The Nero Prediction

by Humphry Knipe

  I should have seen that by the reluctant way she'd detached herself from his arm at the reception at Baiae where Seneca and everybody else had snubbed me. "Was he the man who was blackmailing me?"

  She shook her head. "Lateranus wouldn't blackmail anyone, that would be beneath him. He doesn’t know that Nero’s birth time came from you. That hairy animal Volusius Proculus, the naval officer, he's the one who told Euodus that you took papers from Agrippina's desk but he still doesn’t know what they were. I was the one who guessed they were horoscopes, because that’s what I would have been consulting if I were Agrippina. When I'm gone your secret will be safe. Now give it to me."

  I unwrapped it for her, my extract of sea-hare.

  "Water." There was a mug on the table beside the bed. She washed down the powder, sank back onto the straw cushion. "You'd better go."

  The expression on her face told me that she'd discarded the fiction of our love affair. Her last thoughts were for consul-designate Lateranus.

  I lent over and kissed her anyway, out of respect. It was then that she vomited and immediately began scooping frantically at the slime, forcing it back into her mouth. There was the sound of approaching steps, the jingle of armored men. This time she would break. We were about to sing duets on the rack.

  "Epaphroditus, my breast girdle. Quick help me loosen it."

  I'd done so once before, on that day in the yacht off Agrippina's villa when she'd sucked Nero's birth time from between my lips.

  The Praetorian colonel, the same man as the day before, was frank about his surprise at finding me there. "Getting an early start, I see."

  I made a show of slapping my note pad shut. "She's all yours, colonel. Didn't get a thing out of her. Tight as a clam."

  He smiled at the innuendo. "Don't worry, we'll pry her open."

  A soldier lifted Epicharis out of bed. She looked like a broken doll. Outside they loaded her into a litter. At no time did she look at me. It was then that I realized that she'd been using me even when she was under the whip, using me to help her concentrate on Lateranus.

  I walked behind the curtained chair to the city jail, just down the hill from the Palatine. Freshly shaved clients in spotless togas hurried past grim-faced with determination to beat the lines already forming outside their patrons' doors. Although they jostled each other and the eight-legged creatures that carried their betters, everyone shrank from the chair flanked by Praetorians, the one I followed.

  The colonel's curse as he swept open the chair's curtains in the prison courtyard confirmed that the breast band had held. I turned my back on the body lolling at the end of the noose to look at the dying Moon which had wasted away to a slender sickle, sharp as the sword that cut Epicharis down.

  She'd been looking at Lateranus.

  No embracing of friends and relatives for him, no farewell speech, hot bath or surgeon's razor. Whatever it was that Lateranus the ladies’ man knew about me he was going to take with him across the Styx.

  It hadn't been difficult to persuade Nero that someone perfidious enough to attack the man from whom he was pretending to beg a favor didn't deserve an honorable death. I accompanied the cohort of Praetorians sent to arrest him, having made it clear to them that they were in no way to hint to Lateranus what was in store for him. On my instructions they hurried him out of his house without allowing him to say a word to anyone. Outside his brawny arms were chained and he was bundled into a litter. I drew the curtains myself.

  When I swept them open it was to reveal the crosses of the place of execution outside the city wall.

  Lateranus blue eyes widened and his handsome face blanched noticeably as he watched the slow writhing of a criminal, gasping for breath and very near death, who was black with the ants eating him alive. "Surely Nero isn't insane enough to attempt to crucify a member of the Senate?"

  This time it was my grin, not his, that was spiced with contempt. "Quite a thought, isn't it?"

  Lateranus's eyes narrowed. "Why have you brought me here? Why was I not allowed a few moments with my family and friends? This disgraceful haste, it was your idea!"

  "Disgraceful? How interesting to hear the man who plotted to bite the hand he begged from complain about disgraceful conduct!"

  Lateranus bellowed at the Praetorian colonel. "Statius Proximus, how can you stand there and listen to an ex-slave insult a consul-designate?"

  The soldier shifted his weight awkwardly. "The sooner we get this over with the better, for everyone's sake."

  It took a soldier two blows to slice through the thick neck but only when the Lateranus’s handsome head rolled in the dust at my feet did I take my eyes off him.

  Another Finger Of Fate

  April 65 A.D. – February 20, 66 A.D.

  My triumph.

  Togas white as fresh bone lead the procession: senators disgusted to the man that Rome's highest honors were being showered on an ex-slave. Behind the senators walked the guilty men loaded with chains, their execution not far ahead.

  Directly in front of me marched the twelve red-jacketed lictors carrying the laurel-wreathed fasces, that symbol of ancient kings. The reigns of the triumphal chariot were in my left hand, the spears-of-honor in my right. On my head were the gold crowns, my reward for saving a Roman emperor's life.

  A statue of Tigellinus in triumphal robes had joined the ranks of Rome's victorious generals in the Forum. Others had been honored as well. But I was the one who rode with Nero in the triumphal car, who shared with him the focus of the adulation, for whom the brazen harmonies of cornu and tuba sounded, those harsh voices of the Etruscans, heavy with blood, cruelty, vainglory and death.

  Our chariot turned onto the

  Sacred Way where Nero's colossal new statue, a hundred-and-twenty feet high, guarded the portal of the Golden House. It was that gigantic presence, the serenity of the gaze it directed over the Forum, which brought the idea haunting my mind came to life.

  Astrology didn't predict the future, it created the future.

  Agrippina believed that I was fated to bring down Messalina. Because of this belief she acted boldly and Messalina was brought down. Agrippina believed that I was fated to murder Claudius. She thrust poison into my hands and Claudius died. Nero was so confidant that I was his predestined shield that he used me to ensnare his mother. What was so special about the stars of the man I pretended to be that led people by the nose? I needed to know so that I could do the leading. It was time to consult Balbillus.

  The taste of victory had sweetened the astrologer's lips. All of Rome now hung on the prognostications of the man who'd warned Nero to beware of April 17. No astrologer had done anything like that since the one who’d warned Julius Caesar of the Ides of March.

  "Congratulations Epaphroditus,” he said gravely. “A consul would be flattered by the honor done you today."

  "But I wouldn't have succeeded without your prediction."

  A nod that repeated itself like the slow bobbing of a boat on the Nile until his hand reached up and steadied the chin. "I believe that you don't come to me as a functionary of state."

  "No. Nearly twenty years ago, when they delivered me to her, Agrippina warned me not to have my stars read. It's time to know why."

  "One reads the stars so that one can prepare oneself for the future. There were events in your future for which you were too immature to prepare yourself."

  The elation of my triumph was with me still. Although the astrologer was referring to the past I was irritated by the word immature. "Am I mature enough now?"

  Balbillus unrolled a sheet of paper and weighed it down with gold crescents. "Yes, I think you are. This is your horoscope."

  I’d often wondered if the astrologer knew that my stars were a lie. Perhaps now was the time to find out. “I thought it was Agrippina’s creation.” I said, feeling him out.

  “It was. She calculated the birth time of someone whose stars would bring her what she wanted. Your stars.”

  I was so puffed up that I
actually had to fight the impulse to tell him he’d been taken in by a forgery, just to see the expression on his face. Reason prevailed. If Balbillus knew the truth there was no point in telling it to him.

  “Why did Agrippina choose me? Thousands of people all over the world were born at the same time.”

  “She had a dream. She was in a great library. A marble pyramid, it must have been Alexander’s tomb, stood outside the window at the central crossroads of a mighty city. She saw a boy, arms heaped with scrolls, walking alone down endless rows of books. It was you all right.”

  I nearly laughed out loud. “What did she find so special about the horoscope she’d chosen?”

  “She did very good work. She was a brilliant woman, you know, and even more passionate about astrology than her father Germanicus. The person born on the day and at the moment in time she discovered is totally ruled by the Moon. Do you know what that means?”

  I allowed myself just a jab of irony. “The Moon stands for the mother. Mine died in childbirth.”

  “Yes but it also stands for the women in your life. And because your Moon, situated in Taurus, a sign in which she exalts, rules your chart from your Tenth House, your House of Power, she has an enormous influence over you. You must have felt it, often.”

  I had. In my youth when I had opened my heart to heaven, the Moon made my eyes burn with tears. When I watched Agrippina lead young Nero out onto the balcony as the full Moon rose the day Claudius adopted him. When she screeched at me the night Agrippina sent me to murder Nero. The night on Agrippa’s lake when Nero was singing in Neropolis and the comet brushed the Moon’s face. But not any more, not since my heart had been hardened by the realization that my stars were the invention of Phocion and the Copy Master’s greedy hand, the hand I had thrown into the sea to calm the waves.

  “Is there anything else?”

  “Yes. You are living proof of the truth of astrology. Your Moon in the tenth house predicts powerful governors. You have risen from slavery to be one of the most powerful men in the empire. Your Moon is precisely square your Venus which promises you great profit and riches. You have both. Jupiter in your Eleventh House favorably aspected with Mars and Venus on either side of him which says that you will be vastly fortunate. You have been. Your Mars in a precise lucky trine with your Venus accurately foretold that you would be successful with many women.”

  I tried to smother a smile. “Yet at the same time under their power?”

  Balbillus didn’t. His quick grin acknowledged mine. “What’s the difference? Your Mars is situated in Aries, which he rules from your Ninth House, religion. This means you are destined to destroy evil. Agrippina saw her opponents as evil. So, I believe, does Nero.”

  Rachel flashed into my mind. She was saying that she’d rather die than live with the Beast. Suddenly I felt drained. “Is that all?”

  I could see there was more because Balbillus kept his eyes lowered to the chart. “Yes but I can’t reveal it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it concerns someone else.”

  “Another client?”

  “Yes.”

  “Nero?”

  “The Moon of the Year, which fell on March 11, foretells that you will soon be contacted by a powerful woman,” said the astrologer, at last raising his calm eyes to mine. “The Moon was full and she was in your third house, your House of Skills. The woman will ask you to use your skills to do something.”

  An uneasy feeling shot through my veins, cold and swift as a frightened eel. I tried to flush it out with humor. “From what you’ve said about the Moon, I suppose that another powerful woman shouldn’t come as a surprise.”

  Four months passed during which Nero become more expansive, and more reckless by the day. I'd seen the symptoms before. Statecraft and music were no longer enough. The imperial orchestra often played alone while Nero performed in the Circus Maximus on a chariot pulled by the fastest, the most spirited, the most dangerous horses in the empire.

  He laughed off my pleas for caution. "Risk? Ridiculous! I'm destined to live to seventy-three, ask Balbillus. Besides it's important for the people to see that I've got old fashioned physical courage as well as artistic talent. They expect that from a Roman emperor, especially the ones who're tone deaf. Piso's conspiracy proved there are plenty of those."

  The morning after this little outburst, just before dawn, I was shaken awake by my sleep-watcher. The man pointed to the window. "Dominus, look!"

  The east was already tinted by the Sun. Venus caught my eye riding twenty degrees above the horizon. Below her, close to the dark curve of the earth, sparkled Mercury, Mercury who'd sprouted a twin which pointed skyward with its milky tail. Another infernal comet!

  It was midday before Balbillus would admit me. "I apologize for the delay but I'm sure you appreciate that because of the new comet it has been necessary for me to make a great many computations for my clients."

  I was surprised how brusque I sounded. "Do you know what it means for Nero?"

  Distracted by a mighty roar from the Circus Maximus, the astrologer gazed out of the window to where, perhaps at this very moment, Nero was risking his life in yet another furious chariot race. "I'm extremely concerned. The comet has appeared in his House of Death."

  "When are you going to tell him?"

  "I already have but Ptolemy got to him before I could. He threw himself at Nero's feet with the extraordinary claim that the comet predicts that he's destined to become the new Orpheus! You must make Nero face the truth, about the comet I mean."

  What was Poppaea up to? Why had she sent Ptolemy, that odious little man, to Nero? Was this some new strategy to control Nero now that her weapon, the liver reader Thallus, was no more? It wouldn't take me long to find out.

  That evening after dinner Nero's new mistress Statilia drew me aside. She was the one who'd been swimming with Nero in Maecenas's pool the day I suggested Nero meet out poetic justice to the Christians. "You must go to Poppaea and warn her about the comet." she said.

  "But she knows all about the comet. She sent Ptolemy to Nero with a very dangerous interpretation of what it means."

  Statilia's eyes narrowed just a fraction. "You're wrong. Poppaea doesn't know. Ptolemy has issued instructions that no one is to break the news to her."

  It was incredible, that Ptolemy had gone to Nero with a radical interpretation of the significance of the comet without consulting Poppaea. At last I'd caught him with his hand in the till. I asked Statilia, "What do you know about the comet?"

  "That it threatens Nero and that he won't heed the threat because of Ptolemy."

  "Who told you that?"

  "Balbillus. He's my astrologer too. He's extremely concerned about what Ptolemy has done. Tell Poppaea, she’s the only one whose opinion Nero respects lately, I suppose because she’s about to present him with an heir. I've tried to warn him but he laughs at me. I’m sure he’ll laugh at you too. He even laughs at Balbillus. Speak to her for Nero's sake so that he's not taken away from us. Do it also for me, as you know I'm not without resources."

  I knew that. Statilia was not only beautiful and cultured, a poetess, but the great-great-granddaughter of Statilius Taurus, an aristocrat of legendary wealth who'd built Rome's first stone amphitheater. I now also knew the identity of the woman that Balbillus, not Fate, had finally sent to me. The latest avatar of my controlling Moon.

  Poppaea was five months pregnant and plagued by a persistent fever. An unpleasant surprise waited for me just inside her bedroom door. Ptolemy, absurdly presumptuous, standing as tall as he could on his platform shoes.

  "She's not well," he snapped, "what do you want with her?"

  "I believe you gave the emperor some interesting astrological advice this morning," was how I answered his question.

  "What passes between an astrologer and his client is privileged information."

  I tried to slide past him but he caught hold of my robe. "Whatever you do, don't mention the comet," he hissed. "This i
s not a propitious time for her."

  "Ptolemy are you telling me that you went to Nero with a prediction of such enormous importance without first discussing it with Poppaea?"

  Ptolemy paled at this, a pleasant sight. "She's too ill to know about the comet. That's why she can't be told."

  "I don't believe that was the reason," I said as I pulled away from him.

  The huge silk-covered couch, watched over by a life-sized statue of Fortuna, was some distance from the door. In spite of being fanned from both sides there were drops of sweat on Poppaea's forehead. The whites of her eyes had a yellowish tinge. She sounded very tired "What is it Epaphroditus?"

  I spoke in an undertone, not so much out of consideration for Poppaea's condition as to keep Ptolemy from hearing what I was saying. "Domina, the emperor needs your help."

  "Go on."

  "Information is being withheld from you, information which indicates that the emperor's life is in danger, that he must take precautions."

  Now there was a spark of interest in the feverish eyes. "What information?"

  "A comet has been sighted in Leo."

  An exclamation which was at the same time a groan of pain. "What?"

  "A comet, domina-"

  "Leo. His House of Death. Where is the tail pointing?"

  "Cancer."

  The feverish blue eyes were wide with panic. "His House of Marriage, the house of the Moon. I am his Moon. It points its finger of death at me!"

  It hadn’t occurred to me that Poppaea would interpret the apparition in terms of her own destiny, although it should have.

  The smooth forehead was furrowed now. She touched a hand to her stomach. "Leave me. Tell Ptolemy to come closer."

  The astrologer' ugly expression told me what I didn't want to know, that he'd heard what I'd said to Poppaea.