Apocolocyntosis

Apocolocyntosis, title of a Menippean satire (see MENIPPUS) by Seneca (2), formed from the words apotheosis, ‘deification’, and colocynta, ‘pumpkin’. Manuscripts give the further title Ludus de morte Claudii, ‘a joke about the death of Claudius’. It was written early in the reign of the emperor Nero in mockery of the deification of his predecessor Claudius; the pumpkin perhaps alludes to the latter's stupidity. It describes Claudius' arrival in heaven, the difficulty of finding out who he is because of his stammer, and the proposal of the deified emperor Augustus that he should be deported to the Underworld because of the murders he has committed. Here he meets his victims and is brought for trial before Aeacus. Following Claudius' own system, Aeacus hears the case against him and pronounces sentence without listening to the defence. Claudius is finally made clerk to one of his own freedmen.