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4.0 out of 5 stars
"I've had word from the emporer. I'll be dead by morning." , 13 Jun 2007
Rendered in exquisite detail, Jesse Browner's The Uncertain Hour is a facinating foray into sites, sounds and smells of the Emporer Nero's Rome. Nero was the fifth and last Roman Emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty who ruled from AD 54 to 68. An enthusiastic patron of the arts, music, and sport, Nero's chief patron was Gaius Petronius Arbiter (ca. 27-66), a Roman writer and a noted satirist.
This Gaius was assumed to be the same great Petronius who was the author of the novel Satyricon. Intelligent and well educated Petronius was a hedonist and a pleasure-seeker and probably also very wealthy, and also served as consul and governor of Bithynia after which Nero appointed him arbiter elegantiae (arbiter of elegance).
Petronius eventually incurred the hostility of the commander of the imperial guard who accused him of involvement in an assassination conspiracy against Nero, and like the great Stoic philosopher Seneca who had attacked the class of pleasure-seekers to which Petronius was attached, Petronius, too, ended up committing suicide.
"I've had word from the emporer. I'll be dead by morning," says Petronius, sickened by his own weariness as a former consul, provincial governor, and legion commander, he hopes that hosting a luxurious banquet will lift him from this mass of confusion. Assuaging the appetites of his friends to gain their protection, even if for a time, Petronius has invited his closest group of friends to share his final hours and help soak up the earthly delights of food, wine, poetry and evensong.
The most important person in his life is his great love Melissa, an uneducated commoner and a former wife of Roman general to whom Petronius loved in secret from the first moment he saw her. Now she comes to him in his hour of need, helping put his affairs in order efficiently and affectionately.
There's also the ribald Spaniard Martialis, with "his wild black hair and yellow-toothed grin," who loves to frolic with tarts in gutters and whorehouses and who became fast friends with Petronius even though they're as opposite as could possibly be. Martialis wants to help Petronius escape to Spain on a yacht that is anchored off his villa, but Petronius is determined to both observe Nero's edict and to play the petulant contrairian to the bitter end.
Certainly Petronius cherishes his friends especially the young Fabius and Pollia along with the wily Anicius, and as the banquet begin Petronius makes a point of he telling them that tonight they are all here to celebrate, and there are to be no tears, no speeches and no farewells. Petronius is certainly not afraid to die and his life as a patrician is a testament to this, yet he continues to disquietly cling to the world "as a ship clings to shore at an approaching storm anchored in place by desire."
As Browner delves deep into Petronius' life, his deep love for Melissa forms the core of the story. He takes her to Rome where she becomes part of the Emperor's exalted circle. Obviously Petronius was born and bred into this life, but in his final hours, he is wracked with despair and self-loathing that he had abandoned her in the shark-infested waters of the imperial court even though she handled herself admirably against all of the odds.
It is through these reminiscences that Petronius also remembers the Kouros, the ancient Greek statue that speaks to him and is a symbol of a golden age that has come and passed away, it's glories forever faded. For Petronius the statue represents the moral implications of his life and an awareness of a hope that has been irredeemably squandered.
The evening continues, and his noble guests enjoy themselves with their customary ease and self-possession, bathing in this glorious night of food and wine. Meanwhile, Petronius with the help his servant retires periodically to his chamber to open his veins, intent to give blood so that he can begin the cycle of death.
The first century AD was indeed of a fascinating world, particularly that of Nero's time in power. Of course, we do finally meet Nero, "with his wide arrogant eyes the colour of fish pond and his full lips curled in a perpetual sneer even when smiling in pleasure." It is no small thing to flatter the Emperor as Petronius soon learns, perhaps to his detriment. He certainly thought of himself as an aesthete of the highest rank, foolishly allowing himself to be drawn into Nero's inner circle from which there is no safe or simple way to extricate oneself.
In the Uncertain Hour, Browner carefully exposes a life fully lived, where Petronius' thoughts are forever muddled and fervid, tumbling over one another "like water in a cataract." In the process the author also paints a picture of a complex man who must come to terms with his final night on earth. Mike Leonard June 07.
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