Margaret George,The Splendour Before The Dark (MacMillan 2018)
The story of the musical charioteer emperor Nero, rehabilitated
Nero awakes at his seaside villa in Antium. The previous night he had performed his epic on the Fall of Troy. He longs to be a professional musician or competitive charioteer. Alas, as his mother had finagled, he is emperor of Rome. The sybil at Cumae told him ‘fire will be your undoing’, but there’s no fire at the racetrack or the theatre. A messenger brings the news, Rome is on fire.
A legend is going around that Nero had played his cithara ‘while watching Rome burn’.
After the fire, Nero’s vision of a new city is realised. The construction of the Domus Aurea takes up a large part of the book. It would cost 22,000 million sesterces. He conceives the idea of selling citizenships to wealthy freedmen. Despite the emperor’s good efforts, he is blamed. So, they look for a scapegoat, and Caesar finds it in the writings and apparent confessions of the Christians. They go willingly to their martyrdom.
Two events shake Nero’s happiness. He uncovers a broad conspiracy to kill him and replace him with Gaius Calpurnius Piso—the Pisonian Conspiracy. Some of his best friends are implicated. And his beloved Poppaea Sabina and unborn child die—George paints it as an accident.
Contains a breath-taking account of a chariot race, including how it feels from the charioteer’s point of view.
This presents a more hagiographic picture of Nero than I’m used to—even the relationship with the poor catamite Sporus is portrayed as consensual—apparently he castrated himself. Taking other liberties with the story, too, it veers considerably from the primary sources.
Susie Helme 
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