by Mika Waltari
People were seething like ants all around the fire. I thought I saw fire brigades from at least three sections of the city clearing wide firebreaks to stop the raging sea of flames from spreading. I had never seen such a large fire before. It was an oppressive sight, but nevertheless did not worry me overmuch. In fact, I thought that the fire brigade from our part of the city should not have gone down there, but should have stayed and guarded the slopes of Aventine.
I sent one of my men to warn Claudia and the household, and on the way to the menagerie I looked in at the City Prefecture to ask how the fire had started. A messenger had been sent on horseback to fetch my former father-in-law back from his country estate, but his next-in-command seemed to have things well in hand.
He blamed the Jewish small traders and the circus people in the shops at the Capua gate for carelessness, but he was confident that their highly inflammable goods would burn up quite quickly. In fact he considered keeping order a much more difficult task than confining the fire, for slaves and other rabble had at once hurried to the spot to make the most of the opportunity by plundering the circus shops.
After inspecting the menagerie, which was suffering badly from the heat, and consulting the veterinary physician on the preservation of our perishable meat supply, I ordered extra rations of water given to all the animals and saw that water was poured over their cages. I spoke to Sabina in all friendliness, for since our divorce we had been on much better terms than before.
Sabina asked me to go at once to the superintendent of the waterworks to ensure that the water supplies to the menagerie were not cut because of the fire. I assured her that there was no need to worry, for all the heads of noble households would probably be there already on the same errand, to ensure the watering of their gardens in the hot weather.
At the waterworks they told me that the blocking of the aqueducts could certainly not be revoked without a decision from the Senate or an Imperial command. The usual water-rationing would thus remain unchanged, for the Senate could not be summoned together for several days since it does not meet during-the summer unless the State is threatened. Nero was in Antium at the time.
Feeling in a better mood, I went up to the Palatine hill, walked past the empty palace buildings and joined the crowd of spectators gathered on the slope facing the race-course. They were mostly slaves, servants and gardeners from the Imperial household. No one seemed worried, although the whole of the hollow below us was one great burning, billowing furnace.
The fire was so violent that it formed whirlpools in the air, and the hot blast constandy blew across our faces. Some of the slaves indifferently stamped out smoldering patches of grass and someone swore when a spark burned a hole in his tunic. But the watering apparatus was working in the gardens and no one looked very concerned. There was nothing to be seen in the watchers’ expressions except excitement over the spectacular scene before them. When I tried to look across to Aventine through the swirling smoke, I noticed that the fire had spread to the slope and was slowly but surely beginning to eat its way up toward my own part of the city. I suddenly made haste. I told my following to go home by themselves and then borrowed a horse from Nero’s stables, as I saw a messenger galloping along the via Sacra over by the forum.
There the most cautious were already bolting and barring their shops and only in the large market halls were housewives still making their purchases as usual. I was able to make my way back to my own house by a roundabout route along the banks of the Tiber, and on the way I saw many men slinking along in the smoke, carrying either plunder or things they had rescued from near the race-course.
The narrow streets were packed with anxious crowds of people. Mothers in tears were calling their children, while heads of households stood anxiously outside their doors and uncertainly asked each other what they should do. No one is particularly willing to leave his house empty during a big fire, for the city police would then find it impossible to keep order.
Many people were already saying that the Emperor should return from Antium. I too began to feel that emergency measures were now necessary. I could only thank my good fortune that my menagerie lay on the outskirts of the city on the other side of Mars field.
When I arrived home, I immediately ordered sedans and bearers out and told Claudia and Aunt Laelia to go to the fourteenth district of the city on the other side of the Tiber with the household staff. As many of our most valuable possessions as could be carried would have to be taken too, for there were no vehicles available during the day.
Only the doorkeeper and the strongest of the slaves were ordered to remain behind to protect the house from looters. I left them weapons because of the unusual circumstances. But it was important that they all hurry, for I guessed that others would soon follow suit and the narrow streets of Aventine would be choked with refugees.
Claudia protested violendy and said she first had to send a warning to her Christian friends and help the weak and old among them to flee. They were redeemed by Christ and so worth more than our gold and silver vessels, she said. I pointed at Aunt Laelia.
“You’ve an old person there to protect,” I cried. “And you might at least give a thought to our unborn child.”
At that moment Aquila the Jew and Prisca came panting into our courtyard, sweat pouring from them as they carried their bundles of goat-hair cloth. They begged me to allow them to leave their possessions in the security of my house, for the fire was already approaching their weaving-sheds. Their shortsighted foolishness angered me, for Claudia, trusting them, said there was almost certainly no danger to us yet. Aquila and Prisca could not go over to the Jewish part of the city on the other side of the Tiber, for the Jews knew them by sight and hated them like the plague.
During all this talk and women’s chatter, much valuable time had been lost. Finally I was forced to slap Aunt Laelia and forcibly push Claudia into a sedan. So eventually they all set off and just in time, for then some Christians with smoke-blackened faces and burns on their arms came rushing in to ask after Aquila.
With their arms raised and their eyes staring, they cried that with their own ears they had heard the earth and the sky rend asunder and knew that Christ in accordance with his promise was about to come down to Rome. So all Christians should throw down their burdens and assemble on the hills of the city to receive their Lord and his new kingdom. The day of judgment had come.
But Prisca was an experienced, sensible and restrained woman and she would not believe such news. In fact she cried out to the newcomers to be silent, for she herself had had no such vision and anyhow, the only clouds in sight in the sky were clouds of smoke.
I also assured them that although Rome appeared to be threatened by a great misfortune, a fire in two or three sections of the city did not mean the ruin of the whole city. Those who were frightened were mosdy poor and were used to believing-people of higher standing. The narrow red band on my clothes convinced them that I knew more about the situation than they did.
I thought that the time had now come to call out the Praetorians and declare a state of emergency. I was not knowledgeable in that quarter, but common sense told me that it would be necessary to clear as wide a fire-break as possible across the whole of Aventine, without sparing the houses, and then light counter-fires to dispose of the buildings which were doomed anyhow. It must be considered as only human nature that I calculated my own house in the area which could be saved.
I rode off to consult the triumvirate in my part of the city and said that I would take the responsibility for any measures taken, but in their anxiety and obstinacy they shouted back that I should mind my own business, for there was no real emergency yet.
I rode on to the forum, from where one could see only the clouds of smoke above the rooftops and I was ashamed of my exaggerated anxiety, for everyone seemed to be behaving much as usual. I was calmed by assurances that the Sibylline books had been taken out and the college of High Priests was hastening to find out to which god one shou
ld first make sacrifices in order to stop the fire spreading.
A jet-black garlanded bull was led into the Volcanus temple. Several old men said that, to judge from previous experiences, it would be better to make offerings to Proserpina as well. They said confidently that the guardian spirits and ancient household gods of Rome would not allow the fire to spread too far, once infallible evidence had been found in the Sibylline books on how and why the gods had been angered.
I think the fire could have been limited if definite and ruthless measures had been taken that first day. But there was no one who dared take the responsibility, although Tigellinus’ second-in-command did in fact on his own responsibility send two cohorts of Praetorians to clear the most threatened streets and to keep order.
Prefect Flavius Sabinus arrived that evening and at once ordered all the fire brigades to protect Palatine, where crackling flames were already dancing in the tops of the pine trees in the garden. He demantled battering-rams and siege-machinery, but they were not put to use until the next day, when Tigellinus returned from Antium and with the Emperor’s authority firmly took command. Nero himself did not want to interrupt his holiday because of the fire and did not consider his presence in the city necessary, although the frightened crowds were calling for him.
When Tigellinus saw that it was going to be impossible to save the buildings on Palatine, he considered it time for Nero to return and calm the people. Nero was so anxious about his Greek works of art that he rode all the way from Antium without a pause. Senators and important knights also came in great numbers from their country places. But Tigellinus’ authority could not bring them to their senses and every one of them thought only of his own house and valuables. Against all the regulations, they brought with them ox-teams and carts, so that the streets became more choked than ever.
Nero set up his headquarters in the Maecenas gardens on the Esquiline hill, and he showed inspired resolution in the moment of danger. Flavius Sabinus could do little but weep from then on. As I was piloting refugees, I myself had once been surrounded by the fire and had received several burns.
From the Maecenas tower, Nero could see the terrible extent of the fire for himself, and he marked on a map the threatened areas which according to Tigellinus’ advice had to be evacuated at once and burned as soon as the fire-breaks were ready. The measures were now more coordinated and the patricians were driven out of their houses, battering-rams began to pound the dangerous cornshops to pieces, and neither temples nor fine buildings were spared where the fire-breaks had to run.
Nero thought it more important to save human lives than treasures, and he sent out hundreds of heralds to pilot the thousands of refugees to those areas which it was hoped would be spared. Those who tried to remain in their condemned houses were hunted out by armed men, and the transporting of furniture and other bulky articles was forbidden in the narrow alleys.
Nero himself, smoke-stained and soot-flecked, hurried together with his life guard from place to place, calming and giving instructions to the anxious people. He might take a weeping child into his arms and hand him to his mother, as he told people to seek safety in his own gardens on the other side of the river. All public buildings by Mars field were thrown open as quarters for the refugees.
But the senators who tried to save at least their family masks and household gods could not understand why soldiers chased them out of their own houses with the flats of their swords and then set fire to the building with torches.
Unfortunately this huge fire gave rise to a violent wind which flung flames and sparks right over the cleared protective area, the width of a whole stadium. The firemen, exhausted after several days’ exertions, could not stop the fire from spreading and many of them collapsed from exhaustion at their posts in the duty-chain and fell asleep, to be consumed by the flames.
Another and even wider fire-break was cleared to protect Subura, but Tigellinus was no more than human and was tempted to spare the ancient trees in his own garden, so the fire, which on the sixth day had almost died down, flared up again in them and spread to Subura, where it rushed through the tall, partly timbered buildings with such speed that the people in the upper stories did not even have time to get down to the street. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, were burned alive.
This was when the rumor began that Nero had had the city set on fire deliberately. The rumor was so insane that there were at once people who believed it. There were, after all, innumerable witnesses who had themselves seen soldiers with torches setting buildings on fire. The general confusion due to lack of sleep and the exertions of the people was so great that some people also believed the rumor the Christians had spread about the day of judgment.
Of course, no one dared to tell Nero about this allegation. Excellent actor that he was, he retained his calm and while the fire was still raging, he summoned all the best architects in Rome to plan the rebuilding of the city. He also saw to it that food supplies were brought in to the needy in Rome. But on his daily round of inspection of the extent of the fire, at which he made encouraging promises to those who had lost everything, there were more and more threatening cries, people threw stones at the Praetorians and some distracted people blamed Nero for the destruction of the city.
Nero was deeply offended, but kept a good face.
“The poor people must have lost their senses,” he said with compassion.
He turned back to the gardens of Maecenas and finally gave the order for the aqueducts to be opened, although this would mean a drought in the remaining parts of the city. I hurriedly rode to the menagerie to tell them to fill all the water-tanks in time. At the same time I ordered that all the animals should be killed if the fire spread as far as the wooden amphitheater. Such an event seemed impossible just then, but with my eyes smarting and my burns stinging, I was prepared to reckon on the total destruction of the city. I could not endure the thought of the animals getting free and roaming among the homeless and fleeing people.
That evening I was awakened from the deepest sleep I had had for a long time by a messenger summoning me to Nero. As soon as I had gone, Sabina issued a counterorder to the effect that anyone who tried to harm the animals would be killed on the spot.
As I walked to the gardens through the city illuminated by the flames, a wet mantle wrapped around my head for protection, a feeling that the end of the world had come predominated in my tired mind. I thought of the terrible prophecies of the Christians and also of the undent philosophers of Greece who had maintained that all things had once sprung from fire and would perish by fire,
I met some shouting babbling drunks who, for want of water, had slaked their thirst in an abandoned wine shop and were dragging women along with them. The Jews, packed in tight crowds, were singing hymns to their god. At one street corner I bumped into a confused man who, his beard reeking, embraced me, made the secret signs of the Christians and demantled that I should do penance and repent, for the day of judgment had come.
At the Maecenas tower, Nero was waiting impatiently for his friends. To my surprise, he was dressed in the long yellow cloak of a singer and had a wreath on his head. Tigellinus was standing respectfully beside him, holding Nero’s cittern.
Nero needed an audience and had sent messages to all the highly placed people he knew were in Rome. He had also ordered a thousand Praetorians to come and they were eating and drinking, seated on the grass under the well-watered trees in the gardens. Below us, the burning parts of the city glowed like crimson islands in the darkness, and the great swirls of smoke and fire seemed to reach right up into the sky.
Nero could wait no longer.
“In front of us lies a sight such as no mortal man has seen since the destruction of Troy,” he said in ringing tones. “Apollo himself has come down to me in a dream. When I awoke from this dream, stanzas came welling out from my heart as if in divine madness. I shall sing to you a verse I have composed on the burning of Troy. I think these stanzas will reverberate through the years to com
e and will make Nero immortal as a poet.”
A herald repeated his words as Nero climbed up the tower. There was not room for many people but naturally we did our best to get as near to him as possible. Nero began to sing, accompanying himself. His powerful voice rang out high above the sound of the fire and reached his hearers in the surrounding gardens. He sang as if bewitched and his poetry secretary supplied him with stanza after stanza which had been dictated during the day. But during the song, Nero composed new ones and another scribe was kept fully occupied writing more and more stanzas.
I had been to the theater to hear the classical drama often enough to know that he was quoting freely and had changed well-known verses either unconsciously in the moment of inspiration or using the license an artist is entitled to in such things. He sang for several hours on end. The centurions were hard put to keep the exhausted Praetorians awake with their batons.
But the experts kept saying that they had never heard such brilliant singing against such a splendid background. They applauded loudly in the intervals and said that what they had just experienced would be something to tell their children and grandchildren in times to come.
In the back of my mind, I wondered if Nero could possibly have become mentally deranged to choose to perform on a night like this. But I comforted myself with the thought that he had probably been deeply hurt by the accusations made by the people and so had transferred his great burden to artistic inspiration to relieve his feelings.
He stopped when the smoke forced him to and he began to cough and blow his nose. Then we took the chance to call out as one man, begging him to preserve his divine voice. But afterwards he was still scarlet in the face and radiant with sweat and triumph, promising to continue the following evening. Here and there on the edges of the fire, great clouds of steam rose into the sky as the aqueducts were opened and the water poured out into the smoking ruins of the city.