeed."
Pollio's face changed. He beamed and chuckled and pulled out his purse, pressing the coins on Livy. Livy, with whom he seemed on terms of friendly animosity--if you know what I mean--refused them with mock-serious insistence.
"My dear Pollio, I couldn't possibly take the money. You were quite right: these young fellows nowadays read the most wretched stuff. Not another word, please: I agree that I've lost the bet. Here are ten gold pieces of my own and I'm glad to pay them."
Pollio appealed to me. "Now, sir--I don't know who you are but you seem to be a lad of sense--have you read our friend Livy's work? I appeal to you, isn't that at least trashier writing than mine?"
I smiled. "Well, at least it's easier to read."
"Easier, eh. How's that?"
"He makes the people of Ancient Rome behave and talk as if they were alive now."
Pollio was delighted. "He has you there, Livy, on your weakest spot. You credit the Romans of seven centuries ago with impossibly modern motives and habits and speeches.
Yes, it's readable all right, but it's not history."
Before I record more of this conversation 1 must say a few words about old Pollio, perhaps the most gifted man of his day, not even excepting Augustus. He was now nearly eighty years old but in full possession of his mental powers and seemingly in better physical health than many a man of sixty. He had crossed the Rubicon with Julius Caesar and fought with him against Pompey, and served under my grandfather Antony, before his quarrel with Augustus, and had been Consul and Governor of Further Spain and of Lombardy, and had won a triumph for a victory in the Balkans and had been a personal friend of Cicero's until he grew disgusted with him, and a patron of the poets, Virgil and Horace. Besides all this he was a distinguished orator and writer of tragedies. But he was a better historian than he was either tragedian or orator, because he had a love or literal truth, amounting to pedantry, which he could not square with the conventions or these other literary forms. With the spoils of the Balkan campaign he had founded a public library, the first public library at Rome. There were now two others: the one we were in and another called after my grandmother Octavia; but Pollio's was much better organised for reading purposes than either.
Sulpicius had now found the book, and after a word of thanks to him they renewed their argument.
Livy said: "The trouble with Pollio is that when he writes history he feels obliged to suppress all his finer, more poetical feelings, and make his characters behave with conscientious dullness, and when he puts a speech into their mouths he denies them the least oratorical ability."
Pollio said: "Yes, Poetry is Poetry, and Oratory is Oratory, and History is History, and you can't mix them."
"Can't I? Indeed I can." said Livy. "Do you mean to [109] say that I mustn't write a history with an epic theme because that's a prerogative of poetry or put worthy eve-of-battle speeches in the mouths of my generals because to compose such speeches is the prerogative of oratory?"
"That is precisely what I do mean. History is a true record of what happened, how people lived and died, what they did and said; an epic theme merely distorts the record. As for your general's speeches they are admirable as oratory but damnably unhistoricaclass="underline" not only is there no particle of evidence for any one of them, but they are inappropriate. I have heard more eve-of-battle speeches than most men and though the generals that made them, Caesar and Antony especially, were remarkably fine platform orators, they were all too good soldiers to try any platform business on the troops. They spoke to them in a conversational way, they did not orate. What sort of speech did Caesar make before the Battle of Pharsalia? Did he beg us to remember our wives and children and the sacred temples of Rome and the glories of our past campaigns?