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I wish to record an occurrence which took place in heaven on the third day
before the Ides of October, in the new year which began our fortunate era. I am
not going to be diverted by either fear or favor. I
shall tell the unvarnished truth. If anybody asks me where I got my
information, I say at once, I’ll not answer if I don’t want to. Who is going to
make me? I know I have been free to do as I like since the day when he died who
had made the proverb true: One must be born either king or fool. If I please to
answer, I shall say what comes to my tongue. Who ever demanded affidavits from
an historian? Still, if I must produce my authority, apply to the man who saw
Drusilla going heavenward; he will say he saw Claudius limping along in the
same direction. Willy-nilly, he has to see everything that happens in heaven;
for he is the superintendent of the Appian road, by
which you know both the divine Augustus and Tiberius Caesar went to join the
gods. If you ask this man he will tell you privately; in presence of more than
one he’ll never speak a word. For since the day when he took oath in the Senate
that he had seen Drusilla going up to heaven and in return for such good news
nobody believed him, he has declared in so many words that he’ll not testify
about anything, not even if he should see a man murdered in the middle of the
Forum. What I have heard from him, then, I state positively and plainly, so
help him!
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