Chapter 33 MESSALINA WAS AN EXTREMELY BEAUTIFUL GIRL

Chapter 33
MESSALINA WAS AN EXTREMELY BEAUTIFUL GIRL, SUM and quick-moving with eyes as black as jet and masses of curly black hair. She hardly spoke a word and had a mysterious smile which drove me nearly crazy with love for her. She was so glad to have escaped from Caligula and so quick to realize the advantages that marriage with me gave her, that she behaved in a way which made me quite sure that she loved me as much as I loved her. This was practically the first time I had been in love with anyone since my boyhood; and when a not very clever, not very attractive man of fifty falls in love with a very attractive and very clever girl of fifteen it is usually a poor look-out for him. We were married in October. By December she was pregnant by me. She appeared very fond of my little Antonia, who was aged about ten, and it was a relief to me that the child now had someone whom she could call mother, someone who was near enough to her in age to be a friend and could explain the ways of society to her and take her about, as Calpumia had not been able to do.
Messalina and I were invited to live at the Palace again. We arrived at an unfortunate time. A merchant called Bassus had been asking questions of a captain of the Palace Guards about Caligula's daily habits-was it true that he walked about the cloisters at night because he could not sleep? At what time did he do this? Which cloisters did he usually choose? What guard did he have with him? The captain reported the incident to Cassius and Cassius reported it to Caligula. Bassus was arrested and cross-examined. He was forced to admit that he had intended to kill Caligula but denied even under torture that he had any associates. Caligula then sent a message to Bassus's old father, ordering him to attend his son's execution. The old man, who had no notion that Bassus had been planning to assassinate Caligula or even that he had been arrested, was greatly shocked to find his son groaning on the Palace floor, his body broken by torture. But he controlled himself and thanked Caligula for his graciousness in summoning him to close his son's eyes. Caligula laughed. "Close his eyes indeed! He's going to have no eyes to close, the assassin! I'm going to poke them out in a moment. And yours too."
Bassus's father said: "Spare our lives. We are only tools in the hands of powerful men. I'll give you all the names,adidas shoes for girls."
This impressed Caligula, and when the old man mentioned the Guards' Commander, the Commander of the Germans, Callistus the Treasurer, Caesonia,Link, Mnester, and three or four others, he grew pale with alarm. "And whom would they make Emperor in my place?" he asked. -
"Your uncle Claudius."
"Is he in the plot too,Jeremy Scott Adidas Wings?"
"No,cheap adidas shoes for sale, they were merely going to use him as a figurehead."
Caligula hurried away and summoned the Guards' Commander, the Commander of the Germans, the Treasurer and myself to a private room. He asked the others, pointing to me; "Is that creature fit to be Emperor?"
They answered in surprised tones, "Not unless you says o, Jove."