I, Claudius

by Robert Graves

Germanicus told me that everything had been arranged and that the betrothal ceremony was to take place on the next lucky day – we Romans are very superstitious about days; nobody would dream, for instance, of fighting a battle or marrying or buying a house on July 16, the day of the A.D. 3 Allia disaster in Camillus’s time. I could hardly believe my good fortune. I too had feared that I would be made to marry Aemilia, an ill-tempered affected little girl who copied my sister Livilla in teasing and making a fool of me whenever she came to us on a visit, which was often. The betrothal ceremony, Livia insisted, was to be as private as possible, because she could not trust me not to make a fool of myself if there was a crowd. I preferred it that way: I hated ceremonies. Only the necessary witnesses would attend, and there would be no feast, merely the usual ritual sacrifice of a ram whose entrails would then be examined to see whether the auspices were favourable. Of course they would be; Augustus, officiating as priest, in compliment to Livia, would see to that. Then a contract would be signed for the second ceremony to take place as soon as I came of age, with stipulations about the dowry. Camilla and I would join hands and kiss and then I would give her a gold ring and she would return to her grandfather’s house – quietly, as she had come, without any train of singing attendants. It hurts me even now to write about that day. I stood, very nervously, in my chaplet and clean ...