[-16-] Many men therefore at this time and many women incurred punishment.  Some of the latter met their fate right in the prison, and when they were to die were actually led in chains upon a scaffold, like captives, and their bodies like those of others were thrown down the Scalae Gemoniae.  Of those who were executed outside the prison only the heads were exhibited in that place.  Some of the most guilty, nevertheless, either through favoritism or by the use of money saved their necks with the help of Messalina and of the Caesarians following Narcissus.  All the children of those who perished were granted immunity and some received money.  Trials were held in the senate-house in the presence of Claudius, his prefects, and his freedmen.  With a consul on each side he made his report to the senators while seated upon a chair of state or on a bench.  Next he himself went to his accustomed seat and chairs were set for his escort.  This same program was followed also at the other most important functions.

It was at this time that a certain Galaesus, a freedman of Camillus, was brought into the senate and talked with the utmost frankness on a variety of subjects.  The following remark of his is worth instancing.  Narcissus had taken the floor and said to him:  “What would you have done, Galaesus, if Camillus had become monarch?” He replied:  “I should have stood behind him and said nothing.”  So he became famous for this speech, and Arria for something quite different.  The latter, who was wife of Caecina Paetus, refused to live after he had been put to death, although, being on very intimate terms with Messalina, she might have occupied a position of some honor.  Moreover, when her husband showed cowardice, she strengthened his resolution.  She took the sword and gave herself a wound, then handed it to him, saying:  “See, Paetus, I feel no pain.”—­These two persons, then, were accorded praise, for by reason of the long succession of woes matters had now come to such a pass that excellence no longer meant anything else than dying nobly.

The attitude of Claudius in bringing destruction upon them and others is indicated by his forever giving to the soldiers as a watchword this verse about its being necessary “In one’s first anger to ward off the foe.” [6] He kept throwing out many other hints of that sort in Greek both to them and to the senate, with the result that those who could understand any of them laughed at him.  These were some of the happenings of that period.—­And the tribunes at the death of one of their number themselves convened the senate for the purpose of appointing a tribune to succeed him,—­this in spite of the fact that the consuls were accessible.

[A.D. 43 (a. u. 796)]