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statuary which covered the front of the vast building. The effect was such that it blinded those unfortunate enough not to be shielded by the huge cloth awning which portrayed him in his chariot driving the four horses of the sun god. His heart swelled with pride. He wanted them to be blinded. Blinded by his magnificence. Awed by his power.
    He was not a fool. He understood he had lost the Senate and the aristocracy. But he still had the people and he still had the legions and he still had his Praetorian Guard. These were the triumvirate which cemented his power, not the whining politicians who complained at every expense and every little excess. The Golden House, which stretched between the Palatine and Esquiline hills, had come close to bankrupting the imperial treasury. Tigellinus, his commander of the Guard, could only ensure its completion by ordering the officials to cut the silver content of the denarius, but it was all worth it, because this – and his heart beat faster as he considered what he had achieved – this was his legacy to his people. No longer could he be compared to Divine Augustus and found wanting. In the Golden House he had created a monument to Rome’s glory that outshone anything his illustrious ancestor had been able to devise. A monument that would last a hundred lifetimes of ordinary men.
    ‘Caesar?’
    With a smile, the Emperor Nero Claudius Caesar Germanicus turned to his imperial secretary. He had been quite lost in his own thoughts.
    ‘King Tiridates is here.’
    ‘Thank you, Epaphradotus.’ This was the second ceremony to welcome Armenia into Rome’s keeping. The first, in the forum, had been a mere appetizer compared to what was to come. Nero looked to the rear of the balcony where the king of Armenia waited in his long robes. A swarthy predator’s face, the clubbed beard reaching his chest, nose like an axe blade and heavy brows, topped by a shining thatch the colour of pitch and styled in tight ringlets. A savage face. But a noble head. A head awaiting a crown. Had another Emperor been in Nero’s place, King Tiridates would now be in the
carcer
, Rome’s prison, awaiting the bite of the strangling rope, for Tiridates had been an enemy of Rome. He and his brother, Vologases of Parthia, had fought two long, expensive wars against the Empire. If Nero had followed his generals’ advice there would have been a third and Tiridates would have been crushed on the battlefield and slaughtered with his army. But wiser counsels had prevailed and now the king was here to pay homage to his Emperor and to Rome.
    He called Tiridates forward, and as the king stepped out into the light the massed ranks below and on the surrounding hills, and on the far-off houses, erupted into frenzied cheering, so that the balcony was hit by an almost volcanic wave of sound. Nero felt himself grow along with the volume of applause. This was what he lived for, this adulation and proof of his dominion. This was what had spurred him to invest so much effort and expense in his voice and his bearing. For a moment, he was possessed by an overwhelming urge to sing; to give them the joy that came entwined as one with his talent. But the moment passed and now Tiridates was on his knees laying the triple crown at his feet and he was looking down at the mass of dark greasy curls and the cheering was ever louder. Together, the two serving consuls, Telesinus and Paulinus, handed him the jewelled diadem of laurel leaves. With great ceremony he placed it over the other man’s head. Tiridates murmured something in his native Parthian. It could have been thanks or mortal insult, but Nero cheerfully offered his hand to his new brother king and drew him to his feet, bestowing a kiss to show his affection.
    Turning to the crowd, he raised his hands and in that single movement commanded a hundred thousand people to silence. ‘Let the celebrations begin,’ he called in his high-pitched man-boy’s voice, and the cheering