Page:The Satire of Seneca on the Apotheosis of Claudius.djvu/159

 he can have me as his slave. Who will worship this god? Who will believe in him? As long as you make such gods as he, nobody will believe that you are gods yourselves. In short, Conscript Fathers, if I have behaved myself honorably among you, if I have not answered anybody in an ungentlemanly manner, avenge my injuries. This is the resolution which I have to offer;” and he read as follows from his tablet: “Since the divine Claudius has killed his father-in-law Appius Silanus, his two sons-in-law Magnus Pompeius and L. Silanus, his daughter’s father-in-law Crassus Frugi, a man as like himself as one egg is to another, Scribonia his daughter’s mother-in-law, his wife Messalina, and others too numerous to mention, I propose that strict punishment be meted out to him, that he be granted no rest from adjudicating cases, and that he be got out of the way as soon as possible, departing from heaven within thirty days and from Olympus within three.”

There was a division of the house, and this resolution was carried. Without delay the Cyllenian dragged him by the nape of his neck off from heaven toward the lower regions,

“Whence they say no man returns.”

While they were going down the Via Sacra, Mercury inquired what such a crowd of people could mean: whether it was Claudius’ funeral. And indeed it was a most elegant and elaborate