and been divorced
from them both. He had had a daughter by one of these wives and a
son by the other. The son was suddenly killed by getting choked with
a small pear. He had been throwing it into the air and attempting to
catch it in his mouth as it came down, when at last it slipped down
into his throat and strangled him. As for the daughter, Claudius was
so exasperated with her mother at the time of his divorce from her,
that he determined to disown and reject the child; so he ordered the
terrified girl to be stripped naked, and to be sent and laid down in
that condition at her wretched mother's door.

Claudius, as has already been stated, was present with Caligula at
the theater, on the last day of the spectacle, and followed him into
the palace when he went to look at the Asiatic captives; so that he
was present, or at least very near, at the time of his nephew's
assassination. As might have been expected from what has been said
of his character, he was overwhelmed with consternation and terror
at the scene, and was utterly incapacitated from taking any part,
either for or against the conspirators. He stole away in great
fright and hid himself behind the hangings in a dark recess in the
palace. Here he remained for some time, listening in an agony of
anxiety and suspense to the sounds which he heard around him. He
could hear the cries and the tumult in the streets, and in the
passages of the palace. Parties of the guards, in going to and fro,
passed by the place of his retreat from time to time, alarming him
with the clangor of their weapons, and their furious exclamations
and outcries. At one time peeping stealthily out, he saw a group of
soldiers hurrying along with a bleeding head on the point of a pike.
It was the head of a prominent citizen of Rome whom the guards had
intercepted and killed, supposing him to be one of the conspirators.
This spectacle greatly increased Claudius's terror. He was wholly in
the dark in respect to the motives and the designs of the men who
had thus revolted against his nephew, and it was of course
impossible for him to know how he himself would be regarded by
either party. He did not dare, therefore, to surrender himself to
either, but remained in his concealment, suffering great anxiety,
and utterly unable to decide what to do.

[Illustration: DISCOVERY OF CLAUDIUS.]

At length, while he was in this situation of uncertainty and terror,
a common soldier of the guards, named Epi