The Confessions of Young Nero

by Margaret George

After the brief fun of Saturnalia, the year lapsed back into boring rhythms. At one point, when the leaves were first opening on the trees, while the wan and crinkly ones of the previous autumn still lay beneath, I wondered why the trees even bothered. Such effort—such toil required to sprout all those leaves, and for such a short time. Such was my ennui.

  But the tedium was shattered in the autumn in the most sensational way. Our lives broke open and rearranged themselves around a singular event: Messalina’s spectacular folly.

  Having just turned ten at Saturnalia, and still living a sequestered life, I did not know about her lovers. Neither did Claudius, although apparently all of Rome did. When he was off in Ostia inspecting his new harbor, his wife was going through a public “marriage” ceremony with her latest lover, the new consul Gaius Silius.

  “The handsomest man in Rome,” Mother mocked. “What a fool.”

  Gaius Silius . . . that man Crispus had introduced me to at the Circus! The one I thought looked like Alexander the Great. “Who?”

  “Both of them.” She smiled. “And both executed.”

  “What? Messalina has been executed?” Claudius had executed his own wife?

  “She was ordered to commit suicide but was too cowardly. So a soldier had to do the deed. Her mother was standing by, urging her to be brave and do it herself, but no—”

  Poor Aunt Lepida! First her husband was killed by the scheme of her own daughter, then the daughter herself brought disgrace. Painful as it was, she was better rid of this evil. For Messalina was pure evil.

  “Claudius could bring himself to order this?” The doting old man did not seem that decisive, and he had been Messalina’s toy.

  “Well . . .” Mother rolled her eyes. “He signed the papers when he was drunk, and when he woke up the next morning and asked to see her, alas, it was too late.”

  “You mean that his secretaries hurried the orders through before he could remember what he was doing?”

  “You are showing some political acuity, my boy. Perhaps you are not hopeless after all.”

  • • •

  Messalina was executed in the autumn and only a few months later, on New Year’s Day, Mother married Claudius.

  Yes. I have put it down in the simplest words, for what can any more words add?

  It was shocking—it was against Roman law for an uncle and a niece to marry, but Mother took care of that, having Claudius persuade the Senate to vote to allow it.

  How did she manage the rest of it? A handsome freedman lurked around the villa often enough to give rise to rumors that they were lovers, and this freedman, Marcus Antonius Pallas, was Claudius’s secretary of the treasury and had Claudius’s ear. He supposedly whispered into it that the lady Agrippina would be the ideal fourth wife for him, uniting the Julian and the Claudian royal houses and putting an end to the discord between them that began with Tiberius and Agrippina the Elder. But the real reason was that Mother befuddled him with lover’s caresses and, using her excuse as his niece to enter the palace freely, sat on his lap and toyed with him, arousing the old goat’s lust. He was fool enough to call her in speeches “my daughter and foster child, born and bred, in my lap, so to speak.” Everyone was speaking of it, I had no doubt.

  • • •

  I was so ashamed I wanted to shut myself in my chamber and never look upon either of them again, but that was impossible. Mother would punish me, and her wrath was not to be taken lightly, if I wanted to live. I was forced to attend their wedding and stand by while the hypocritical guests wished them good fortune, happiness—and children. That was the only time I felt solidarity with Britannicus and Octavia, who winced when the words were pronounced. Being older than they, I just managed to keep my expression blank and not join them in the grimace.

  That night I returned to the villa but Mother stayed in the palace, spending the first night of the new year in the shaking embraces of the elderly Claudius. Of course I did not witness this, nor did I allow myself to picture it, but I could not banish the memory of his tremulous, spotted hands when he lifted her bridal veil. Only as I lay in bed, in the villa now vacated by Mother, did the enormity of what had happened almost crush me into the pillow. Mother was now the empress. She was the most powerful woman—no, the most powerful person—in the empire besides Claudius. I ran my fingers over the ring he had given me, remembering that he had been kind to me. Suddenly I felt very protective of him, for he was now in Mother’s clutches and at her mercy. Her husbands did not have a long life expectancy.

  Soon there was the obligatory gathering at the palace to celebrate the emperor’s newfound happiness. There was no way I could not go, and so I resigned myself. I felt strangely abandoned in the villa—in both senses of the word—and almost looked forward to going where there was life and noise.

  Tall blazing torches lit up the entire perimeter of the grounds, and closer to the building itself, guards held smaller ones, and panpipes and tambourines welcomed the guests as they approached the great bronze doors. So many years past, I had gone in these very doors, nervous and afraid, the first time we had been summoned to meet Claudius. Oh, what changes—now I walked in as a member of his family, and the cruel Messalina reigned here no more. It was my first taste of revenge, and I liked the flavor.

  The buzz of assembled guests carried way out to the farthest rooms; a slave escorted the most recent arrivals down long hallways and finally into the cavernous room I remembered. It still looked enormous to me, even though I was no longer a small child. The yellowish light of hundreds of suspended oil lamps made the air golden and changed the color of the gowns—grass green looked like moss, red turned orange. Braziers were making the room almost uncomfortably hot, and I followed the stream of cooler air to the balcony. At night the Circus Maximus below twinkled with torches placed all along the track, making a starry oval.

  There was a knot of people at one end that I assumed clustered around the newlyweds. Suddenly I felt very awkward. I was now tall enough that I did not get lost in crowds, but I did not know how to start a conversation, since I didn’t recognize anyone. A slave pressed a goblet into my hand and that gave me something to hold, but still I looked around hoping to see a familiar face. Anicetus, as befitted a mere tutor, had melted away and I was on my own.

  Just then a voice behind me said, “Are you looking for someone?”

  I turned and saw a strapping man. Even the long sleeves on his ornamented tunic could not disguise his muscularity. “Only for someone I might know,” I said.

  “Why are you here by yourself?” he asked, although he was polite enough not to add, where you so clearly do not belong.

  “My mother is the bride,” I said.

  He laughed. “You needn’t look so sad about it. It’s I who should be sad, and look, I’m cheering them.”

  He had bright blue eyes that stayed clear even in the yellow light. I asked—as I was meant to—“And why should you be sad?”

  “Because although your mother and I are old friends, and remain so, when the emperor brought me back from an exile imposed on me by Caligula, it was only on the condition that I do not enter the royal palace.”

  “But you have,” I said. “You are here.”

  “Ah, to be forbidden something is to make the desire to do it bloom. Claudius will not see me—I’ll be careful to stay here in the back—but it gives me an opportunity to speak with some others, which is always helpful for business. I shall leave after I have done that.”

  “What is your business?”

  “I breed racehorses.”

  I almost gasped. “Racehorses! Where do you breed them?”

  “I have big estates in the very far south.”

  “I love horses! I love racing! Oh, this is the best thing that has happened to me—meeting you.”

  He laughed, crinkles around his suntanned face. “Better than your mother becoming empress?�
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  “Yes,” I said stubbornly.

  “You are obviously a singular individual, Lucius.”

  “How did you know my name?”

  “I told you, I am a friend of your family. I was in your father’s household. I even knew your grandfather, another Lucius. Now, he was the man obsessed with chariot racing and horses! You must have inherited it right from him.”

  People were edging up to us and I could see him looking for his business contacts. “What is your name?” I asked. I wanted to be able to meet with him again, anywhere but inside the palace. Racehorses!

  “Tigellinus,” he said. “Just don’t mention it in front of Claudius.”

  Someone tapped him on the shoulder and he was gone.

  Now I was back in the milling crowd, but it did not seem so alien. I saw a darkly beautiful young woman slipping through the people, handing out goblets. She must be a slave. I held out my hand and she replaced my empty goblet with a full one.

  “Juice for you,” she said. Up close she was even more beautiful.

  “I can drink wine,” I said stoutly. I sipped the contents. “But I like the sweetness of this juice. Thank you. Do you serve Claudius? Where are you from?”

  “The province of Lycia. My father was captured and executed for resisting the Romans. You must not think we were always slaves.” She looked directly at me, not as a slave would do.

  “I do not think anything,” I assured her. “I merely wondered where your ancestral home was.”

  “Do I look so foreign?”

  “Not foreign, but not Roman, either.”

  She smiled and glided away with her goblet tray, duty calling. I watched the curve of her back as she disappeared.

  Perhaps I should leave. I had met a racehorse dealer and a beautiful woman. Things could only get worse now.

  Before I could turn to go, a hand clapped itself on my shoulder, and a smooth, polished voice said, “You should join the imperial family.” The hand did not move and its owner began to steer me toward the front of the room. Then he stopped. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Pallas, secretary to the emperor.” I turned to look at him. He had the polished looks to go with his voice, a very sophisticated demeanor. “You have me to thank for your mother’s marriage.”

  He should have said, you have me to blame. “And why so?” I asked. Had he been the one to advise her to crawl up into Claudius’s lap?

  “My advice was heeded, that is all I can say. What passes in the councils of the emperor must, of course, remain private.” He laughed, an odd, detached laugh. “I think it is the most beneficial choice for everyone. I like to see the emperor happy, but with his happiness founded on reality.”

  As we came closer to the emperor, the number of important persons rapidly increased.

  “Rufrius!” said Pallas, stopping before someone who was, at last, familiar. It was the Praetorian prefect who had the immortally beautiful wife I had met at the Circus. Was she here? I did not see her.

  Rufrius recognized me. “A big change for you,” was all he said.

  “Indeed, sir.”

  We continued on, then Pallas abruptly steered me to the right. But it was too late. The person he wished to avoid moved and stood right in front of us.

  “I see you have young Lucius in tow,” he said. He had a long face and dark features. There was something serpentine about him.

  “Nothing so sinister, Narcissus. I am just helping him through the crowd.”

  “You have me to thank for this, Lucius,” he said.

  Him, too? How many people had engineered this wedding? “I am not sure exactly what you mean, but in any case I should be grateful.”

  He laughed darkly and bowed, then stepped aside.

  “What he meant was, he was the one who had Messalina executed. He is the secretary for correspondence, and in that role he ordered her death, since Claudius was hesitating.”

  “But that’s treason!”

  “He claimed Claudius had signed it and, in his cups, Claudius did not remember.”

  “But why did he do it?”

  “Because it was necessary. Ah, here we are!”

  Opening before us was a slightly raised platform, draped with jeweled rugs from Arabia and flanked by slaves wielding frothy feathered fans languidly moving up and down. Resplendent before this backdrop stood Claudius, wearing the purple toga of the emperor, a gold wreath on his head, and enormous emerald bracelets on his wrists. He stood like a sturdy barrel beside Mother, who suddenly, frighteningly, looked as I had never seen her.

  She seemed to burn with an inner fire that suffused her face, turning it into a goddess’s. All of the long history of Rome looked out of her eyes, cold and pitiless. Aeneas, Romulus, Scipio Africanus, Pompey, Augustus, Germanicus—all within her, all driving her forward.

  It was Claudius who spoke, not her. “Dear Lucius,” he said. “I w-welcome you as a son, and you must look on me as a f-father.” He held out his hand to draw me up to the platform. Mother did not look at me.

  The jeweled carpet was pebbly under my feet, and I was hit by a wave of musky perfume from the fans. I took my place between them. Mother put her hand on my shoulder. But she still did not look at me. “It is my honor to do so,” I said.

  Looking out from the platform I saw a swarm of senators nearby. They had come in their senatorial striped togas lest anyone not recognize their status, regardless of how uncomfortably hot it was in the room. They were of all ages and shapes—decrepit and bald, portly and sleek, glossy haired and robust, sharp nosed and emaciated. So these were the men who were held in such esteem and believed they were running the empire? Perhaps it was true that there was safety in collective wisdom. Or perhaps wisdom was dulled by being parceled out between so many. Thus they could be either a shackle to the emperor or his invaluable guide.

  On Mother’s other side stood Britannicus and Octavia, formally dressed for the occasion. They both looked miserable, probably for the same reason I did. Octavia, being older, hid it better than her brother. Our ages were now eleven, nine, and almost eight. We had to stand for hours acknowledging the well-wishers who filed past. The senators each spoke and introduced himself, but although I am gifted with the ability to remember names and faces, there were so many new ones all at once I would never be able to remember them all. Next, court officials made their way past, then former provincial governors, then officers in charge of the Roman city, then officers of the guard, then “Friends of Caesar” clients, and finally down to the official tasters.

  Finally Claudius held up his hands.

  “We are grateful for your w-wishes. We are blessed in having your l-loyalty and blessed in our union. Now the great Julian and C-Claudian houses are joined. We are one family. And to cement this, the empress and I are p-pleased to announce that another wedding between our houses will follow shortly—that of her son, Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus”—Mother grabbed my shoulder and hauled me back toward her—“and my daughter, Claudia Octavia.” He extended his hand to her and pulled her over beside me. Mother grasped our hands and forced us to clasp them together.

  The room felt as hot as Vulcan’s furnace and the heat lapped over me in waves. I could not believe it, could not be sure of what I had heard. Mother had arranged this without even telling me? Marry Octavia? No, I would not! She was only a child, but one I had found unappealing since her infancy. And I was still a child. I wanted nothing to do with marriage or girls or—or being part of this playacting. And I was forced to stand there, humiliated in front of the entire room, living a lie. Being a liar. Pretending to be what I was not.

  A great cheer went up. My face pulsated with anger and shame. Beside me, Octavia looked down at the floor.

  XIX

  I was ready to begin my Greek lesson with Anicetus, who had commiserated with me but warned me not to voice my anger and distaste outside the room—more
playacting, more lies! I could not stand it. But he said, “You must stand it. It is your inheritance.”

  “What, being a liar?”

  “Hiding your true feelings. The higher in the aristocracy, the less open anyone can be. In your family, honest feelings must not be exposed.” He tactfully did not say, because they could be fatal.

  “There will come a time, Anicetus—I swear it to you—that I will be free to say and do exactly as I wish and to hide my true self no longer.”

  He smiled. “Even the emperor cannot do that. Perhaps the emperor can do it less than anyone.”

  “Then what’s the point of being emperor?”

  A shadow fell across the open door. Mother. I had not seen her since the horrible night at the palace a week before.

  “Anicetus, what are you teaching him? I hear no history, only rebellious and foolish ideas.”

  “They were my ideas, Mother.” I turned to face her.

  “He encourages them.”

  “I am capable of generating my own ideas. And here’s one you won’t like: I won’t marry Octavia.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “And next time, you might ask me first before you pledge me to something that affects my entire life.”

  “How could I ask you? You were not there when Claudius suggested it. He changes his mind by the hour, so I dared not let him wait. My dear, do not distress yourself about it. It would not happen for a long time.”

  “I don’t like her! I never have!”

  Now she looked genuinely puzzled, not pretend-puzzled. “What does that have to do with it?”

  “Everything! How could I live with her, hold her, kiss her”—the thought was repulsive—“or anything else?”

  She laughed, relieved. “Is that all? It’s such a minor thing. You need not see much of her. You can have mistresses for that, and see Octavia only on formal occasions.”

  “I won’t live a lie like that!”

  “What silly ideas have filled your head? What sort of a wife do you envision, then?”