Odes ii, 13, 35 |
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[13]
Claudius was charmed to hear his own praises sung,
and would have stayed longer to see the show. But the Talthybius1 of the gods laid a hand on him, and led him across the
Campus Martius, first wrapping his head up close that no one might know him, until
betwixt Tiber and the Subway he went down to the lower regions. His freedman
Narcissus had gone down before him by a short cut, ready to welcome his master. Out
he comes to meet him, smooth and shining (he had just left the bath), and says
he:“What make the gods among mortals?”
“Look alive,” says Mercury, “go and tell them we are
coming.” Away he flew, quicker than tongue can tell it. It is easy going by
that road, all down hill. So although Claudius had a touch of the gout, in a trice
they were come to Dis's door. There lay Cerberus, or, as Horace puts it, the
hundred-headed monster.
Claudius was a trifle perturbed
(it was a little white bitch he used to keep for a pet) when he spied this black
shag-haired hound, not at all the kind of thing you could wish to meet in the dark.
In a loud voice he cried, “Claudius is coming!” All marched before him
singing, “The lost is found, O let us rejoice together!”2 Here were found C.
Silius consul elect, Juncus the ex-praetor, Sextus Traulus, M. Helvius,[p. 403] Trogus, Cotta, Vettius Valens, Fabius, Roman Knights whom Narcissus
had ordered for execution. In the midst of this chanting company was Mnester the
mime, whom Claudius for honour's sake had made shorter by a head. The news was soon
blown about that Claudius had come: to Messalina they throng: first his freedmen,
Polybius, Myron, Harpocras, Amphaeus, Pheronactus, all sent before him by Claudius
that he might not be unattended anywhere; next two prefects, Justus Catonius and
Rufrius Pollius; then his friends, Saturninus Lusius and Pedo Pompeius and Lupus and
Celer Asinius, these of consular rank; last came his brother's daughter, his
sister's daughter, sons-in-law, fathers and mothers-in-law, the whole family in
fact. In a body they came to meet Claudius; and when Claudius saw them, he
exclaimed, “Friends everywhere, on my word! How came you all here?” To
this Pedo Pompeius answered, "What, cruel man? How came we here? Who but you sent
us, you, the murderer of all the friends that ever you had? To court with you! I'll
show you where their lordships sit.'
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