by Mika Waltari
Tullia’s house on Viminalis lay quite near at hand, so I decided to go there and get a little sleep during the hours of the morning. I had not been worried about my father hitherto, for their house was safe for the time being. I did not even know whether he had come in from the country or not, but I could not see him among the other senators in Nero’s audience.
I found him alone, guarding his almost abandoned house, his eyes inflamed by the smoke. He told me that Tullia, with the help of a thousand slaves, had on the first day of the fire moved all the articles of value from the house out to a country property.
Jucundus, who had had his boy’s hair cut in the spring and had a narrow red border on his tunic, had run off to look at the fire with his friends from the Palatine school. Both his feet had been badly burned when a stream of molten metal had suddenly poured down a slope from one of the burning temples. He had been carried home and Tullia had taken him with her into the country. My father thought he would be a cripple for life.
“Then your son at least won’t have to do military service,” he added, stammering a little, “and spill his blood in the deserts of the East somewhere beyond the Euphrates.”
I was surprised to see that my father had been drinking too much wine, but I realized that he was very shaken by Jucundus’ accident. He saw me looking at him.
“It doesn’t matter that I am drinking wine again for once,” he said angrily. “I think the day of my death is approaching. I am not grieving over Jucundus. His feet were much too swift and had already taken him along dangerous paths. It is better to find the kingdom of God as a cripple than to let your heart be destroyed. I myself have been a spiritual cripple ever since your mother’s death, Minutus.”
My father was already well over sixty and he liked to return to the past in his memories. One thinks about death much more at his age than mine, so I did not take much notice at the time.
“What were you muttering about the deserts of the East and the Euphrates?” I asked him.
My father took a large gulp of the dark wine in his gold goblet and then turned to me.
“Among Jucundus’ school friends,” he said, “are the sons of kings from the East. Their parents, who are friendly to Rome, consider the crushing of Parthia absolutely vital to the East. These youngsters are more Roman than the Romans themselves, and Jucundus will soon be the same. In the Senate’s Eastern committee the question has been brought up many times. As soon as Corbulo has achieved peace in Armenia, Rome will have support there and Parthia will be caught between the two.”
“How can you think about war now when Rome is suffering a disaster?” I cried. “Three whole sections of the city lie in ruins and six others are still burning. Ancient landmarks have vanished in the flames. The Vesta temple has been burned to the ground, the tabularium too, with all the law tablets. Rebuilding Rome alone will take many years and will cost such an enormous amount that I can’t even imagine it. How can you think that a war is even possible at all?”
“Just because of that,” my father said thoughtfully. “I neither see visions nor have revelations, although I have begun to have such premonitory dreams that I must think about their contents. But dreams are dreams. Speaking logically, I think the rebuilding of Rome is going to mean heavy taxation in the provinces. This will arouse discontent, for the wealthy and the merchants usually let the people pay the taxes. When this discontent spreads, the government will be blamed. According to the greatest statesmanship, a war is the best way to provide an outlet for internal discontent. And when the war has once started, there is always money to keep it going.
“You yourself know,” he went on, “that in many quarters there are complaints that Rome has grown weak and that her warlike virtues have vanished. It is true that the young laugh at the virtues of their forefathers and perform parodies of Livy’s historical tales. But they still have wolf blood in their veins.”
“Nero does not want war,” I protested. “He was even prepared to give up Britain. Artistic laurels are all he strives for.”
“A ruler is always forced to follow the will of the people when necessary, otherwise he won’t stay long on his throne,” said my father. “Of course the people don’t want war, but bread and games in the circus. But underneath it all, powerful forces lie hidden who think they’ll do well out of war. Never before in history have such huge fortunes been made as are being made by individuals today. Freed slaves live more sumptuously than noblemen in Rome, for no traditions bind them to care for the State more than themselves. You don’t yet know, Minutus, what enormous power money has when it is combined with more money to reach its own objectives.
“Talking of money,” he said suddenly, “there are fortunately some things which are worth more. You have your mother’s wooden goblet in safekeeping, I suppose?”
I felt violently agitated, for during my quarrel with Claudia I had completely forgotten about the magic goblet. As far as I knew, my house had long since been lost and the goblet with it. I rose at once.
“My dear father,” I said, “you are more drunk than you know. It would be best if we forgot your fantasies. Go to bed now, for I must go back to my duties. You’re not the only one being attacked by furies tonight.”
In the mawkish way drunkards have, my father appealed to me not to forget his presentiments when he was dead, which would not be long now. I left his house and headed toward Aventine, skirting the edges of the fire. The heat forced me to cross the bridge into the Jewish section of the city and then have myself rowed back across farther up-river. Everyone who owned a boat was making a fortune ferrying refugees across the Tiber.
To my surprise, the Aventine slope on the river side seemed still quite untouched. Several times I went astray in the clouds of smoke, and among other things I saw that the Moon temple and its surroundings were nothing but smoking ruins. But just beside the fire area, my own house stood unscathed. There was no other explanation except that the wind, which elsewhere had had such a devastating effect, seemed to have kept the fire away from the top of Aventine although there was not even a proper fire-break. Only a few houses had been deliberately demolished.
The eighth morning of the fire dawned on the desolation. Hundreds of people lay tightly packed in my garden-men, women and children. Even the empty water-tanks were full of sleeping people. Taking long strides over them, I reached the house, into which no one had dared to go although the doors were wide open.
I rushed to my room, found the locked chest and at the bottom of it the wooden goblet in its silk cloth. When I took it in my hands, I was seized in my exhaustion with superstitious fear, as if I really were holding a miracle-performing object. I was struck by the terrible thought that the secret goblet of the Goddess of Fortune, for which my father’s freedmen in Antioch had also shown such respect, had protected my house from the fire. But then I could not think anymore, and with the goblet in my hand, I sank onto my bed and at once fell sound asleep.
I slept until the evening stars came out and was awakened by the Christians’ songs and loud cries of joy. I was so dulled by sleep that I angrily called for Claudia to tell her to be quieter. I thought it was morning and that my clients and freedmen were waiting for me as usual. Not until I had rushed out into the courtyard did I remember the desolation and everything that had happened.
The flaring lights in the sky showed that the fires were still raging in the city, but nevertheless the worst seemed to be over. I picked out my own slaves from the crowd and praised them for their courage in remaining behind to risk their lives guarding my house. I urged the other slaves to go and find their masters at once to avoid being punished for desertion.
In this way I managed to reduce the crush in my garden a little, but several small traders and craftsmen who had lost everything they possessed begged to be allowed to stay for the time being, since they had nowhere to go. They had their old people and infants with them and I had not the heart to turn them out into the smoldering ruins of the city.
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nbsp; Part of the temple on the Capitoline could still be seen, its colonnade still undamaged against the flaring light of the sky. Where the ruins had had time to cool, people were risking their lives searching for melted-down metals. The same day, Tigellinus issued an order for the burned-out areas to be barricaded off by soldiers to avoid disorder in the city, not even the owners being permitted to return to the ruins of their houses.
In the menagerie my employees were forced to use spears and bows and arrows to keep the crowds at a distance from our water-tanks and provision stores. Several antelope and deer which had been free in their enclosures were stolen and slaughtered, but no one had dared touch the bison.
As all the thermal baths had been destroyed by the fire, Nero crowned his second poetry reading by bathing in one of the sacred pools. It was a risky venture, but he put his trust in his swimming ability and his physical strength, for the polluted water of the Tiber would not do for him. The people did not approve of this and whisperingly accused him of sullying the last of the drinking water, after first setting fire to Rome. He had, of course, been in Antium when the fire had broken out, but who among those who wished to stir up the people would take the trouble to remember that?
I have never admired Rome’s strength and organizing ability more than when I saw how swiftly her inhabitants were helped and how purposefully the clearing work and rebuilding of the city were undertaken. Cities from far and near were ordered to send household goods and clothes. Temporary buildings were erected for the homeless. Grain ships which were empty had to load up with rubble and unload it onto the swamps of Ostia.
The price of grain was lowered to two sesterces, the lowest anyone had ever heard of. I was not affected by this, for the State had guaranteed the grain merchants a higher price. Former hollows in the ground were filled in and slopes leveled. Nero himself took possession of the whole of the area between Palatine, Coelius and Esquiline, where he wished to build a new palace, but otherwise sites and wide streets were marked out in the ruined areas regardless of earlier plans of the city. Loans from the State treasury were granted to those who were able and wished to build their houses according to the new building regulations, while those who did not consider they were able to build within a definite time limit lost their right to do so later.
All houses had to be built of stone and the maximum height was three stories. The houses had to have a shady arcade facing the street and every courtyard had to have its own water cistern. Water supplies were arranged so that the wealthy could no longer use as much as they wished for their gardens and baths.
Naturally these necessary compulsory measures aroused general bitterness, and not only among the nobility. The people complained as well about the new wide and sunny streets, which though healthier than the former winding alleys gave no shade or cool in the heat of the summer, nor hiding places for lovers at night. It was feared that when lovers were driven indoors within four walls, then premature forced marriages would become much too numerous.
Cities and wealthy individuals in the provinces naturally rushed to send voluntary gifts of money for the rebuilding of Rome. Nevertheless, these did not go very far, and the result was increased taxes which drove both cities and individuals almost to the verge of bankruptcy.
The rebuilding of great circuses, temples and theaters according to Nero’s brilliant plans seemed destined to impoverish the entire world. And then his plan for a colossal building on a scale never before imagined was made public, and when it was possible to see what huge areas he intended to keep for his own use in the center of the city, the people’s discontent was finally aroused. He was to take over the whole of the area where the grain shops which had been knocked down by battering-rams had stood, so it was even easier to believe that he himself had set the city alight to acquire space for his Golden Palace.
Toward the autumn, several tremendous thunderstorms washed the worst of the soot from the ruins, and day and night, teams of oxen hauled building stone to Rome. The continuous noise and thumping from the building activity made life intolerable, and to hasten the work, even the traditional feast days were not celebrated. The people, used to entertainments and processions, free meals and circus shows, thought their lives had become dreary and outrageously strenuous.
The widespread destruction, the fear and the danger caused by the fire remained like a thorn in the side of every citizen. Even men of Consul rank related publicly how they had been turned out of their houses and how drunken soldiers, acting on instructions from the Emperor, had set fire to their properties before the fire had come anywhere near them.
Others told of how the Christian sect had demonstrated their joy quite openly and had sung hymns of thanksgiving during the fire, and ordinary people did not see any difference between Christian and Jew. Indignant references were made to the fact that the Jewish section of the city on the other side of the Tiber had been spared from the fire, as had certain other areas inhabited by the Jews in the city itself.
The isolation of the Jews from other people, their ten independent synagogues and the jurisdiction which their Council had over their own tribes, were things which had always irritated the people. The Jews did not even have to have an image of the Emperor in their prayer-houses, and innumerable accounts of their magic became common.
Although Nero was thus blamed, both openly and under cover all over the city, for being the original cause of the fire, the people realized only too well that as Emperor he could not be punished. To blame him gave everyone a malicious pleasure, but the misfortune Rome had endured was so great that some other expiation of guilt was demantled as well.
Members of noble and ancient families who had lost their souvenirs of the past as well as their wax death masks were Nero’s chief accusers. They received support from the newly rich, too, who feared they would lose their fortunes in taxes. The people, on the other hand, appreciated the speed and care with which their sufferings had been alleviated. Nor did they have to pay for this help.
Traditionally, the people looked upon the Emperor, who was also the people’s tribune for life, as the protector of their rights against the nobility, and his person as inviolable. So it was only malicious pleasure that was felt when the wealthy had to give up their city sites to the Emperor and had their privileges circumscribed. But the rancor against the Jews and their special position was of old standing.
It was said that the Jews had prophesied the fire. Many people remembered how Claudius in his day had banished the Jews from Rome. It was not long before it was implied for the first time and then said openly that it had been the Jews who had started the fire so that their own prophecy would be fulfilled and they could make capital out of the people’s distress.
Such talk was, of course, very dangerous, so several distinguished Jews turned to Poppaea to explain to her, and through her to Nero, the great difference between Jews and Christians. This was a difficult task, for Jesus of Nazareth was a Jew in any case, and the teaching that he was Christ had been spread through the meditation of Jews. The core of the Christians in Rome still consisted of Jews who had separated from the synagogues, even if the majority of Christians were no longer circumcised.
Poppaea looked upon herself as a devout woman, respecting the temple in Jerusalem and knowing the sacred legends of Abraham,
Moses and other holy Jews. But for safety’s sake, the Jews had said little to her about the Messiah who was prophesied in the scripts. Now she became confused by their expositions, so she summoned me to her rooms on Esquiline to give her a comprehensive explanation of what the Jews really wanted.
“They want you to settle their disputes,” I said in jest.
But the Jews were indignant.
“This is no joking matter,” they said. “The Christ of the Christians is not the Jewish Messiah. A curse on those who acknowledge him as Christ. We will have nothing to do with them, whether they are circumcised or not. It was these Christians who prophesied the day of judgment and sang thanksgivings du
ring the fire. Their crimes are not ours.”
“The Christians are not criminals,” I said hurriedly. “They are humble and perhaps slightly foolish people. Presumably more stupid than you are. Don’t the Jews believe in the ultimate judgment and the kingdom of a thousand years?”
The Jews looked sadly at me and, after consulting together, they spoke again.
‘We do not talk with dogs on such matters,” they said. “All we wish to do is to give an assurance that the guilt of the Christians has nothing to do with the Jews. We are prepared to believe any evil of them.”
I thought the conversation was taking an unpleasant turn.
“I can see in your troubled eyes, Poppaea, the signs of a headache coming,” I said hurriedly. “Let us briefly summarize the matter. The Jews deny all connections with the Christians. They look upon themselves as devout. They believe ill of the Christians, good of themselves. That is all.”
When I saw the bitter countenance of the Jews, I went on: “Perhaps there are among the Christians some former criminals and rogues who have reformed and have had their sins forgiven. Their king is said to have come especially to seek out the sinful and not the proud. But in general the Christians are meek and peaceable, they feed the poor, help widows and comfort prisoners. I. know nothing evil of them.”
Poppaea was curious.
‘What is this guilt they mention?” she asked. “There’s something suspicious in all this which I don’t understand.”
“You must have heard the absurd rumors that have been spreading among the people about the cause of our national disaster,” I said sarcastically. “I think the Jews are now trying to explain in a roundabout way and somewhat belatedly that it was not they who set fire to Rome, They consider that such a statement would be as irrational as to accuse the Emperor of the same thing,”