Message #26720

[Bianca]

                                                   
                                                      NERO







Another astrologer now joined the court: Chaeremon, from Alexandria, known for his assertion that comets could presage joy as well as disaster. He was joined by the Stoic philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca, himself an adherent of astrology. The three were mainly responsible for the education of Nero.

There seems little doubt that Balbillus took part in the extraordinary events after Claudius' death when Agrippina personally prevented Britannicus from leaving his room until, at an auspicious moment proposed by astrologers, Nero could be, and was, proclaimed Emperor. Balbillus was rewarded by being appointed Prefect of Egypt, where he stayed until 59.

Not long after his return, in 64, the fire that destroyed Rome while Nero allegedly played his fiddle spawned sufficient disCONTENT=to result in a plot to destroy the Emperor. When a spectacular comet appeared, Balbillus told Nero that it presaged disaster for him - unless he deflected its effects by executing some of the noblest men of Rome by way of sacrifice. In the following carnage Petronius, who had directed the entertainments at Nero's court, Seneca and his brother, his nephew the poet Lucanus, and many others perished.

Balbillus did not. His success, if that is what it was, also made him secure against that dangerous rival astrologer, Ptolemy, the favourite of the new Empress Poppaea. Nero disposed of the rival by killing his wife in a fit of drunken pique. Balbillus retired quietly from the scene, vanishing from sight during the years when Nero died and Galba, Otho and Vitellius acceded and fell in their turn.

It was probably as well; it has always been said that among Nero's many victims towards the end of his reign were a number of astrologers - and certainly several Romans who had somehow got hold of the Imperial horoscope, for Nero supposed that the only reason for its possession was an assassination plot.