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[221]
Now there was already gathered together about Gratus a great number
of the guards; and when they saw Claudius carried off, they looked with
a sad countenance, as supposing that he was carried to execution for the
mischiefs that had been lately done; while yet they thought him a man who
never meddled with public affairs all his life long, and one that had met
with no contemptible dangers under the reign of Caius; and some of them
thought it reasonable that the consuls should take cognizance of these
matters; and as still more and more of the soldiery got together, the crowd
about him ran away, and Claudius could hardly go on, his body was then
so weak; and those who carried his sedan, upon an inquiry that was made
about his being carried off, ran away and saved themselves, as despairing
of their Lord's preservation. But when they were come into the large court
of the palace, (which, as the report goes about it, was inhabited first
of all the parts of the city of Rome,) and had just reached the public
treasury, many more soldiers came about him, as glad to see Claudius's
face, and thought it exceeding right to make him emperor, on account of
their kindness for Germanicus, who was his brother, and had left behind
him a vast reputation among all that were acquainted with him. They reflected
also on the covetous temper of the leading men of the senate, and what
great errors they had been guilty of when the senate had the government
formerly; they also considered the impossibility of such an undertaking,
as also what dangers they should be in, if the government should come to
a single person, and that such a one should possess it as they had no hand
in advancing, and not to Claudius, who would take it as their grant, and
as gained by their good-will to him, and would remember the favors they
had done him, and would make them a sufficient recompense for the same.
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