Nero

PROLOGUE: CUMAE, JUNE AD 66

A piece of advice before we start. Don't believe those fools who preach that death is a friend, or, worse, like Paullus and his crew of fanatics, the happy gateway to a better and fuller existence. It's nothing of the sort. Death, gentle reader, is nothing but a necessary bore, and you can tell it I said so. There, now.

I, Titus Petronius Niger, aesthete, author and erstwhile Adviser on Taste to Nero Claudius Caesar (the gods rot the little bugger) have reached a climacteric in my existence; I might say two climacterics, for although autobiography and suicide aren't normal bedfellows they're both pretty final, and I've no intention of rushing either to oblige anyone; certainly not by poking a sword through my own gut, which may be the traditional recourse of the Roman gentleman but is, in my view, hopelessly crude, not to say extremely messy and hell on the upholstery. No. I will bleed to death in comfort, like a civilised being. If done in a leisurely fashion by tightening and loosening the wrist-tourniquets (as I will do it), opening one's veins allows one to hang up one's clogs at a decent pace. If I really have to die before my time (and needs must, ho-hum, when the emperor drives, even when the emperor is poor loopy Lucius) then I intend to savour every minute of the process. Even if it kills me.

Dion is smiling. Dion is my secretary and, currently, my right-hand man. That, my dears, should you need such things pointing out to you, is a pun, albeit one in execrable taste. What you're reading now is all Dion's work, and Titus Petronius Niger is merely a voice: refreshed, let it be said, by the fine wines and exquisite delicacies which lade the groaning table beside his couch. Nevertheless, when the time comes for us to part I will endeavour to sign my own name across the page before I finally dispense with the tourniquets and at last allow greedy nature to run (oh, my!) her liquid course.

A disagreeable prospect, you will admit; but then we have a long way to go together first. Oh yes, my gentle friends. Lucius's men will not arrive to inspect my corpse before morning. The night is still young, these Baian crayfish are excellent, and Dion is supplied with plenty of ink and paper. So.

What exactly is this great work that we're embarked on? Not, as you might expect, a hatchet job on the man responsible for my death, the quondam Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, whom history will remember (unless she's lucky enough to forget him altogether) as Nero Claudius Caesar, Rome's fifth emperor (not counting old Julius), darling of the muses and self-styled theatrical genius. Oh, and of course the world's most illustrious pyromaniac; I doubt if history will forget that little nugget of scandal. Certainly Lucius — I'll call him that, by the way, since it's all the nomenclature the poor dear deserves — provides scope and to spare for character assassination, and at present, as you'll readily understand, my feelings towards him aren't exactly friendly. All the same, I can't bring myself to hate the lad, however much of a monster he's become; in fact if truth be told I feel more sorry for him than anything else (a sentiment that would have the crack-brained old Jewish humbug Paullus nodding in approval). After all, it isn't altogether poor Lucius's fault that he's in the wrong job, and he has tried his best. Being three tiles short of a watertight roof hasn't helped much, either.

So, my dears, this is no kick in the imperial teeth. Call it a most lamentable comedy. Or possibly a mirthful tragedy. And because Lucius is who he is, and I am who I am, there will also I'm sorry to say be a fair amount of dirt to be dug…

Dion is frowning, and I don't much blame him. Dion may be a slave, but the lad is no mean judge of style, and I am rambling. Petronius, you bore, you grow inelegant. Stop it at once and begin your tale.

Heigh ho and off we go. End of prologue. Let me introduce you to my coy mistress Silia.