The Confessions of Young Nero

by Margaret George

  “I want to be there,” she insisted. “I want to see the face of the enemy.”

  Epaphroditus was right. This man stirred up strong feelings wherever his presence was felt. “Very well,” I said. In the meantime, I sent for papers to give me a better background for understanding this controversy.

  • • •

  I would hear him in the chamber reserved for trials: a large one on the ground floor of the palace, appropriately decorated with paintings of famous trials in history, with Socrates in the center. Gallio, hastily summoned the night before, sat on a folding chair; a secretary stood by to record the hearing; Poppaea sat on a chair beside me. A large chair awaited the prisoner, who would face us both. The proceeding would be conducted in Greek; I assumed his Greek was better than his Latin, and I wanted no hindrance to his ability to speak freely.

  The door opened and a small bald man with spindly legs walked in, flanked by two tall, muscular guards, who hardly seemed necessary.

  “The prisoner Paul, also known as Saul, from Tarsus,” the secretary announced, pointing him to the waiting chair. He took it as if it were a privilege. And perhaps it was, since he had been waiting two years to sit in it. No, four, if his incarceration in Caesarea was added to the time in Rome. Still, he did not seem angry or waiting to spew out complaints about his treatment. He glanced briefly at Gallio.

  “I am grateful to be allowed to speak to you, Caesar,” he said. His voice was weak and reedy. And he was known for his preaching? He would not cut much of a figure among Roman or Greek rhetoricians.

  “I do not hear many cases in person, but I chose yours,” I said. “The Augusta is also interested and asked to be present.” I motioned toward Poppaea, who was staring at him. “Now, tell me of what you are accused and why you have appealed to Rome.” I indicated the papers detailing his case. “I want to hear your own side of it.”

  Now his dark eyes danced at the chance to speak.

  “I am interested only in the legal aspects, not a primer on your religion,” I instructed him.

  “They are hard to separate, Caesar, as they are entangled together. Still, I shall try. I have traveled tirelessly in the east on behalf of my belief, the truth that was revealed to me twenty-five years ago—”

  The year I was born. A shiver went through me. But I steadied myself. What of it? Many things happened that year. “You need not explain the truth, merely tell us how it led to your actions.”

  “I sought to correct the errors in my familial religion, Judaism. As there are Jewish communities and synagogues all over the east, I traveled to these places to preach there. But although some listened and believed, others were offended and tried to harm me. It happened over and over again, in Antioch, in Iconium, in Lystra, in Philippi, in Beroea, in Corinth, in Ephesus, and in Jerusalem.”

  I laughed. “You are a persistent fellow, to have kept on the same path facing hostility everywhere you went.”

  “I had to. I could not let my brothers perish because of their blindness.”

  I felt Poppaea bristling beside me, but I touched her arm to restrain her. “I have here a witness to this, someone who observed one of the riots in Corinth. Proconsul Gallio, please speak.”

  Gallio rose. “I remember you, sir. Yes, indeed. You were the one the Jews brought to me, complaining that you were blaspheming against their religion, or some such nonsense. As if I could rule on that! I told them it wasn’t in my jurisdiction, just a theological quarrel they should settle themselves. I cut them off before you spoke, sir.” He turned to me. “There was no need for him to, or for me to listen to their charges.”

  “And then what happened?” I asked. I had a feeling I knew.

  “I—I don’t recall,” said Gallio.

  “I do,” said Paul. Now his voice did not sound so weak. “Proconsul Gallio let me go, but immediately the crowd turned on Sosthenes, an officer in the synagogue sympathetic to my message, and beat him near to death right in front of Gallio.”

  “And what did you do, Gallio?”

  “I, er, I let it take its course.”

  I was astounded. “You, the highest Roman authority in Corinth, let them beat an innocent man in plain sight right before the courthouse, the symbol of justice?”

  “I . . . was afraid to interfere.”

  “You were unconcerned, not afraid,” said Paul.

  “Who’s on trial here?” asked Gallio. “We are here to examine him, not me.”

  “Perhaps we should reverse that,” I said. “You may leave, Gallio. No further questions—for now.”

  He rose and left, holding his head high, glaring at Paul.

  “I can see that, whatever this belief of yours is, you will not be deterred by wind, fire, or water,” I said.

  “By water!” He laughed. “I have been shipwrecked three times, the last on my way here to Rome. And as for wind and fire—the only fire I know of is the flames of the spirit that lighted on the earliest believers just ten days after our leader left us. But I was not there; I am a latecomer to the belief.”

  “Fire—don’t you believe that a great fire will destroy the earth at the end of days?” Poppaea suddenly spoke. “And aren’t you all waiting for this fire?”

  “We are waiting for our leader to return,” he said. “He promised to return shortly, and yes, when he does, it will be the end of time as we know it. That is why it is imperative that my message reach people before it is too late.” His voice was becoming more and more compelling, like a bird that takes a long time to soar but, when it does, flies high above other birds.

  “But there’s fire at the end of the world,” Poppaea persisted.

  “Some people may believe that, but Jesus said only that we cannot know the end times, but that it will come suddenly and unexpectedly,” Paul said.

  “I’ve heard that he told his followers that he had come to cast fire upon the earth, and that he wished it was already kindled,” Poppaea said.

  “He had many followers and one hears many claims about what each of them heard. Sometimes they are directly contradictory. I was not there; I didn’t hear him say any such thing.”

  “How can you preach about this Jesus?” She turned to me. “He was executed as a traitor to Rome. Anyone who supports him is also a traitor to Rome.” She pointed at Paul.

  “Jesus is dead. He has already been tried once and found guilty; no need to try him again. Paul has not preached sedition to Rome, from what I have read.” I patted the papers. “In fact, he preaches cooperation and compliance with Rome. Apparently”—I picked up the paper and thumbed through it—“he has been grievously mistreated as a Roman citizen—unlawfully beaten three times, jailed without trial, stoned once and left for dead.” I turned to him. “It seems you have a case against us, not we against you. You are a forgiving man.”

  “I follow Jesus in that,” he said. “It is an order from him.”

  “But still—why do you do it? Preach everywhere in such danger?” What would drive a man to do that?

  “May I rise, Caesar? I would like to address you personally.” After I nodded, he stood and took a step closer to me. “You are an athlete, and a competitor. You know what it is to train, to put all of yourself to the test. There are many runners in a race, but the prize goes only to the winner. But you compete for a wreath that will wither; I run for a crown that will never wilt, a crown imperishable, one awarded by Jesus himself. We both disregard the body in pursuit of our goal. That is what drives me, as well as what drives you. We are fellow competitors, brothers in dedication that others cannot understand.”

  He knew me. For a moment I was speechless. How had he that insight? Finally I found words. “I see no fault in you. You are free to go. I only regret it has taken us this long to meet.”

  “All time is in his hands,” Paul said. “He brings us where he wants us at any moment.”

  Who? Jesu
s? God? But I didn’t want a sermon about his god. I was content that another human being understood what drove me—the same thing that drove him, a rarity among men, a gift and a curse.

  • • •

  Back in our apartments, Poppaea turned on me.

  “You let him go!”

  “Ah, don’t revert to Latin so soon. Keep speaking Greek—it’s so much more seductive,” I said, reaching for her. She was most enticing when she was angry. Perhaps it was the challenge of trying to calm that tempest that lured me.

  “I don’t care to be seductive now,” she said in Latin. “You promised to take measures against this vile sect. Instead you smiled and freed him, after listening to a catalog of his tribulations.”

  “I had already ascertained the story of his ministry, and I never promised to punish this sect. You are being unreasonable.”

  She sat down on a bench and leaned back, putting me on trial. “You were clay in his potter’s hands. He fashioned his words to what would fall favorably on your ears. They say he is an expert at that, tailoring his message to his audience.”

  She was challenging his honesty in his personal address to me. I resented that. “Everyone does that, every time he speaks to anybody. Except you, right now. You are deliberately provoking me.”

  “No, I am demanding that you give me the same courtesy you gave him. Listen to what I can tell you about these people, then see if you regret letting him go. He’s free to do more of his mischief, converting people to this heresy.”

  “One person’s heresy is another man’s orthodoxy,” I said. “What difference does it make what these people believe?”

  “It isn’t what they believe, it is what they do. They are subversive, a danger to the state.” She plucked at her gown, choosing her words, speaking more slowly now.

  “Convince me.” I crossed my arms.

  “First of all, they break the law every time they meet. It is illegal to hold meetings not sanctioned by the state. You know that measure was enacted by Augustus to prevent secret clubs from operating. And the Law of the Twelve Tables, set up by our ancestors, forbids night meetings. But these people meet secretly in houses, at dawn and at night.”

  She had a point. Secret meetings were the essence of conspiracies.

  “They are a foreign cult, undermining the Roman religion. First it was the Dionysians, then the Isis worshippers—we have tried to outlaw them, but they keep creeping back to Rome. The Attis devotees, whose priests mutilate themselves—all those foreign cults are bizarre and decadent versions of true religion.”

  “You forgot the Jews in your list.”

  “The Jews are different.”

  “You say that because you favor them. But aren’t they eastern like the others? Don’t they also have strange secret rites? Don’t they also exclude outsiders?”

  “Their rites aren’t secret; there are synagogues all over the empire, and anyone is free to attend. Anyone can convert if they are willing to go through the process. Anyone can read their holy book. They pay their taxes. They are good citizens.”

  “Ah. So as long as they pay taxes, a religion is permitted? Don’t these people, the Paul converts, pay taxes?”

  “I doubt it. They are mostly from the lower classes, slaves and criminals and misfits.”

  “So your main objection to them is that they are at the bottom of the social hierarchy?”

  “You make me sound like a snob.”

  “My dear Poppaea, you are a snob. I love you, but you are a snob. You don’t like the common people who flock to the games and races, or my spending time with them. But I prefer them to the senators. They are honest; the senators are not. So a religion that appeals to them must have something to recommend it.”

  She stood up. “You are impossible! Stubborn, closing your ears and eyes!”

  I stood up likewise. “I would say rather that it is your prejudice that is closing your eyes and ears. Your favored people, the Jews, don’t like them, therefore they are bad. Come, come, Poppaea. You are better than that.”

  “That’s right, let them flourish. Why, you heard it yourself—there are some in our very household. But do we know who they are? No, they keep that secret. If it is a harmless belief, why the secrecy? They should be proud of their group, not hiding it shamefully—unless it is shameful.”

  “Perhaps they don’t care to run afoul of you,” I said. “To be on the wrong side of the Augusta is a fearful thing. So they pour your water, arrange your flowers, scent your gowns, and keep their beliefs to themselves. I fail to see how what they think about this dead Jesus impairs their ability to perform these tasks.”

  “Oh!” She shook her head. “I cannot reach you. There is none so blind as he who will not see, as your beloved common people say. And that will be your undoing.”

  She turned and walked away, into her own set of rooms, leaving me in the chamber, standing on the exquisite multicolored marble floor, surrounded by marble and bronze statues, alone with my art, which never failed or deserted me. It was indeed the crown I strove for, and Paul had understood that.

  LXIX

  The face of autumn that year was brisk; other years she wore a heavy, drowsy persona, ripe and mellow, but now she hinted of the coming winter and her winds had an edge to them. I needed heavier tunics and cloaks, and for a fleeting moment thought that Augustus was not entirely preposterous to wrap woolens around his legs against the cold.

  Poppaea had ordered a new wardrobe, with gowns woven of finest wool from Galatia and pallae edged in leopard fur. She’d had her ivory combs inlaid with lapis, and she and her hairdresser had created a new style, with her hair piled high on her head and a few stray curls around her neck.

  “You should try a new hairstyle, too,” she said, tilting her head to look at me. “You should impose some order on it. Make a row of waves across your forehead. It would, of course, require a curling iron.”

  I shrugged. As long as I did not have to wield it, I did not care. “Anything to please you, my exalted empress.”

  She moved on her cushioned stool, turning her back on the table of perfumes, creams, unguents, and eyeliners. “You only say that to humor me now,” she said.

  “I do not deny it.” She was in her sixth month of pregnancy and I would pamper and protect her like a glass vessel. “But pleasing you is pleasing me, and so I am happy to do it.”

  Happy. An insipid, pallid word to describe the joy I felt every day with her. Other, stronger words—ecstasy, delight, bliss, rapture—carried within themselves the sense of being momentary, passing. Sturdy “happy” was a condition that could endure day after day. Yet it felt inadequate. And it is almost impossible to describe happiness because it is the absence of pain, of loneliness, of despair, yet it is infinitely more than just an absence of anything. It resides in small moments, moments that lose their power in the telling but pin themselves fast to our hearts.

  I had passed the stage of being struck motionless by her beauty; like anything that we grasp continuously, it becomes our everyday, freeing us to see deeper than that. I found more and more of that mirror of myself within her, but unexpected, foreign things, too, that captivated me.

  I reached over her head and picked up one of the flasks. Its flat glass bottom was heavy, and its long, slender neck was stopped with a carved alabaster swan. I opened it and sniffed. A cloud of lilies escaped from the bottle. I stoppered it quickly. I took another one, a squat container that proved to have a rose garden inside. “Summer captured forever,” I said.

  “Not all of it,” she said. “Just one little vestige of it.”

  I grabbed another jar. Inside was a thick white cream; this smelled faintly of almonds. “What is this?”

  “It’s my own beauty cream,” she said.

  “What, did you boil down the asses’ milk?”

  “No—this is made from swan’s fat, ground oyste
r shells, and almonds. It is the closest I can come to guaranteeing eternal youth. And as for the asses’ milk, I don’t think they like their stable here.”

  I had brought the whole herd up to Rome and found them quarters across the Tiber near my grounds there. “Why not? Have they told you so?”

  She laughed. “Yes. I know how to talk to them. But, seriously, they need thicker grass than grows near their stable.”

  I would order baskets and baskets of whatever grass they wanted, even if it had to be fetched from Sicily, so besotted was I by her. “I will find something to their liking,” I promised. “And yours. If their milk preserves your skin, then no price is too high.”

  “You could do something else to please me,” she said. “I have been thinking, I would like to have a leopard cub.”

  “What?”

  “I fancy a leopard cub,” she said. “Oh, I would only keep it when it was small.”

  “No,” I said. I had seen too many in the arena and knew what they could do. “Too dangerous. They cannot be trusted, even the little ones.”

  “But—it would be on a leash.”

  “Not good enough. A leash leaves room for movement. No, I cannot let any danger near you and our child.” Before she could pout, I said, “Perhaps we can go out to the arena holding cages and see what animals they have on hand. Some other animal might appeal to you.” The wild beasts transported to Rome for the arena were held outside the city and the pens were full of lions, bears, leopards, snakes, stags, ostriches, and bulls, as well as smaller animals such as porcupines, foxes, and monkeys. But by definition those small wild animals were all dangerous, too.

  “Are you giving games to celebrate the eighth anniversary of your accession? The pens must be full if you are.”

  Eight years. I had been emperor for eight years. But aside from a small formal ceremony at the Forum, with the legions pledging allegiance, I had not planned anything. “No, not this year. We will soon enough have something to celebrate, and too many celebrations earlier would dull the edge of it. Just be patient.”