Page:The Satire of Seneca on the Apotheosis of Claudius.djvu/151

 deep, hoarse and inarticulate, he thought that a thirteenth labor had come to him. When he looked more carefully, however, it appeared to be a man. He approached him and thus spoke, as was easiest for a Greek chap:

Who and whence art thou, and where are thy city and parents?

Claudius was delighted to find literary people there, hoping there would be some place for his histories. So he, too, in a Homeric verse, indicating himself to be Caesar, said:

Hence from Ilium the winds have among the Cicones cast me.

But the following verse would have been truer, and equally Homeric:

There their city I wasted; the people I slaughtered.

And he would have imposed upon the guileless Hercules, had not Fever been there, who alone had left her shrine and come with him. All the other divinities he had left behind at Rome. She said, “It is simple nonsense that he is giving you. I tell you—I who have lived with him for so many years—he was born at Lugudunum; you behold one of Marcus’ citizens. As I’m telling you, he was born sixteen miles from Vienna, a genuine Gaul. And so as a Gaul ought to do, he captured Rome. Take my word for it, he was born at