Claudius The God: And His Wife Messalina

by Robert Graves

I was inclined to believe the man’s story; but he persisted in his refusal to say who it was who had sponsored his initiation into these so-called mysteries. When I assured him in quite a pleasant way that they could not have been real mysteries but an elaborate hoax and that therefore his oath was not binding he flared up and spoke to me most rudely. So he had to be executed.

Oh, to be an emperor...