Then Jupiter ordered Hercules, who had wandered all over the world and seemed to be familiar with all its countries, to go and figure out this man’s national origin. Hercules was pretty upset at the first sight of him, even though he had always been undismayed by monsters. When he saw that weird face, that strange gait, and heard that voice—which sounded like nothing belonging to a land animal, but the sort of hoarse barking sound that a walrus usually makes—he thought that his thirteenth labor was at hand. When he examined the creature more carefully, it looked rather like a human being. He therefore approached and, as was very easy for a guy from Greece, said:

Who are you? Where from? Describe your city and your kin.

Claudius was delighted to discover that there were classical scholars there; he hoped that they would appreciate his historical writings. So he too spoke with a line from Homer, signifying that he was Caesar, and said:

From Troy the wind blew me to the coast of Thrace.

(But the next line would have been truer, and equally Homeric:

And there I sacked the city and destroyed the people.)

A discussion ensues among the deified as to whether or not Claudius should be made a god, and if so, what kind of a god he should be. Augustus, the deified late first emperor of Rome, is staunchly opposed to Claudius’ deification. He sees him as a murderer, who killed members of his family and many others, including his wife Messalina. Claudius witnesses part of his own funeral and is then led down to the Underworld.

The freedman Narcissus had taken a shortcut and gotten there before him. Shining clean, fresh from a bath, he came to meet Claudius and said, “Why do the gods condescend to visit mortals?” “Get going,” said Mercury, “And tell them that we are here.”

Before he had finished speaking, Narcissus flew off. Everything slanted down, making it an easy trip. So, even though Narcissus had gout, it took him only a moment to get to the door of Dis, where Cerberus was lying—“the hundred-headed beast,” as Horace says. Narcissus had a favorite little dog, an off-white bitch, so he was rather upset when he saw that shaggy black hound, not the sort of thing you’d like to meet in the dark. In a loud voice he said, “Claudius will soon be here.” Amid cheering they came out singing, “We have found him; let us rejoice.” Here were Gaius Silius the consul designate, Juncus the praetor, Sextus Traulus, Marcus Helvius, Trogus, Cotta, Vettius Valens, Fabius, and some Roman knights whom Narcissus had put to death. In the middle of this crowd of singers was Mnester the actor, whom Claudius, observing the proprieties, had made shorter than Messalina by taking off his head.