The Roman (64 page)

476

Tigellinus, who always had to be to the fore, thought he had the best of the day�s surprises prepared for the people as the crowd now hurried to the festive meal Nero had promised everyone in Agrippina�s gardens. He had used his right of jurisdiction outside the walls and had ordered that the park should be illuminated by the three thousand Christians who had been separated from the rest in the morning and put under guard in the gardens. There simply was no room for a circus show including five thousand people in the arena. While the show had been in progress, poles and posts had been erected along the park roads and around the pools, and then the Christians had been chained to them. When there were no more iron chains left, the remainder were nailed to them through their hands. Then the Christians were smeared with pitch and wax, of which Tigellinus� procurator had, after a great deal of trouble, obtained a few loads. This would not be sufficient for any lasting illumination, so oil and such had also to be used. And on top of this, the Praetorians who had been allotted the task were disgruntled at missing the circus show, having instead to dig holes and erect poles in the heat of the autumn sun. So when the crowd hurriedly left the circus to go to the meal as darkness fell, the Praetorians ran on ahead and set fire to the living torches along the route. They burned with screams of pain and a spreading suffocating stench, and the people did not really appreciate this incredible sight. Indeed, the more educated among them lost appetite because of the unpleasant smell of burning human flesh and began to go home. Others feared the fire might spread through the gardens when drops of burning pitch and wax scattered on the dry grass as the Christians writhed and struggled. Many people burned their feet as they tried to stamp out the smoking embers around the poles. Thus when Nero, still dressed as a charioteer, came driving along the roads flanked by these human torches, he did not receive the acclaim he had expected. Instead, a sullen silence was maintained, and he saw several senators on their way back to the city. He stepped down from his chariot to go to the people and press their hands, but there was no laughter at his jokes. When

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he tried to make Petronius stay, the latter said that he had endured a dull show for friendship�s sake, but there were limits to what his stomach would tolerate. He did not feel like eating even the very best steak in the world if it were spiced with the sickly fumes of human flesh. Nero chewed his lips, his mouth swollen, and in his charioteer�s costume he looked more like a muscular, sweaty wrestler. He realized he had to find something else to amuse the people to make up for Tigellinus� tasteless arrangements. To add to everything else, half-burned people began to fall from the poles as their ropes were scorched away and others in their pain tore loose their nailed hands and rushed flaming into the crowd. Their pain-filled, shrieking, creeping, tumbling figures, hardly even human any longer, aroused nothing but terror and loathing. Angrily, Nero ordered them to be killed at once, together with those who were screaming loudly on their poles, disturbing his orchestra and its artistic playing. He gave orders to have as much incense burned as could be found and for the park to be sprayed with perfume which had originally been intended for the guests. Everyone knows what this extravagance must have cost, not to mention all the ruined iron chains. For my part, I was still busy with my duties at the circus, having briefly received the congratulations for a successful show from the more notable spectators. After that I hurried down to the arena to supervise the Caronians� work with their clubs, but more than anything else to gather up what still remained of Jucundus and Barbus. I found them quite easily. To my surprise, I found a Christian youth in the middle of all the torn bodies, his head in his hands and completely unhurt. When he had wiped away the blood that had poured over him, he had neither bite, scratch nor grazes from kicks on him. He stared dully up at the evening stars and asked whether he were in paradise. Then he told me he had thrown himself down in the sand, refusing to aggravate the wild animals by offering resistance. It was understandable that he had been saved, for neither lions nor wild bulls normally touch a person who acts as if he were dead. Many men trying to capture them have saved their lives in the same way.

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I regarded his escape as a kind of omen and put my own cloak over his shoulders to save him from the Caronians� clubs. I received my reward for this, for he could give me an exact account of everything Jucundus and Barbus had done and what they had discussed among the other prisoners. The space had been so tight-packed with Christians that they had not even been able to sit down, and quite by chance the youth had found himself jammed next to Jucundus. Then too, Barbus had grown slightly deaf in his old age and had had to tell Jucundus to speak up as he whispered his story of the foolish conspiracy among the boys. The Christian youth regarded his escape as a miracle and said that Christ must have needed him for other purposes, although he had hoped to find himself in paradise with the other Christians by the evening. So I gave him some clothes, of which there were plenty, and saw to it that he was released unharmed through a side entrance of the circus. He hoped that Christ would bless me for my mercifulness and my good deed and assured me that he believed that even I should one day find the true way. He innocently told me that he had been a disciple of Paul and had been baptized Clement. This extraordinary coincidence made it easier for me to give way to Claudia�s whim that my son should he called Clement. The young Christian misunderstood my surprise and explained apologetically that he was by no means especially good-tempered, but indeed had to practice humility to do penance for his impetuousness. This was why he had thrown himself down and refused to meet evil with evil. So he blessed me once again for my goodness and went into Rome along the road lit by human torches. But he was so certain that Christ needed him for some task to come that he probably did not grieve for long over not being allowed to accompany the others to paradise. I met him again about three years later when in the course of my duties I was forced to mediate in the internal disputes of the Christians, in which I considered I ought to support Cletus. It was a question of who should inherit the shepherd�s stave after Linus. I thought that Clement was still much too young and I think he realized this himself later during his exercises in humility.

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His turn will no doubt come one day, but you need not bother about that, Julius. The Christians have no political significance, in that their religion cannot hold out against the other Eastern religions. But never persecute them all the same, but leave them in peace, for the sake of your grandmother, Myrina, even if they do provoke you sometimes. I had the remains of Jucundus and Barbus wrapped in a cloth. I also gave several frightened people permission to see to the remains of their kin if they could find them. I did not wish to accept the many gifts that were offered to me in exchange. Most of the bodies had to be taken off to a mass grave near the execution place of the lower orders, fortunately near at hand. So I was able to hurry to Nero�s feast with a clear conscience and there, at the sight of Tigellinus� reeking horrors, express my disapproval of his high-handedness. I had already calculated that there would be insufficient food for the huge number of spectators, so I had hurriedly had my wild bulls skinned and dismembered so that I could on my own behalf invite the people to eat the good meat. But my appetite waned as first several senators glanced oddly at me and even turned their backs on me without returning my greeting, and then Nero thanked me for my part in the show with a surprising lack of enthusiasm and somewhat guiltily. Only then did I hear from his lips of the sentence on my father and Tullia, for Jucundus� and Barbus� unexpected appearance in the arena had remained a riddle to me despite the young Christian�s story. I had meant to ask Nero in biting tones, when he was in a favorable mood, how it was possible that a youth who was the adoptive son of a senator could be thrown to the wild animals among the Christians. Nero described my father�s mental confusion at the meeting of the Senate that morning. �He insulted me before the whole of the Senate,� he said, �but I did not condemn him. His own brothers in office pronounced the sentence unanimously, so that there was not even any need to take a vote. A senator cannot be condemned, even by the Emperor, without the other senators first being heard. Your stepmother turned the whole thing into a public scandal by her uncontrolled behavior, although with your reputation in mind, I

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should have preferred to keep the matter secret. The British youth whom your father had adopted took his duties to him far too seriously and declared himself a Christian. Otherwise he would never have been taken to the circus, although he was a cripple and would never have been any use as a knight. It�s no use grieving over his death, for your father was going to disinherit you, presumably because of the state of his mind. Actually you�ll lose nothing, although I�m bound to confiscate your father�s fortune. You know the trouble I�m having finding money to be able to live decently eventually.� I thought it safest to explain that my father had handed over some of my inheritance seventeen years earlier, for me to fulfill the income demands of the Noble Order of Knights. But I had sold the sites on Aventine before the houses on them had been destroyed by the fire, and I had at first received large sums from my father for the menagerie, but Nero himself had benefited from that at the amphitheater shows. Nero replied magnanimously that he had no thought of demanding the inheritance I had received so long ago, since he considered that my father�s estate would be quite sufficient and both the State treasury and his own building enterprises would receive a share. Indeed, he gave me permission to select a few souvenirs from my father�s house, as long as I let the magistrates list them first. To avoid all possible suspicions later, I felt bound to admit that my father had, among other things, given me a goblet which was of great value to me personally. Nero was curious at first, but lost all interest when I told him it was only a wooden mug. I realized then what danger I had been in because of my father�s insulting behavior, and I added hastily that this time I would not charge Nero a single sesterce for my wild animals and other expenses, as I knew very well that he needed every coin he could find to acquire a dwelling worthy of him. Indeed, I also gave him the rest of the meat from the wild bulls to offer to the people and suggested that he should sell the huge store of clothes that was still at the circus, as well as the jewelry and buckles that had been collected from the prisoners. Perhaps in this way he could pay for a few columns in the new arcade

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which was to link the buildings on Palatine and Coelius with the Golden Palace on Esquiline. Nero was delighted and promised to remember my generosity. He was relieved that I had not reproached him for the deaths of my father and the person he thought was my stepbrother, and now acknowledged fully the part I had played in the show, admitting that the theater people had failed miserably and that Tigellinus had merely caused annoyance. The only thing he thought had been successful, apart from the wild animals, was the splendid music from the water-organ and the orchestra, the careful arrangements for which he himself had made. I thought the clamor of the music had but disturbed the animals and distracted the crowd from some of the climaxes in the show, but this was only my personal opinion and I did not express it. I thought myself incompetent to judge the indifferent results of his efforts when my own had been so successful. Despite all this, I was depressed and had no appetite. As soon as I was no longer observed by envious eyes, I made an offering to my father and drank two goblets of wine. I sent my runner to find out where my father had been executed and the whereabouts of his and Tullia�s bodies. But they were not to be found, as I have already related. I had to content myself with cremating Jucundus� and Barbus� remains in the morning on a hurriedly made pyre. I thought Barbus had earned the right to a pyre similar to my son�s by his loyalty and long service. When I had the last flames extinguished with wine, I gathered their ashes myself and placed them in an urn. Later I put the urn in a mausoleum in Caere I had had built on the burial site my father had once bought. Jucundus was of� old Etruscan blood on my father�s side and his mother, Lugunda, was of noble British stock. Barbus, on his side, had shown loyalty unto death, a sign of a certain nobility of mind. On the lid of their urn is a bronze Etruscan cockerel which crows eternal life for them, as you will see one day, Julius, when you go to Caere with the remains of your wretched, perplexed and unworthy father. I was forced to take part in Nero�s banquet so as not to offend him by leaving early. I will gladly admit that he was very successful with the small displays he had arranged in illuminated places

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in the park�beautiful dancing, satyrs chasing nymphs among the bushes, a scene with Apollo and Daphne, and other things which might entertain the people and encourage a more fastidious audience to frivolous thoughts. The meal was plentiful, with the help of the meat from the bulls, and the fountains filled the pools with wine which was unmixed with water. As the instigators of the fire had received their due punishment and all had been atoned for, the foremost ladies in Rome, together with all the colleges of priests, had arranged a superb conciliatory meal which became the climax of the feast in the gardens. For this purpose both the most sacred white stone cones had secretly been fetched from their temples. They were now placed upon their sacred cushions in an illuminated tent, garlanded by the women and offered the traditional sacred meal. I watched with curiosity, remembering that the Romans had inherited this mystery from the Etruscans, and I fervently joined in with the holy laughter together with the senators and knights. The people were not allowed to laugh. Then the front of the tent flap was drawn across the opening and a little later the lights which shone through the canvas were suddenly extinguished without anyone touching them. We all heaved a sigh of relief at the success of the ceremony, which had been accomplished as tradition demanded. While the stone cones, or the gods they represented, remained in the dark tent after the sacred meal, to embrace each other on their sacred cushions to the progress of Rome, Nero arranged a satyric play to counteract all this holiness. The only thing that can be laid against him is that he himself felt obliged to take part in it, in the belief that in this way he was gaining the favor of the people. So, on an open stage, accompanied by profane wedding hymns, he had himself dressed as a bride and hid his face behind a scarlet veil. Skillfully imitating a woman�s voice, he then sang the customary lament. He was led to the bridal bed by Pythagoras, a handsome slave in bridegroom�s costume. A goddess appeared to console and advise the frightened bride. Whimpering with terror, Nero allowed the bridegroom to untie the two knots in the girdle and, virtually undressed, they finally sank onto the bed in each other�s arms.