Aristobulus could be made very useful, once he was properly chastened in spirit. Herod also revenged himself on Pontius Pilate, from whom the order for his arrest at Anthedon had originated, by encouraging some friends of his in Samaria to protest to the new Governor of Syria, my friend Vitellius, about Pilate’s rough handling of civil disturbances there and to charge him with bribe taking. Pilate was ordered to Rome to answer these charges before Tiberius.
One fine spring day as Caligula and Herod were out riding together in an open coach in the. country near Rome, Herod remarked gaily, ‘It is high time, surely, for the old warrior to be given his wooden foil.’ By the old warrior he meant Tiberius, and by the wooden foil he meant the honourable token of discharge that worn-out swordfighters are given in the arena. He added, ‘And if you will pardon what may sound suspiciously like flattery, my dear fellow, but is my honest opinion, you will make a far finer showing at the game of games than he ever made.’
Caligula was delighted, but unfortunately Herod’s coachman, overheard the remark, understood it, and stored it in his memory. The knowledge that he had power to ruin his master encouraged this turnip-witted fellow to attempt a number of impertinences towards him, which for a time, as it happened, passed unnoticed. But at last he took it into his head to steal some very fine embroidered carriage-rugs and sell them to another coachman whose master lived at some distance from Rome. He reported that they had been accidentally ruined by the leakings of a tar-barrel through the planks of the stable-loft, and Herod was, content to, believe him; but one day, happening to go for a pleasure-drive with the knight to whose coachman they had been sold, he found, them tucked about his knees. And so the theft came out. But the knight’s coachman gave the thief timely-warning and he ran away, at once to avoid punishment. His original intention had been to face Herod, if he were found out, with the threat to reveal to the Emperor what he had overheard. But he lost courage when the appropriate moment came, suddenly realizing that Herod was quite capable of killing him if he tried blackmail and of producing witnesses that the blow had been struck in self-defence. The coachman was one of those people whose-muddled minds get everyone into trouble, themselves most of all.
Herod knew the fellow’s probable haunts in Rome and, not realizing what was at stake, asked the City officers to arrest him., He was found and brought up in court on a charge of theft, but claimed the privilege as a freedman of appealing to the Emperor instead of being summarily sentenced. He added: ‘I have something to tell the Emperor which concerns his personal security it is what I, once heard when driving a coach on the road to Capua. The magistrate had no alternative but to send him under armed escort to Capri.
From what I have already told you about the character of my uncle Tiberius you will perhaps be able to guess what course he took when he read the magistrate’s report. Though he realized that the coachman must have overheard some treasonable remark of Herod’s, he did not yet wish to know precisely what it was: Herod obviously was not the sort of man to make any very dangerous statement in a coachman’s hearing. So he kept the coachman in prison, unexamined, and instructed young Gemellus, now about ten years old, to keep a sharp watch on his tutor and to report any; word or action of his that seemed to have any treasonable significance. Herod meanwhile grew anxious at Tiberius’s delay in examining the coachman and talked the matter over with Caligula. They decided that nothing had been said by Herod, on the occasion to which the coachman was apparently referring, that could not be explained away. If Herod himself pressed for an investigation, Tiberius would be the more likely to take his word that the ‘wooden foil’ was intended
One fine spring day as Caligula and Herod were out riding together in an open coach in the. country near Rome, Herod remarked gaily, ‘It is high time, surely, for the old warrior to be given his wooden foil.’ By the old warrior he meant Tiberius, and by the wooden foil he meant the honourable token of discharge that worn-out swordfighters are given in the arena. He added, ‘And if you will pardon what may sound suspiciously like flattery, my dear fellow, but is my honest opinion, you will make a far finer showing at the game of games than he ever made.’
Caligula was delighted, but unfortunately Herod’s coachman, overheard the remark, understood it, and stored it in his memory. The knowledge that he had power to ruin his master encouraged this turnip-witted fellow to attempt a number of impertinences towards him, which for a time, as it happened, passed unnoticed. But at last he took it into his head to steal some very fine embroidered carriage-rugs and sell them to another coachman whose master lived at some distance from Rome. He reported that they had been accidentally ruined by the leakings of a tar-barrel through the planks of the stable-loft, and Herod was, content to, believe him; but one day, happening to go for a pleasure-drive with the knight to whose coachman they had been sold, he found, them tucked about his knees. And so the theft came out. But the knight’s coachman gave the thief timely-warning and he ran away, at once to avoid punishment. His original intention had been to face Herod, if he were found out, with the threat to reveal to the Emperor what he had overheard. But he lost courage when the appropriate moment came, suddenly realizing that Herod was quite capable of killing him if he tried blackmail and of producing witnesses that the blow had been struck in self-defence. The coachman was one of those people whose-muddled minds get everyone into trouble, themselves most of all.
Herod knew the fellow’s probable haunts in Rome and, not realizing what was at stake, asked the City officers to arrest him., He was found and brought up in court on a charge of theft, but claimed the privilege as a freedman of appealing to the Emperor instead of being summarily sentenced. He added: ‘I have something to tell the Emperor which concerns his personal security it is what I, once heard when driving a coach on the road to Capua. The magistrate had no alternative but to send him under armed escort to Capri.
From what I have already told you about the character of my uncle Tiberius you will perhaps be able to guess what course he took when he read the magistrate’s report. Though he realized that the coachman must have overheard some treasonable remark of Herod’s, he did not yet wish to know precisely what it was: Herod obviously was not the sort of man to make any very dangerous statement in a coachman’s hearing. So he kept the coachman in prison, unexamined, and instructed young Gemellus, now about ten years old, to keep a sharp watch on his tutor and to report any; word or action of his that seemed to have any treasonable significance. Herod meanwhile grew anxious at Tiberius’s delay in examining the coachman and talked the matter over with Caligula. They decided that nothing had been said by Herod, on the occasion to which the coachman was apparently referring, that could not be explained away. If Herod himself pressed for an investigation, Tiberius would be the more likely to take his word that the ‘wooden foil’ was intended
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