The Uncertain Hour (28 page)

Petronius scooped the creature up and replaced it lightly on the flagstone. Then he filled his lungs with air and turned back toward the house.

Although
The Uncertain Hour
is a work of fiction, several characters are based in historical fact or presumption.

Almost everything we know about Titus (sometimes Gaius) Petronius Niger (born c. 27
A.D.
) comes from two paragraphs of Book XVI of Tacitus’s
Annals of Imperial Rome
. The events described in this novel are largely consonant with that account. In his
Natural History
, Pliny the Elder recounts the story of Petronius’s destruction of the myrrhine ladle to prevent Nero from inheriting it. In addition to a small body of poetry, Petronius is widely believed to have been the author of the
Satyricon
. Although it may originally have been a work of 20 volumes and some 400,000 words, the
Satyricon
was not published in his lifetime, and only fragments of it survive. Petronius committed suicide at Cumae in the year 66.

Marcus Valerius Martialis (40–102
A.D.
) was born in Bilbilis (now Calatayud), Spain, and moved to Rome in the year 64. Known in English as Martial, he published twelve volumes of bawdy, satirical epigrams between the year 86 and his death. He enjoyed the patronage of the emperors Titus and Domitian, but fell out of favor and retired to Spain in the year 98.

Melissa Silia is an entirely fictional character, though Tacitus briefly mentions a woman named Silia, “on terms of the closest intimacy with Petronius,” who was exiled from Rome following Petronius’s suicide for having divulged court secrets.

Gaius Lucilius Junior (birth and death dates unknown) was born in Campania. Starting out as a penniless plebeian, he rose to knighthood and the imperial procuracy of Sicily. He was the recipient of the
Letters to Lucilius
by Seneca the Younger, who called him “
meum opus
” — “my work.”

The crimes and excesses of the emperor Nero are, of course, amply documented by the Roman historians Tacitus, Suetonius, and Cassius Dio, among many others.

For their invaluable help, support, and encouragement, I am deeply indebted to my editors Karen Rinaldi and Gillian Blake, and to my agent Gail Hochman.

I also want to thank my dear friends Shelly Sonenberg and Charlott Card for their frank and constructive advice.

I owe a debt of gratitude to Dr. Christopher Stace, who vetted this book for historical inaccuracies. If any remain, it is I, and not he, who is to blame.

Most of all, none of this would have been possible or even imaginable without the patience, forbearance, and wisdom of my wife and first reader, Judy Clain.

The author acknowledges with gratitude the generous permission of Derek Mahon and The Gallery Press of Loughcrew, Old-castle, County Meath, Ireland, to reprint the superb translation of Ovid’s
Amores I, V
from Mr. Mahon’s
Collected Poems
(1999).

Epicurus quotes from
www.epicurus.net
.

Hesiod.
Works and Days
. Translated by Hugh G. Evelyn-White. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998.

Martial.
Epigrams
. I.I.77. Translated by D. R. Shackleton Bailey. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993.

Jesse Browner is a writer and translator who lives in New York. He is the author of the novels
Turnaway
(1996) and
Conglomeros
(1992), and he has been a contributor to the
NewYork Times Book Review, Gastronomica, Nest
magazine,
New York
magazine, and others.

The Duchess Who Wouldn’t Sit Down

Turnaway

Conglomeros

Copyright © 2007 by Jesse Browner

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address Bloomsbury USA, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

Published by Bloomsbury USA, New York

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Browner, Jesse.

The uncertain hour : a novel / Jesse Browner—1st U.S. ed.

p. cm.

ISBN: 978-1-59691-339-4 (hardcover)

1. Petronius Arbiter—Fiction. 2. Rome—History—Nero, 54–68—Fiction. 3. Suicide—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3552.R774U53 2007

813’.54—dc22

2006030269

First published by Bloomsbury USA in 2007

This e-book edition published in 2011

E-book ISBN: 978-1-60819-647-0

http://www.bloomsburyusa.com