by Terry Deary
The lords stepped back to let the raging Nero leave.
Mary crept towards the door but the crowd of men in togas blocked her path. Mary found herself looking through a gap between two togas just as the emperor marched past. He had no beard now, but she knew his face.
The last time she had seen it, he had been wearing an eye patch. The last time she had seen him, he had been running from the fire he had started.
Now it was Mary’s turn to run. First to warn the Christian leaders, Peter and Paul, before the hunt started. And then to try and save herself.
Mary ran and the words of master Tullus came back to her.
“Rome is a dangerous place, Mary,” the old man had whispered. “A dangerous place…”
She ran as if the Devil himself was after her… She remembered the cruel face of the emperor… Maybe he was.
AFTERWORD
The great fire of Rome started near the arena known as the Circus Maximus on 18 July, AD 64. It burned for five days and ruined large parts of Rome.
Many Romans believed Emperor Nero started it so he could build his palace, known as ‘The Golden House’. (Some say Nero fiddled while Rome burned, but fiddles hadn’t been invented. The Romans said he played his lyre.)
Nero blamed the Christians for the fire. For the next 300 years they were hunted down and killed in dozens of cruel ways. The Romans soon captured the Christian leaders, Saint Peter and Saint Paul, who were probably in Rome at the time of the fire, and executed them. But the Christian religion just grew stronger, and lasted far longer than the Roman Empire.
Nero got his Golden House … but by AD 68 the Romans were tired of Nero’s cruelty. He was driven from Rome and he stabbed himself to death before they could execute him.
Nero could have started the fire – he was mad enough. He used to wander the streets in disguise and attack strangers to rob them.
The Christians could have started the fire – some Christians said they did it… but they were probably being tortured at the time.
Or the fire could have started by accident. Rome had many fires – this one was just the largest. Rome was a dangerous place…