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The Conspiracy
Nero's secret police believe they have come on the first hints of a plot against the emperor's life. Once a promising & gifted friend of poets, pupil of the great Seneca, Nero has bloodied himself & grown fat on power. Crass, mediocre men--the military & the secret police--now have his ear. While he & his court give themselves to pleasures increasingly perverse & dissipated, the secret police close in on (or do they foment, or imagine?) the conspiracy of the men of letters.
286 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1972
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170 people want to read
About the author
John Hersey
115 books864 followersJohn Richard Hersey, a Pulitzer Prize-winning American writer, earliest practiced the "new journalism," which fuses storytelling devices of the novel with nonfiction reportage. A 36-member panel under the aegis of journalism department of New York University adjudged account of Hersey of the aftermath of the atomic bomb, dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, as the finest piece of journalism of the 20th century.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
May 4, 2016
Outstanding! Nero's secret police stumble upon what they feel is information pointing to a conspiracy against Nero's life, from bits and pieces of conversation at a literary dinner given by Piso:
"The breaking of a dam of some kind. The assumption of a common mind all around. Everyone talking as if no secret police could be present. I was haunted by a feeling that there was some kind of readiness" [from a memo from Paenus, Tribune of Secret Police to Tigellinus, Co-Commander of Praetorians.]
From this slender thread, over a period of months the secret police unravel a conspiracy. The book consists of memos, letters, reports on Lucan [a poet] and Seneca [a philosopher and Nero's former tutor]; transcripts of interrogation sessions of various suspects. At a gala at Nero's Golden House conspirators begin to tip their hands. The investigation takes on more and more urgency. There are long sections on the deaths of Seneca and of Lucan. Finally conspirators are caught and punished. A Proclamation of Gratitude is disseminated. But...did the secret police imagine and then stir up the whole affair in the first place????
This novel lays out what **might** have happened, although the author admits in his Afterword that this book is intended as entertainment, not straight history. He has used his creative license in a brilliant manner using the primary sources. The novel was written in such a way the characters practically leapt off the page. I regret this work is not better known.
Very highly recommended.
"The breaking of a dam of some kind. The assumption of a common mind all around. Everyone talking as if no secret police could be present. I was haunted by a feeling that there was some kind of readiness" [from a memo from Paenus, Tribune of Secret Police to Tigellinus, Co-Commander of Praetorians.]
From this slender thread, over a period of months the secret police unravel a conspiracy. The book consists of memos, letters, reports on Lucan [a poet] and Seneca [a philosopher and Nero's former tutor]; transcripts of interrogation sessions of various suspects. At a gala at Nero's Golden House conspirators begin to tip their hands. The investigation takes on more and more urgency. There are long sections on the deaths of Seneca and of Lucan. Finally conspirators are caught and punished. A Proclamation of Gratitude is disseminated. But...did the secret police imagine and then stir up the whole affair in the first place????
This novel lays out what **might** have happened, although the author admits in his Afterword that this book is intended as entertainment, not straight history. He has used his creative license in a brilliant manner using the primary sources. The novel was written in such a way the characters practically leapt off the page. I regret this work is not better known.
Very highly recommended.
January 31, 2022
I’m not used to reading books in a play format basically, but once I got passed that I enjoyed it for sure.
October 19, 2016
The Conspiracy is an epistolary novel about the Pisonian conspiracy during the reign of Nero, and in particular it focuses on the Neronian poet Lucan. It's...an interesting book, to say the least. Lucan is a vivid character, contrarian, impulsive, at times violently emotional and at others introspective and morose. The decadent, almost Wildean style of the Neronian era is portrayed in all of its sumptuous glory, and it is hard not to root for the players in the Pisonian plot.
I'm still not sure entirely how I feel about this book. I enjoyed Lucan's portrayal (though not how it was handled at times, as is so often the case with mentally ill characters in older books), and I found the attention to every disgusting detail of Neronian social life well-done. Yet despite all the decadence, this book simply dragged sometimes. Epistolary novels are difficult to write without getting slow at times, and The Conspiracy just isn't successful at avoiding that common drag.
On the whole, not a bad book, but at times very slow, and if I ever reread it, I know that I'm going to be skipping a lot of the slower parts.
I'm still not sure entirely how I feel about this book. I enjoyed Lucan's portrayal (though not how it was handled at times, as is so often the case with mentally ill characters in older books), and I found the attention to every disgusting detail of Neronian social life well-done. Yet despite all the decadence, this book simply dragged sometimes. Epistolary novels are difficult to write without getting slow at times, and The Conspiracy just isn't successful at avoiding that common drag.
On the whole, not a bad book, but at times very slow, and if I ever reread it, I know that I'm going to be skipping a lot of the slower parts.
July 4, 2015
During the latter part of Nero's reign, a number of prominent Romans were implicated in a conspiracy to kill Nero and install Gaius Calpurnius Piso as emperor. Among these were Lucan, a famous poet, and Seneca, a philosopher and Nero's tutor when he was young. This novel is a collection of communications mostly between Tigellinus, the head of the Praetorian Guard and Paenus, a tribune of the Secret Police. Also included are intercepted letters between Seneca and Lucan, who was Seneca's nephew. Quite a few of the "conspirators" were executed or forced to commit suicide, and others were exiled. I really like epistolary novels, and this was a good one. Although I do wonder that Tigellinus and Paenus would spend so much time writing to each other; you'd think most of their communications would have been face-to-face.
December 27, 2024
This took me a little while to get into. The story is of a conspiracy to assassinate Emperor Nero, as revealed via correspondence between court personnel.
My main issue was that initially, it was difficult to take seriously due to a major player being named: Paenus. This is not played for laughs. It's merely a name.
The story itself is quite intriguing, being a fictional story woven out of actual historic happenings. The fact that it is a group of poets and philosophers involved in various happenings leads to quite a bit of moving prose.
Despite being set in ancient Rome, it does not read as dated because it's the interplay and weaving of characters that holds most of the meat & potatoes of the story.
Overall, it was a good mix of intrigue, comedy, tragedy, and stoic thought.
My main issue was that initially, it was difficult to take seriously due to a major player being named: Paenus. This is not played for laughs. It's merely a name.
The story itself is quite intriguing, being a fictional story woven out of actual historic happenings. The fact that it is a group of poets and philosophers involved in various happenings leads to quite a bit of moving prose.
Despite being set in ancient Rome, it does not read as dated because it's the interplay and weaving of characters that holds most of the meat & potatoes of the story.
Overall, it was a good mix of intrigue, comedy, tragedy, and stoic thought.
August 21, 2009
John Hersey continues to impress me with his writing. He never hits the same subject twice and always has a different style, but every book I have read of his is impressive, smart and enjoyable.
In The Conspiracy, Hersey handles historical fiction with a great panache, tackling the Roman emperor Nero. Nero has become corrupt and his secret police think there may a conspiracy to assassinate him among the intelligentsia of Rome. This story is based on a lot of historical documents, and actually did happen. Hersey uses the names of the real people involved in this "conspiracy" some of the leading figures of Rome at that time, like the philosopher Seneca.
But how he tells this story is what makes it work---Hersey uses letters, (actually more like memos) from Tigellinus, Nero's right hand man, and the head of the secret police. Today these would be e-mails back and forth between the two. In these notes you see the two paranoid and wanting to hold onto power, pretty much suspicious of everyone who did not kiss-ass to Nero. They start inventing little traps for the leading figures to fall into. "If they say this, then that means they are after him."
When the leading men do not fall into the trap, they become even more suspicious. They figure if they have not found anything on Seneca et al, then the conspiracy is even deeper than they thought.
When they finally arrest the men, and torture them for names of other conspirators, they congratulate themselves on a job well done, protecting a corrupt and depraved emperor. Until they are executing Lucan, one of the last of the bunch. He mocks them as he is dying, and tells them plainly...there was never a conspiracy. You made this all up, and set up so many traps that we could not help but be seen as having this plan.
When Hersey wrote this book, is was considered to be a thinly veiled challenge to the Nixon White House...and that was before Watergate. But I think this kind of political paranoia is also reminiscent of a more contemporary White House...one that saw anyone who did not agree with them as a terrorist ally. One who would resort to endangering CIA agents lives, and the worst kind of character assassination, to put down "enemies," and keep power.
I don't usually quote from the books I review, but there is a passage in this one, about the abuse of power and tyranny, that I found really spoke to me. It is from a woman who comes from low birth, to a friend who is a poet and considered a leading man of Rome:
"The effects of tyranny, my dearest one, are to be seen not so much in executions, privations, surveillances, matricide and fratricide, ruined reputations, unjust trials, exile and murder, shocking event of the capital; no, tyranny has finally achieved its foul purpose when among the many, scatter at large, there are acquiescence, apathy, complacency, bland acceptance of outrage, pride in vulgar triumphs, blurring of the meaning of words, confusion in moral standards- in short, a blight of communal character. It is when people who are thought of as good solid citizens, whose who make up the backbone of the populace, become touched by this blight and do not realize it, become not only infected but the infectors-this is when tyranny has won the day. The 'good' citizens then say: What a beautiful day! What a fine year this has been! Are you going to the amphitheater this afternoon?"
John Hersey was not just writing about the Roman Empire.
August 12, 2019
I didn't expect a book written in 1972 about Nero's Rome to say anything about the political situation in America today, but in a book where philosophy plays a big part the subjects of tyranny and excess' of hubris are examined.
April 13, 2024
My first Goodreads review!
Hersey published “The Conspiracy” in 1972, and its hard to miss the influence of writing during the Richard Nixon administration. Hersey’s Nero isn’t Nixon, of course. He seems not at all paranoid, even in denial that the literary intelligentsia — a class which Nixon would have seen as both effeminate and unpatriotic (synonyms, in his opinion) — would think of harming him.
This actually makes sense. To make the source material reflect the zeitgeist his own era (because that what historical novelists do) Hersey choose as protagonist the representative figure of politics directed by paranoia: the head of the secret police.
My previous knowledge of Tigellinus was built entirely upon the character from “Quo Vadis” (1951). He comes across as such a tool in that film, I wasn’t expecting to like him so much in this book. And yes, I did like him. As a fan of historical novels set in Rome (Colleen McCullough-“Masters of Rome”, Robert Harris-Cicero trilogy, John Williams-“Augustus,” Thornton Wilder-“The Ides of March”) I’ve learned to love reading about men of power, the superhuman will they need to operate a vast apparatus, and their Macbeth-like attempt to justify their actions to themselves.
One final reason I loved this book: it incorporates enough technical information about the period (customs, food, lifestyles) without coming across as encyclopedic. I like to picture the characters in the story, so it helps to have an idea of the sights, sounds, and smells they would have lived with.
Hersey published “The Conspiracy” in 1972, and its hard to miss the influence of writing during the Richard Nixon administration. Hersey’s Nero isn’t Nixon, of course. He seems not at all paranoid, even in denial that the literary intelligentsia — a class which Nixon would have seen as both effeminate and unpatriotic (synonyms, in his opinion) — would think of harming him.
This actually makes sense. To make the source material reflect the zeitgeist his own era (because that what historical novelists do) Hersey choose as protagonist the representative figure of politics directed by paranoia: the head of the secret police.
My previous knowledge of Tigellinus was built entirely upon the character from “Quo Vadis” (1951). He comes across as such a tool in that film, I wasn’t expecting to like him so much in this book. And yes, I did like him. As a fan of historical novels set in Rome (Colleen McCullough-“Masters of Rome”, Robert Harris-Cicero trilogy, John Williams-“Augustus,” Thornton Wilder-“The Ides of March”) I’ve learned to love reading about men of power, the superhuman will they need to operate a vast apparatus, and their Macbeth-like attempt to justify their actions to themselves.
One final reason I loved this book: it incorporates enough technical information about the period (customs, food, lifestyles) without coming across as encyclopedic. I like to picture the characters in the story, so it helps to have an idea of the sights, sounds, and smells they would have lived with.
November 12, 2019
This was in the free box at the local used bookstore [in Plattsburgh, NY]. I had picked it up a couple of times at the library, but this time I became engrossed and I ended up taking it home. It's set in Nero's Rome, and it is basically told from the point of view of the bad guys--a great deal of it is memos to and from various members of the secret police who are convinced that the intellectuals are conspiring against Nero--and they are right but it is questionable which came first--the conspiracy or the suspicion. Also it's amazing how lulled into their point of view [I was]. I liked Seneca--I didn't like Lucan, supposedly the great hope of the young intellectuals (a tormented poet).
November 28, 2019
Told through a series of letters by Tigellinus, Co-Commander of the Praetorian Guard, and Paenus, Tribune of the Secret Police, the novel presents the failed plot to assassinate Nero in ancient Rome. Hershey sets men of action at odds with intellectuals, writers, and artists. Lucan the poet asks the question, “What is the writer’s duty when the head of state is perverse?” A timely question now as well as then.
December 9, 2019
Very interesting way of telling the story. It drew me in and made me eager to know what happened next. In its way, the book was sympathetic toward the villains (Nero and his secret police) because it was told from their point of view, but they were behaving so horribly at the same time! Some of the history is probably unreliable and sensational, but I enjoyed the read.
July 30, 2024
The Conspiracy, while some of it based on real Roman history, is a fictional account of the Roman world during Nero's reign. It is written like Nero's police sending memos back and forth to one another, to up the surveillance on key historical figures, to obtain correspondence. Sound familiar to something?
Definitely something that I want to reread.
Definitely something that I want to reread.
October 27, 2021
What a joy to find this 50-year-old book at a used book store, the only physical home for many of Hershey’s novels and where I’ve bought several. Hershey’s immense skills as a novelist have been forgotten, unfortunately.
October 26, 2020
Pretty talented writer who can make you sympathize with a protagonist who is the head of the secret police...
Want to read
November 3, 2019Synopsis: Nero's secret police believe they have found a plot against the emperor's life. They close in on a conspiracy or, are they fomenting one?
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews