The Confessions of Young Nero

by Margaret George

  I stared at him. How dare he mock me? “No,” I said, and all the chill of deep winter was in that one word.

  Burrus blinked and said, “I am disappointed, then.”

  “I am sure you are.” The tone did not thaw. “But I wish to discuss matters far beyond the palace, beyond Rome, beyond even the Mediterranean.”

  Now they looked astonished, as if I had said a naughty word.

  “Why, do you think I am not aware of that world? That I do not follow the dispatches, the reports of the generals there? For shame, if you serve a master so ignorant. For the fault would be yours, not the master’s.” Now that I had chastened them, I could proceed. They thought I was an ignorant, careless boy, content to leave the wider world affairs to them and see only my nearby music. But there was no reason why I could not do both—indeed, must do both. And I was no longer a boy. “The situation in Armenia is troubling, and the advice of soldiers like you, Burrus, for a military campaign there seems to be failing.”

  “Everything in Armenia fails,” he said gruffly. “We have tried everything, ever since the days of Marc Antony. But they cannot be trusted, and if a region cannot be trusted, what recourse do we have but military action?”

  Armenia sat between our traditional enemy, Parthia, and our province of Syria. Over the years we had installed puppet kings there, the Parthians had done likewise, and the only certainty was that any settlement there did not last. The latest round had recognized Tiridates, the half brother of Parthia’s king, as our choice of ruler, but the man insisted on taking up arms against Rome, so I had ordered General Corbulo to pursue him. Next we appointed a pro-Roman collaborator, Tigranes V, to govern Armenia, and now the Parthians were at war with him.

  “We should split the eastern command: secure Syria with Corbulo and appoint a new general to deal with Parthia,” I said. “Burrus, who would you recommend for that post?”

  He thought a moment, then said, “Caesennius Paetus. He has experience in that area.”

  I nodded. “Then we shall inform him. But I still think if there were some way to reinstate Tiridates, that would be preferable.”

  “Perhaps we should just annex Armenia and get it over with,” said Burrus.

  “Its mountains and remoteness make it a difficult terrain to conquer,” said Seneca. “Not, of course, that a Roman army could not do it. But at what cost? And would it yield anything worth the cost of acquiring it?”

  “Peace, perhaps,” I said.

  Burrus gave a barely suppressed snort. “And while we are discussing expensive ventures, useless provinces, what of Britain?” he said. “Is it worth tying four legions up there in perpetuity? It is ruinously expensive to maintain, and it produces very little.”

  I had thought the same. “Perhaps we should withdraw from there,” I said. The only reason not to was that it was Claudius’s main achievement, and I did not want to demote the reputation of my “father.”

  Seneca’s face wrinkled with worry. “I have forty million sesterces out on loan there,” he said. “I should call those loans in if you are thinking of abandoning the province.”

  I suppressed a sarcastic remark about the rich philosopher whose creed stressed indifference to material things, but who could make loans in the millions. Well, we are all a tangle of contradictions.

  Now the others joined us: Phaon, minister of accounts and revenues; Beryllus, my former tutor, secretary for Greek letters; Doryphorus, minister of notes; and various scribes. I bade them take seats and had a slave offer refreshments, and then the meeting continued.

  Phaon was the first to pull out his notes and report on the cost of the recent games and festivities, assuring us that the treasury had not been hurt by them. “In the goodwill of the people, it was a shrewd investment,” he said. He had a broad, cheerful face and a booming voice that reminded me of an innkeeper. He seemed primed to report only pleasing news.

  Dear Beryllus, quiet and contained, then rose and reported that dispatches had been coming from the governor of Syria, worried about the Armenian situation, but I assured him we were just discussing that and had settled the course of action to take.

  Doryphorus, reporting on dispatches from lower provincial officials, launched into a long list of complaints from Portugal—the harbors were not well maintained; from Moesia—tribes from beyond the eastern borders were threatening; from Judea—purist zealots were increasingly restive over religious infringements. He was such an imposing, sculpted-jaw man and his looks were so arresting it was hard to concentrate on his news.

  Now selected members of the Consilium trooped in and took their places on rows of benches around us. One, Thrasea Paetus, leapt in immediately. “Judea!” he cried. “The people there are a superstitious lot of heathen.”

  “No, Thrasea, you have it backward. They view us as the heathens. They say we desecrate their holy land by being there,” said Doryphorus.

  “There are Jews right here in Rome. Claudius expelled them, but they’ve crept back. In fact, I think there is a delegation from the high priest in Jerusalem here to see you,” said Epaphroditus, my secretary for petitions. “Yes, forgive me for not arranging a meeting yet.”

  “How long have they been here?” I asked.

  He hung his shaggy dark head. “Oh, a few years.”

  “That’s outrageous!”

  “I’ll arrange a meeting immediately. Please forgive me, Caesar.”

  I then reported our decision about Armenia, and immediately a truculent senator named Nonius Silius decried it. “Force, force, that’s all they understand. Send more generals, more soldiers. Beat them into the dust.”

  “Let us try one general first and see what can be achieved,” I persisted.

  “Germanicus, your great ancestor, would not have advised that,” he said.

  “Germanicus was obedient to his emperor, and so will my generals be. I am commander in chief and they must follow my orders.”

  He glared at me but said nothing.

  Seneca now rose and said, “I have a proposal for exploration. If the emperor is amenable, we could send soldiers down the Nile to discover its source, and we could also send explorers far north to discover supplies of amber.”

  Amber. He knew I loved amber, and that we were forced to pay exorbitant rates for it from middlemen in the Baltic. And as for the Nile, its source was a mystery, a mystery I would love to solve.

  “The Nile scouting expedition would be useful in planning an Ethiopian campaign,” said Burrus. “We have spoken of provinces and adding new ones. Ethiopia is a promising candidate for that.”

  Ethiopia. Riches. Ivory. Ebony. Gold. I felt my heart beating faster.

  “I would endorse such a plan,” I said. And thus it was decided. “We will meet in a few days to discuss the details.”

  As they took their leave, I stood and poured a tall goblet of red wine. I was astounded. I had not thought of Poppaea the whole afternoon.

  • • •

  I spent several hours after the meeting poring over reports and studying maps. The two expeditions Seneca had suggested stretched far to the north and to the south, a slanted line almost three thousand miles long, from the icy seas washing the shores of barbaric lands to the hot dry desert, giving way to jungle in Africa. As at no other time, the sheer immensity of the empire struck me. The staggering responsibility for it lay heavily on my shoulders, although like any burden it is a day-by-day one that can be borne one step at a time. But the wisdom to guide such a vehicle—only with the help of the gods could any one man be wise enough.

  I leaned on one elbow and measured the lands on the map spread out before me. I had said that the empire was large enough, that it should not expand. But beckoning beyond the Mediterranean—now referred to as “a Roman lake” in popular parlance—lay the Black Sea. We already had provinces on the nearer, western, side of it—Moesia, Thrace, Bithynia, and Po
ntus—but the eastern side was tantalizing. There was the troublesome Armenia, but there was also the Cimmerian Bosphorus with its fields of wheat, which Rome could use for its ever-growing population. And Ethiopia, east of the Nile—if the Nile went that far south—would be a worthy addition to the empire, a provider of such luxury items as incense, gold, and gems.

  Judea. My eye fell on that small country and I remembered what I had heard about the troubles there. For such a tiny place it produced an outsized amount of upheaval. It did not rate a governor of its own, but a lesser appointee, a Roman prefect. He lived in Caesarea Maritima, a city on the coast, to stay away from Jerusalem, the religious capital filled with violent zealots and anti-Roman insurrectionists. Their anger usually had something to do with their temple or theological disputes between the sects. Caligula had set off a riot when he wanted a statue of himself put up in the temple. They had a prohibition against art depicting humans and animals.

  I looked over at my small statue of an athlete tying his winning ribbon around his head, a celebration of the sheer beauty of the human form. What fools those people were! I shook my head. But fools or not, their deputies should not have been detained here so long without a hearing. I must investigate this.

  The empire. Just glancing around the room I could touch the far-flung places where we ruled. The floor had multicolored marbles—yellow Numidian from North Africa, red porphyry from Egypt. The walls had inlays of green-veined Carystian marble from Euboea and purple Phrygian from Asia. The scrolls were of papyrus from Egypt. The bitumen for my imperial seal was from the Dead Sea. On my tray was a precious goblet of murra from Persia, translucent, with a delicate scent. I drank only my special snow-cooled boiled water, my decocta Neronis, from it. Wine might stain it. The empire was almost impossible to comprehend, except through tangible objects like this.

  I commanded all this. I was a boy no longer, despite that lingering impression with Burrus and Seneca. Perhaps it is impossible to ever see one’s former pupil or child as anything but that. But the bonds and inexperience that had restrained me now fell away. Mother was gone; the prohibition on pursuing art had been smashed at the Juvenalia; the Senate had proved itself spineless and docile with no power to rule me. The world now beckoned, saying, Come, come, stride out and take command.

  There was one bond yet to sunder. I would end the marriage to Octavia, the marriage that was no marriage but a forced yoking of two victims in their childhood. Neither of us was a child any longer; I would cut this Gordian knot in one blow.

  LVI

  Bursting with newfound purpose and surety, I retired to my bedroom at the back of the vast imperial quarters. The sinking sun was washing its color over the already painted crimson walls, creating a livid red made up of unworldly tints. The shadow of my head made a black profile as I passed through the rays.

  I hoped to find Acte there, but the chamber was empty except for the usual slaves. She had her own rooms nearby, but we usually spent the night in mine. Eager to see her, I walked to her chambers and found her busy arranging a set of scrolls.

  As always, when I first saw her, I felt a wave of contentment and peace.

  She looked up, smiled. “The meeting took a long time,” she said. “But the more people, the longer it takes. I trust the senators were not obstructive.”

  “No, they are tame as kittens these days.” I took her hand, her slender fingers unadorned by the heavy rings favored by the wealthy. “The world is mine—ours. Perhaps the first shaving of the beard is just a ceremony, but it has marked a line in my life. The true end of boyhood.”

  She slid her arm around me. “I have watched you all these years. Do not denigrate your boyhood—keep the best of it all your life.”

  I would have said, Come, walk with me in the gardens, but what I wanted to tell her should not be done in the open. Instead I said, “Let us retire to our inmost room.” It was the one where we kept our favorite jewels and gold, at the very end of a corridor where access was limited.

  She probably thought I was going to present her with a necklace or earrings, pearls and emeralds. Had I not been so excited about my private decision, I would have noticed her disquiet.

  In the room at last, I asked the attendant slave to close the door and leave. Now we were alone. I looked at her dear face, the face I wanted for my empress. Now it could come about. But I found it hard to speak.

  “What is it?” she asked gently.

  I took a deep breath. “It is this. I lack one thing to complete my happiness. You know what that is.”

  Instead of smiling and saying, Yes, I know, she looked sad. “That can never be.”

  “You have said that before, but that is in the past. Now it can come about. I am prepared to proceed with the divorce from Octavia.” I thought for a moment. “I haven’t even seen her in months. For all I know, she has taken a lover.”

  Now she laughed. “That is unlikely, knowing her.”

  “In any case, she is no impediment to us. I can wait no longer to have you as my empress.”

  “I do not wish to be an empress.”

  “That is one of the things—but only one of them—that makes me love you. You are the only woman in the empire, I would venture, who would not wish to be an empress.”

  “I can claim no virtue in that,” she said. The smile had faded from her face. What was wrong?

  “Then don’t be an empress,” I said. “You can be my wife without taking that title.”

  “I cannot be your wife,” she insisted.

  “You know we have solved the problem of your so-called unsuitability. You are now an attested daughter of the royalty of Pergamum. The papers are all signed. They have been for some time and have just been waiting to be used.”

  “It isn’t the legality of it, or my bogus pedigree, or the title of empress. I cannot be your wife because things have changed between us—you have changed.”

  Yes, I had. Had I not just said I had changed from a boy to a man? I said as much.

  “There is a distance between us. You have not been the same since you went to Baiae last spring.”

  Hardly. Oh, if only you knew—the same words I had said to myself just hours earlier, when I was with Burrus and Seneca. I had become entangled with differing versions of events that I must not let others know. And she could not know the truth about Mother. That could never be.

  “It was a shock about Mother.” Yes, that was certainly true.

  “But it is eating away at you. Did you know you have nightmares and scream, calling her name?”

  No! What did I say? “Is that—all?”

  “I can’t make out all the words. You mumble them and even the words I can understand are out of order.”

  Oh, thank the gods. “In spite of all our disagreements, she was my mother,” I said piously.

  “You aren’t mourning her in your sleep; you are afraid of her.”

  “Ghosts . . .” My voice trailed off.

  “Not any ghost, her ghost.”

  Now I had an opening. I took both her hands in mine and looked deeply into her eyes. “We must not let a ghost, no matter whose, destroy our happiness.”

  “It isn’t the ghost, Nero, it is you. Your remoteness, your secrets.”

  “Secrets? I have no secrets from you.” Except one. Or two.

  Tears formed in her eyes, spilled down her cheeks. “So you lie now. You choose to lie even when you have the opportunity to be honest.”

  I pulled my hands away. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I know what happened on the boat last week. How oblivious do you think I am? That my love means I see, hear, nothing around me?” She wiped the tears off her cheeks with an angry swipe. “I was lying almost beside you. Not only could I hear you, I could feel all the movements.”

  A jolt of shock went through me, and I felt as though a thunderbolt had struck me.
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  “It was disgusting! How could you do that to me?” she cried.

  “I didn’t do it to you. I didn’t know you were there. It had nothing to do with you. I was not myself.” That was true.

  “That is where you are wrong. You were yourself. This is you, a side of you I refused to recognize. But now I see, and I don’t need an emerald for my eye to do so. I would not marry you; I do not want a liar for a husband, even if he is the emperor.”

  “But the years we have had together—can you not forgive one error on my part? How can one night cancel out years?” I could not believe it.

  “Why must you make me say words that will hurt you?” she said. “I love you. I will always love you, no matter what you do. But I cannot be your wife. I am going to buy a villa of my own outside of Rome and live there.”

  Now I truly was in shock. “You are—leaving me?”

  “I am moving to Velitrae. I will never leave you. I told you, I will always love you.”

  “But you won’t marry me, won’t even live in Rome! And now who has secrets? You must have been planning this move to Velitrae for some time. Looking for a suitable place to live. Well, buy the best. I am pleased to pay for it. Never say I am cheap or want revenge.”

  “I knew you would react this way. But I will never be truly separated from you, and when you need me, call for me and I will come. But this new Nero will not need me for long. Or for a long time, I should say.”

  “When will you leave?”

  “I can leave tomorrow.”

  “Then let us spend one last night together, as if we were still young and innocent.”

  I hoped that that would persuade her and when the morning came she would change her mind. But although we made love, it was bittersweet, no, painful. The joy was gone. And the next morning so was she.

  • • •

  I could not bear the morning light, and I closed the shutters, as if that would stop time from moving forward. Stay, stay, time! No, go backward, let last night never have happened. But it was utterly in vain, and I sat slumped in misery and with an actual pain in my chest. If I could not stop time, I tried to smother the torturing thoughts that raced through my mind. But that was equally fruitless. So I sat helpless and let them wash over me.