A Song For Nero by Thomas Holt
The zany adventures of a con man and his pal, the (former) Emperor Nero.
https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/gentlemen-of-the-road
On 9/17/26 7:57 AM, James Nicoll wrote:
A Song For Nero by Thomas Holt
The zany adventures of a con man and his pal, the (former) Emperor Nero.
https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/gentlemen-of-the-road
Re: rCL I didnrCOt much enjoy this novel but it did make me want to poke >through my old de Camps to see if it was de Camp who made the case that
Nero was a-acrap emperor who might have made a-adecent civil engineer. >I-athink it was de Camp. rCL
He does say something like this in The Ancient Engineers. And if your
edition is Ballantine, and has a cover like this one
https://www.isfdb.org/wiki/images/9/98/THNCNTNGNR1974.jpg
this idea might well be expressed on p.236.
Tony
In article <118hele$fvq4$1@dont-email.me>,
Tony Nance <tnusenet17@gmail.com> wrote:
On 9/17/26 7:57 AM, James Nicoll wrote:
A Song For Nero by Thomas Holt
The zany adventures of a con man and his pal, the (former) Emperor Nero. >>>
https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/gentlemen-of-the-road
Re: rCL I didnrCOt much enjoy this novel but it did make me want to poke
through my old de Camps to see if it was de Camp who made the case that
Nero was a-acrap emperor who might have made a-adecent civil engineer.
I-athink it was de Camp. rCL
He does say something like this in The Ancient Engineers. And if your
edition is Ballantine, and has a cover like this one
https://www.isfdb.org/wiki/images/9/98/THNCNTNGNR1974.jpg
this idea might well be expressed on p.236.
Tony
My preferred take:
NERO
NERO WAS the son of Agrippina the Younger and Cnaeus Domitius
Ahenobarbus, combining the worst features of each. His
father was fond of running down little children with his
chariot and gouging out people's eyes, and there were rumors
I'd rather not mention.1 Agrippina was a sister of Caligula.
You don't get over a thing like that.2 Nero was born at
Antium on December 15, A.D. 37. He was named Lucius Domitius
Ahenobarbus, so he is known as Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus
Germanicus. Any relationship to Germanicus opened all doors
at this period. Nowadays it wouldn't get you a thing.3
In some respects Nero was ahead of his time. He boiled his
drinking water to remove the impurities and cooled it with
unsanitary ice to put them back again. He renamed the month
of April after himself, calling it Neroneus, but the idea
never caught on because April is not Neroneus and there is
no use pretending that it is. During his reign of fourteen
years, the outlying provinces are said to have prospered.
They were farther away.
Since Nero's character leaves much to be desired, we are
apt to forget his good side. We should try to remember that
he did not murder his mother until he was twenty-one years
old. Besides, he only did it to please his sweetheart,
Poppaea Sabina, whom he later married and kicked to death
while she was with child.4 It was her own fault, in a way,
as she nagged him for coming home late from the races.
Octavia, Nero's first wife, a daughter of the Emperor
Claudius, was not quite satisfactory. She was the kind that
bears a grudge. She disliked Nero for poisoning her young
brother Britannicus. He would have died anyhow, sooner or
later, but Octavia tried to make something out of it. Nero
banished her, then had her smothered in a steam bath and
married Poppaea, for love will find a way.
His next wife was Statilia Messalina, who was not the
Messalina you're thinking of. That was Valeria Messalina,
Nero's cousin and the third wife of the Emperor Claudius.
She was the worst woman in Rome and she just loved being
it. She was so wicked that she hated well-behaved people
on principle. She said they made her tired.5 Statilia was
not nearly so intelligent as Valeria. She took to brooding
after a while. She had been married four times, but nothing
like this.
Mentally, Nero was fair to middling. He could speak Latin
fluently. His tutor, Lucius Annaeus Seneca, was a Stoic,
or humbug. Seneca taught the vanity of worldly wealth and
was immensely rich. When it was suggested that he stop
lending money at ruinous rates if he felt that way about
it, he said it would be against all the tenets of the Stoic
philosophy and beneath him as a member in good standing to
give that much attention to so indifferent a subject when
his mind should be on higher things. This established his
reputation as a thinker.6
Nero finally had enough of Seneca's thoughts and told him
to go and drop dead, which he did. He gave the same order
to a senator named P. Clodius Paetas Thrasea just for looking
like a thinker. Senator P. Clodius Thrasea hadn't a thought
in his whole system, but he gave that impression somehow,
at least when he wasn't talking.
Agrippina was a wonderful mother to Nero, except that she
was inclined to be bossy. A matron of the old school, she
was head of the reform party in Rome and in charge of its
murders as well as her own private ones.7 She did not murder
her first husband, the father of Nero. She only drove him
to drink. Her second, Crispus Passienus, died suddenly after
making a will in her favor, and she is often accused of
feeding mushrooms poisoned with arsenic to her third, the
Emperor Claudius, so that Nero could succeed him, the quicker
the better. Let's not be too sure of this. It is possible
that the Emperor's basal metabolism was all out of whack
and that the symptoms were confused with those of arsenic.
Or Claudius may have tampered with his own food in one of
his vague states.
Claudius was an old fellow who had been found hiding behind
a curtain after the death of Caligula and made Emperor by
mistake.8 Caligula once threw him into the river to get rid
of him and somebody fished him out.9 Since that time he had
been subject to nervous twitchings.10 Most people regarded
Claudius as feeble-minded because he wrote a mildly
uninteresting collection of historical sketches and tried
to be funny in company. He was interested only in the past.
When his friends asked him, as they constantly did, why he
didn't write about current events, he would start twitching
again. None of his four marriages turned out very well. He
was always reading a book.11
Yet Claudius accomplished some sound constructive work. He
built the Via Claudia, a splendid road leading to the Danube
Valley, over which the barbarians later traveled to conquer
Italy. He also invented three new letters, one representing
the consonant u as distinguished from the vowel u, one for
a sound between i and u, and one for bs or ps. They had to
be dropped, as nobody could pronounce them.12
Agrippina had long been a problem to Nero, always interfering
as she did and quarreling about who should be murdered and
who shouldn't. Since he owed her everything for murdering
Claudius, he had hoped to kill her as gently as possible.
He did not want her to suffer, and he went to some lengths
to prevent it. He gave her quick poison three times without
result, then he fixed the ceiling of her bedroom so it would
fall and crush her as she slept. Of course that didn't work.
It never does. Either the ceiling doesn't fall or the victim
sleeps on the sofa that night.
Next, he attempted to drown her by means of a boat with a
collapsible bottom, but the vessel sank too slowly and she
swam away like a mink. Nero then lost his head completely,
as who wouldn't, and told his freedman, Anicetus, to try
anything. Anicetus, a rude but sensible fellow, went and
got a club and beat her to death. Maybe the Cave Men knew
best.
We cannot be sure how many others Nero murdered, since some
of the stories are probably mere gossip. You know how it
is. Once you kill a few people, you get a bad name. You're
blamed for every corpse that turns up for miles around and
anything else that goes wrong.
Take the great fire that destroyed most of Rome in A.D. 64.
They say he started it. Be that as it may, he did not fiddle
during the conflagration, for the violin had not yet been
invented. He played the lyre and sang of the Fall of Troy.
What's so awful about that? Of course he shouldn't have
tortured so many Christians to prove that they did it. A
few would have been plenty.13
Anyhow, he rebuilt the city on a more modern plan. The chief
improvement was his Golden House, as he called it, an
imperial residence a mile long, equipped with a revolving
banquet hall, walls of gold and jewels, machines for squirting
perfume in all directions, a duplex apartment for his pet
ape, and a statue of himself 120 feet high. When he moved
in, he said that at least he was beginning to live like a
human being. I have been unable to think of an adequate
comeback to that remark. You try it.
Nero's singing has occasioned unfavorable comment, quite
aside from the fire episode. He sang and sang, in private
and in public, accompanied by his lyre, five thousand
applauders chosen for their endurance, and a regiment of
soldiers with drawn swords. He would step to the front of
the stage with his personal bodyguard and ask his audience
if they had ever heard a better singer. They always said
no, they hadn't.14 If you have been wondering why Nero sang,
the answer is clear enough. People sing because they think
they can sing.15
He made his professional debut at Naples five years after
the death of his mother. She was spared that, at least. The
theatre was shaken by an earthquake during the show and
collapsed after the final selection. Nero got away. Lightning
frequently struck near the scene of his concerts. It missed
him.
He also went to Greece and sang for a year and a half, after
which he returned to Italy and sang. Forty-one citizens
conspired to slaughter him, but something went wrong.16
Then he announced a recital at which he would play the pipe
organ, the flute, and the bagpipes and sing a tragedy set
to music by himself. The legions rose in Gaul and the Senate
declared him a public enemy. As the troops advanced on Rome,
Nero proposed to go and meet them and win their hearts by
singing a few songs. Somebody had to explain. Assisted by
Epaphroditus, his private secretary, he cut his throat on
June 9, A.D. 68, the anniversary of his first wife's murder.
Well, we're none of us perfect.
1 The Ahenobarbi, or Bronzebeards, all had red beards because
the black beard of Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, founder of
the family, had been changed to red by Castor and Pollux,
I forget why.
2 Suetonius states that when Tiberius, Agrippina's uncle,
was in exile and looking for favorable omens, "as he was
changing his clothes, his tunic appeared to be all on fire."
It probably was on fire.
3 By the way, just who was Germanicus?
4 Poppaea Sabina was the daughter of Poppaea Sabina, who
was the daughter of C. Poppaeus Sabinus.
5 Claudius finally had her killed, but not until she'd had
an awfully good time. If you don't know the details of her
career, you're just as well off.
6 When Seneca was exiled for a time under the Lex de
adulteriis, he said nothing at all. There was nothing to
say.
7 Agrippina had two canine teeth on the right side of her
mouth. This was always good for a laugh in some circles.
8 His only friend was a little white poodle.
9 He was the brother of Germanicus.
10 Claudius had been neglected as a child. His mother,
Antonia, refused to remarry after the death of Drusus,
devoting herself entirely to a pet lamprey which may have
reminded her of the deceased.
11 Claudius' son Drusus by Plautia Urgulanillo was choked
to death while tossing up pears and catching them in his
mouth.
12 Ferrero holds that certain parts of his mind were highly
developed. He doesn't say which parts.
13 It is generally thought that no Christians were thrown
to the lions until the reign of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus,
whose Meditations you ought to read. Great stuff.
14 Nero's voice was thin and weak. Had it possessed more
volume, it would have been worse.
15 At the age of twelve Nero had shown a lively interest
in the arts, particularly music, painting, sculpture, and
poetry. Why was nothing done about this?
16 I don't mind singers so much, if only they wouldn't
practice.
On 9/17/26 5:51 PM, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
In article <118hele$fvq4$1@dont-email.me>,
Tony Nance-a <tnusenet17@gmail.com> wrote:
On 9/17/26 7:57 AM, James Nicoll wrote:
A Song For Nero by Thomas Holt
The zany adventures of a con man and his pal, the (former) Emperor
Nero.
https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/gentlemen-of-the-road
Re: rCL I didnrCOt much enjoy this novel but it did make me want to poke >>> through my old de Camps to see if it was de Camp who made the case that
Nero was a-acrap emperor who might have made a-adecent civil engineer.
I-athink it was de Camp. rCL
He does say something like this in The Ancient Engineers. And if your
edition is Ballantine, and has a cover like this one
https://www.isfdb.org/wiki/images/9/98/THNCNTNGNR1974.jpg
this idea might well be expressed on p.236.
Tony
My preferred take:
-a-a-a-aNERO
-a-a-a-aNERO WAS the son of Agrippina the Younger and Cnaeus Domitius
-a-a-a-aAhenobarbus, combining the worst features of each. His
-a-a-a-afather was fond of running down little children with his
-a-a-a-achariot and gouging out people's eyes, and there were rumors
-a-a-a-aI'd rather not mention.1 Agrippina was a sister of Caligula.
-a-a-a-aYou don't get over a thing like that.2 Nero was born at
-a-a-a-aAntium on December 15, A.D. 37. He was named Lucius Domitius
-a-a-a-aAhenobarbus, so he is known as Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus
-a-a-a-aGermanicus. Any relationship to Germanicus opened all doors
-a-a-a-aat this period. Nowadays it wouldn't get you a thing.3
-a-a-a-aIn some respects Nero was ahead of his time. He boiled his
-a-a-a-adrinking water to remove the impurities and cooled it with
-a-a-a-aunsanitary ice to put them back again. He renamed the month
-a-a-a-aof April after himself, calling it Neroneus, but the idea
-a-a-a-anever caught on because April is not Neroneus and there is
-a-a-a-ano use pretending that it is. During his reign of fourteen
-a-a-a-ayears, the outlying provinces are said to have prospered.
-a-a-a-aThey were farther away.
-a-a-a-aSince Nero's character leaves much to be desired, we are
-a-a-a-aapt to forget his good side. We should try to remember that
-a-a-a-ahe did not murder his mother until he was twenty-one years
-a-a-a-aold. Besides, he only did it to please his sweetheart,
-a-a-a-aPoppaea Sabina, whom he later married and kicked to death
-a-a-a-awhile she was with child.4 It was her own fault, in a way,
-a-a-a-aas she nagged him for coming home late from the races.
-a-a-a-aOctavia, Nero's first wife, a daughter of the Emperor
-a-a-a-aClaudius, was not quite satisfactory. She was the kind that
-a-a-a-abears a grudge. She disliked Nero for poisoning her young
-a-a-a-abrother Britannicus. He would have died anyhow, sooner or
-a-a-a-alater, but Octavia tried to make something out of it. Nero
-a-a-a-abanished her, then had her smothered in a steam bath and
-a-a-a-amarried Poppaea, for love will find a way.
-a-a-a-aHis next wife was Statilia Messalina, who was not the
-a-a-a-aMessalina you're thinking of. That was Valeria Messalina,
-a-a-a-aNero's cousin and the third wife of the Emperor Claudius.
-a-a-a-aShe was the worst woman in Rome and she just loved being
-a-a-a-ait. She was so wicked that she hated well-behaved people
-a-a-a-aon principle. She said they made her tired.5 Statilia was
-a-a-a-anot nearly so intelligent as Valeria. She took to brooding
-a-a-a-aafter a while. She had been married four times, but nothing
-a-a-a-alike this.
-a-a-a-aMentally, Nero was fair to middling. He could speak Latin
-a-a-a-afluently. His tutor, Lucius Annaeus Seneca, was a Stoic,
-a-a-a-aor humbug. Seneca taught the vanity of worldly wealth and
-a-a-a-awas immensely rich. When it was suggested that he stop
-a-a-a-alending money at ruinous rates if he felt that way about
-a-a-a-ait, he said it would be against all the tenets of the Stoic
-a-a-a-aphilosophy and beneath him as a member in good standing to
-a-a-a-agive that much attention to so indifferent a subject when
-a-a-a-ahis mind should be on higher things. This established his
-a-a-a-areputation as a thinker.6
-a-a-a-aNero finally had enough of Seneca's thoughts and told him
-a-a-a-ato go and drop dead, which he did. He gave the same order
-a-a-a-ato a senator named P. Clodius Paetas Thrasea just for looking
-a-a-a-alike a thinker. Senator P. Clodius Thrasea hadn't a thought
-a-a-a-ain his whole system, but he gave that impression somehow,
-a-a-a-aat least when he wasn't talking.
-a-a-a-aAgrippina was a wonderful mother to Nero, except that she
-a-a-a-awas inclined to be bossy. A matron of the old school, she
-a-a-a-awas head of the reform party in Rome and in charge of its
-a-a-a-amurders as well as her own private ones.7 She did not murder
-a-a-a-aher first husband, the father of Nero. She only drove him
-a-a-a-ato drink. Her second, Crispus Passienus, died suddenly after
-a-a-a-amaking a will in her favor, and she is often accused of
-a-a-a-afeeding mushrooms poisoned with arsenic to her third, the
-a-a-a-aEmperor Claudius, so that Nero could succeed him, the quicker
-a-a-a-athe better. Let's not be too sure of this. It is possible
-a-a-a-athat the Emperor's basal metabolism was all out of whack
-a-a-a-aand that the symptoms were confused with those of arsenic.
-a-a-a-aOr Claudius may have tampered with his own food in one of
-a-a-a-ahis vague states.
-a-a-a-aClaudius was an old fellow who had been found hiding behind
-a-a-a-aa curtain after the death of Caligula and made Emperor by
-a-a-a-amistake.8 Caligula once threw him into the river to get rid
-a-a-a-aof him and somebody fished him out.9 Since that time he had
-a-a-a-abeen subject to nervous twitchings.10 Most people regarded
-a-a-a-aClaudius as feeble-minded because he wrote a mildly
-a-a-a-auninteresting collection of historical sketches and tried
-a-a-a-ato be funny in company. He was interested only in the past.
-a-a-a-aWhen his friends asked him, as they constantly did, why he
-a-a-a-adidn't write about current events, he would start twitching
-a-a-a-aagain. None of his four marriages turned out very well. He
-a-a-a-awas always reading a book.11
-a-a-a-aYet Claudius accomplished some sound constructive work. He
-a-a-a-abuilt the Via Claudia, a splendid road leading to the Danube
-a-a-a-aValley, over which the barbarians later traveled to conquer
-a-a-a-aItaly. He also invented three new letters, one representing
-a-a-a-athe consonant u as distinguished from the vowel u, one for
-a-a-a-aa sound between i and u, and one for bs or ps. They had to
-a-a-a-abe dropped, as nobody could pronounce them.12
-a-a-a-aAgrippina had long been a problem to Nero, always interfering
-a-a-a-aas she did and quarreling about who should be murdered and
-a-a-a-awho shouldn't. Since he owed her everything for murdering
-a-a-a-aClaudius, he had hoped to kill her as gently as possible.
-a-a-a-aHe did not want her to suffer, and he went to some lengths
-a-a-a-ato prevent it. He gave her quick poison three times without
-a-a-a-aresult, then he fixed the ceiling of her bedroom so it would
-a-a-a-afall and crush her as she slept. Of course that didn't work.
-a-a-a-aIt never does. Either the ceiling doesn't fall or the victim
-a-a-a-asleeps on the sofa that night.
-a-a-a-aNext, he attempted to drown her by means of a boat with a
-a-a-a-acollapsible bottom, but the vessel sank too slowly and she
-a-a-a-aswam away like a mink. Nero then lost his head completely,
-a-a-a-aas who wouldn't, and told his freedman, Anicetus, to try
-a-a-a-aanything. Anicetus, a rude but sensible fellow, went and
-a-a-a-agot a club and beat her to death. Maybe the Cave Men knew
-a-a-a-abest.
-a-a-a-aWe cannot be sure how many others Nero murdered, since some
-a-a-a-aof the stories are probably mere gossip. You know how it
-a-a-a-ais. Once you kill a few people, you get a bad name. You're
-a-a-a-ablamed for every corpse that turns up for miles around and
-a-a-a-aanything else that goes wrong.
-a-a-a-aTake the great fire that destroyed most of Rome in A.D. 64.
-a-a-a-aThey say he started it. Be that as it may, he did not fiddle
-a-a-a-aduring the conflagration, for the violin had not yet been
-a-a-a-ainvented. He played the lyre and sang of the Fall of Troy.
-a-a-a-aWhat's so awful about that? Of course he shouldn't have
-a-a-a-atortured so many Christians to prove that they did it. A
-a-a-a-afew would have been plenty.13
-a-a-a-aAnyhow, he rebuilt the city on a more modern plan. The chief
-a-a-a-aimprovement was his Golden House, as he called it, an
-a-a-a-aimperial residence a mile long, equipped with a revolving
-a-a-a-abanquet hall, walls of gold and jewels, machines for squirting
-a-a-a-aperfume in all directions, a duplex apartment for his pet
-a-a-a-aape, and a statue of himself 120 feet high. When he moved
-a-a-a-ain, he said that at least he was beginning to live like a
-a-a-a-ahuman being. I have been unable to think of an adequate
-a-a-a-acomeback to that remark. You try it.
-a-a-a-aNero's singing has occasioned unfavorable comment, quite
-a-a-a-aaside from the fire episode. He sang and sang, in private
-a-a-a-aand in public, accompanied by his lyre, five thousand
-a-a-a-aapplauders chosen for their endurance, and a regiment of
-a-a-a-asoldiers with drawn swords. He would step to the front of
-a-a-a-athe stage with his personal bodyguard and ask his audience
-a-a-a-aif they had ever heard a better singer. They always said
-a-a-a-ano, they hadn't.14 If you have been wondering why Nero sang,
-a-a-a-athe answer is clear enough. People sing because they think
-a-a-a-athey can sing.15
-a-a-a-aHe made his professional debut at Naples five years after
-a-a-a-athe death of his mother. She was spared that, at least. The
-a-a-a-atheatre was shaken by an earthquake during the show and
-a-a-a-acollapsed after the final selection. Nero got away. Lightning
-a-a-a-afrequently struck near the scene of his concerts. It missed
-a-a-a-ahim.
-a-a-a-aHe also went to Greece and sang for a year and a half, after
-a-a-a-awhich he returned to Italy and sang. Forty-one citizens
-a-a-a-aconspired to slaughter him, but something went wrong.16
-a-a-a-aThen he announced a recital at which he would play the pipe
-a-a-a-aorgan, the flute, and the bagpipes and sing a tragedy set
-a-a-a-ato music by himself. The legions rose in Gaul and the Senate
-a-a-a-adeclared him a public enemy. As the troops advanced on Rome,
-a-a-a-aNero proposed to go and meet them and win their hearts by
-a-a-a-asinging a few songs. Somebody had to explain. Assisted by
-a-a-a-aEpaphroditus, his private secretary, he cut his throat on
-a-a-a-aJune 9, A.D. 68, the anniversary of his first wife's murder.
-a-a-a-aWell, we're none of us perfect.
-a-a-a-a1 The Ahenobarbi, or Bronzebeards, all had red beards because
-a-a-a-athe black beard of Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, founder of
-a-a-a-athe family, had been changed to red by Castor and Pollux,
-a-a-a-aI forget why.
-a-a-a-a2 Suetonius states that when Tiberius, Agrippina's uncle,
-a-a-a-awas in exile and looking for favorable omens, "as he was
-a-a-a-achanging his clothes, his tunic appeared to be all on fire."
-a-a-a-aIt probably was on fire.
-a-a-a-a3 By the way, just who was Germanicus?
-a-a-a-a4 Poppaea Sabina was the daughter of Poppaea Sabina, who
-a-a-a-awas the daughter of C. Poppaeus Sabinus.
-a-a-a-a5 Claudius finally had her killed, but not until she'd had
-a-a-a-aan awfully good time. If you don't know the details of her
-a-a-a-acareer, you're just as well off.
-a-a-a-a6 When Seneca was exiled for a time under the Lex de
-a-a-a-aadulteriis, he said nothing at all. There was nothing to
-a-a-a-asay.
-a-a-a-a7 Agrippina had two canine teeth on the right side of her
-a-a-a-amouth. This was always good for a laugh in some circles.
-a-a-a-a8 His only friend was a little white poodle.
-a-a-a-a9 He was the brother of Germanicus.
-a-a-a-a10 Claudius had been neglected as a child. His mother,
-a-a-a-aAntonia, refused to remarry after the death of Drusus,
-a-a-a-adevoting herself entirely to a pet lamprey which may have
-a-a-a-areminded her of the deceased.
-a-a-a-a11 Claudius' son Drusus by Plautia Urgulanillo was choked
-a-a-a-ato death while tossing up pears and catching them in his
-a-a-a-amouth.
-a-a-a-a12 Ferrero holds that certain parts of his mind were highly
-a-a-a-adeveloped. He doesn't say which parts.
-a-a-a-a13 It is generally thought that no Christians were thrown
-a-a-a-ato the lions until the reign of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus,
-a-a-a-awhose Meditations you ought to read. Great stuff.
-a-a-a-a14 Nero's voice was thin and weak. Had it possessed more
-a-a-a-avolume, it would have been worse.
-a-a-a-a15 At the age of twelve Nero had shown a lively interest
-a-a-a-ain the arts, particularly music, painting, sculpture, and
-a-a-a-apoetry. Why was nothing done about this?
-a-a-a-a16 I don't mind singers so much, if only they wouldn't
-a-a-a-apractice.
Oh my - that is delightful. Thank you.
I did some searching...Is this from Will Cuppy's The Decline And Fall Of Practically Everybody?
Tony
On 9/17/26 5:51 PM, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
In article <118hele$fvq4$1@dont-email.me>,
Tony Nance <tnusenet17@gmail.com> wrote:
On 9/17/26 7:57 AM, James Nicoll wrote:
A Song For Nero by Thomas Holt
The zany adventures of a con man and his pal, the (former) Emperor Nero. >>>>
https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/gentlemen-of-the-road
Re: rCL I didnrCOt much enjoy this novel but it did make me want to poke >>> through my old de Camps to see if it was de Camp who made the case that
Nero was a-acrap emperor who might have made a-adecent civil engineer.
I-athink it was de Camp. rCL
He does say something like this in The Ancient Engineers. And if your
edition is Ballantine, and has a cover like this one
https://www.isfdb.org/wiki/images/9/98/THNCNTNGNR1974.jpg
this idea might well be expressed on p.236.
Tony
My preferred take:
NERO
NERO WAS the son of Agrippina the Younger and Cnaeus Domitius
Ahenobarbus, combining the worst features of each. His
father was fond of running down little children with his
chariot and gouging out people's eyes, and there were rumors
I'd rather not mention.1 Agrippina was a sister of Caligula.
You don't get over a thing like that.2 Nero was born at
Antium on December 15, A.D. 37. He was named Lucius Domitius
Ahenobarbus, so he is known as Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus
Germanicus. Any relationship to Germanicus opened all doors
at this period. Nowadays it wouldn't get you a thing.3
In some respects Nero was ahead of his time. He boiled his
drinking water to remove the impurities and cooled it with
unsanitary ice to put them back again. He renamed the month
of April after himself, calling it Neroneus, but the idea
never caught on because April is not Neroneus and there is
no use pretending that it is. During his reign of fourteen
years, the outlying provinces are said to have prospered.
They were farther away.
Since Nero's character leaves much to be desired, we are
apt to forget his good side. We should try to remember that
he did not murder his mother until he was twenty-one years
old. Besides, he only did it to please his sweetheart,
Poppaea Sabina, whom he later married and kicked to death
while she was with child.4 It was her own fault, in a way,
as she nagged him for coming home late from the races.
Octavia, Nero's first wife, a daughter of the Emperor
Claudius, was not quite satisfactory. She was the kind that
bears a grudge. She disliked Nero for poisoning her young
brother Britannicus. He would have died anyhow, sooner or
later, but Octavia tried to make something out of it. Nero
banished her, then had her smothered in a steam bath and
married Poppaea, for love will find a way.
His next wife was Statilia Messalina, who was not the
Messalina you're thinking of. That was Valeria Messalina,
Nero's cousin and the third wife of the Emperor Claudius.
She was the worst woman in Rome and she just loved being
it. She was so wicked that she hated well-behaved people
on principle. She said they made her tired.5 Statilia was
not nearly so intelligent as Valeria. She took to brooding
after a while. She had been married four times, but nothing
like this.
Mentally, Nero was fair to middling. He could speak Latin
fluently. His tutor, Lucius Annaeus Seneca, was a Stoic,
or humbug. Seneca taught the vanity of worldly wealth and
was immensely rich. When it was suggested that he stop
lending money at ruinous rates if he felt that way about
it, he said it would be against all the tenets of the Stoic
philosophy and beneath him as a member in good standing to
give that much attention to so indifferent a subject when
his mind should be on higher things. This established his
reputation as a thinker.6
Nero finally had enough of Seneca's thoughts and told him
to go and drop dead, which he did. He gave the same order
to a senator named P. Clodius Paetas Thrasea just for looking
like a thinker. Senator P. Clodius Thrasea hadn't a thought
in his whole system, but he gave that impression somehow,
at least when he wasn't talking.
Agrippina was a wonderful mother to Nero, except that she
was inclined to be bossy. A matron of the old school, she
was head of the reform party in Rome and in charge of its
murders as well as her own private ones.7 She did not murder
her first husband, the father of Nero. She only drove him
to drink. Her second, Crispus Passienus, died suddenly after
making a will in her favor, and she is often accused of
feeding mushrooms poisoned with arsenic to her third, the
Emperor Claudius, so that Nero could succeed him, the quicker
the better. Let's not be too sure of this. It is possible
that the Emperor's basal metabolism was all out of whack
and that the symptoms were confused with those of arsenic.
Or Claudius may have tampered with his own food in one of
his vague states.
Claudius was an old fellow who had been found hiding behind
a curtain after the death of Caligula and made Emperor by
mistake.8 Caligula once threw him into the river to get rid
of him and somebody fished him out.9 Since that time he had
been subject to nervous twitchings.10 Most people regarded
Claudius as feeble-minded because he wrote a mildly
uninteresting collection of historical sketches and tried
to be funny in company. He was interested only in the past.
When his friends asked him, as they constantly did, why he
didn't write about current events, he would start twitching
again. None of his four marriages turned out very well. He
was always reading a book.11
Yet Claudius accomplished some sound constructive work. He
built the Via Claudia, a splendid road leading to the Danube
Valley, over which the barbarians later traveled to conquer
Italy. He also invented three new letters, one representing
the consonant u as distinguished from the vowel u, one for
a sound between i and u, and one for bs or ps. They had to
be dropped, as nobody could pronounce them.12
Agrippina had long been a problem to Nero, always interfering
as she did and quarreling about who should be murdered and
who shouldn't. Since he owed her everything for murdering
Claudius, he had hoped to kill her as gently as possible.
He did not want her to suffer, and he went to some lengths
to prevent it. He gave her quick poison three times without
result, then he fixed the ceiling of her bedroom so it would
fall and crush her as she slept. Of course that didn't work.
It never does. Either the ceiling doesn't fall or the victim
sleeps on the sofa that night.
Next, he attempted to drown her by means of a boat with a
collapsible bottom, but the vessel sank too slowly and she
swam away like a mink. Nero then lost his head completely,
as who wouldn't, and told his freedman, Anicetus, to try
anything. Anicetus, a rude but sensible fellow, went and
got a club and beat her to death. Maybe the Cave Men knew
best.
We cannot be sure how many others Nero murdered, since some
of the stories are probably mere gossip. You know how it
is. Once you kill a few people, you get a bad name. You're
blamed for every corpse that turns up for miles around and
anything else that goes wrong.
Take the great fire that destroyed most of Rome in A.D. 64.
They say he started it. Be that as it may, he did not fiddle
during the conflagration, for the violin had not yet been
invented. He played the lyre and sang of the Fall of Troy.
What's so awful about that? Of course he shouldn't have
tortured so many Christians to prove that they did it. A
few would have been plenty.13
Anyhow, he rebuilt the city on a more modern plan. The chief
improvement was his Golden House, as he called it, an
imperial residence a mile long, equipped with a revolving
banquet hall, walls of gold and jewels, machines for squirting
perfume in all directions, a duplex apartment for his pet
ape, and a statue of himself 120 feet high. When he moved
in, he said that at least he was beginning to live like a
human being. I have been unable to think of an adequate
comeback to that remark. You try it.
Nero's singing has occasioned unfavorable comment, quite
aside from the fire episode. He sang and sang, in private
and in public, accompanied by his lyre, five thousand
applauders chosen for their endurance, and a regiment of
soldiers with drawn swords. He would step to the front of
the stage with his personal bodyguard and ask his audience
if they had ever heard a better singer. They always said
no, they hadn't.14 If you have been wondering why Nero sang,
the answer is clear enough. People sing because they think
they can sing.15
He made his professional debut at Naples five years after
the death of his mother. She was spared that, at least. The
theatre was shaken by an earthquake during the show and
collapsed after the final selection. Nero got away. Lightning
frequently struck near the scene of his concerts. It missed
him.
He also went to Greece and sang for a year and a half, after
which he returned to Italy and sang. Forty-one citizens
conspired to slaughter him, but something went wrong.16
Then he announced a recital at which he would play the pipe
organ, the flute, and the bagpipes and sing a tragedy set
to music by himself. The legions rose in Gaul and the Senate
declared him a public enemy. As the troops advanced on Rome,
Nero proposed to go and meet them and win their hearts by
singing a few songs. Somebody had to explain. Assisted by
Epaphroditus, his private secretary, he cut his throat on
June 9, A.D. 68, the anniversary of his first wife's murder.
Well, we're none of us perfect.
1 The Ahenobarbi, or Bronzebeards, all had red beards because
the black beard of Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, founder of
the family, had been changed to red by Castor and Pollux,
I forget why.
2 Suetonius states that when Tiberius, Agrippina's uncle,
was in exile and looking for favorable omens, "as he was
changing his clothes, his tunic appeared to be all on fire."
It probably was on fire.
3 By the way, just who was Germanicus?
4 Poppaea Sabina was the daughter of Poppaea Sabina, who
was the daughter of C. Poppaeus Sabinus.
5 Claudius finally had her killed, but not until she'd had
an awfully good time. If you don't know the details of her
career, you're just as well off.
6 When Seneca was exiled for a time under the Lex de
adulteriis, he said nothing at all. There was nothing to
say.
7 Agrippina had two canine teeth on the right side of her
mouth. This was always good for a laugh in some circles.
8 His only friend was a little white poodle.
9 He was the brother of Germanicus.
10 Claudius had been neglected as a child. His mother,
Antonia, refused to remarry after the death of Drusus,
devoting herself entirely to a pet lamprey which may have
reminded her of the deceased.
11 Claudius' son Drusus by Plautia Urgulanillo was choked
to death while tossing up pears and catching them in his
mouth.
12 Ferrero holds that certain parts of his mind were highly
developed. He doesn't say which parts.
13 It is generally thought that no Christians were thrown
to the lions until the reign of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus,
whose Meditations you ought to read. Great stuff.
14 Nero's voice was thin and weak. Had it possessed more
volume, it would have been worse.
15 At the age of twelve Nero had shown a lively interest
in the arts, particularly music, painting, sculpture, and
poetry. Why was nothing done about this?
16 I don't mind singers so much, if only they wouldn't
practice.
Oh my - that is delightful. Thank you.
I did some searching...Is this from Will Cuppy's The Decline And Fall Of >Practically Everybody?
Tony
On 9/17/26 15:51, Tony Nance wrote:
On 9/17/26 5:51 PM, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
In article <118hele$fvq4$1@dont-email.me>,
Tony Nance-a <tnusenet17@gmail.com> wrote:
On 9/17/26 7:57 AM, James Nicoll wrote:
A Song For Nero by Thomas Holt
The zany adventures of a con man and his pal, the (former) Emperor
Nero.
https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/gentlemen-of-the-road
Re: rCL I didnrCOt much enjoy this novel but it did make me want to poke >>>> through my old de Camps to see if it was de Camp who made the case that >>>> Nero was a-acrap emperor who might have made a-adecent civil engineer. >>>> I-athink it was de Camp. rCL
He does say something like this in The Ancient Engineers. And if your
edition is Ballantine, and has a cover like this one
https://www.isfdb.org/wiki/images/9/98/THNCNTNGNR1974.jpg
this idea might well be expressed on p.236.
Tony
My preferred take:
-a-a-a-aNERO
-a-a-a-aNERO WAS the son of Agrippina the Younger and Cnaeus Domitius
-a-a-a-aAhenobarbus, combining the worst features of each. His
-a-a-a-afather was fond of running down little children with his
-a-a-a-achariot and gouging out people's eyes, and there were rumors
-a-a-a-aI'd rather not mention.1 Agrippina was a sister of Caligula.
-a-a-a-aYou don't get over a thing like that.2 Nero was born at
-a-a-a-aAntium on December 15, A.D. 37. He was named Lucius Domitius
-a-a-a-aAhenobarbus, so he is known as Nero Claudius Caesar Drusus
-a-a-a-aGermanicus. Any relationship to Germanicus opened all doors
-a-a-a-aat this period. Nowadays it wouldn't get you a thing.3
-a-a-a-aIn some respects Nero was ahead of his time. He boiled his
-a-a-a-adrinking water to remove the impurities and cooled it with
-a-a-a-aunsanitary ice to put them back again. He renamed the month
-a-a-a-aof April after himself, calling it Neroneus, but the idea
-a-a-a-anever caught on because April is not Neroneus and there is
-a-a-a-ano use pretending that it is. During his reign of fourteen
-a-a-a-ayears, the outlying provinces are said to have prospered.
-a-a-a-aThey were farther away.
-a-a-a-aSince Nero's character leaves much to be desired, we are
-a-a-a-aapt to forget his good side. We should try to remember that
-a-a-a-ahe did not murder his mother until he was twenty-one years
-a-a-a-aold. Besides, he only did it to please his sweetheart,
-a-a-a-aPoppaea Sabina, whom he later married and kicked to death
-a-a-a-awhile she was with child.4 It was her own fault, in a way,
-a-a-a-aas she nagged him for coming home late from the races.
-a-a-a-aOctavia, Nero's first wife, a daughter of the Emperor
-a-a-a-aClaudius, was not quite satisfactory. She was the kind that
-a-a-a-abears a grudge. She disliked Nero for poisoning her young
-a-a-a-abrother Britannicus. He would have died anyhow, sooner or
-a-a-a-alater, but Octavia tried to make something out of it. Nero
-a-a-a-abanished her, then had her smothered in a steam bath and
-a-a-a-amarried Poppaea, for love will find a way.
-a-a-a-aHis next wife was Statilia Messalina, who was not the
-a-a-a-aMessalina you're thinking of. That was Valeria Messalina,
-a-a-a-aNero's cousin and the third wife of the Emperor Claudius.
-a-a-a-aShe was the worst woman in Rome and she just loved being
-a-a-a-ait. She was so wicked that she hated well-behaved people
-a-a-a-aon principle. She said they made her tired.5 Statilia was
-a-a-a-anot nearly so intelligent as Valeria. She took to brooding
-a-a-a-aafter a while. She had been married four times, but nothing
-a-a-a-alike this.
-a-a-a-aMentally, Nero was fair to middling. He could speak Latin
-a-a-a-afluently. His tutor, Lucius Annaeus Seneca, was a Stoic,
-a-a-a-aor humbug. Seneca taught the vanity of worldly wealth and
-a-a-a-awas immensely rich. When it was suggested that he stop
-a-a-a-alending money at ruinous rates if he felt that way about
-a-a-a-ait, he said it would be against all the tenets of the Stoic
-a-a-a-aphilosophy and beneath him as a member in good standing to
-a-a-a-agive that much attention to so indifferent a subject when
-a-a-a-ahis mind should be on higher things. This established his
-a-a-a-areputation as a thinker.6
-a-a-a-aNero finally had enough of Seneca's thoughts and told him
-a-a-a-ato go and drop dead, which he did. He gave the same order
-a-a-a-ato a senator named P. Clodius Paetas Thrasea just for looking
-a-a-a-alike a thinker. Senator P. Clodius Thrasea hadn't a thought
-a-a-a-ain his whole system, but he gave that impression somehow,
-a-a-a-aat least when he wasn't talking.
-a-a-a-aAgrippina was a wonderful mother to Nero, except that she
-a-a-a-awas inclined to be bossy. A matron of the old school, she
-a-a-a-awas head of the reform party in Rome and in charge of its
-a-a-a-amurders as well as her own private ones.7 She did not murder
-a-a-a-aher first husband, the father of Nero. She only drove him
-a-a-a-ato drink. Her second, Crispus Passienus, died suddenly after
-a-a-a-amaking a will in her favor, and she is often accused of
-a-a-a-afeeding mushrooms poisoned with arsenic to her third, the
-a-a-a-aEmperor Claudius, so that Nero could succeed him, the quicker
-a-a-a-athe better. Let's not be too sure of this. It is possible
-a-a-a-athat the Emperor's basal metabolism was all out of whack
-a-a-a-aand that the symptoms were confused with those of arsenic.
-a-a-a-aOr Claudius may have tampered with his own food in one of
-a-a-a-ahis vague states.
-a-a-a-aClaudius was an old fellow who had been found hiding behind
-a-a-a-aa curtain after the death of Caligula and made Emperor by
-a-a-a-amistake.8 Caligula once threw him into the river to get rid
-a-a-a-aof him and somebody fished him out.9 Since that time he had
-a-a-a-abeen subject to nervous twitchings.10 Most people regarded
-a-a-a-aClaudius as feeble-minded because he wrote a mildly
-a-a-a-auninteresting collection of historical sketches and tried
-a-a-a-ato be funny in company. He was interested only in the past.
-a-a-a-aWhen his friends asked him, as they constantly did, why he
-a-a-a-adidn't write about current events, he would start twitching
-a-a-a-aagain. None of his four marriages turned out very well. He
-a-a-a-awas always reading a book.11
Claudius stammered as well. You would too if you had a load of
murderers all around you. Some of his eccentric behavior was merely to >protect himself and most likely he never aspired to the Purple. He
merely like so many of us wanted to read in peace.
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