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re-erupted.
    The two rulers took the broad stairway to the ground floor, where Nero deliberately conducted his guest through the shadow of one of the wonders of the Empire, the astonishing statue he had commissioned of himself as the sun god, Sol. Close to one hundred cubits in height and covered entirely in gold leaf, it was the largest marble sculpture in the world, dwarfing even the legendary colossus which had stood astride the entrance to the harbour of Rhodes. It portrayed a pensive, benevolent Nero, with the sun’s rays radiating from his head like a crown, his left hand, holding a globe, stretched towards his people and in his right the whip with which he would drive the horses drawing his chariot. It was a glorious piece of uninhibited self-indulgence, a thousand lifetimes of wealth incorporated in a single piece of art. As he passed it, King Tiridates wondered at the colossal vanity of the unprepossessing, almost effeminate young man beside him.
    There was more to wonder at in the great banqueting hall, where the Armenian king dined on the most sumptuous food the Empire could provide, in a bewildering room which revolved around its guests while the ceiling periodically showered them with flower petals and perfumed water. Such technological marvels impressed Tiridates profoundly, even more than the displays of military might Nero had been careful to provide. An Empire capable of sustaining such extravagance could send a dozen legions against him at any time. He had been right to make the treaty and his brother Vologases wrong to want to continue the war.
    Nero contemplated Tiridates’ bemused expression with satisfaction, and left the room to summon his Praetorian prefect, Offonius Tigellinus. Tall and thin with a long nose and a fringe of russet hair that clung to the back of his head like a stray squirrel, Tigellinus didn’t look like the most dangerous man in Rome. He had the face of someone who had just drunk sour milk and the hangdog demeanour of an undertaker. Nero felt the familiar flutter of nerves when the man he depended on so completely approached. So many had abandoned him, or wronged him in some way that forced him to remove them. Of all the long list, Tigellinus was the only man left he could trust. What if something happened to him?
    For years, the former horse trader had supplied all his needs. Nothing was beyond his reach: boys, girls, men and women, rich and poor and in any combination or number. Senator’s wife or slave, concubine or virgin, Tigellinus knew where to lay hands on them and if he could not persuade, buy or terrify them into the Emperor’s bed, his Praetorians would force them. If the Emperor needed money – and emperors always needed money – Tigellinus would find a benefactor who could be induced to contribute to the imperial purse. Licences could be granted, subsidies controlled and monopolies awarded, and the Praetorian prefect would maximize the profit. What was more, that long nose had an infinite capacity for smelling out traitors and the mournful expression hid a pitiless cruelty and fertile imagination. It had been Tigellinus who had torn the heart from the Piso conspiracy with his blades and his hooks and his hot irons, Tigellinus who had invented the exquisite refinement of torturing a man – or a woman – to the very brink of death and having them restored by a physician to face the same fate again, and again, and again. It had never failed. Nero had been so delighted by his aide’s successes that he had awarded him the triumphal regalia normally reserved for senators and consuls and erected a statue of him in the Palatine gardens.
    It had been Tigellinus who suggested removing Nero’s former teacher, Seneca, once and for all when Piso and his nest of vipers were being stamped out. That was what he liked about Tigellinus: his clarity of purpose. No attempt to fabricate evidence or bribe witnesses, just a simple tying up of loose ends. Nero’s agents in Seneca’s