conversations.from: human
conversations.value: What could be a title for a book about Claudius, Reluctantly with the genre: Literature & Fiction, British & Irish?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A title for this book could be 'Claudius The God'
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know the first four paragraphs for this book?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Claudius The God
  I AM near the end of my long story. I have now been five years married to Agrippinilla, but they have been comparatively uneventful years, and I shall not write about them in too great detail. I have let Agrippinilla and my freedmen rule me. I have opened and shut my mouth and gestured with my arms like the little jointed marionettes they make in Sicily: but the voice has not been mine, nor the gestures. I must say at once that Agrippinilla has shown herself a remarkably able ruler of the tyrannical sort. When she comes into a room where a number of notables are gathered, and looks coldly around her, everyone quakes and springs to attention and studies how best to please her. She no longer needs to pretend affection for me. I soon made her realize that I had married her purely on political grounds; and, physically, she was repulsive to me. I was quite frank about it. I explained: 'The fact is, that I got tired of being Emperor. I wanted someone to do most of the work for me. I married you not for your heart but for your head. It takes a woman to run an empire like this. There's no reason for us to pretend amorous devotion to each other.'
  Agrippinilla could not understand me. She soon found that it was unnecessary to coax or cheat or bully me if she wanted things done her way. I accepted her suggestions on almost every point. She could hardly believe her luck when I consented to betroth Lucius to Octavia: she knew what I really thought of Lucius. She could not make out why I consented. She was emboldened to go further and suggest that I should adopt him as my son. But that was already my intention. She first let Pallas sound, me on the subject. Pallas was tactful. He began speaking fondly of my brother Germanicus and of his adoption by my Uncle Tiberius at Augustus's request, though Tiberius had a son of his own, Castor. He enlarged on the remarkable brotherly love that had sprung up between Germanicus and Castor and the generosity that Castor had shown to Germanicus's widow and children. I knew at once what Pallas was driving at, and agreed that two loving sons were better than one. 'But remember,' I said, 'that was not the end of the story. Germanicus and Castor were both murdered; and my Uncle Tiberius in his old age, as it might be myself, named another pair of loving brothers as his joint heirs – Caligula and Gemellus. Caligula had the advantage of being the elder. When the old man died Caligula seized the monarchy and killed Gemellus.'
  That silenced Pallas for a while. When he tried a slightly different line, this time telling me what fast friends Lucius and Britannicus had become, I said, as if quite irrelevantly: 'Do you know that the Claudian family has kept its descent direct in the male line, without adoptions, ever since the day of the original Appius Claudius, five whole cycles ago? There's no other family in Rome can make the same boast.'
  I adopted Lucius. He is now called Nero. Recently I married him to Octavia, whom I had first, however, to let Vitellius adopt as his daughter, to avoid the technical crime of incest. On the night of their marriage the whole sky seemed on fire. A.D. 50 Lucius (or Nero as he was now called) did his best to win Britannicus's friendship. But Britannicus saw through him and haughtily rejected his advances. He refused at first to address him as Nero, continuing to call him Lucius Domitius until Agrippinilla intervened and ordered him to apologize. Britannicus replied: 'I shall apologize only if my father orders me to do so.' I ordered him to apologize. I still saw very little of Britannicus. I had fought down my morbid suspicions about his being Caligula's bastard – and loved him now as dearly as ever before. But I concealed my true feelings. I was determined to play Old King Log, and nothing must hinder my resolution. Sosibius was his tutor still and gave him an old-fashioned education. Britannicus was accustomed to the plainest foods and lay at night on a plank bed like a soldier. Horsemanship, fencing, military engineering, and early Roman history were his chief studies, but he knew the works of Homer and Ennius and Livy as well as or better than I did. In his holidays Sosibius took him down to my Capua estate, and there he learned about bee-keeping, stock-breeding, and farming. I allowed him no training in Greek oratory or philosophy. I told Sosibius: 'The ancient Persians taught their children to shoot straight and speak the truth. Teach my son the same.'
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know two more paragraphs? End with the sentence ' Britannicus must be removed, I decided, to some safe place where he could grow up virtuously and nobly like a Claudian of ancient times, and keep alight in his heart the fire of true liberty.'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: On New Year's Day this year I called Xenophon to me and thanked him for keeping me alive so long. I then fulfilled my promise to him, though the agreed fifteen years' term is not yet over, and won from the Senate a perpetual exemption from taxes and military service of his native island of Cos. In my speech I gave the House a full account of the lives and deeds of the many famous physicians of Cos, who all claim direct descent from the God Aesculapius, and learnedly discussed their various therapeutic practices; I ended up with Xenophon's father, who was my father's field-surgeon in his German wars, and with Xenophon himself, whom I praised above them all. Some days later Xenophon asked permission to remain with me a few years longer. He did not put his request in terms of loyalty or gratitude or affection, though I have done much for him – what a curiously unemotional man he is! – but on the grounds of the convenience of the Palace as a place for medical research!
  The fact was that when I paid Xenophon this honour I was counting on him to help me carry out a plan that called for the utmost secrecy and discretion. It was a debt that I owed to myself and to my ancestors: it was nothing less than the rescue of my Britannicus. Let me now clearly show why I deliberately preferred Nero to him, why I gave him so old-fashioned an education, why I guarded him so carefully from the infection of the court, from contact with vice and flattery. To begin with, I knew that Nero is fated to rule as my successor, carrying on the cursed business of monarchy, fated to plague Rome and earn everlasting hatred, to be the last of the mad Caesars. Yes, we are all mad, we Emperors. We begin sanely, like Augustus and Tiberius and even Caligula (though he was an evil character, he was sane at first) and monarchy turns our wits. 'After Nero's death surely the Republic will be restored,' I argued; and it was my intention that Britannicus should be the one to restore it. But how was Britannicus to live through the reign of Nero? Nero would surely put him to death if he remained at Rome, as Caligula had put Gemellus to death. Britannicus must be removed, I decided, to some safe place where he could grow up virtuously and nobly like a Claudian of ancient times, and keep alight in his heart the fire of true liberty.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Do you know the last five paragraphs?
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Pedo brought him into Aeacus's court; Aeacus was the judge who tried murder cases under the Cornelian Law. Pedo requested him to take the prisoner's name and then filled in the charge-sheet:
  Claudius applied for counsel, but nobody volunteered to act for him. At last out stepped Publius Petronius, an old drinking friend who could talk the Claudian language quite well, and claimed a remand. Aeacus refused to grant it, so Pedo Pompey began his speech for the prosecution, shouting at the top of his voice. Counsel for the defence attempted to reply, but Aeacus, who is a most conscientious judge, ruled him out of order, and summed up on the case as presented by the prosecution. Then he pronounced:
  An extraordinary silence followed. Everyone was amazed at the decision, which was considered to be entirely without precedent. Claudius himself, of course, could have quoted precedents, but thought it monstrously unjust nevertheless. Then there was a long argument about the sort of punishment he ought to be awarded. Some said that Sisyphus had been rolling his stone up that hill quite long enough now, and some said that Tantalus ought to be relieved before he died of thirst, and some again said that it was time for a drag to be put on the wheel on which Ixion was perpetually being broken. But Aeacus decided not to let off any of these old hands for fear Claudius might count on getting a similar respite himself some day. Instead, some new sort of punishment had to be instituted: they must think of some utterly senseless task conveying the general idea of a greedy ambition perpetually disappointed. Aeacus finally delivered the sentence, which was that Claudius should rattle dice for ever in a dice-cup with no bottom to it.
  So the prisoner began working out his sentence at once, fumbling for the dice as they fell and never getting any further with the game.
  Suddenly who should come in but Gaius Caligula. 'Why, that's a slave of mine,' said Caligula. 'I claim him!' He produced witnesses who testified that they had often seen him flogging Claudius with whips and birch-rods, and knocking him about with his fists. So the claim was allowed, and Claudius was handed over to his master. However, Caligula made a present of him to Aeacus, and Aeacus handed him over to his freedman Menander, who set him the task of keeping the court records.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Reverse the sentences.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: However, Caligula made a present of him to Aeacus, and Aeacus handed him over to his freedman Menander, who set him the task of keeping the court records.. So the claim was allowed, and Claudius was handed over to his master. 'I claim him!' He produced witnesses who testified that they had often seen him flogging Claudius with whips and birch-rods, and knocking him about with his fists. 'Why, that's a slave of mine,' said Caligula.
  Suddenly who should come in but Gaius Caligula.
  So the prisoner began working out his sentence at once, fumbling for the dice as they fell and never getting any further with the game. Aeacus finally delivered the sentence, which was that Claudius should rattle dice for ever in a dice-cup with no bottom to it. Instead, some new sort of punishment had to be instituted: they must think of some utterly senseless task conveying the general idea of a greedy ambition perpetually disappointed. But Aeacus decided not to let off any of these old hands for fear Claudius might count on getting a similar respite himself some day. Some said that Sisyphus had been rolling his stone up that hill quite long enough now, and some said that Tantalus ought to be relieved before he died of thirst, and some again said that it was time for a drag to be put on the wheel on which Ixion was perpetually being broken. Then there was a long argument about the sort of punishment he ought to be awarded. Claudius himself, of course, could have quoted precedents, but thought it monstrously unjust nevertheless. Everyone was amazed at the decision, which was considered to be entirely without precedent. Then he pronounced:
  An extraordinary silence followed. Counsel for the defence attempted to reply, but Aeacus, who is a most conscientious judge, ruled him out of order, and summed up on the case as presented by the prosecution. Aeacus refused to grant it, so Pedo Pompey began his speech for the prosecution, shouting at the top of his voice. At last out stepped Publius Petronius, an old drinking friend who could talk the Claudian language quite well, and claimed a remand. Pedo requested him to take the prisoner's name and then filled in the charge-sheet:
  Claudius applied for counsel, but nobody volunteered to act for him.Pedo brought him into Aeacus's court; Aeacus was the judge who tried murder cases under the Cornelian Law