Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz (ebook reader macos TXT) 📕

The city burned on. The Circus Maximus had fallen in ruins. Entire

streets and alleys in parts which began to burn first were falling in

turn. After every fall pillars of flame rose for a time to the very

sky. The wind had changed, and blew now with mighty force from the sea,

bearing toward the Cælian, the Esquiline, and the Viminal rivers of

flame, brands, and cinders. Still the authorities provided for rescue.

At command of Tigellinus, who had hastened from Antium the third day

before, houses on the Esquiline were torn down so that the fire,

reaching empty spaces, died of itself. That was, however, undertaken

solely to save a remnant of the city; to save that which was burning was

not to be thought of. There was need also to guard against further

results of the ruin. Incalculable wealth had perished in Rome; all the

property of its citizens had vanished; hundreds of thousands of people

were wandering in utter want outside the walls. Hunger had begun to

pinch this throng the second day, for the immense stores of provisions

in the city had burned with it. In the universal disorder and in the

destruction of authority no one had thought of furnishing new supplies.

Only after the arrival of Tigellinus were proper orders sent to Ostia;

but meanwhile the people had grown more threatening.

The house at Aqua Appia, in which Tigellinus lodged for the moment, was

surrounded by crowds of women, who from morning till late at night

cried, “Bread and a roof!” Vainly did pretorians, brought from the

great camp between the Via Salaria and the Nomentana, strive to maintain

order of some kind. Here and there they were met by open, armed

resistance. In places weaponless crowds pointed to the burning city,

and shouted, “Kill us in view of that fire!” They abused Cæsar, the

Augustians, the pretorians; excitement rose every moment, so that

Tigellinus, looking at night on the thousands of fires around the city,

said to himself that those were fires in hostile camps.

Besides flour, as much baked bread as possible was brought at his

command, not only from Ostia, but from all towns and neighboring

villages. When the first instalment came at night to the Emporium, the

people broke the chief gate toward the Aventine, seized all supplies in

the twinkle of an eye, and caused terrible disturbance. In the light of

the conflagration they fought for loaves, and trampled many of them into

the earth. Flour from torn bags whitened like snow the whole space from

the granary to the arches of Drusus and Germanicus. The uproar

continued till soldiers seized the building and dispersed the crowd with

arrows and missiles.

Never since the invasion by the Gauls under Brennus had Rome beheld such

disaster. People in despair compared the two conflagrations. But in

the time of Brennus the Capitol remained. Now the Capitol was encircled

by a dreadful wreath of flame. The marbles, it is true, were not

blazing; but at night, when the wind swept the flames aside for a

moment, rows of columns in the lofty sanctuary of Jove were visible, red

as glowing coals. In the days of Brennus, moreover, Rome had a

disciplined integral people, attached to the city and its altars; but

now crowds of a many-tongued populace roamed nomad-like around the walls

of burning Rome,—people composed for the greater part of slaves and

freedmen, excited, disorderly, and ready, under the pressure of want, to

turn against authority and the city.

But the very immensity of the fire, which terrified every heart,

disarmed the crowd in a certain measure. After the fire might come

famine and disease; and to complete the misfortune the terrible heat of

July had appeared. It was impossible to breathe air inflamed both by

fire and the sun. Night brought no relief, on the contrary it presented

a hell. During daylight an awful and ominous spectacle met the eye. In

the centre a giant city on heights was turned into a roaring volcano;

round about as far as the Alban Hills was one boundless camp, formed of

sheds, tents, huts, vehicles, bales, packs, stands, fires, all covered

with smoke and dust, lighted by sun-rays reddened by passing through

smoke,—everything filled with roars, shouts, threats, hatred and

terror, a monstrous swarm of men, women, and children. Mingled with

Quirites were Greeks, shaggy men from the North with blue eyes,

Africans, and Asiatics; among citizens were slaves, freedmen,

gladiators, merchants, mechanics, servants, and soldiers,—a real sea of

people, flowing around the island of fire.

Various reports moved this sea as wind does a real one. These reports

were favorable and unfavorable. People told of immense supplies of

wheat and clothing to be brought to the Emporium and distributed gratis.

It was said, too, that provinces in Asia and Africa would be stripped of

their wealth at Cæsar’s command, and the treasures thus gained be given

to the inhabitants of Rome, so that each man might build his own

dwelling. But it was noised about also that water in the aqueducts had

been poisoned; that Nero intended to annihilate the city, destroy the

inhabitants to the last person, then move to Greece or to Egypt, and

rule the world from a new place. Each report ran with lightning speed,

and each found belief among the rabble, causing outbursts of hope,

anger, terror, or rage. Finally a kind of fever mastered those nomadic

thousands. The belief of Christians that the end of the world by fire

was at hand, spread even among adherents of the gods, and extended

daily. People fell into torpor or madness. In clouds lighted by the

burning, gods were seen gazing down on the ruin; hands were stretched

toward those gods then to implore pity or send them curses.

Meanwhile soldiers, aided by a certain number of inhabitants, continued

to tear down houses on the Esquiline and the Cælian, as also in the

Trans-Tiber; these divisions were saved therefore in considerable part.

But in the city itself were destroyed incalculable treasures accumulated

through centuries of conquest; priceless works of art, splendid temples,

the most precious monuments of Rome’s past, and Rome’s glory. They

foresaw that of all Rome there would remain barely a few parts on the

edges, and that hundreds of thousands of people would be without a roof.

Some spread reports that the soldiers were tearing down houses not to

stop the fire, but to prevent any part of the city from being saved.

Tigellinus sent courier after courier to Antium, imploring Cæsar in each

letter to come and calm the despairing people with his presence. But

Nero moved only when fire had seized the “domus transitoria,” and he

hurried so as not to miss the moment in which the conflagration should

be at its highest.

Meanwhile fire had reached the Via Nomentana, but turned from it at once

with a change of wind toward the Via Lata and the Tiber. It surrounded

the Capitol, spread along the Forum Boarium, destroyed everything which

it had spared before, and approached the Palatine a second time.

Tigellinus, assembling all the pretorian forces, despatched courier

after courier to Cæsar with an announcement that he would lose nothing

of the grandeur of the spectacle, for the fire had increased.

But Nero, who was on the road, wished to come at night, so as to sate

himself all the better with a view of the perishing capital. Therefore

he halted, in the neighborhood of Aqua Albana, and, summoning to his

tent the tragedian Aliturus, decided with his aid on posture, look, and

expression; learned fitting gestures, disputing with the actor

stubbornly whether at the words “O sacred city, which seemed more

enduring than Ida,” he was to raise both hands, or, holding in one the

forminga, drop it by his side and raise only the other. This question

seemed to him then more important than all others. Starting at last

about nightfall, he took counsel of Petronius also whether to the lines

describing the catastrophe he might add a few magnificent blasphemies

against the gods, and whether, considered from the standpoint of art,

they would not have rushed spontaneously from the mouth of a man in such

a position, a man who was losing his birthplace.

At length he approached the walls about midnight with his numerous

court, composed of whole detachments of nobles, senators, knights,

freedmen, slaves, women, and children. Sixteen thousand pretorians,

arranged in line of battle along the road, guarded the peace and safety

of his entrance, and held the excited populace at a proper distance.

The people cursed, shouted, and hissed on seeing the retinue, but dared

not attack it. In many places, however, applause was given by the

rabble, which, owning nothing, had lost nothing in the fire, and which

hoped for a more bountiful distribution than usual of wheat, olives,

clothing, and money. Finally, shouts, hissing, and applause were

drowned in the blare of horns and trumpets, which Tigellinus had caused

to be sounded.

Nero, on arriving at the Ostian Gate, halted, and said, “Houseless ruler

of a houseless people, where shall I lay my unfortunate head for the

night?”

After he had passed the Clivus Delphini, he ascended the Appian aqueduct

on steps prepared purposely. After him followed the Augustians and a

choir of singers, bearing citharæ, lutes, and other musical instruments.

And all held the breath in their breasts, waiting to learn if he would

say some great words, which for their own safety they ought to remember.

But he stood solemn, silent, in a purple mantle, and a wreath of golden

laurels, gazing at the raging might of the flames. When Terpnos gave him

a golden lute, he raised his eyes to the sky, filled with the

conflagration, as if he were waiting for inspiration.

The people pointed at him from afar as he stood in the bloody gleam. In

the distance fiery serpents were hissing. The ancient and most sacred

edifices were in flames: the temple of Hercules, reared by Evander, was

burning; the temple of Jupiter Stator was burning, the temple of Luna,

built by Servius Tullius, the house of Numa Pompilius, the sanctuary of

Vesta with the penates of the Roman people; through waving flames the

Capitol