Nero's Heirs Read Online Free PDF

panic, they did not hesitate to connive at the torture and subsequent execution of their comrades. I am not sure if Tacitus knows this; Faenius Rufus, who was connected in some way with my friend's revered father-in-law Agricola, was by way of being a hero of his. So he may not be ready to admit his depravity to his record of history. Even the most scrupulous works of history are deformed by personal affections, and personal prejudices.
    Word went round that Nero asked Subirius Flavus, when his role in the conspiracy was at last uncovered, why he had broken his oath of loyalty, and that he had replied; 'Because I hate you. I remained as loyal as anyone while you deserved my loyalty. But I turned against you when you murdered your wife and mother, and became charioteer, actor and fire-raiser.'
    Domitian was much impressed by the nobility of this reply.
    'It sounds to me,' I said, 'like something invented by his friends.'
    Lucan was ordered to kill himself, and obeyed. He would have described his act as an example of Republican virtue. I thought it contemptible, even then.
    Now? Yes, it still seems contemptible, a piece of play-acting. But I despise it less than I did, because to abandon hope and yield to what appears to be necessity, is only too easily understandable.
    V
    My dear Cornelius Tacitus:
    You reproach me for my tardiness, and also for the quality of the information I have sent you. You do not realise how painful it is for me, marooned in this frontier region, to cast my mind back to the days of my youth. Even the image of afternoon dying in the Gardens of Lucullus and the setting sun turning the pine trees of the Palatine a soft dusky purple-blue disables me for hours. And when in memory's ear I listen to the babble of the streets and the raucous cries of the stall-holders calling to customers, I am seized with so sharp a pang of nostalgia that I dissolve in tears or drown my sorrows in a flask of sour wine. And I have other distractions here, though I shall not weary you with an account of them.
    You say - having first asked me for memories of Domitian's childhood - that this does not interest you now, and that what you wish to learn is what he did and how he conducted himself in the terrible months that followed the revolt of the legions against Nero.
    But how can I tell a story without an introduction? And, even granting that all you seek from me is notes towards the making of your History, how can I be certain that you will use my notes aright, if I do not supply at least a sketch of the background - however familiar this may already appear to you?
    I add that qualification for this reason, though it may irritate you: I do not believe there is, or ever can be, a fully accurate history. One man's impression of events runs counter to another's. Surely your experience of marriage has taught you that.
    But I am quite happy to heed your request and skip over the years of my adolescence. I shall therefore spare you my memories of the Great Fire which raged through the city for six days and left so much of it in smouldering ruins. I could write of it vividly, for I climbed the Janiculum, along with many others who lived on the 'wrong' side of the river, to get a good view. Then, in the days that followed, I picked my way through the embers, amazed at the destruction and yet - I confess with some degree of shame - also elated. But you will have many other sources to draw on for your account of the disaster.
    I wonder, however, whether you will hold Nero himself responsible, as so many did at the time - and not only because he took advantage of the devastation to create his ideal rural landscape within the city bounds and to start work on what was to be his masterpiece, the Golden House. People held him guilty before these plans were known, and it was said that he had chanted verses of his own composition celebrating Troy in flames as he watched the blaze.
    Well, you will make up your own mind as to his guilt. You may