Stupebant omnes novitate rei attoniti, negabant 100 hoc unquam factum. Claudio magis iniquum videbatur quam novum. De genere poenae diu disputatum est, quid illum pati oporteret. Erant qui dicerent, Tantalum siti periturum nisi illi succurreretur; aliquando Ixionis miseri rotam sufflaminandam. Non placuit ulli ex veteribus 105 missionem dari, ne vel Claudius unquam simile speraret. Placuit novam poenam constitui debere, excogitandum illi laborem irritum et alicuius cupiditatis spem sine fine et effectu. Tum Aeacus iubet illum alea ludere pertuso fritillo. Et iam coeperat fugientes semper tesseras quaerere et nihil 110 proficere : nam quotiens missurus erat resonante fritillo, sic cum iam summi tanguntur culmina montis, 115 Apparuit subito C. Caesar et petere illum in servitutem 120 coepit; producit testes, qui illum viderant ab ipso flagris, ferulis, colaphis vapulantem. Adiudicatur C. Caesari; Caesar illum Aeaco donat. Is Menandro liberto suo tradidit, ut a cognitionibus esset. SENECA, Ludus, 9-12, 14, 15. NOTES The Ludus of Seneca was written at the beginning of Nero's principate as a satire on the deification of Claudius (see note on line 12). The following is a summary of the plot up to the point at which the present selection begins. About midday on Oct. 13, A.D. 54, Claudius was trying to give up the ghost, but could not find a way out for it. So Mercury, a friend of his, begged Clotho, one of the three Fates, to put him out of his pain. Clotho replied that she had meant to give him time enough to grant Roman citizenship to the few persons to whom he had not already granted it (a satire on Claudius's extension of the Roman franchise), but perhaps it was just as well that a few foreigners should be allowed to exist to prevent the breed from becoming extinct. So she arranged that Claudius should die, and two buffoons with him, for fear he should be lonely. Claudius died while hearing some comedians. News was brought to Jupiter that a tall, grey-headed man had reached Olympus: he kept on nodding his head, as though threatening something, and limping with his right foot. On being asked what race he belonged to, he had made a confused noise, which was not Greek nor Latin nor any other known language. Jupiter then asked Hercules, the god who had travelled most and knew most about foreigners, to find out what the man's nationality was. Hercules on beholding this strange and alarming creature was at first quite frightened, and thought that he would be called upon to perform a thirteenth labour. But on inspecting it more closely he found that it was a man. So he addressed it in his own native language, Greek, in the Homeric formula: 'Who, whence art thou of men; where is thy city, and thy parents?' Claudius was delighted to find learned men in heaven, and hoped that the histories he had composed would find a circulation there. He answered that he was Caesar and came from Troy. 'Nothing of the kind,' exclaimed the goddess of Fever, who had come with him, he was born at Lugudunum (Lyons: his actual birthplace) and is a regular Gaul.' Claudius became more inarticulate than ever with rage, and was understood to order Fever off to execution, but no one took any more notice of him than his freedmen had on earth. Hercules declined to put up with any more nonsense, and told Claudius that if he did not say where he came from he would knock him down with his club. Claudius was understood to reply that he had expected Hercules to stand up for him, since none of the gods knew him better than Hercules, in front of whose temple he had sat in court for whole days in July and August (see note on line 71), listening to attorneys day and night, a far more unsavoury business than cleansing the stables of Augeas. The scene now changes to the senate house of the gods, in which Hercules has put forward Claudius's claims to celestial citizenship. An objector urges that, if he is to be made a god, it is hard to see what kind of god he is to be. He cannot be an Epicurean god, because Epicurean gods are themselves untroubled and give no trouble to others'. And there are good reasons why he cannot be a Stoic god, though it is true that he resembles a Stoic god in having neither heart nor head. His attitude during life to Jupiter was also most unsatisfactory. Is it not enough that he has a temple in Britain where the barbarians pray that 'this fool of a god may be easily humoured'? Line 3. mera mapalia, 'absolute nonsense.' The problem as to how a word originally meaning 'African huts' has come to mean 'nonsense' has not been solved. 7. postmeridianus. Probably a satire on the shortened tenure of the consulate. Augustus started the practice of replacing the original pair of consuls for a year by a pair of consules suffecti, who entered office on July 1 (so designatus in kal. Iulias here). After Nero consulates often lasted for four months only, and after Hadrian for two. There had actually been a consul postmeridianus in 45 B. C., when a consul died on the afternoon of Dec. 31, and a consul suffectus was appointed for the remaining hours of the year (Cic. ad Fam. vii. 30). 6 8. qui semper videt äμа прóσσw κаì ôniσσw,' who always "looks before and after",' refers to the representation of Janus as facing both ways. Originally the words (Hom. Il. iii. 109) refer to the wisdom of old age. quod in foro vivat. There were four arches in the Forum called Iani, the Exchange of Rome where the bankers and moneychangers did their business. 12. olim magna res erat deum fieri. The practice of deification goes back to the time of Lysander (400 B. C.). It reappears in the period after Alexander at the courts of his successors, and is also seen in the dedication of altars in Greece to provincial governors under the Republic. Caesar was deified in his lifetime, Augustus after his death. Tiberius was not deified. The deification of Claudius, whose appearance and conduct alike provoked contempt and ridicule, brought the institution into the region of comedy, and afterwards it became a mere form. 15. ароúρηs κаρпòv dovσw, 'eat the fruit of the earth,' is a stock phrase applied to mortals in Homer. Ceidwpos, 'grain-giving,' is an epithet frequently applied to the Earth in Homer. 20. nummulariolus, ' moneychanger,' one of the diminutives common in Vulgar Latin. 19. Diespiter: the old Italian god of the daylight. His mother Vica Pota was a goddess of Victory. The mythology seems somewhat confused. 29. ad Metamorphosis Ovidii. The poet Ovid (43 B. C.-A.D. 17) wrote a version of the Greek legends of transformations, ending up with Caesar's transformation into a star and the future deification of Augustus. The apotheosis of Claudius would serve as a comic appendix. 43. Messalla Corvinus was appointed by Augustus to the new (or, as some make out, revived) office of praefectus urbis, in 25 B. C. He resigned it within a few days on the ground that he was unequal to it: really he seems to have regarded it as unconstitutional. 50. duas Iulias. Cf. Suet. Claud. 29 ‘Appium Silanum consocerum suum, Iuliasque alteram Drusi, alteram Germanici filiam, crimine incerto nec defensione ulla data occidit, item Cn. Pompeium maioris filiae virum, et L. Silanum minoris sponsum.' 59. nescio. Messalina, the wife of Claudius, possessed an enormous influence over him during the first few years of his reign. It was owing to her that the two Julias, L. Silanus (mentioned above, 50-2), and many others were put to death. Her profligacy, which was no less remarkable than her cruelty, reached a climax in A. D. 48, when she went through the form of marriage with her lover C. Silius. The result was that both were put to death. The same night at supper Claudius inquired 'why the mistress did not come' (Suet. Claud. 39). 62. ad summam, 'in short,' common in Petronius. tria verba cito dicat. Claudius stammered. 71. rerum iudicandarum vacationem. Claudius was very fond of hearing lawsuits. Cf. Suet. Claud. 14' Ius et consul et extra honorem laboriosissime dixit, etiam suis suorumque diebus sollemnibus (i. e. birthdays, &c.), nonnunquam festis quoque antiquitus et religiosis'. So there is a fitness in the hard judicial labour to which he is sentenced for eternity. 72. Just as, in life, he might have been sentenced to leave Italy within thirty days, and Rome within three. 74. pedibus in hanc sententiam itum est: the regular expression for a division' in the Senate. Cyllenius, Mercury, born at Mount Cyllene in Arcadia. He was the conductor of souls to the lower world. Cf. Hor. Odes i. 24.15 ff. :— num vanae redeat sanguis imagini, quam virga semel horrida, non lenis precibus fata recludere, nigro compulerit Mercurius gregi? The 76. unde negant redire quemquam: Catullus iii. 12. equivalent stock quotation in English is of course Hamlet III: The undiscovered country from whose bourn 83. causidici: who had had a high time (Saturnalia, 1. 88 below) under Claudius. Cf. Suet. Claud. 15 'Illud quoque a maioribus natu audiebam, adeo causidicos patientia eius solitos abuti, ut descendentem e tribunali non solum voce revocarent, sed et lacinia togae retenta, interdum pede apprehenso detinerent'. 6 84. sed plane ex animo. The adversative is to the pauci: they made up in sincerity what they lacked in numbers' (Ball). iurisconsulti. Demand for counsel's opinion seems to have languished under this monstrous regiment of attorneys. Causidici were the persons who actually conducted a case in court, iurisconsulti the legal experts consulted by them on points of law. 90. In the chapter omitted in this selection Claudius is represented as meeting in the lower world a large number of people whom he had put to death. 'Friends everywhere!' he exclaims, 'how did you get here?' Whereupon one of them, Pedo Pompeius, replies, "Who else sent us here but yourself?' and brings him into court on a charge of murder. The lex Cornelia was a law of Sulla's. 93. ooa Váμalós Te Kóvis Te: a quotation from Homer (Iliad ix. 385). We might render 'as the sand of the sea without number'. 95. advocationem: probably a postponement of the case, that the accused might consult his advocate. 99. aïke Tábol, if he were to have done to him what he did himself, justice would be done'; 'make the punishment fit the crime.' 100. rei refers to altera tantum parte audita condemnat. 103. Tantalum: condemned to stand, with a parching thirst, in water that receded whenever he tried to drink it (see note on A. IV. ii. 68). 104. Ixionis. Ixion abused the hospitality of Zeus and tried to win the love of Hera. perpetually in the air. 109. alea ludere. Claudius was very fond of dice. Cf. Suet. Claud. 5 'aleae infamiam subiit'; ibid. 33 'aleam studiosissime lusit, de cuius arte librum quoque emisit'. 119. Sisyphio. Sisyphus, king of Corinth, was punished for his wickedness on earth by being compelled in the lower world to roll up hill a large stone, which on reaching the top always rolled down again. |
