Petronius (27?-66AD) has been identified with Gaius Petronius Arbiter, consul and enlightened governor of Bythnia, in Asia Minor. He became an intimate of Nero, by whom he was appointed as master of hedonistic ceremonies. Implicated (probably incorrectly) in a plot to kill Nero, he was ordered by the Emperor to take his own life. Frederic Raphael was born in Chicago in 1931 and educated at Charterhouse and St John's College, Cambridge. His novels include The Glittering Prizes (1976) and Coast to Coast (1998). His early notebooks were published by Carcanet in 2001 as Personal Terms. Frederic Raphael's work includes screenplays for such notable films as Darling (for which he won an Oscar), Two for the Road and Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut.