“Now that Consul Incitatus is here, we can continue with the proceedings at hand,” he said. The senators broke up their makeshift corridor and took seats in a semicircle around the other consul and Claudius, who was still asleep and gently snoring. I realized that Incitatus was standing with his back to them all, and as unobtrusively as I could, I prodded him in the side until he turned around. This, unfortunately, brought me to a position right beside the other consul, and he stared at me as if I was a bad smell, which I quite possibly was. He opened his mouth as if he was going to speak to me, then thought better of it and turned his attention to the assembly. “It is the unanimous decision of the senators here gathered that, following the death of Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, his uncle Claudius be immediately crowned the new Caesar.” It was true then, that rumor that had gone around. But I still couldn’t believe my ears. Claudius? Emperor of Rome? It had to be some kind of joke.
