The Roman sotk-2

by Mika Waltari

  Tullia refused to believe her ears.

  “Well, these are fine times!” she cried. “Is there no other charge against my husband except that in his softheadedness he’s gone and become a Christian?”

  “It is the same punishment for all Christians, because of their ill-deeds,” Nero said impatiently. “Go away now, and don’t bother me any more, for you can see I am in a hurry. My duty to the State demands that I lead the procession to the circus in my capacity as first citizen.”

  Then Tullia tossed her head proudly, without a thought for the slack skin around her chin.

  “I have a very varied life behind me,” she cried, “and I have not always behaved as well as one might expect a woman of my position to do. But I am a Roman woman and I shall go with my husband, wherever he goes. Where Gaius is, there is also Gaia. I, too, am a Christian and now acknowledge it publicly.”

  This was not true. On the contrary, she had constantly poisoned my father’s life with her perpetual nagging and her contempt for his Christian friends. But now she turned to face-the inquisitive crowd.

  “Hear me,” she cried out aloud, “you, the Senate and the people of Rome. I, Tullia Manilia, formerly Valeria, formerly Sulia, am a Christian. Long live Christ of Nazareth and his kingdom.”

  To make doubly sure, she then cried “Hallelujah,” for she had heard the Jews repeat that word at their meetings at my father’s house during their arguments with other Christians about the different ways.

  Fortunately her voice did not carry very far and Tigellinus covered her mouth with his hand. When the senators’ wives noticed how angry Nero had become, they hurriedly went back to their sedans, simmering with curiosity, to extract the truth of what had happened in the Senate from their husbands at the first opportunity. Nero only just managed to maintain his dignity.

  “You shall have your own way then, insane woman,” he said, “as long as you keep your mouth shut. It would be just if I sent you to the circus to be punished with the others, but you are much too ugly and wrinkled to act as Dirce. So, like your husband, you may feel the sword, but for that you have the esteem of your forefathers to thank, not me.”

  Tullia had made the scandal so public that with the best will in the world, Nero would not have dared send a dismissed senator’s spouse to the wild animals in front of the people. As the Praetorians led Tullia back through the crowd to my father, Nero vented his rage on Tigellinus and ordered him to have my father’s household arrested and to have every one of them who admitted to being a Christian taken straight to the circus. At the same time the magistrates’ men were to seal the house and confiscate all papers connected with my father’s and Tullia’s fortunes.

  “And don’t you touch it,” Nero said warningly. “I consider myself to be their heir, as you force me into police duties by neglecting yours.”

  The only thing that consoled him in his rage was the thought of my father’s and Tullia’s huge wealth.

  Some anxious Christians still stood outside the Curia, hoping to the last that the authority of the Senate would save the condemned Christians from the horror of the circus. Among them was a youth who wore a narrow red band and who had not hurried to the circus to ensure himself a place among the always overcrowded seats of the knights.

  When the Praetorians, with the centurion in the lead, escorted my father and Tullia to the nearest execution place, he followed them, together with several other Christians. The Praetorians discussed how they could complete their task in the shortest possible time and be in time for the show, and they decided to head for the Ostian gate and implement the execution by the burial monument. This was not really an official place of execution, but it was at least outside the walls.

  “If it isn’t a place of execution, then we’ll make it into one now,” they joked. “Then the lady won’t have to walk so far in her gold sandals.”

  Tullia snapped back that she could walk as far as her husband without any difficulty and no one could prevent her from doing so. As evidence of her strength, she supported my father, who, weighed down by his years, unused to physical exertion and weary from a whole night’s drinking, soon began to waver. Yet he had been neither drunk nor confused when he had risen to speak in the Senate, but had been carefully prepared for the event.

  This was revealed at the search of his house. Obviously he had for several weeks been putting his financial affairs in order and he had spent his last night burning all his account books and the list of his freedmen together with his correspondence with them. My father had always kept quiet about his affairs and on the whole had not regarded his freedman’s property as his own, although naturally, so that they should not be offended, he had accepted the gifts they sent him.

  Not until long afterwards did I learn that he had sent his loyal freedmen huge sums of money in cash so that the assets of his estate should not be revealed by any money orders. The magistrates had great trouble setding the estate, and in the end Nero received nothing of value except Tullia’s large country property which they had been forced to own in Italy for the sake of his office as senator, and then of course the house in Viminalis with its objets d’art, gold, silver and glass.

  The most aggravating thing for the magistrates was that because of Nero’s hasty command, the Praetorians arrested everyone in the household who admitted to being Christian so that they would not disgrace my father. Among them were the Procurator and both scribes, whose deaths Nero bitterly regretted afterwards. In all, thirty people were taken to the circus from my father’s house.

  From my point of view, the worst thing was that my son Jucundus and the aged Barbus were among those captured. After his burns from the fire, Jucundus was so crippled that he could move only with great effort on crutches, so he was taken to the circus in a sedan with Tullia’s aged nurse. This woman was certainly not a good person and she had a foul mouth, but she had willingly admitted to being a Christian when she heard that Tullia had done the same.

  None of them realized why they had been ordered to the circus until they found themselves imprisoned in the stables. On the way there, they had still believed that Nero wished the Christians to witness the punishment of the instigators of the fire of Rome. The Praetorians were in such a hurry that they had not considered it necessary to inform them.

  At the Ostian gate, where there were many souvenir shops, innkeepers with stalls, and sedans for hire, all of which had escaped the fire, my father suddenly stopped and said that he was very thirsty and wished to refresh himself with some wine before his execution. He offered to buy some for the Praetorians too, to compensate them for the trouble he and his wife were causing them on this festive day. Tullia had plenty of silver pieces with her, which in accordance with her position would have been thrown out among the people at the procession.

  The innkeeper hurriedly fetched his best wine jars from the cellar and they all drink some wine, for the Praetorians were also hot in the warm autumn weather. As my father now stood outside all rank, he could with good conscience also invite the Christians who had followed him, and in addition some countrymen who, unaware of the feast day, had come into the city in vain to sell fruit.

  After a few cups of wine, Tullia became sullen and in her usual way asked whether it was really necessary that my father again get drunk, and in bad company too.

  “Dear Tullia,” my father remarked gently, “try to remember that I no longer have any rank. In fact, as we are both under sentence of death, we are more wretched than these friendly people who are kind enough to drink with us. My body is weak. I have never pretended to be a brave man. The wine disperses the unpleasant feeling I have at the back of my neck. Most pleasing to me is the thought that for once I need not give a single thought to my stomach and the bitter hangover of tomorrow, which you have always made so much worse with your biting words. But we’ll forget such things now, my dearest Tullia.

  “Think of these honorable soldiers too,” he went on, even more eagerly, “who because of us are missing t
he many exciting sights as the Christians in Nero’s circus step into the kingdom through the mouths of wild animals, through flames and on crosses, and in all the other ways which Nero, with his artistic talents, can think of. Please don’t let me prevent you from singing, my men, should you feel like it. Leave your woman-stories until tonight though, as my virtuous wife is present. For me this is a day of great joy, for now at last a prophecy is being fulfilled which has bothered my head for nearly thirty-five years. Let us then drink, dear brothers, and you, my good wife, to the glory of the name of Christ. I don’t think he would mind, considering the moment and the situation. As far as I am concerned, he has many worse things to judge, so this innocent drinking bout will not increase my guilt gready. I have always been a weak and selfish man. I have no other defense except that he was born as a man to seek out the intractable and the poorly fleeced sheep as well. I have a vague memory of a story about how he once went out in the middle of the night to look for a stray sheep which he thought was worth more than the whole of the rest of the flock.”

  The Praetorians listened attentively.

  “There’s a lot in what you say, noble Manilianus,” they said. “In the legion, too, it is the weakest and the slowest who are the pacemakers and who decide the battle. And one can’t leave a wounded or a surrounded comrade in the lurch, even if it means risking a whole maniple. Ambushes, of course, are another matter.”

  They began to compare their scars and talk about their exploits in Britain, Germany, in the Danube countries and in Armenia, as a result of which they had been posted as Praetorians in the capital. My father took the opportunity to speak to his wife.

  “Why did you say you were a Christian?” he said. “You don’t believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God and the savior of the world. It wasn’t necessary. You’ve not even been baptized. At holy communion you took part reluctantly just to do your duty as hostess, but you’ve never tasted the bread and wine that has been blessed in the name of Christ. It hurts me that I’ve dragged you into this without cause. I thought quite seriously that as a widow you could live the life you preferred. You’d soon find another and better husband, for you are still beautiful in my eyes and well preserved for your age, and wealthy as well. I thought there would certainly be a rush of suitors to your house when the mourning period was over. That thought didn’t even make me jealous, for your happiness is more important to me than mine. We never agreed on Christ and his kingdom.”

  “I’ll be just as good a Christian as you are, my dear Marcus,” Tullia said crossly, “when I die with you for the glory of the name of Christ. I’ve given my property to the poor to please you when I could no longer bear your eternal sulks. Haven’t you noticed that I’ve not reproached you in the slightest, although you’ve disgraced our name in the Senate with your dreadful obstinacy? I’ve my own views on your foolish behavior, but at a time like this, I’ll hold my tongue so as not to hurt you yet again.”

  She softened, and winding her arms about my father’s neck, she kissed him and wet his cheeks with her tears.

  “I’m not afraid to die,” she told him, “as long as I can die with you, Marcus. I can’t endure the thought of being a widow after you. You’re the only man I’ve ever really loved, although I had to divorce two and follow one to the grave before I found you again. You abandoned me cruelly once, without the slightest thought for my feelings. I went all the way to Egypt after you. I know I had other reasons for going as well, but you yourself had a Jewish girl with you in Galilee and then that horrible Myrina, of whose good reputation I have yet to be convinced even if you erect a hundred statues of her in all the market squares in Asia. But then I’ve had my weaknesses too. The main thing is that you love me and tell me I’m beautiful, although my hair is dyed and my chin slack and my mouth full of ivory teeth.”

  As they talked together, the Christian youth with the narrow band on his tunic, encouraged by the wine, asked the centurion whether he had orders to capture other Christians that he met. The centurion denied this emphatically and said that he had only been ordered to execute my father and Tullia, and in the greatest possible secrecy.

  Then the young knight said that he was a Christian and he suggested to my father that they should eat the holy Christian meal together and strengthen my father’s spirit, although they could not do so behind locked doors and it was not yet evening. But perhaps it could be managed, he said, considering the circumstances.

  The centurion said that he had no objections and he did not fear witchcraft; indeed he was curious, for so much was being said about the Christians”. My father agreed willingly, but asked the youth to bless the bread and wine.

  “I can’t do it myself,” he said, “perhaps because of my own vanity and stubbornness, but the spirit came to the disciples of Jesus of Nazareth at that time in Jerusalem and they baptized great numbers of peoples so that they all received the same spirit. I wished with all my heart to be baptized with the others, but they refused me because I was not circumcised, and they also asked me to keep silent about things I didn’t understand. I’ve remembered their commands all my life and I’ve never instructed anyone, except occasionally to tell of things, perhaps mistakenly, I myself have seen, or things I know are true, or to correct certain misunderstandings. I was baptized here in Rome, when Cephas in his goodness asked me to forgive his curtness that time. He has always stood in debt to me because once on the mountain in Galilee, I lent him my donkey so that he could send his mother-in-law home to Capernaum when she had hurt her foot and I was on my way to Jerusalem. Forgive my garrulousness. I see the soldiers are looking up at the sky. Babbling on about the past is an old man’s weakness. I think wine loosens my tongue much too much.”

  They knelt, Tullia too, and with a few words the knight blessed the bread and the wine to the flesh and blood of Christ. They received grace with tears in dieir eyes and then kissed each other tenderly. Tullia said that she felt a trembling within her as if it were a foretaste of paradise. She was going there, hand in hand with my father, or wherever else he was going.

  The Praetorians admitted that they could not see anything evil in this witchcraft. Then the centurion coughed meaningfully, after once again looking upward. My father hastily paid the bill, left a generous tip and gave the rest of the money to be divided among the centurion and the Praetorians, asking once more for their forgiveness for causing them so much trouble and blessing them in the name of Christ. The centurion delicately suggested that perhaps it would be best if they now moved behind the burial monument, for he had orders to accomplish his task as discreetly as possible.

  The Christian knight now burst out weeping and said that when he had blessed the bread and wine, he had suddenly felt such certainty and knowledge that he no longer wished to wait out the rest of his years. He was tormented by the thought of so many humble Christians being allowed to suffer in the circus for the sake of the name of Christ, and perhaps he himself would not be able to stand fast in the approaching oppression. So he asked the centurion to allow him to take man’s most wonderful journey by cutting off his head too. He was as guilty as the other Christians, and the same punishment should come to him as to them.

  The centurion marveled, but after a moment’s thought, admitted that he would probably not be failing in his duty in the slightest if he permitted the young man to die together with my father and Tullia. The result of this was that some listeners who had been sitting alongside the company eagerly begged for the same joy. I must add that I was told that my father had invited them all to liberal quantities of wine.

  But the centurion refused firmly and said that his favor had its limits. One extra person he could execute and enter in his report, but to put several to death would attract attention and bring with it unnecessary wax-tablet filling, and his writing was not as good as it might be.

  Instead he admitted that everything he had seen and heard had made such an impression on him that he would very much like to hear more about these things someti
me. Christ was evidently a powerful god, if he could make death into a joy to his followers. At least, he had never heard of anyone who would be willing to die voluntarily, for instance, for Jupiter, nor even Bacchus. Although possibly Venus would be another matter.

  The Praetorians took my father, Tullia and the knight, whose name the centurion drunkenly scratched on his wax tablet at the last minute, behind the monument and picked out the best swordsman, who would be able to sever their heads from their bodies with one blow. My father and Tullia died kneeling, hand in hand. One of the Christians who witnessed it all, and afterwards told me about it, maintained that the earth trembled and the sky opened in flames, dazzling the countrymen. But I expect he said that to please me or else he had dreamed it.

  The Praetorians drew lots on who would have to stay behind to guard the bodies until relatives took charge of them. When those standing around saw this, they offered to see to the bodies, for all Christians were brothers and in that way each other’s relatives. The centurion regarded this statement as legally doubtful but accepted the offer gratefully, for he did not want to rob the guard of the pleasure of the circus show. It was about midday when they marched at the double back to the city and then to the circus on the other side of the river, in the hope of still getting a standing place among the other Praetorians.

  The Christians took care of the bodies of my father, Tullia and the young knight. Out of consideration for the ancient family he belonged to, I shall not give the knight’s name, for he was the only son of elderly parents and he caused them great grief by his insane act. They had spoiled him and overlooked his association with Christians in the hope that in time he would forget such foolishness, in the way that young men in general, as soon as they marry, forget their barren philosophical speculations.