The Nero Prediction

by Humphry Knipe

  In the morning he packed Helius off with the news that by popular demand he would be in Rome by New Year.

  Nemesis

  December 26, 67 A.D. – March 7, 68 A.D.

  As a magnificent parting gift, Nero gave Greece its freedom and we were in Rome with five days to spare. It seemed to be snowing, so thickly the ribbons and sweetmeats thrown from the buildings along the triumphal route rained down on us. Nero drove Augustus’s creaky triumphal chariot, a hundred years old by now. He wore a Greek cloak decorated with stars over his purple triumphal robe and a laurel wreath on his head that told the world he had been a victor in the Olympic Games. In front of the chariot prowled Spiculus followed by the Germans of the personal bodyguard. Behind the chariot marched Nero’s long haired Augustiani, chanting their slogans and clapping in their elaborate rhythms. “We are the champions of the world,” they kept repeating. The shock troops of musical war. It seemed that Nero had succeeded in uniting both Augustus the politician and Marc Anthony the public reveler, his great-grandfathers, into one man. The adulation buried my anxieties.

  Twenty-two days later they burst grinning from their grave.

  I was with Phaon, forever in favor for his discovery of the boy Sporus/Poppaea Sabina. A fervent believer in Fate who knew a lot more astrology than I did, Phaon was examining the planets suspended from the revolving dome in the Golden House complex when he frowned. “There’s something wrong,” he said and told me what it was.

  I scowled at the resident astronomer when they brought him in, convinced that he richly deserved a fright. "I'm sure you realize how much pride the emperor takes in the accuracy of the planetary positions on the dome," I told him. “Thousands of people come to marvel at it every day. However I've noticed that recently you haven't bothered to move Saturn forward at all, and now some fool who deserves a whipping has gone and moved Saturn backward. Don’t you take any pride in what you do?"

  The astronomer, who'd been rudely hustled out of his observatory, looked relieved. "There is no error dominus. Saturn ceased his forward motion six days ago. Tonight he begins to move backward, exactly as indicated on the dome."

  Saturn, also known as Kar-Knum, Karknoumis, Kronos, Nemesis.

  Nero frowned at Balbillus although he looked hurt rather than angry. "You didn't warn me that Saturn was about to go backward."

  There were deep shadows in Balbillus's eyes and his tone even more measured than usual. "As you know it's the nature of the planets to move backward from time to time, Caesar, except for the Sun, that is. As always, the significance of the retrograde motion is determined by the aspects the retrograde planet makes with the others. At this moment in time transit Jupiter, in your House of Entertainment, is in a fortunate trine with your Venus. This means that your singing will be well received, which of course is exactly what has happened."

  "Then how do you explain the prediction that Nemesis is stalking me?"

  "That isn't for me to say, Caesar, although you mustn't discount the envy aroused by someone upon whom fortune so continually smiles."

  Nero sighed. "Yes, I suppose that's all it is."

  A month later we left on our annual pilgrimage to Baiae, a little earlier than usual because this time the Moon of the Year fell on March 7. Usually Nero slept especially well on the road, but now he was plagued by nightmares, two of which recurred night after night.

  He was steering a ship when a hooded figure tore the tiller from his hands. Or Octavia, his first wife and Messalina's daughter, dragged him down into a dark pit where hordes of winged ants swarmed over him. Even their recollection, as he repeated them to me, had him breaking out in a sweat.

  The Bay of Naples, serene under a cloudless sky, calmed him. He slept better, worked hard at mastering the new and much expanded keyboard he'd designed for the pipe organ, an improvement which made it possible for a single musician to produce the variety of notes which previously had required several organists and as many instruments.

  I could hear his playing a mile from the shore as my boat approached the jetty of his villa: great surges of exquisite sound leaping across the waves as elegant as dolphins, as brilliant as the burnished path the setting sun was beating across the water.

  I knew that the Moon reading was due to take place precisely at sunset and that the Moon would once again be ominously full. Foreknowledge did nothing to prepare me for what sprang into the sky from behind Vesuvius. The Moon wasn't bloated or bloody but vast and unflatteringly clear, flaunting every blotch and blemish: the face a man sees in a mirror when time has worn him, bruised and wrinkled him. It was the face I'd seen in my barber's mirror a few hours earlier, which I recognized as the boy whom Agrippina found twenty years ago in Alexandria only in the tight smile that tugged at my lips.

  The circle of time: gazing out over the bay with Nero and Balbillus at my side, the last of the Sun on my right, the first of the Moon on my left, waiting for the trumpet to signal the birth of the ancient sacred year, the beginning in which was planted the seeds of all that was to grow from them, or so the gullible believed.

  Somewhere, out of sight, one of the astrologer's assistants signaled the trumpeter to announce the instant of perfect opposition, the syzygy. A moment of silence for its last plaintive note to dissolve in the thickening gloom. Then the crystalline voices of a boys' choir singing the Hymn to Apollo as I watched Balbillus's face out of the corner of my eye. It kept its secrets like the tomb.

  "Well Balbillus, you know you have to give me good news, don't you?" said Nero. "Otherwise I won't let you go."

  This was a reference to Balbillus's request to leave shortly after the Moon reading to attend to business in Alexandria, a request that had been granted.

  Balbillus unrolled his charts and I got ready to take down his babble in shorthand for Nero to mull over later. "The presence of Mars in your second house, which of course determines your financial affairs, is worrying. He's square your Jupiter which indicates that your munificence will lead to a conflict with the Senate."

  "Munificence? Nonsense, they're upset because I was forced to devaluate the currency. But how else was I supposed to pay for the rebuilding of Rome?"

  "The planets once again appear to smile on your music," Balbillus went on, "because transit Jupiter is simultaneously in a fortunate trine with your Venus on his right and your Saturn on his left. If you are able to overcome your problems with the Senate, this will undoubtedly be a wonderful year both for your music and for you."

  Nero's sigh of relief was profound as the sea.

  The astrologer held up a finger. "However there is unfortunately a period which stretches from the end of April to June 13 when it's possible that your artistic inspiration will fail you."

  Nero frowned. "Why's that?"

  "Venus will be in your House of Pleasures but on April 30 she begins to move backward in the Zodiac. This strongly indicates a temporary lull of your musical fortunes."

  Nero's groan was not mere theater. "Oh mother Venus! For how long?"

  Balbillus dropped his eyes to his notes in a way that made me suspect that he already knew what he pretended to look for. "She begins moving forward again on June 12. If you are planning a substantial artistic enterprise that's the day to begin it because by then Saturn will be moving forward as well."

  How far does Saturn move backward?

  Balbillus had already gone when I realized that he hadn't raised the question. I put it to one of the astronomers who attended us in Baiae, stood over him as he checked his almanac.

  "Saturn re-enters Virgo on the last day of March and then continues his retrograde motion until May 29 when he comes to a complete stop."

  "What will his position be then?"

  "Twenty seven degrees of Virgo."

  I knew what that meant from my interview with Ptolemy when the great comet first appeared. Twenty-seven degrees of Virgo was within a degree of Saturn's position at Nero's birth! The circle of time was about to close but Nero's astrologer hadn't even mentioned t
he fact. Why not?

  So Nero would let him escape to Alexandria.

  The full Moon shrieked at me through the mouths of the cicadas as I hurried to Balbillus's villa. There were footfalls behind me but I didn’t have time to confront my follower. I kicked at the astrologer’s door until my feet hurt.

  The doorman didn't recognize me. "What do you want?"

  "Balbillus."

  The door began to close in my face. "He's not here."

  I stopped it with my foot. "Imperial business."

  His eyes dropped. "He left already."

  I tucked up my toga and ran to the docks. I saw my follower, dressed in black, once in the bright moonlight. Torches illuminated the gangplank, which led to a fast seagoing galley. Two sailors guarded it.

  "Balbillus," I shouted, my chest heaving.

  "Too late, we're about to cast off."

  I tried to force myself between them, nearly fell when they shoved me backward. "Balbillus!" I yelled, "Balbillus I must speak with him or this ship will never reach Alexandria."

  More sailors, eventually one of Balbillus's clerks. "What can I do for you?"

  "Balbillus and if I don't get him a naval galley will."

  Balbillus came down the gangplank, his way lit by the clerk who held a torch and two scrolls. Where was the gravity of the man who'd so often made me feel as light as a feather? The flesh under the traveling cape had turned to straw. The face that frowned at me was drawn, the gray eyes were dull and hidden deep in their sockets. There was something quite new about them: yes, they were furtive.

  He said, "What do you want from me?"

  "The truth. Why didn't you tell Nero that Saturn was re-entering Virgo and returning to his birth position? You know very well what everyone will make of that."

  There was sweat on the astrologer's forehead. "Because he doesn't have the temperament to prepare himself for his end."

  "What? Are you saying he's finished?"

  "Yes, I'm afraid so."

  "Because Saturn has returned? How preposterous! You don't believe that and neither do I. Transit Saturn overtook Nero's Saturn in Greece. Instead of being his Nemesis he went happily on his way. How many predictions of Nero's fall have there been? Fatal, all of them, fatal to those who believed them. This time it may be fatal for you."

  A narrowing of the astrologer's eyes acknowledged my threat. He took a scroll from the clerk, unrolled it. "This is Nero's chart," he said, "the light is bad, come closer."

  The ink on the wheel was faded. I could see nothing, sinister or benign, in the transiting planets, faint pencil marks, that Balbillus had drawn in around its perimeter. "I see transit Saturn conjunct his natal Saturn, so what?"

  The ivory crook traced aspects on the chart. "See here in the inner circle, the one which represents the birth stars. The Moon is square Jupiter. Now look at the outer circle, the one representing the transits on June 11. What is the angle between the transit Moon and transit Jupiter?"

  I shrugged. "Also square, but you know I’m not a believer.”

  I didn't like the remorselessness in Balbillus's voice nor the way he went on to show me that six of the seven planets were in the same aspects to each other on June 11 as they were on the day Nero was born. The whole thing was so uncanny that I pounced on what looked like a glaring inconsistency. "But what about the Moon? She doesn't fit the pattern. Or is that because she doesn't count?"

  "Oh she fits the pattern all right. In Nero's birth chart she's in his House of Death. On the fatal day she's in the Fishes, sign of the end."

  Beware the seventy-third year for there will be blood in the stars when the Moon shines on the fishes. Of course I remembered the prediction. I said, "I've heard something like that before, from the Oracle of Delphi. That bag of gold that we found under the prophet's mattress. Wasn't yours by any chance?"

  It was hard to tell in the moonlight, but I could have sworn Balbillus flinched. "How dare you even suggest that?"

  "But you do admit the prediction that Nero would live to seventy three was yours?'

  "I've discovered that I made an error."

  "Generous of you to admit it."

  Balbillus went back on the offensive. "When Sagittarius, the sign that was rising at Nero's birth will be setting, the sands of his life will have run out."

  Someone shouted down to us, "All passengers must board the ship immediately, the gangplank is being raised."

  "One minute more," I shouted.

  "Balbillus, astrology’s only power is that its prophecies are self fulfilling. If you've leaked your prediction of Nero’s death to anyone, which wouldn't surprise me at all, you need to tell them that you've made another mistake, that you've discovered Nero will be saved by Venus when she starts moving forward again, oh any hogwash will do just so long as you say it with a straight face. Help me save Nero or I swear to you by all the non-existent Gods of Fate that I'll crush you."

  Balbillus recovered his nerve. "Possible but pointless."

  "Why?"

  Because Nero’s Moon is situated in his twelfth house, his Way of Death. You are ruled by the Moon. Epaphroditus, I've found Nero's assassin for you. You'll kill him yourself."

  Oh, how I'd longed for this moment, how I relished spitting out the words! "Rubbish. That isn't my horoscope. It was invented by an astrologer in Alexandria called Phocion. My certificate of ownership with that date and time on it is a forgery by my Copy Master so he could get the reward for finding Fate’s Anointed. Tigellinus knows the truth, he must have told you.”

  Balbillus didn't turn a hair. "Really? Then when were you born?"

  "I haven't the slightest idea, nor has anyone else."

  "The year is not correct?"

  "Approximately, but -"

  "Time and again, has this horoscope you say isn't yours not correctly predicted your fortune?"

  "Yes, but only because others believed in it.”

  "But Agrippina couldn't make you finish off Nero."

  "No, which proves -"

  "That she got the wrong day. On June 11, precisely at sunrise, that's when you'll do it."

  Fate’s Puppet

  March 7 – April 2, 68 A.D.

  "Why was I the last one to know?" I asked Tigellinus.

  The Praetorian Prefect was out on a balcony, mellowed by the wine being fed to him in sips by the young girl, practically naked in diaphanous silk, who reclined on the couch with him. He shoed her off by patting her rear, let his violet eyes drift upwards to the Full Moon floating above the seaside garden that was still alive with loose laughter. "Obviously you've been talking to Balbillus. A tearful farewell at the docks, that's what's upset you."

  His mockery irritated me. "You're going to have to answer my question. What Balbillus told me is treason."

  "I thought it was murder he was talking about."

  "Are you telling me that you believe that absurd nonsense?"

  "Yes I do. The astrology is very convincing."

  "But you know as well as I do that my horoscope is a forgery."

  Tigellinus’s laugh ended up in a cough. He wiped a speck of blood from the corner of his mouth. “It isn’t,” he said very calmly and held out a papyrus scroll that had being lying on the table next to him. “Take a look for yourself.”

  I couldn’t touch it. The paper seemed more poisonous than an asp.

  “What is it?”

  “Your certificate of ownership.”

  “The one on which the Copy Master forged the birth time?”

  “It’s genuine.”

  I felt my arm reaching out for it. The paper was frayed at the edges from age. I unrolled it. I hadn’t seen the handwriting in twenty years but I recognized it instantly. It was Phocion’s, or at least was identical to Phocion’s.

  “Where did you get this?” I growled.

  “From the Copy Master of course, when he came for his reward.”

  I read it twice, the first time very quickly and the second time more slowly. “Certificate of Ownership
. This document records the birth of a boy on New Year’s Day precisely when Sothis who is also called Sirius first reappeared in the dawn sky after being consumed by the Sun. He has been named Epaphroditus and is, like his parents, a possession of the Museum. His mother crossed over to the west soon after she gave birth. The scribe who writes this is the child’s father. Certified true and correct by myself, Phocion, records officer, Museum of Alexandria.”

  A gale of memory drove clouds of emotion through my mind. All those years, beginning as early as I could remember, Phocion had taken me to the temple of Isis not to celebrate the dawn of New Year, July 19, but to celebrate my birthday. Afterwards came the celebration when the Goddess was carried through the streets of Alexandria, the focus of a mighty procession. Leading were women in white robes and transcendent smiles who sprinkled the street with scents as they walked. They were followed by devotees carrying torches and lanterns and tapers to illustrate that Isis was the child of the stars. Next the musicians on pipe and flute, the choir of youths singing songs that told the ancient history of the cult. Then the thousands of initiates all in pure white linen, the women wearing head scarves, the men’s shaven heads shiny with unguents, all keeping up a continuous, thrilling, high-pitched jingle with the little bronze sistra, sacred to Isis, that they rattled above their heads. How that sound had lifted my heart. My birthday party! Tears flooded my eyes. I blinked them away hastily. Suddenly my only emotion was anger.

  “So the ‘agreement’ between the Copy Master and Phocion, the tetradrachmas in exchange for a horoscope, was a forgery?”

  “Of course not. The Copy Master wrote that before he lost his hand.”

  The voice came from inside, old and cracked but still recognizable. “He’s right. There was no forgery.” An old man with a long white philosopher’s beard limped out onto the balcony helping himself along with a stick. I knew exactly how old he was, eighty-two. In a horrible, giddy moment of paranoia I thought of Rachel and Winged Victory and how I’d been tricked into believing that I’d burnt her alive.