The deeper I looked into Nero’s history the more references I found to astrology about which I knew nothing except that it was a “pseudo science”. Then an idea hit me like the proverbial lightning bolt. It didn’t matter that astrology was mere superstition. All that mattered was that Nero and his contemporaries believed in it. Nero’s birthday and time are known so it must be possible to re-create his horoscope. With this mysterious wheel in hand, anyone familiar with ancient astrological lore should be able to make some very intelligent guesses about what Nero’s astrologer would have been advising his imperial client on perhaps a daily basis.
Nero is widely regarded as the most despicable Roman emperor who “fiddled” while Rome burnt. In fact Nero was a man of considerable generosity, talent, great ingenuity and boundless energy intent on making his life a work of art, dreaming of an age in which music, not military force, is power. What’s missing here?
Astrology, the seductive mixture of astronomy and superstition which in Nero’s time exceeded every religion in power and influence. So ardent was the belief that horoscopes were roadmaps to the future that believers tailored their actions to match astrological predictions. Meet the self fulfilling prophecy. When Nero’s horoscope became widely known it bedeviled his reign because it predicted when he would be fortunate and when he would be vulnerable, invaluable information for his enemies in the aristocratic class who believed that he was dishonoring the imperial throne by performing in public. All this seen through the eyes of the ex-slave who rose to the position of Nero’s right hand man but who also had a star-crossed destiny hanging over his head.
After reading the ancient histories about Nero which support the legend that he was a lazy sadistic tyrant it was refreshing to find a book written by a leading academic (Champlin is professor of classics at Princeton University) which portrays him the way I see him, as an energetic, talented dreamer set on making his life a work of art.
The Roman emperor Nero is remembered by history as the vain and immoral monster who fiddled while Rome burned. Edward Champlin reinterprets Nero's enormities on their own terms, as the self-conscious performances of an imperial actor with a formidable grasp of Roman history and mythology and a canny sense of his audience.
Nero murdered his younger brother and rival to the throne, probably at his mother's prompting. He then murdered his mother, with whom he may have slept. He killed his pregnant wife in a fit of rage, then castrated and married a young freedman because he resembled her. He…
Early on in my research on Neronian astrology I had the good fortune to discover this book and visit its author, a real live astrologer. When he showed me the chart he had done for me I felt a shiver of excitement, convinced that I was the first person to pay an astrologer to cast Nero’s horoscope in 2,000 years. Dr. Noonan’s book is an excellent introduction to astrology as it was practiced in the ancient world.
Classical Scientific Astrology focuses on the astrology of the Classicists, including Ptolemy and Al-Biruni, and its everyday use in determining the future of individuals, the national economy, the outcome of business and military ventures, the quality of national leadership and more. Included are: Historical persepctive of astrology from its earliest beginnings The houses and branches of astrology The signs, including their nature, and body parts, diseases, flora, fauna and places indicated by the signs; degrees of the signs and decanates The planets, including their nature, rulershp, terms, face and sect The aspects, including their power, applying and separating, orientality and…
Written by a veteran London Times journalist this exciting book reads like a fast paced thriller. What I found most interesting is his detailed description of Nero’s most notorious action, the murder of his mother. He writes “It is in the realm of abnormal psychology that an explanation may lie.” He is clearly unaware that what best explains the spooky full moon melodrama played out on a cosmic stage was the blind faith both Nero and his mother had in astrology (see Nero's astrology chart here).
A magisterial, affectionate portrait of Nero and his times, this book is full of delightful touches of humor. Grant writes that although Nero enjoyed giving feasts, “we are not told if he was amused by the famous contemporary glutton Arpocras, who ate four tablecloths at a time, and broken glass as well.”
Bound in the publisher's original cloth covered boards, spine and cover stamped in gilt. Dust jacket rubbed at the edges, small closed tears at the extremities.
This book by the renowned nineteenth-century biblical scholar is a great read because it epitomizes the traditional anti-Nero bias to the point of parody. Renan writes that “Nero’s actions float between the black wickedness of a cruel dunce and the irony of a cynic. He did not possess an idea that was not puerile. The sham world of art in which he dwelt had made the veriest fool of him.”
Gabrielle found her grandfather’s diaries after her mother’s death, only to discover that he had been a Nazi. Born in Berlin in 1942, she and her mother fled the city in 1945, but Api, the one surviving male member of her family, stayed behind to work as a doctor in a city 90% destroyed.
Gabrielle retraces Api’s steps in the Berlin of the 21st century, torn between her love for the man who gave her the happiest years of her childhood and trying to come to terms with his Nazi membership, German guilt, and political responsibility.
Api's Berlin Diaries: My Quest to Understand My Grandfather's Nazi Past
"This is not a book I will forget any time soon."
Story Circle Book Reviews
Moving and provocative, Api's Berlin Diaries offers a personal perspective on the fall of Berlin 1945 and the far-reaching aftershocks of the Third Reich.
After her mother's death, Robinson was thrilled to find her beloved grandfather's war diaries-only to discover that he had been a Nazi.
The award-winning memoir shows Api, a doctor in Berlin, desperately trying to help the wounded in cellars without water or light. He himself was reduced to anxiety and despair, the daily diary his main refuge. As Robinson retraces Api's…
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