The Chiron Confession

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Few remember the past, and the future will be forgotten by those who follow it. Even so I am writing this confession down on parchment in the hope that you might escape my fate.

I have come to the end of my life, but I have failed to finish my race. I have fought the wrong fight. I have used up my strength and have nothing to show for it. I have done more evil in the name of good than I ever imagined in my former life as Athanasius of Athens, a hedonist and playwright above all others in Rome when cruel Domitian was Caesar.

If I had my choice, I would have picked a different world stage for the performance of my life. But we do not choose the dates of our birth or death. Not even Caesar. On the day Domitian was born, the stars proclaimed the exact date of his death: September 18 of this year, the 96th since the advent of Christ.

Rightly assuming his astrological birth chart itself was an invitation to his enemies to fulfill the prophecy, Domitian devoted himself from childhood to executing any and all his paranoid mind suspected of less than absolute loyalty. He probably murdered his father, Vespasian, and later his brother, Titus, in his ascension to the throne. Not content with being emperor of the Roman Empire, he proclaimed himself dominus et deus, “Lord and God,” ruler of the universe. As if that were not enough, he also assumed the official mantle of pontifex maximus, merging the rule of Rome with the religion of her gods into a terrible theocracy with a single test: those who bowed before him and proclaimed him Lord and God lived, those who refused died. It was said of Christians, in particular, that they could not or would not bow. This is why they were branded “atheists” and executed.

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