Who the hairy third and the hairy fourth and the hairy fifth were this history will plainly show; and I am indeed an idiot if, granting the oracle's unswerving accuracy in every particular up to the present, I do not recognise the hairy sixth; rejoicing on Rome's behalf that there will be no hairy seventh to succeed him.
II
I CANNOT REMEMBER MY FATHER, WHO DIED WHEN I WAS an infant, but as a young man I never lost an opportunity of gathering information of the most detailed sort about his life and character from every possible person--senator, soldier or slave--who had known him. I began writing his biography as my apprentice-task in history, and though that was soon put a stop to by my grandmother, Livia, I continued collecting material in the hope of one day being able to finish the work. I finished it, actually, just the other day, and even now there is no sense in trying to put it into circulation. It is so republican in sentiment that the moment Agrippinilla--my present wife--came to hear of its publication every copy would be suppressed and my unfortunate copying-scribes would suffer for my indiscretions.
They would be lucky to escape with their arms unbroken and their thumbs and index-fingers unlopped, which would be a typical indication of Agrippinilla's displeasure. How that woman loathes me!
My father's example has guided me throughout life more strongly than that of any other person whatsoever, with the exception of my brother Germanicus.
And Germanicus was, all agree, my father's very image in feature, body (but for his thin legs), courage, intellect and nobility; so I readily combine them in my mind as a single character. If I could start this story fairly with an account of my infancy, going no farther back than my parents, I would certainly do so, for genealogies and family histories are tedious. But I shall not be able to avoid writing at some length about my grandmother Livia (the only one of my four grandparents who was alive at my birth) because unfortunately she is the chief character in the first part of my story and unless I give a clear account of her early life her later actions will not be intelligible. I have mentioned that she was married to the Emperor Augustus: this was her second marriage, following her divorce by my grandfather. After my father's death she became the virtual head of our family, supplanting my mother Antonia, my Uncle Tiberius (the legal head) and Augustus himself--to whose powerful protection my father had committed us children in his will.
Livia was of the Claudian family, one of the most ancient of Rome, and so was my grandfather. There is a popular ballad, still sometimes sung by old people, of which the refrain is that the Claudian tree bears two sorts of fruit, the sweet apple and the crab, but that the crabs outnumber the apples. Among the crab sort the balladist reckons Appius Claudius the Proud who put all Rome in a tumult by trying to enslave and seduce a free-born girl called Virginia, and Claudius Drusus who in republican days tried to make himself King of all Italy, and Claudius the Fair, who, when the sacred chickens would not feed, threw them into the sea, crying "Then let them drink", and so lost an important sea-battle. And of the former sort the balladist mentions Appius the Blind, who dissuaded Rome from a dangerous league with King Pyrrhus, and Claudius the Tree-trunk who drove the Carthaginians out of Sicily, and Claudius Nero (which in the Sabine dialect means The Strong) who defeated Hasdrubal as he came out of Spain to join forces with his brother, the great Hannibal.
These three were all virtuous men, besides being bold and wise. And the balladist says that of the Claudian women too, some are apples and some are crabs, but that again the crabs outnumber the apples.
My grandfather was one of the best of the Claudians.
Believing that Julius Caesar was the one man powerful enough to give Rome peace and security in those difficult times, he joined the Caesarean party and fought bravely for Julius in the Egyptian War. When he suspected that Julius was aiming at personal tyranny, my grandfather would not willingly further his ambitions in Rome, though he could not risk an open breach. He therefore asked for and secured the office of pontiff and was sent in that capacity to France to found colonies of veteran soldiers there.
On his return after Julius' assassination he incurred the enmity of young Augustus, Julius' adopted son, who was then known as Octavian, and of his ally, the great Mark Antony, by boldly proposing honours for the tyrannicides.
He had to flee from Rome. In the disturbances that followed he sided now with this party and now with that according as the right seemed to lie here or there.
At one time he was with young Pompey, at another he fought with Mark Antony's brother against [B.C. 41] Augustus at Perusia in Etruria. But convinced at last that Augustus, though bound by loyalty to avenge the murder of Julius, his adopted father--a duty which he ruthlessly performed--was not tyrant-hearted and aimed at the restoration of the ancient liberties of the people, he came over to his side and settled at Rome with my grandmother Livia, and my uncle Tiberias, then only two years old. He took no more part in the Civil Wars, contenting himself with his duties as a pontiff.
My grandmother Livia was one of the worst of the Claudians. She may well have been a re-incarnation of that Claudia, sister of Claudius the Fair, who was arraigned for high treason because once when her coach was held up by a street crowd she called out, "If only my brother was alive! He knew how to clear crowds away. He used his whip." When one of the Protectors of the People ["tribunes", in Latin] came up and angrily ordered her to be silent, reminding her that her brother, by his impiety, had lost a Roman fleet: "A very good reason for wishing him alive," she retorted. "He might lose another fleet, and then another. God willing, and thin off this wretched crowd a little." And she added: "You're a Protector of the People, I see, and your person is legally inviolable, but don't forget that we Claudians have had some of you protectors well thrashed before now, and be damned to your inviolability."
That was exactly how my grandmother Livia spoke at this time of the Roman people. "Rabble and slaves! The Republic was always a humbug. What Rome really needs is a king again." That at least is how she talked to my grandfather, urging him that Mark Antony, and Augustus (or Octavian, I should say), and Lepidus (a rich but unenergetic nobleman), who between them now ruled the Roman world, would in time fall out; and that, if he played his hand well, he could use his dignity as a pontiff and the reputation for integrity which was conceded him by all factions as a means to becoming king himself. My grandfather replied sternly that if she spoke in this strain again he would divorce her; for in the old style of Roman marriage the husband could put his wife away without a public explanation, returning the dowry that had come with her--but keeping the children. At this my grandmother was silent and pretended to submit, but all love between them died from that moment. Unknown to my grandfather, she immediately set about engaging the passions of Augustus.
This was no difficult matter, for Augustus was young and impressionable and she had made a careful study of his tastes: besides which, she was by popular verdict one of the three most beautiful women of her day. She picked on Augustus as a better instrument for her ambitions than Antony--Lepidus did not count--and that he would stick at nothing to gain his ends the proscriptions had shown two years before, when two thousand knights and three hundred senators belonging to the opposing faction had been summarily put to death, by far the greatest number of these at Augustus' particular instance. When she had made sure of Augustus she urged him to put away Scribonia--a woman older than himself, whom he had married for political reasons--telling him that she had knowledge of Scribonia's adultery with a close friend of my grandfather's. Augustus was ready to believe this without pressing for detailed evidence. He divorced Scribonia, though she was quite innocent, on the very day that she bore him his daughter, Julia, whom he took [B.C. 38] from the birth-chamber before Scribonia had as much as seen the little creature, and gave to the wife of one of his freedmen to nurse. My grandmother--who was still only seventeen years old, nine years younger than Augustus--then went to my grandfather and said, "Now divorce me. I am already five months gone with child, and you are not the father. I made a vow that I would not bear another child to a coward, and I intend to keep it." My grandfather, whatever he may have felt when he heard this confession, said no more than "Call the adulterer here to me and let us discuss the matter together in private." The child was really his own, but he was not to know this, and when my grandmother said that it was another's he believed her.