The Splendor Before the Dark

by Margaret George

  Seneca, having bleated out his tiresome platitudes, vanished from the play, which ended with Octavia being exiled.

  Tigellinus was waiting for my response. “I notice you don’t fare so well in it, either. But at least you aren’t identified by name. Just called ‘Prefect.’ And look here, he has me saying, ‘Here comes the captain of my guard, whose loyalty well proved, and signal virtue, make him fit to hold command over my garrison.’ Well, that’s true. You are. And somewhere else it says that Poppaea is more lovely than Helen of Troy.” I searched for it. “Here it is: ‘Let Sparta praise her daughter’s beauty, and the young Phrygian shepherd boast of his prize; We have one here, a face more lovely than the Tyndarid—that face that launched a lamentable war, and brought the throne of Phrygia to the ground.’ At least he gives Poppaea her due.”

  “She almost started a war here, too.”

  “Nasty stuff. It’s nasty stuff,” I admitted. I rolled it up. It should have made me angry, and it did on the surface, but deeper down I felt sorrow. If he did not actually write it, whoever did had known it would find a welcome home with him.

  “Is this really public opinion?” I wondered out loud.

  “The divorce was a scandal, as you know. But we managed it; it is over. Octavia’s sad end is fading in memory, too. The whole family was cursed—Claudius, Messalina, Britannicus, Octavia, and then your mother for joining them. But all things pass, and the latest scandal or tragedy takes its place. The Fire has wiped out many memories.” He raised his eyebrows. “There is nothing like having your own house burn down to take your mind off the misbehavior of others.”

  XX

  ACTE

  Autumn was always a busy time for me. The orders for new amphoras, one of my businesses, became brisk, as vintners suddenly realized their harvest was yielding more wine than they had predicted. Then they wanted the extras immediately. I had to take them in order, first the most long-standing customers, without losing the newer customers. It was a difficult juggling act.

  As if that were not challenging enough, I suddenly had a spate of suitors. Sometimes I was tempted to take one just to end the siege. But I knew that remedy was worse than the disease. I was thirty-two and past the age for marriage. Not legally but emotionally. It is a misfortune to find a love early in life and then lose him. When that happens, you can spend the rest of your days either memorializing him or searching for him again. In my case, I chose to do neither. I did not need to memorialize Nero; the world did that for me. And there was no point in searching for him. I knew where to find him, but finding him would not change anything. Meeting him again in the fields outside Rome had altered nothing except to prove to me that my bond with him would never fade or break.

  People make second marriages all the time. Why not me? It would be easier if the person was no longer on earth but a little heap of ashes in an urn; then it would be like that saying: a living dog is better than a dead lion. But if the lion is still alive?

  There was one man I had not sent away yet. I hated finalities, and of all the men I had met since coming to Velitrae, he was the most tempting. But I could not bring myself to say yes—yet. So I kept him on, postponing a decision.

  My servants had returned from the morning markets and I had finished signing some contracts for the amphoras when a visitor was announced. I was not expecting anyone, but my atrium and reception rooms were tidy as usual. I smoothed my hair, straightened my shoulders, and said, “Admit him.”

  In walked Claudius Senecio, a man from my past. I was so startled to see him for an instant I was without words. It is always disorienting to see someone from another place suddenly appear where they don’t belong.

  “I am not a ghost,” he said. “Although you look as if you had seen one.” He smiled. “Do you not recognize your old paramour?”

  “Claudius Senecio,” I said, to prove that I did recognize him and had not lost my wits. “Yes, I remember our subterfuge.” I motioned him to follow me out of the wide atrium and into the room where I received clients and visitors.

  He put his hands over his heart. “Ah, how can you call it a subterfuge? For me it was real.”

  He had aged little. He still had his thick dark hair and his ready, but insincere, smile on a tanned face.

  “It was meant to look real,” I said, indicating a chair for him to sit in. “Those were in the days before Nero ceased to care if people knew about him and me. So, as his companion, you provided the excuse for me to be out in his company.” Surely he hadn’t dwelt on the idea that I might have harbored secret feelings for him?

  “It was a pleasure while it lasted,” he said, accepting the drink my servant brought over on a mother-of-pearl tray. “And here you are.” He looked around appreciatively. “Your liaison with the emperor has stood you in good stead.”

  He had always had a mean tongue. “Do you mean that he has bought me off? That I profited by my time with him?” I did not take insults from anyone.

  “Well, you are a freedwoman and now have this big villa and several businesses, so I hear.”

  “Some of the wealthiest people in the empire are freedmen,” I said.

  “Especially mistresses of the emperor,” he said.

  I set down my goblet. “What do you want, Senecio?”

  He shrugged. “I happened to be here and thought I would stop in and see you, as an old friend.”

  “If you speak like this to other old friends, I doubt you have very many.”

  “I beg your pardon. Please, do not take offense. Our positions have changed since those early days. Tell me, do you hear from the emperor?”

  “Hardly. We are not in contact.”

  “Oh, that’s a pity.” He took another sip of his drink. “I have been concerned about him. So have others.”

  “In what way?”

  “Since the Fire . . . It has affected him . . . he seems changed.”

  “How?”

  “It’s hard to say. Do you happen to know if he plans to reopen the Macellum Magnum in person? I believe the damage from the Fire has been repaired.”

  “No, I told you, I don’t know what he is doing or plans to do.”

  “What about the Circus? There are rumors that he plans to race in it himself. Do you know when?”

  “What about ‘no’ don’t you understand? I’ve told you, I’m not in contact with him.”

  “I am just concerned,” he repeated.

  “Then why don’t you go to him yourself? I am sure you have admittance to the palace.”

  “Oh, yes, I dined with him not long after the Fire. Petronius hosted us. It was out in the woods. Well, you know Petronius! Always something different. This was a gathering to resurrect Pan.”

  “Well, then, you have seen him more recently than I have.”

  “He’s gained weight,” he said suddenly. “I don’t think he looks well.”

  “As I said, you have seen him more recently than I have.”

  “Do you truly not see him? They say he is faithful to his wife, but she’s a bitch. An opportunist if ever there was one.”

  And you are not? I thought. “I don’t know what he does.”

  “He couldn’t be faithful to her. After all, he’s the emperor; he can have as many women as he wants. She is probably driving him away with her demands and tantrums. You’ve heard about the asses’ milk baths?”

  I would not take this bait, would not ask about her. “I really can’t tell you anything about him nowadays,” I said. I stood up. “Senecio, it was good to see you. Now I have another appointment.” I rang for the servant to see him out.

  * * *

  • • •

  I had no other appointment, but I spent the rest of the afternoon in agitated unease. The encounter was disturbing. Why had he come? What did he want to know? Behind the smoke of niceties he had asked pointed questions about where Nero could be
expected to be and when.

  There may have been nothing to it, but it felt suspect. Should I report it to Nero? No, he would think I was looking for an excuse to write him, to get in touch with him. This sounded flimsy. One of your old companions stopped by, asking questions about you. The questions sounded innocent enough when I repeated them.

  But what if they weren’t, and in concern for what Nero might impute to me, I let them slip by?

  I would write him. But how to make sure the letter wasn’t intercepted? Suddenly today’s impromptu, casual visit took on ominous overtones. He might be surrounded by people watching, spying, making sure he wasn’t warned.

  Tigellinus. Could he be trusted? The letter would pass through his hands if it was addressed directly to Nero. But if I sent it to Alexandra, his old nurse and my friend who still served him in the palace, no one would bother with it. And she could carry it to him when it was safe.

  I pulled out paper and began.

  To Nero (alongside the real words I wrote were ghost ones, To my everlasting love)

  Claudius Senecio (that snake) came to my home today, ostensibly for a friendly visit, but he asked several questions about you and your plans. 1. He asked if you planned to reopen the Macellum Magnum in person and if so, when? 2. He asked if you were going to race in the Circus Maximus, or open the track, and if so, when? 3. He asked about possible mistresses and who they might be. (He slandered your wife and, incidentally, me, too, saying that I had profited by my time with you.) 4. He professed to be concerned about you and your health and said you did not look well. (Is this true? I pray not.) I am more concerned than he claims to be, for I fear he was spying, to what end I know not. In any case, I told him I knew nothing, which is true. But even were it not, I still would have said it.

  With wishes for your health, safety, and happiness,

  (Your) Claudia Acte

  XXI

  NERO

  When is he to arrive?” asked Poppaea. We had been waiting all morning for the legendary sculptor Zenodorus to come and discuss the statue I was commissioning.

  I didn’t know but didn’t want to admit it, for Poppaea would lecture me about my being the emperor and how I should command people’s appearance at my convenience. She didn’t understand that artists can’t be commanded, and any attempt to do so just alienates them, even more so if it is the emperor doing it.

  “Probably this afternoon,” I said to placate her.

  “Are you sure he is the right man for this job?” she asked. “You didn’t even approach anyone else.”

  “There is no one else,” I said. “No one who could conceivably execute a statue of this magnitude.”

  Zenodorus had gained fame from his enormous bronze statue of Mercury that stood in the Gallic town of Augustodunum.

  “Why must it be so large?” she asked.

  “Because it must,” I said. I wanted Rome to have its own colossus, bigger even than the one in Rhodes, gone now, tumbled in an earthquake some three hundred years ago, but writ large in memory.

  “But it took him ten years to do the Mercury statue!” she said. “You can’t wait that long.”

  “Indeed not. I want everything in place by next spring—the Golden House finished, all the rebuilding, and the dedication of the statue.”

  “And how will you prod him into completing it in record time?”

  “He ran out of money in Gaul. That won’t happen here.” Money . . . already a problem, dwindling rapidly, and much still left to do. I had to find more sources.

  She sighed and leaned back against the arm of the couch. I thought of the reference to her as a latter-day Helen of Troy in the abominable play; even someone prejudiced against her could not deny her otherworldly beauty. Now I looked at her and tried to see her as a stranger would, but it was impossible. She was pressed into my vision, my heart, my dreams. Even Zenodorus could not capture her beauty, no matter his genius.

  Zenodorus was announced not long afterward, to our relief, and escorted into the room. He was a short, balding man with bushy overhanging eyebrows. I had not pictured him to look so negligible, and I was surprised. But I should not have been. There is no connection between a person’s looks and his ability to bring forth visions for others.

  “Caesar,” he said. “I am here as you requested.”

  “I am pleased to welcome you. How was your journey?”

  After more of these pleasantries, I bade him sit while I laid out my ideas for the statue. It had to be taller than any other statue, it should be of bronze overlaid with gold, it should be freestanding, and it should be modeled with my features. He listened without comment.

  “You are ambitious,” he finally said. “But such a statue would strain the limitations of what is possible.”

  “Not for you, surely,” I said, hoping the flattery would sway him.

  “To attempt it and have it fail would do no good to either of our reputations,” he said. “If it fell, how would that be interpreted? Would people see it as an omen, that your rule is over, toppled? No, I wouldn’t chance it.”

  “I am not a coward,” I said. “Better to dare and fail than not to try. Especially if the reward for succeeding is eternal fame.”

  “A statue won’t assure you of eternal fame,” he said. “Although it will outlast you for a while.”

  “I want the statue! No argument can convince me otherwise. I made a vow to Apollo, to Sol. He will watch over the city, and the golden statue in his likeness and mine will confirm that.”

  “Very well,” he said. “Now, for the particulars—”

  He was a gracious loser and immediately put any other path behind him.

  He wanted to inspect the area where the statue would be situated, and so we left the palace across the Tiber and went to the site where the complex was rising. A haze of dust from the stone chisels filled the air in the valley where the lake, the main palace, and the courtyard were being built. Sunlight danced in the motes, like daytime fireflies.

  Zenodorus looked around, swiveling his head on his wattled neck. “I see now. I see why the statue must be outsized.”

  I led him into the nearly completed courtyard where bricklayers were setting the pavement and workmen were smoothing the marble finish on the surrounding colonnades. An open space was fenced off, with no plantings yet. “Here,” I said. “We will leave the ground bare until the statue is in place, otherwise the plantings would be trampled. The statue will be facing the Forum and the Capitoline Hill, looking west. It will top the colonnades and be visible from anywhere in Rome. So you see why it must be over a hundred feet high.”

  “Yes, yes,” he said. He was stunned.

  We strolled through the empty, echoing halls of the attached incomplete palace, awaiting its final touches, and then out to the artificial lake beside it. That at least was done; the stones were sealed and watertight. “We will fill it soon,” I said. It was about twenty feet deep, and large enough to carry a pleasure boat. “And over here”—I steered him toward the Temple of the Divine Claudius on the other side, being converted into a giant public fountain on one side. Up on the hill gleamed the veranda of the pavilion, open to the air and the sun; cascading down the hillside were bricked terraces and gardens.

  “I truly have never seen the like,” he finally said.

  “What you are seeing now are the shells. When they are ornamented, then they will be unequaled.” Surely then, surely when Rome saw what I had done, their doubts about my plans would fade away and they would glory in their city being the grandest on earth.

  Back across the Tiber in the Vatican palace, Zenodorus got down to specifics. He told me to take off my tunic and let him take my measurements. The statue would be nude, and he needed the proportions. Poppaea watched from her couch.

  “For a statue this tall, we will need a support. You will have to be leaning on something, holding something,”
he said, fussing with the measuring string. “A rudder? It has to be long enough to reach the ground. A spear? A shield?”

  “Nothing military,” I said. “A rudder will do. And in my right hand I’ll hold a globe. The head should have a crown of divine rays, since the statue is also Sol.”

  “But it will have your features,” he said. “Won’t that confuse people?”

  I shrugged. “People understand symbolism,” I said.

  “This will have to be constructed in sections,” he said. “It is not possible to cast anything this large as a single piece. But it can be joined together cleverly so the seams won’t show.” He noted the measurements in his notebook.

  “Make him more heroic than that,” said Poppaea suddenly. “Don’t use his genuine measurements. After all, this is supposed to be Sol as well.”

  Embarrassed, Zenodorus looked at me for guidance.

  “She is right,” I said. “It is the duty of art to elevate the commonplace to the sublime.” No, I didn’t want my present proportions to be rendered eternal in metal. It was good that Poppaea had spoken up. “Make the measurements Olympian.”

  He nodded and wrote furiously in his notebook.

  * * *

  • • •

  After he was gone, I sat down beside her on the couch and laughed.

  She poked at my stomach. “You don’t want this on your statue!” she said.

  “I know I have gotten fat,” I admitted.

  “No, no, not fat, just—burly,” she said.

  “Fat by any other name . . .” I embraced her and stroked her hair. “But I will lose it all, I swear. When spring comes, you will see me as I used to be.”

  “So you have six months,” she said. “When the baby comes, you will be reborn yourself as a slender man.”

  The baby. “I want the Nero who holds him to be worthy of him,” I said. “Oh, Poppaea, I cannot express how happy I am. The gods have blessed us at last.”