click to read pdf file - The Preterist Archive

122 DARKNESS AND DAWN
condemned many unheard. Jupiter, who has reigned so many
years, has only broken one leg the leg of Vulcan and has
once hung Juno from heaven : but Claudius, inspired by
female jealousies and the intrigues of a varletry of pampered
freedmen, has killed his wife, Messalina, and a multitude of
others.
Who would believe that they were gods, if they made
this portent a god ? Bather let him be expelled from Olympus
within three days.'
Accordingly, Mercury puts a rope round his neck, and
drags him towards Tartarus. On the way they meet a vast
crowd, who all rejoice except a few lawyers. It was, in fact,
the funeral procession of Claudius himself, and he wants to
stop and look at it but ; Mercury covers him with a veil, that
no one may recognize him, and drags him along. Narcissus
had preceded him by a shorter route, and Mercury bids the
freedman hurry on to announce the advent of Claudius to the
shades. Narcissus speedily arrives among them, gouty
though he was, since the descent is steep, and shouts in a
'
loud voice, Claudius Csesar is coming.' Immediately a crowd
' '
of shades shouts out, We have found him ;
let us rejoice
!
They advance to meet him among them Messalina and her
lover, Mnester the pantomime, and numbers of his kinsmen
'
whom he had put to death. Why, all '
my friends are here !
'
exclaims Claudius, quite pleased. How did you all get here '
?
*Do;z/oMask us?' said Pedo Pompeius ; 'you most cruel of
'
men, who killed us all ? Pedo drags him before the judgment-seat
of ^Sacus, and accuses him on the Cornelian law of
having put to death thirty senators, three hundred and
fifteen Roman knights, and two hundred and twenty-one
other persons. Claudius, terrified, looks round him for an
advocate, but does not see one. Publius Petronius wants to
plead for him, but is not allowed to do so. He is condemned.
Deep silence falls on them all, as they wait to hear his punishment.
It is to be as endless as that of Sisyphus, Tantalus,
and Ixiou
;
it is to be a toil and a desire futile and frustrate
and without end. He is to throw dice forever in a dicebox
without a bottom !
No sooner said than done ! Claudius began at once to seek
the dice, which forever escaped him. Every time he attempted
to throw them they slipped through, and the throw,
though constantly attempted, could never be performed.