The Roman (36 page)

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to the Senate. But which of us wants to become involved in such things? Pallas is much too powerful to offend. And the Senate has genuine troubles in Armenia and Britain to contend with. �We meet at the Palace now,� my father went on. �Agrippina wants to listen behind a curtain to the discussions in the Senate. It�s certainly more comfortable there than in that fearful Curia, where some of us have to stand, if by some miraculous chance all of us happen to be there at the same time. You get frostbite in your feet there in the winter.� �And Nero?� I asked eagerly. �What do you think of him?� �I know that Nero wished he had never learned to write, the day he had to sign a death warrant for the first time,� said my father. �Perhaps one day he really will be the hope of mankind, as many genuinely believe. In any case, he has handed back part of the jurisdiction to the Consuls and the Senate. Whether this is a show of respect for the city fathers or to avoid having to go to trials in order to attend more pleasant amusements, I could not even guess.� My father was obviously talking just for the sake of talking. He frowned, looked absently beyond me and did not seem to have the slightest interest in affairs of State. Suddenly he looked straight at me. �Minutus, my only son,� he said, �what are you going to do with your life?� �For two years I have lived in a dark cave,� I said, �humiliated and more wretched than a slave. A whim of the Goddess of Fortune has taken away two years of my life. If I were even capable of a constructive thought, then it would be that one day I shall retrieve those two years and be glad to be alive as a man, without moping unnecessarily and denying the bounties of life.� My father gestured toward the room�s polished walls, as if including in the gesture all the pomp and grandeur of Tullia�s house. �Perhaps I too live in a dark cave,� he said with deep melancholy in his voice. �I submit to duties for which I have not asked. But you are flesh of your mother�s flesh and must not be lost. Do you still have her wooden goblet?� �It was only a wooden mug and the brigands in Cilicia didn�t even bother to take it away from me,� I said. �When we were

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given no water for several days and my tongue filled my mouth and our breath smelled like the breath of wild animals, sometimes I pretended to drink out of the goblet, imagining that it was full. But it wasn�t. It was only delirium.� I was careful not to tell my father about Paul and Cephas, because I wanted to forget them as completely as if I had never met them. But my father said, �I wish I were a slave, poor and insignificant, so that I could begin my life all over again. But it is too late for me. The chains have already grown into my flesh.� I was not attracted by this philosophical dream of a simple life. Seneca had eloquently described the blessings of poverty and peace of mind, but in reality he preferred to be bewitched by power, honors and wealth, explaining that they could not alter a wise man, just as poverty and exile had not been able to. We ended by talking about financial matters. After consulting Tullia, who also had plans for my life, my father decided to transfer a million sesterces over to me at first, so that I could live as I should, giving banquets and making useful connections. He promised me more when I needed it, for he himself could not possibly spend all his money, however much he tried. �Your father lacks an interest which would satisfy him at his age and fill his life,� complained Tullia. �He doesn�t even bother to go to lectures anymore, although I had a special auditorium built in the house, for I thought you would perhaps continue in a literary career. He could collect old musical instruments or Greek paintings and become famous for it. Some people breed special fish in their pools, others train gladiators, and he could even afford to keep racehorses. That�s the most expensive and the finest leisure occupation a middle-aged man can have. But no, he�s so stubborn. Either he frees a slave, or hands out gifts to useless people. Well, I suppose he could have worse amusements. With concessions on both sides, we�ve managed to find a way of life which satisfies us.� They wanted me to stay for the evening meal, but I thought I ought to report to the Palace as soon as possible, before the news of my arrival reached there by other means. The guards did in fact let me in without searching me for weapons. The times had changed that much. But I was amazed to see how many knights were sitting in the arcades, waiting for an audience. I reported to

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several court officials, but Seneca was so weighed down with his enormous burden of work that he could not possibly receive me, and Emperor Nero himself had shut himself in his workroom to write poems. One was not allowed to disturb him when he was consulting the muses. I was depressed when I realized how many people were striving in so many ways for the favors of the young Emperor. Just as I was about to leave, one of Pallas� innumerable secretaries came up to me and showed me to Agrippina�s room. She was striding restlessly up and down, bumping into stools and kicking the valuable Oriental rugs to one side. �Why didn�t you report straightaway to me,� she said angrily, �or have you too lost all respect for me? Ingratitude is one�s reward. I don�t think any mother has sacrificed so much for her own son and his friends.� �Augusta, Mother of the Fatherland,� I cried, although I knew she had no right to these titles of honor. Officially she was only priestess to the god Claudius. �How can you reproach me for ingratitude? I dared not even dream of disturbing you in your widow�s grief with my insignificant affairs.� Agrippina seized my hand, pressed my arm in her full bosom and breathed the scent of violets into my face. �It�s good that you�ve come back, Minutus Lausus,� she said �You�re a lighthearted man, despite your past mistakes, and that was sheer inexperience. At this moment, Nero needs his real friends most of all. The boy is indecisive and much too easily led. Perhaps I have been too strict with him. He seems to be beginning to avoid me deliberately, although at first he sat beside me in the same sedan or politely followed behind it. Perhaps you know the Senate has given me the right to ride all the way up to the Capitoline if I want to. Nero wastes insane sums of money or friends who are unworthy of him, cittern players, actors, dancing men and various authors of works of homage, just as if he had no idea of the value of money. Pallas is very worried. Thanks to him, there was at least some order in the State finances during poor Claudius� time when the Imperial treasury was kept strictly apart from the State treasury. Nero doesn�t understand the difference And now Nero has become infatuated with a slave-girl. Can you imagine? He prefers meeting a white-skinned slip of a girl to his

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own mother. That�s no way for an Emperor to behave. And appalling friends egg him on to all kinds of immoral acts.� Agrippina, strong-willed and beautiful, who usually behaved with the dignity of a goddess, was so upset that she was airing her grievances to me in a way which put too great a reliance on my friendship. �Seneca has betrayed my confidence,� she cried. �The cursed slippery-tongued hypocrite! I was the one who brought him back from exile. I was the one to appoint him as Nero�s tutor. He has no one but me to thank for his success. You know there is trouble in Armenia now. When Nero was to receive an envoy from there, I went into the room to sit in my rightful place by his side. Seneca sent Nero to me to lead me out again, with a filial piety, of course. But it was a public insult. Women should not interfere in State affairs, but there is one woman who made Nero into an Emperor.� I could only imagine what the Armenian envoy would have thought if he had seen a woman appearing in public at the Emperor�s side, and I thought Nero had shown better judgment in this matter than Agrippina. But of course I could not say so. I looked at her in terror, in the way one gazes at a wounded lioness, and I realized that I had arrived just in time to witness a decisive stage in the power struggle over who should rule Rome, Agrippina or Nero�s advisers. This I could not even have imagined, for I knew how completely Nero had been dependent on his mother before. In my confusion I tried to tell her of my own adventures, but Agrippina had not the patience to listen. Not until I mentioned Silanus� heart attack did she pay any attention. �It was the best thing that could have happened,� she said. �Otherwise one day we�d have been forced to prosecute him for treason. That family have shown themselves to be snakes in the grass.� Just then a servant hurried in and reported that Nero had begun his meal, late as usual. Agrippina gave me a push. �Run, stupid,� she said. �Go to him now. Don�t let anyone stop you.,, I was so much under her influence that I did in fact half run and told the servants who tried to stop me that I had been invited

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to the Emperor�s evening meal. Nero was entertaining in the smaller dining hail, which held only about fifty guests. It was already so full that there were not enough couches, even though there were three people to each one, and several guests had to be content with stools. Nero was animated and carelessly dressed, but his pleasant youthful face radiated happiness. At first he stared at me, but then he embraced and kissed me, ordering a chair for me to be placed beside his own place of honor. �The muses have been kindly disposed towards me,� he cried, and then he leaned forward and whispered in my ear: �Minutus, Minutus, have you ever experienced what it is to love with the whole of one�s soul? Love and be loved. What more can a human being wish for?� He ate greedily and swiftly as he gave instructions to Terpunus, who was dressed in his full-length musician�s cloak, and who I did not even know was the most famous cittern player of our time until I was told about him. I was still so ignorant then. During the meal, Terpunus composed an accompaniment to the love poems Nero had written during the afternoon and then sang them to the guests as they sat in breathless silence. His voice was well trained and so powerful that it seemed to penetrate right through one, and after his song, sung to the cittern, we all applauded vigorously. I do not know how artistic Nero�s poems were, or to what extent they were derivative of other poets� works, but with Terpunus� performance they made a deep impression, and I am not particularly musical either. With feigned shyness, Nero thanked everyone for the applause, took the instrument from Terpunus and plucked at it longingly, but did not dare try singing, although many asked him to. �One day I shall sing,� Nero said simply, �when Terpunus has had time to train and strengthen my voice with the necessary exercises. I know my voice has certain possibilities, and if I ever do sing, I want to compete with only the best voices. That�s my sole ambition.� He asked Terpunus to sing again and again, never tiring of listening, and glaring at those who had had enough of the music and were beginning to talk quietly together over their goblets. I myself finally found it difficult to suppress my yawns. I looked at my fellow guests and could see that Nero did not choose his

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friends with any exaggerated reference to their descent or rank, but followed his own personal tastes. The noblest of the guests was Marcus Otho, who, like my father, was descended from the Etruscan kings and to whose father the Senate had erected a statue in Palatine. But he had such a reputation for recklessness and extravagance that I remembered hearing that his father had often beaten him long after he had received the man-toga. Claudius Senecio was also among the guests although his father had been nothing but one of Emperor Gaius� freedmen. Both were handsome young men who could behave well when they felt like it. Another of the guests was Seneca�s wealthy relative, Annaeus Serenus, to whom Nero whispered in the moments when Terpunus was silent, soothing his voice with an egg drink. When Nero was listening to the music, he fell into a reverie, like a marble Endymion with his handsome features and his reddish hair. Finally he sent away most of his guests, retaining only about ten, and I also stayed as he did not ask me to leave. In his youthful love of life, he had not yet had enough and suggested we dress up and go out a back way into the city to enjoy ourselves. He himself put on slave costume and covered his head with a hood. We were all sufficiently drunk that anything seemed amusing to us, so laughing and shouting, we tumbled down the steep street to the forum and shushed at each other as we passed the Vestal Virgins� dwelling. Otho said something obscene about them, which showed his total godlessness. At the goldsmiths� street, we met a drunken Roman knight complaining that he had lost his companions. Nero provoked a quarrel with him and knocked him down when he tried to fight. Nero was very strong for his eighteen years. Otho took off his cloak and we laughingly flung the man up into the air with it. In the end, Senecio pushed him into a sewer opening, but we pulled him out again so that he would not drown. Shouting noisily, thumping on the shop shutters and tearing down the signs as tokens of triumph, we finally reached the stinking alleys of Subura. There we roughly cleared a little inn of its customers and forced the landlord to give us wine. The wine was wretched, as one might have imagined, so we broke his jars, spilling the wine all over the

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floor and out onto the street. Serenus promised to compensate the landlord for the damage when he wept over his helplessness. Nero was very proud of a cut he had received on one cheek and would not allow us to punish the drover from Latium who had hit him, but called the coarse-limbed lout a man of honor. Senecio wanted us to go to a brothel but Nero said sadly that he was not permitted to keep even the very best prostitute company because of his mother�s strictness. Then Serenus, looking secretive, swore us all to secrecy, and took us to a handsome house on the slopes of Palatine. He said he had bought it and equipped it for the most beautiful woman in the world. Nero was confused and shy and several times asked, �Dare we disturb her so late?� and �Do you think I could read a poem to her?� All this was mostly just talk, for in the house lived the freed- woman Acte, who had been a Greek slave, and who was in fact the very girl with whom Nero had fallen head-over-heels in love. Serenus only pretended to be her lover in order that in his name he could give her Nero�s innumerable presents. I must admit that Acte was extremely beautiful. Presumably she must have been very much in love too, for she was delighted to be wakened in the early hours of the morning to meet the drunken Nero and his reveling companions. Nero swore that Acte was descended from King Attalus and that he intended to prove this to the world one day. On my part, I did not approve that he felt it necessary to show us the girl naked, and boast about her incredibly snow-white skin. The girl seemed well brought up and entirely agreeable, but Nero only enjoyed seeing her blushes as he explained that he could not refuse his friends anything. They themselves must see that he was the happiest and most enviable youth in the world. In this way my new life in Rome began, and it was not a very honorable life. Sometime later, Nero offered me his favor if there were any particular office I should like to have. He was even prepared to recommend me for a cohort command in the Praetorian Guard. I declined and said that I wished only to be his friend and companion, to learn the art of living. This pleased him, and he said, �You choose wisely, Minutus. There is no office insignificant enough not to waste a man�s time.�