The Nero Prediction by Humphry Knipe Page A

for Claudius’s bed were passing out to those who had the emperor’s ear. “Honorariums” he called them, although I saw nothing honorable about a bribe.
    According to Pallas, Lollia Paulina had already spent as much as the fifty million sesterces worth of emeralds and pearls she’d worn when she married Caligula and she could easily afford to spend ten times more than that. Agrippina was not exactly poor, her previous husband had left her well off, but she wasn’t in Lollia’s league, Pallas told her with surprising frankness.
    “Borrow the money,” Agrippina said grimly. “Lollia will pay me back.” And of course Lollia had because when her fortune was confiscated it went to the emperor and by that time Agrippina was empress.
    Agrippina said, “Tell him about Egypt and the Phoenix. He likes that story. He needs cheering up.”
    The dog in the mausoleum of Augustus, Basilicus on the horse, the rotting head with the pearl teeth. It was just as well that I didn’t know what Fate had in store for me or I wouldn’t have been in the mood to cheer up anyone. 
    The boy was picking listlessly at a lyre when I was shown into his study. “Ah, Epaphroditus,” he said, barely looking up from his instrument. “Have you come to hear me perform?”
    “I didn’t know you played,” I said.
    “She taught me. Messalina. Loved the lyre, although of course she kept that to herself. Roman ladies are only allowed to spin you know. Would you like to hear her favorite tune?”
    Of course I said yes and he played me a Lydian melody, very sweet and rather sad. When it ended he pretended to wipe a tear out of his eye. “I do miss her so very much.”
    “Would you like to play something else?” I asked. “You really are very talented.”
    His face lit up immediately. “You’re not just saying that, are you?”
    “No, no of course not.”
    “That’s all I’ve ever wanted to be. A musician. The last thing I want to do is go around butchering people like everybody else in my family. Do you play?”
    “No dominus. I can write like lightning but I can’t even sing in tune.”
     He smiled and struck up a bright melody, very neatly for one of his age. “I like you. You’re funny. Just as well because mother says we’re going to get to know each other well. It’s in our stars. But you have to promise not to tell her about my playing. She doesn’t approve at all.”
    I promised not to tell and that’s how I became his accomplice, bribing his teachers not to report to Seneca, his tutor, that he was secretly taking music lessons when he was supposed to be studying philosophy and military history. Why? Because, although I admired the Romans in many ways, I didn't like them, mainly because of that repulsive cruel streak revealed by the “going away party” I’d watched with Euodus. I wanted Nero's heroes to be creative artists like mine, Greek painters, writers and musicians, not vainglorious soldiers. I knew he felt the same way.
     
    By the time the comet that heralded Claudius’s death appeared on the evening of June 9, Nero was an accomplished musician. He could play bagpipes, the organ, but his favorite instrument had become the kithara, the larger, louder, professional version of the lyre. But improved musical skill wasn’t the only change in his life. Four years had passed since Claudius adopted him. He was now sixteen and married to a girl – she wasn’t much more than a child – he despised. She was his stepsister Octavia, Messalina’s eldest child who shared none of her mother’s vices or virtues. It had been a dynastic marriage, of course, as it consolidated the Julian and the Claudian lines, but Nero would have nothing to do with her or she with him.
    Predictably Agrippina had been relentless with her astrological computations and so had everyone else. Claudius drank too much, was overweight, short of breath and often ill. It was likely that he would die soon. The question was when. Through her network of