The creation of the artificial lake was well under way. Hundreds of workers were raking and shovelling great piles of excavated earth, shaping them into the rolling hills that would become the man-made woodland surrounding the lake.
“Along here, on this side of the lake, there will be a vast pavilion with a covered walkway a mile long,” said Nero. “The rooms will be very spacious and finished with the best of everything – imported marbles, fine statuary, ivory screens, and the most sumptuous fabrics. You must see the sketches the designers have made for me. The ceilings will be decorated with gleaming gems and mother-of-pearl, so that at night, by lamplight, it will seem that the starry sky itself has descended to gaze with envy at such splendid rooms. And gold – there must be a great deal of gold everywhere. We shall cover the whole facade with tiles of golden glass, so that it dazzles the eye. The only colour that truly pleases me is purple, and the only metal is gold. How I love the weight of it, and the mellow colour, like sunlight on water. Like that lovely little golden amulet you’re always wearing, Senator Pinarius.”
Titus touched the fascinum and smiled. “A gift from my ancestors.”
“Yes, I know. Curious-looking thing,” said Nero. He flashed a quizzical smile, then returned his attention to the construction work going on around them. “When the time comes, there shall be a grand ceremony to mark the day that Poppaea and the baby and I move in. I think I shall call it the Golden House. What do you say to that, Senator Pinarius?”
“A splendid name for a splendid house.”
“The only house fit for a person such as myself to live in,” mused Nero. “Ah, we’ve come to the site of the grand courtyard. This will be the main entrance for visitors who come from the Forum. The Sacred Way will terminate at a stairway that ascends to the door of the Golden House. There’ll be other entrances, of course, including Augustus’s old entry on the Palatine, flanked by those ancient laurel trees, but that will be a sort of back door. The grand courtyard is going to be enormous, surrounded by a portico with hundreds of marble columns. You can’t really appreciate the enormity of it now, cluttered as it is with all these workmen’s shacks. The centerpiece will be that colossal bronze statue going up in the middle, depicting myself. We haven’t yet decided in what guise I should appear. Poppaea thinks I should pose as Hercules, but Zenodorus, the sculptor, thinks I should be Sol, wearing a crown of sunbeams. When it’s finished, the statue will be over a hundred and twenty feet tall – the largest statue since the Colossus that once stood at Rhodes. And unlike that statue, this one will be covered in gold. Can you imagine the splendour of it on a sunny day? People will be able to see it from miles away, and the closer they come, the more dazzled they’ll be. On a sunny day, it will be positively blinding.”
“Truly, Caesar, the new Colossus will be a stupendous monument,” said Titus, amazed anew not just at the extent of Nero’s imagination but at the enormity of his expenditures. A great deal of private property had been seized by the state to allow for the massive expansion of the imperial palace, and a great many temple treasuries from all over the empire had been appropriated to pay for construction and to provide decorations.
In this ambitious enterprise, Titus had played an invaluable role. Auspices had to be taken to seek divine approval for many of Nero’s actions, and religious ceremonies had to be conducted to propitiate the gods whose treasuries were depleted. Titus had faithfully served as Nero’s augur, just as he had once performed the same duties for Claudius. He had volunteered to do so and had performed eagerly and with unswerving loyalty. Since the night he had been transfixed by Nero’s song about the burning of Troy, Titus has become one of the emperor’s most fervent adherents.
The emperor was thankful for his loyal service. The invitation to Titus and his family to accompany the emperor and his wife in the imperial litter was one of Nero’s ways of thanking him.
“I am grateful, as always, to play any part, however small, in Caesar’s grand enterprises,” said Titus.
“Unfortunately, Senator Pinarius, not everyone seems to feel as you do,” said Poppaea. She had been quiet throughout the tour and had even been looking a bit bored; no doubt she had heard Nero speak the same words many times before. Titus, who had met her on several occasions but had never spoken to her privately, was not quite sure what to make of Poppaea, who always seemed distant and self-absorbed and tended to speak in riddles. Nero was not her first husband; previously she had been married to Nero’s friend Otho. Rumour had it that the three young people had become so intimate that they formed, as one wag put it, “a three-headed love monster.” But ultimately Nero wanted Poppaea all to himself. He forced Otho to divorce her, appointed Otho governor of Lusitania to get him out of Roma, and made Poppaea his wife.
Her remark probably referred to the increasingly widespread rumours of a conspiracy against the emperor. Despite Nero’s energetic response to the crisis and his optimistic plans for the future, a simmering discontent reached across all classes. The fire had been followed by a pestilence that had killed tens of thousands of people, especially among the homeless poor, and the loss of so many religious and historical treasures had thoroughly demoralized the populace. Nero’s vast building projects were intended to replace those lost treasures, but among the wealthy there was a fear that his profligate spending would precipitate a financial crisis. Hostile senators were said to be plotting against him, and among the common citizens, vile rumours claimed that Nero himself had deliberately started the fire so that he could claim vast tracts of ruined real estate for the imperial house and rebuild the city to suit himself.
Unfortunately, and with obvious regret, Nero had found it necessary to banish a number of senators whom he suspected of disloyalty. Among these had been Gaius Cassius Longinus, the senator who had made an impassioned speech to crucify the slaves of Pedanius. Nero had ordered him to remove from his ancestral effigies the wax mask of the Cassius who had assassinated the Divine Julius – a perfectly reasonable request, Titus thought. The senator had refused. Cassius’s exile to Sardinia had caused an outcry among his colleagues, who argued that pity should be shown to a jurist of such renown, especially since he was now completely blind.
Next to him, Titus heard Chrysanthe groan, and then he saw the reason. On a scorched wall, all that remained of a destroyed building, a message had been scrawled in black paint:
Strong and valiant,
He killed his mother
And set my house on fire!
More and more frequently in recent days, Titus had seen such ugly graffiti on walls and in latrinae all over the city. Fortunately, a group of men was in the process of painting over this message and adding their own. Titus craned his neck to see what they were writing, but as the litter moved on all he could make out were the words Christians and burn.
“My loyal freedmen, hard at work,” said Nero, pulling at the rings on his fingers. “I don’t even have to ask them. They go about the city and clean up such slander wherever they see it.”
“Gossip is a terrible thing,” muttered Poppaea.
“It certainly is,” agreed Chrysanthe, nodding sympathetically.
“But on this day, all those nasty rumours will be put to rest, and the true culprits will be brought to justice,” said Nero, regaining his good humour. “The people will see that their emperor is dedicated to protecting Roma and destroying those who harm her. I shall give them a show they will never forget!”