|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 35
The senate was much perplexed when it heard of the death of Caligula.
What was to be done? The majority was inclined to restore the former
republican government by abolishing the imperial authority, and to give
back to the senate the supreme direction of the state, which little by
little had passed into the hands of the emperor. But many recognized
that this return to the ancient form of government would be neither
easy nor without danger. Could the senate, neglected, divided, and
disregarded as it was, succeed in governing the immense empire? On the
other hand, it was not much easier to find an emperor, granted that an
emperor was henceforth necessary. In the family of Augustus there was
only Claudius, too foolish and ridiculous for them to think of making
him the head of the state. It seems that some eminent senator offered
his candidacy, but the senate hesitated in perplexity, on the ground
that if the authority of the members of the family of Augustus was
already so uncertain, so debatable, and so darkly threatened, what
would happen to a new emperor, unknown to the legions and the
provinces, and unsupported by the glory of his ancestors? While the
senate was debating in such uncertainty, the pretorians discovered
Claudius in a corner of the imperial palace, where he had been cowering
through fear lest he too be killed. Recognizing in him the brother of
Germanicus, the pretorians proclaimed him emperor. An act of will is
always more powerful than a thousand scruples or hesitations: the
senate yielded to the legions, and recognized Claudius the imbecile as
emperor.
[Illustration: Claudius.]
But Claudius was not an imbecile, although he appeared such to many.
Instead, he was, so to speak, a man half-grown, in whom certain parts
of the mind were highly developed, but whose character had remained
that of a child, timid, capricious, impulsive, giddy, and incapable of
self-mastery. In intellect he was learned, even cultivated; he was
fond of studies, of history, literature, and archaeology, and spoke and
wrote well. But Augustus had been forced to give up the attempt to
have him enter upon a political career because he had been unable to
make him acquire even that exterior bearing which confers the necessary
dignity upon him who exercises great power, to say nothing of the
firmness, precision, and force of will required in governing men.
Credulous, timorous, impressionable, and at the same time obstinate,
gluttonous, and sensual, this erudite, overgrown boy had become in the
imperial palace a kind of plaything for everybody, especially for his
slaves, who, knowing his defects and his weaknesses, did with him what
they wished.
He did not lack the intellectual qualities necessary for governing
well, but of the moral qualities he had none. He was intelligent, and
he looked stupid: he was able to consider the great questions of
politics, war, and finance with breadth of view, with original and
acute intelligence, but he never succeeded in having himself taken
seriously by the persons who surrounded him. He dared undertake great
projects, like the conquest of Britain, and he lost his head at the
wildest fable about conspiracy which one of his intimates told him; he
had mind sufficient to govern the empire as well as Augustus and
Tiberius had done, but he could not succeed in getting obedience from
four or five slaves or from his own wife.
Such a man was destined to turn out a rather odd emperor, at once great
and ridiculous. He made important laws, undertook gigantic public
works and conquests of great moment; but in his own house he was a weak
husband, incapable of exercising any sort of authority over his wife.
With these conjugal weaknesses he seriously compromised the imperial
authority, while at the same time he was consolidating it and rendering
it illustrious with beautiful and wise achievements, especially in the
first seven years of his rule, while he lived with Valeria Messalina.
We must admit in his justification that in this matter he had not been
particularly fortunate; for fate had given him to wife a lady who,
notwithstanding her illustrious ancestors,--she belonged to one of the
greatest families of Rome, related to the family of Augustus,--was not
exactly suited to be his companion in the imperial dignity. Every one
knows that the name of Valeria Messalina has become in history
synonymous with all the faults and all the vices of which a woman can
be guilty. This, as usual, is the result of envy and malevolence which
never offered truce to the family of Augustus as long as any of its
members lived. Many of the infamies which are attributed to her are
evidently fables, complacently repeated by Tacitus and Suetonius, and
easily believed by posterity. But it is certain that if Messalina was
not a monster, she was a beautiful woman, capricious, gay, powerful,
reckless, avid of luxury and of money, who had never scrupled to abuse
the weakness of her husband in any way either by deceiving him or by
obliging him to follow her will and her caprice in everything. She was
a woman, in short, neither very virtuous nor serious. There are such
women at all times and in all social classes, and they are generally
considered by the majority not as monsters, but as a pleasing, though
dangerous, variety of the feminine sex. Under normal conditions,
nevertheless, when the husband exercises a certain energy and sagacity,
even the danger which may result from them is relatively slight.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|