Page:The Satire of Seneca on the Apotheosis of Claudius.djvu/144



I wish to record an occurrence which took place in heaven on the third day before the Ides of October, in the new year which began our fortunate era. I am not going to be diverted by either fear or favor. I shall tell the unvarnished truth. If anybody asks me where I got my information, I say at once, I'll not answer if I don’t want to. Who is going to make me? I know I have been free to do as I like since the day when he died who had made the proverb true: One must be born either king or fool. If I please to answer, I shall say what comes to my tongue. Who ever demanded affidavits from an historian? Still, if I must produce my authority, apply to the man who saw Drusilla going heavenward; he will say he saw Claudius limping along in the same direction. Willy-nilly, he has to see everything that happens in heaven; for he is the superintendent of the Appian road, by which you know both the divine Augustus and Tiberius Caesar went to join the gods. If you ask this man he will tell you privately; in presence of more than one he’ll never speak a word. For since the day when he took oath in the Senate that he had seen Drusilla going