Nero

38

Lucius had meant what he said about being finished with the Senate. Over the next twelve months relations were stretched to breaking point. Poor silly Petronius, of course, was caught in the middle. I could see what Lucius was after for Rome and to a certain extent — personalities aside — I sympathised. On the other hand I also understood the attitude of Arruntius and his cronies. You can't change eight hundred years of conditioning just by telling people they're wrong and then ignoring them. Not unless you're asking for trouble; and that was just what Lucius was doing.

That June, I was in the garden at the back of the house deciding where to put a statue I'd just had made when a slave came out to say that Thrasea Paetus had dropped by.

I was surprised. Thrasea wasn't even an acquaintance, let alone a friend. Nevertheless, we might not have had much time for each other, but I'd a certain respect for him: unlike most senators he had standards and wasn't afraid to stick to them. Lucius, of course, hated the poor dear's guts; but then as I’ve said elsewhere Lucius never could abide genuinely moral people. Thrasea's colleagues weren't altogether happy in his company either, and for much the same reasons.

So what, I wondered, did this moral paragon want with me?

The boy showed him through. Thrasea was in his late fifties, big, very florid, with the look of a Gaul: his family came from Patavium, beyond the Po.

'Good of you to see me, Petronius,' he said. 'What a lovely garden you have.'

He was nervous — I could see that straight away, although I didn't know why — so we chatted for a while about rose arbours and topiary, on which he was an expert. Finally I got him to come to the point.

'Petronius, we need your help,' he said.

'We?'

'The Senate.' A momentary hesitation: Thrasea was a truthful soul. 'Or anyway the thinking members of it.'

'Are there any of those?' He frowned. 'Oh, I'm sorry, darling, I'm being flippant. It's just I'm not used to being consulted on anything more vital than what wine to serve with roast flamingo. And certainly not by the Senate.'

The frown deepened. It covered, I realised, embarrassment, not anger.

'Yes, I can understand that.' Ouch, my dear! 'But we need someone close to the emperor who is, let's say, an impartial moderate. And we need him urgently.'

I steered him across to the garden seat next to the box hedge. This sounded complicated and not a little ominous, and if I had to discuss serious matters on a lovely day like this I preferred to do it in comfort.

'I'm afraid you may be wasting your time with me, then.' I sat. Thrasea did the same. 'We get on well enough but I wouldn't describe the relationship as close. Not any more. Not since Tigellinus.'

Thrasea's mouth twisted.

'I appreciate that too,' he said. 'Believe me, if we could find someone more suitable we would.'

I was beginning to see why the man got up so many people's noses. Honest and truthful he might be, but he had as much sensitivity as a brick.

'Oh, how terribly flattering.'

He looked at me; any politician recognises sarcasm when they hear it, even an insensitive one.

'I said an impartial moderate, Petronius, and I meant it,' he said. 'We know you're not one of us. However you're no Tigellinus either, and that's what matters.'

I sighed. 'All right. So tell me what you want. If it's within the bounds of my moderate impartiality I'll do it with pleasure.'

'We want you to help heal the breach between us and the emperor.'

'What?' I laughed. Not the politest of reactions, but I couldn't help myself. 'Is that all? And after dinner perhaps I might persuade the Parthians to let us keep Armenia.'

'Certainly, if you can manage that too.' I hadn't expected humour from Thrasea, not even dead-pan humour. It made him a little more human. 'It'll take time and effort, I know, but…'

'It'll take a lot more than that, my dear! It'll take a minor miracle. Or is Tigellinus dead?'

'Petronius, you must understand my position. I deal with these people- I mean the Senate — every day. They could take a tyrant in their stride. They could even take a madman like Caligula or a suspicious fool like Claudius. But they can't and won't take Nero because they don't understand him. And before very long that lack of understanding is going to lead to trouble.'

He was right, of course. Lucius's public stage debut at Naples earlier in the year had scandalised the Senate. Then, more recently, had come his 'marriage' in full bridal dress to the ex-slave Pythagoras, which parodied the ancient wedding rites. I'd missed that, being in Capua on business at the time, but the emperor's theatrical screams and groans from behind the closed doors of the marriage chamber had been widely reported. Lucius had taken the dignity out of the principate, and if the Senate valued anything in their masters, hypocrites though they might be themselves, it was dignity.

'So what do you want me to do?' I said.

'Talk to Nero. Explain. His private life's his own concern, but he must control these' — Thrasea hesitated — 'these public excesses. They're doing terrible harm. Terrible.'

'Enough to make some of your colleagues consider removing him?' That was too direct, even for Thrasea; he coloured up and his mouth shut like a trap. 'Oh, come on, my dear! That's what you're saying, isn't it?'

'There are…rumours.' He was cautious.

'Rumours be damned. You wouldn't be desperate enough to come round here if it were only a case of rumours. I don't expect you to give me names, that would be unreasonable.'

'That's just as well. I'm not here to betray my friends, Petronius.'

'I wouldn't expect you to. Anyway, I could name a few front runners myself.' I remembered what Arruntius had said at our ostrich dinner.'Calpurnius Piso, for one.' He looked startled but said nothing. Bull's-eye. 'So you want me to help take the lid off the pot, dear, before the soup boils over?'

'It would ease matters considerably. These men aren't revolutionaries, they can give and take. But Nero's pushing them too far, and they won't suffer much more of it.'

'Wait a moment, Thrasea. I told you; we're no longer friends, the emperor and I. Not close friends.' I pulled a twig from the hedge and rolled it between my palms. 'Tigellinus is the only one he'll listen to now. And not only on matters of state. I may still be asked to imperial parties but I don't even advise on them all that often now.'

His eyes flickered. We moved in different worlds and this, it seemed, was news.

'You mean the emperor's Adviser on Taste has been retired?' he said. I detected a faint trace of malice.

'Call it superseded.' I tossed the twig aside and wiped the crushed leaves from my hands. 'Nero has found someone better, my dear. Or rather, someone worse.' For a moment I thought of Seneca's charioteer. 'I understand why, of course. Tigellinus is a very clever man. He knows that the emperor needs someone to be bad for him.' I smiled. 'Besides, he's far more inventive than I am.'

'A dreadful admission for an Adviser on Taste to make.' The malice was more open now, although Thrasea was polite enough to try to hide it. Not that I was angry, or even annoyed: we were different people, and Thrasea simply didn't understand that.

'Oh, my dear!' I said gently. 'I didn't say Tiggy had more taste; I said he was more inventive.'

'I see.' He didn't — his lips were drawn in a disapproving line — but it didn't matter. 'So you will help, Petronius? As much as you can? For the good of Rome.'

'For the good of Rome.' I got up and held out my hand. He rose and took it, after the barest hesitation. 'Although I doubt, honestly, if I can do very much.'

'Anything would be better than nothing.'

'I'll bear that in mind, darling.'

I was sorry, when he'd gone, that he hadn't seen the statue. That would really have merited his disapproval.