Nero’s Concert

Don Westenhaver

Copyright 2009 by Don Westenhaver

ISBN: 978-1-4415-0109-7

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Prologue – July, 64 AD

Minos was on his knees praying when he smelled the smoke. In Greece he had been a priest, and his evening worship was as natural and necessary as breathing. Here in Rome he was a baker, a slave, and a fugitive, and he shared a one-room apartment with his girlfriend Pati. She was already asleep and he was about to join her on the lumpy mattress. They had fallen in love at an estate on the outskirts of Rome, where they had been household slaves. But the estate’s manager fancied Pati for himself, so he had Minos whipped and ordered him to stay away from the girl. Three months ago, the young lovers had managed to escape from the estate, a crime punishable by death. Now they hid in a tenement in the Subura district of Rome, a swampy area bounded by the Forum, the Viminal Hill and the Oppian Hill. The neighborhood was infested by prostitutes, rats, criminals, and shopkeepers who sold the cheapest products. Tonight, as every night, Minos prayed that he and Pati would not get caught, and that they would make enough money to avoid starvation and pay the rent.