I began to plan and partly wrote a handbook on wild animals, their capture, transportation, care and training. To make it useful to the audience, I recounted many exciting incidents I had myself witnessed or heard described by others, and only exaggerated as much as an author has a right to do to hold his public’s interest. Petronius thought it would be an excellent book of lasting value, and he himself borrowed from it some of the coarser expressions in the language of the amphitheater.
I no longer took part in Nero’s nighttime escapades in the less reputable parts of Rome, for my father-in-law was the City Prefect. In this I behaved wisely, for these wild pleasures came to a sad end.
Nero never bore a grudge against anyone if he were beaten in a fight, but just took this as a sign that the fight had been an honest one. But an unfortunate senator, defending his wife’s honor, happened to hit him very hard on the head, and was then stupid enough to write an apologetic letter to Nero afterwards when he discovered to his horror whom he had struck. Nero had no alternative then but to marvel that a man who had struck his Emperor could continue to live and also boast of his deed in shameless letters. So the senator had his physician open his veins.
Seneca was annoyed at this incident and considered it necessary to find other outlets for Nero’s wildness. So he had Emperor Gaius’ circus on the edge of Vatican set up as a private pleasure ground for Nero. There, with reliable friends and noblemen as spectators, he could at last practice the art of driving a team of horses to his heart’s content.
Agrippina gave him her gardens, which stretched all the way to Janiculus, with its many brothels. Seneca hoped that the athletics, which Nero practiced in semisecrecy, would lessen his, for an Emperor, exaggerated pleasure in music and singing. Nero soon became a bold and fearless driver, for he had of course loved horses ever since his childhood.
In fact he seldom needed to look around on the race course for fear that others would tip his chariot over, but the art of controlling a Spanish team on the curves of the circus is not given to every man. Many a racing enthusiast has broken his neck on the race course, or been crippled for life by falling from his chariot and failing to loosen the reins from his body in time.
In Britain, Flavius Vespasian had had a serious dispute with Octorius and was finally ordered home. Young Titus had begun to distinguish himself in his service and once had courageously taken command of a cavalry division and hastened to the aid of his father who was surrounded by Britons, though Vespasian maintained that he would have managed well enough on his own.
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Seneca considered these perpetual petty wars in Britain both pointless and dangerous, for in his opinion the loan he had made the British kings created peace in the country more effectively than punitive expeditions which were nothing but a burden on the treasury. Nero permitted Vespasian to take up the office of Consul for a few months, appointed him to a distinguished College and later had him chosen as Proconsul in Africa for the customary term of office.
When we met in Rome, Vespasian looked at me appraisingly. “You’ve changed a great deal-over the years, Minutus Manilianus,” he said, “and I don’t just mean the scars on your face either. When you were In Britain, I wouldn’t have believed that we should be related by your marrying my niece. But a young man makes more progress in Rome than by gelling rheumatism for life in Britain and marry now and again the Britons’ way.” I had almost forgotten my nominal marriage in the Iceni country. The meeting with Vespasian reminded me unpleasantly of my painful experiences there, and I begged him to remain silent on the point.
“What legionary hasn’t bastards in the countries of the world?” he said. “But your hare priestess, Lugunda, has not married again. She is bringing up your son in the Roman way. The noblest Icenis are that civilized already.”
The news hurt, for my wife Sabina showed no sign nor even desire to bear me a child, and we had not slept together with that intention for a long time. But I chased away my disturbing thoughts of Lugunda as I had done before, and Vespasian willingly agreed to keep my British marriage secret, for he knew of his niece’s harsh nature.
At the banquet which my father-in-law held in Vespasian’s honor, I met Lollia Poppaea for the first time. It was said that her mother had been the most beautiful woman in Rome and had attracted Claudius’ attention to such an extent that Messalina had had her removed from the rolls of the living, though I did not believe all the evil things that were still said about Messalina.
Poppaea’s father, Lollius, as a youth had belonged to the circle of friends around Sejanus and so was eternally out of favor. Lollia Poppaea was married to a rather insignificant knight called Crispinus and used her grandfather’s, Poppaeus Sabinus, name instead of her father’s. Her grand- father had been a Consul and had also celebrated a triumph in his day.
So Poppaea was related to Flavius Sabinus, but in such an involved way, as was usual in the Roman nobility, that I never quite fathomed how. Aunt Laelia’s memory was often faulty and she often confused different people. When I greeted Poppaea Sabina, I said I was sorry that my wife Sabina had nothing else but a name in common with her.
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