THE fall of C?sonia was hardly less romantic than the succession to her position of the woman who is known to every reader of Roman history, and to many others, as Messalina. When Caligula entered the narrow passage leading to the Palatine, after the performance in the theatre, a few members of his suite¹ walked before him. One of these was his uncle Claudius, a slow-witted and despised man, in his fiftieth year, whom Caligula had rescued from humiliation² and put in office. He had already entered the palace when the raucous³ cries of the German guard and the flash of weapons informed him of the assassination⁴ of the Emperor. The guards were cutting down such of the conspirators⁵ as they could reach. In instinctive⁶ terror Claudius hid behind a curtain, nor was he reassured⁷ when he saw the soldiers pass with the heads of the nobles they had slain⁸. Presently a soldier of the Pr?torian Guard noticed his feet below the curtain, and drew him out. Claudius fell to the ground in terror, and implored⁹ them to spare his life. The soldiers had recognized him, however. They put him in a litter, and carried him on their shoulders to the camp. Citizens whom they passed in the street pitied the harmless and, as was generally believed, half-witted prince. At last some one learned, or divined, the purpose of the guards, and Claudius awoke from his terror to hear the strange cry of “Salve, Imperator,” and realized that he was to be made Emperor of Rome.