More than six bonfires had been lit in the major fora of the city, and it was there that the greatest number of Romans gathered; Sanct-Franciscus and Natalis skirted those places, not only to avoid the conflagrations, but to stay away from the most frantic celebrants, many of whom were already drunk—not even the women who worshipped Bacchus were as delirious in their ceremonies as some of the young men who were seeking to equal Heliogabalus in the extremity of their carousing, rushing at passersby and pelting them with eggs.
“What do you make of it?” Natalis asked as they turned away from a group of youths throwing rocks at stray dogs while drinking greedily from wine-skins.
“I think it will lead to trouble,” said Sanct-Franciscus. “They are rowdy now and are likely to become belligerent.”
“Because they’re drunk? Half the crowds at the Circus are drunk.” Natalis glanced back over his shoulder as a few of the young men began to wrestle amid the approving hollers of their companions.
Sanct-Franciscus nodded once in agreement. “But at the Circus they are in the stands, with races or battles to hold their attention. Here there are no such limitations on them: excesses of their sort could easily become a riot, and not even the Watchmen, the Urban Guard, and the Praetorians could stem a wholesale orgy of violence once it got started.”
“Do you think Roma is prepared for trouble?” Natalis put his hand on his knife. “On the scale they could have it?”
“I hope so: they are likely to get it,” Sanct-Franciscus observed as they rounded another corner and saw the myriad torches of the Capitolinus Hill shining ahead of them. “This alone is likely to inspire mischief. They flaunt their wealth and wonder why they are robbed.”
Natalis gave a knowing nod. “At one time, I would have thought those torches a beacon.”
“As they probably are to others,” said Sanct-Franciscus.
As the two came nearer, they noticed that the patrols of Urban Guards were more frequent, and the Guardsmen were more heavily armed than usual.
“They’re expecting trouble; you’re right,” Natalis said, a note of regret in his tone.
“A wise precaution,” Sanct-Franciscus said as quietly as the din in the streets allowed.
“Unless there is a fire. Then all the Urban Guards will be called to fight it, and the people might well panic: if that happens, then the city will be in grave danger, with people massing in the streets, attempting to get out of the gates,” said Natalis, not quite shouting in the increasing noise around them. “There would be chaos if that happens.”
Sanct-Franciscus motioned to him to keep his voice down, pulling him into the doorway of a closed thermopolium. “We do not want to draw attention to ourselves, not tonight.”
“I understand; I’ll be circumspect,” said Natalis. He stood a little straighter. “While you are at the celebration, do you want me to remain in the household with the slaves, or shall I wait outside the house itself?”
“You may stay in the house, unless I send you word to leave. You will know that the instructions are mine because I will ask you to carry a message to Rugeri. If any other orders come, no matter what they may require of you, do not obey them; they will not be my intentions.” Sanct-Franciscus stepped back into the street, neatly avoiding a handsome biga drawn by a flashy pair of bright bays that was bound for the same porticus as they were.
“But if they give me orders, they will expect me to leave,” Natalis pointed out; they were almost to the front of the grand house that was their destination.
“Then do so, but stay where you can watch the door, and wait for me. I will join you directly.” Sanct-Franciscus smiled slightly. “There will be others doing much the same thing—waiting for their masters to depart—particularly groups of bodyguards and drivers of bigae.”
“Look at the Praetorians, bristling with spears and daggers. It isn’t as if they are asked to wait upon the Emperor,” Natalis said as they neared the porticus, pointing to the men in shining brass loricae who were taking the measure of the couple alighting from the biga.
“No, they are only guarding his aunt,” said Sanct-Franciscus drily. “For reasons of her own.”
“Do you expect she will ask anything of you?” Natalis could not keep from inquiring.
“Not tonight. That would be foolish, and from what I know of Julia Mamaea, she is no fool.” He saw the two bodyguards flanking the steward in the doorway, and said, “See? She leaves almost nothing to chance.” He stepped up to the door and told the steward his name and the name of his freedman.
The steward, a handsome man about thirty with northern features, looked the two of them over, consulted the fan-folded scroll in his hands, and said, “Enter and turn to your right. Your freedman should continue ahead.”
They did as they were told, entering a vestibule where the alcove of lares was ablaze with oil-lamps, and the scent of incense hung heavily on the air.
“I will wait for you to send for me,” said Natalis, and kept on toward the atrium that was filled with many pots of blooming flowers.
Sanct-Franciscus watched him go, and thought as he did that he hoped that Natalis would not be tempted to take anything from the house, for such an outrage would lead to his execution, and nothing Sanct-Franciscus could do would spare him. He turned to the right and into the grand reception room, set up for an evening of dining and roistering. Statues of Apollo, Jupiter, Mercury, Vulcan, Mars, Diana, Venus, Minerva, and Vesta were prominently displayed, and a large sun-disk in brass hung over the center of the room, reflecting back the lights of the hundreds of oil-lamps set in brass lamp-trees around the room.
Immediately under this grand decoration on a small dais sat Julia Mamaea in stola and palla of white silk edged in gold; a sunburst tiara was set amid formal curls. She wore extravagant earrings and a necklace of hammered gold links. Her lips were rouged and her eyelashes were darkened, and she wore a perfume compounded of jasmine, rose, and amber. At her feet sat her eleven-year-old son, Gessius Bassianus, dressed in a tunica of cloth-of-gold, looking bored and annoyed. A dozen men clustered around the two of them while more circulated through the room, waiting to be summoned to greet their hostess; in a short while the women would be admitted and the evening would properly begin.
A consort of musicians hidden behind a screen were playing anthems to Roma and the historic tales of Roman heros; their tunes were familiar and the stories they told were known to almost everyone in the room. Their instruments were not loud enough to cut through the thrum of conversation, but served to underscore Julia Mamaea’s position in regard to this alien festival.
“So, Sanct-Franciscus,” said a voice at his shoulder. Sanct-Franciscus turned to see Dephinius Ambrosius Junian, rigged out in a brilliant yellow toga virilis, broad golden bracelets on both wrists. “I don’t know if you recall me—we met—”
“—at the Saturnalia celebration. At Desiderius Vulpius’ house,” Sanct-Franciscus said.
“At the other end of the year,” Junian said, and gave the room a swift perusal. “I reckon this occasion will be somewhat more frenetic than even Saturnalia.”
“Does that displease you?” Sanct-Franciscus asked.
“If it were a Roman festival, it wouldn’t. But this is a foreign god, and that troubles me.” He began to walk along the edge of the room; Sanct-Franciscus kept pace with him.
“Roma has always welcomed foreign gods,” he said.
“Yes, yes,” Junian agreed. “But not when the Emperor puts his foreign god above all our Roman ones. Wild as he is, the Emperor is as bad as those Christians, who are forever praising their god as the only god, and decry any others. The Emperor may be as licentious as the Christians are austere, but they are equals under the skin, demanding that everyone share their faith and have no other. Romans like fond devotion, not raving monomania.” He halted by a doorway that led out onto the long, narrow terrace on the north side of the grand house. “Not much of a garden, but in the city I suppose it does very well.”
“And a smaller garden is easier to maintain,” said Sanct-Franciscus, thinking back to the night at Nero’s Golden House when prisoners had been let loose in the vast gardens in tunicae of pitch-soaked cotton that was then set blazing; even now the memory had the power to disgust him. “And they conceal less.”
“True enough,” said Juniun, resting his hand on his broadening paunch. “On an occasion like this, a man wants to see everything.” His smirk had an air of prurience about it. “Vulpius says you know how to keep confidential things said to you.”
Sanct-Franciscus’ eyes flicked over the gathering. “If anything can be held secret in such a gathering.”
“I take your point, Sanct-Franciscus,” Junian remarked, then cleared his throat and slightly raised his voice. “They say the Emperor will dance naked for his guests tonight, and that rose-petals will fall thick as snow in the northern mountains in winter.” This was clearly not what Junian had intended to say when he first approached Sanct-Franciscus. “He has declared that all Roma will join in the celebration; we can but comply.”
“According to household rumors there will be excess from one end of the city to the other,” said Sanct-Franciscus. “I doubt Heliogabalus would be so reckless as to endorse such overindulgence, not with his mother about, and his grandmother.”
“Fierce old woman, is Julia Maesa, and raised her daughters to be the same.” Junian glanced toward their hostess. “They say Julia Mamaea is hoping to see that young Syrian sprig supplanted by her own son.”
“Whether it is true or not, Romans would always think such things of ruling families—not without reason.” Sanct-Franciscus ducked his head as the sound of a brass gong brought the guests to attention. “The evening is about to begin.”
“They’ll bring in the women, and then the entertainment will start. Nothing like what the Emperor might offer, but at least something we Romans can approve,” said Junian, and turned away from the open door.
Sanct-Franciscus remained there for a long moment, then joined the men clustered around Julia Mamaea’s dais, all the while listening for the shouts and cries that came from the city beyond the garden.
Text of a letter from Gelasius Virginius Apollonius Metsari to Lucius Virginius Rufius, carried by one of the Christians in their group.
To my cousin and Brother in Christ, the kiss of peace, on this, the anniversary of his birth, with the wishes that the Savior guide and protect you through the coming year.
I must warn you that the Urban Guard has been about, asking questions about the fires that were lit during the appalling display on Mid-Summer Eve, when the Emperor himself paraded around his palace, naked and unashamed. A few of the Urban Guard have proclaimed that some of the fires were deliberate, and the deaths caused by them were therefore murder, a position that makes no allowance for the reasons behind the fires. The Prefect of the Urban Guard has issued orders for the arrest of anyone found to be party to setting the fires in question, and has assigned several of his men to conduct an investigation. The Praetorians also have decided to look into the reasons for the fires. So you would do well to suggest to your friends to keep to themselves, and to pray for aid from God’s Christ. Any Christian found to have been party to the setting of fires will surely be sent to the arena, against which fate we must all pray. As you may not have heard, nine of the members of my own group of Christians have been sent to prison for attempting to get into the Emperor’s palace during his Mid-Summer debacle for the purpose of chastising him for his carnality and luxuriousness, and are likely to be condemned to the oars of a bireme or trireme if they can avoid being sent onto the sands of the Great Games.
So far, most of those detained have been Peterines, and part of the Jewish community. They’re easier to find than we are, and few of them are more than humiliora: that may be why the Urban Guard has sought them out first. The Peterines are standing firm in their assertion that Jesus was a Jewish prophet and spoke only to those of the Jewish faith, and this is making them targets for Roman condemnation. As if Salvation could be limited to Jews! Let the Peterines decrease their numbers through defying Roma. Those Peterine Jews who call themselves Christians are mistaken in their understanding. Paul has shown the way, and we, who are true to the teachings of the Christ, bear witness to his righteousness. God has given us protection in this time of tribulation, and when the Last Judgment comes—as surely it must, as we see the Last Days upon us—we will emerge among the lambs.
You and your companions have done much for our faith. I don’t know who among you decided the houses to be burned, but at least three have struck a blow for Salvation: the silk merchant from Fars,
the honoratus who was Lictor in Asiana, and the prostitute from the lupanar all are examples of those trading on sin, and whose punishment in this life heralds what is to come for all of mankind in this world and the next. Let the courts say what they will, they cannot deny the justice that we have done.
But pious as your acts are, I advise you to discontinue them for the time being, for it is unwise to expose our Brothers to the harsh fate meted out by these Romans. Wait until summer is over before you undertake any more fires, and then resume your cleansing only after obtaining the approval of at least four Paulist groups, so that we may make preparations to protect ourselves. Salvation is for the devout, not the reckless, and so I ask you, in the Name of the Risen Savior, to contain your indignation for a time, and to seek consolation in prayer until we are agreed that more activity is required of us, and where to strike.