_The Burning of Rome_
With the original mixture of Ionian and northern blood in his veins,
the character of the Roman was at once tasteful and barbarian. Like the
Asiatic, delighting in luxury, like the Tatar, delighting in gore, he
turned the elegance of the Greek games into the combat of gladiators. He
was a voluptuary, but the gravest of all voluptuaries. Of all nations the
Roman bore the strongest resemblance to that people of conquerors who at
length swept its name from Byzantium; superb, but slavish; fierce, but
sensual; brave as the lion, but base in its appetites as the jackal; a
people made for the possession of empire and for its corruption.[26]
Of all men he had the least resemblance to his successor. Haughty,
sagacious, and solemn, tho ravening for rapine, and merciless in his
revenge, he bequeathed nothing to that miscellany of mankind which has
followed him, but his passion for shows.
[Sidenote: Roman Pageantry]
Rome was all shows. Its innumerable public events were all thrown into
the shape of pageantry. Its worship, elections, the departure and return
of governors and consuls, every operation of public life, was modeled
into a pomp, and in the boundless extent of the empire those operations
were crowding on one another every day. The multitude that can still
be set in motion by a wooden saint was then summoned by the stirring
ceremonial of empire, the actual sovereignty of the globe. What must
have been the strong excitement, the perpetual concourse, the living and
various activity of a city from which flowed the stream of power through
the world, to return to it loaded with all that the opulence, skill, and
splendor of the world could give.
Triumphs to whose grandeur and singularity the pomps of later days are
but as the attempts of paupers and children; rites on which the very
existence of the state was to depend; the levy and march of armies which
were to carry fate to the remotest corners of the earth; the kings of the
East and West coming to solicit diadems or to deprecate the irresistible
wrath of Rome; vast theaters; public games that tasked the whole
fertility of Roman talent, and the most prodigal lavishness of imperial
luxury, were the movers that among the four millions of Rome made life a
hurricane.
I saw it in its full and grand commotion; I saw it in its desperate
agony; I saw it in its frivolous revival, and I shall see it in an hour,
wilder, weaker, and more terrible than all. I remained under the charge
of the centurion. No man could be better fitted for a state jailer.
Civility sat on his lips, but caution the most profound sat beside her.
He professed to have the deepest dependence on my honor, yet he never let
me move beyond his eye. But I had no desire to escape. The crisis must
come, and I was as well inclined to meet it then as to have it lingering
over me.
[Sidenote: Summoned Before the Emperor]
Intelligence in a few days arrived from Brundusium of the Emperor’s
landing, and of his intention to remain at Antium until his triumphal
entry should be prepared. My fate now hung in the balance. I was ordered
to attend the imperial presence. At the vestibule of the Antian palace my
careful centurion deposited me in the hands of a senator.
As I followed him through the halls, a young female richly attired, and
of the most beautiful face and form, crossed us, light and graceful
as a dancing nymph. The senator bowed profoundly. She beckoned to him
and they exchanged a few words. I was probably the subject, for her
countenance, sparkling with the animation of youth and loveliness, grew
pale at once; she clasped both her hands upon her eyes and rushed into an
inner chamber. She knew Nero well; and dearly she was yet to pay for her
knowledge.
The senator, to my inquiring glance, answered in a whisper, “The Empress
Poppæa.”
A few steps onward and I stood in the presence of the most formidable
being on earth. Yet whatever might have been my natural agitation at the
time, I could scarcely restrain a smile at the first sight of Nero.[27]
[Sidenote: Nero the Tyrant]
I saw a pale, undersized, light-haired young man, sitting before a table
with a lyre on it, and a parrot’s cage, to whose inmate he was teaching
Greek with great assiduity. But for the regal furniture of the cabinet I
should have supposed myself led by mistake into an interview with some
struggling poet. He shot round one quick glance on the opening of the
door, and then proceeded to give lessons to his bird. I had leisure to
gaze on the tyrant and parricide.
Physiognomy is a true science. The man of profound thought, the man of
active ability, and, above all, the man of genius has his character
stamped on his countenance by nature; the man of violent passions and the
voluptuary have it stamped by habit. But the science has its limits: it
has no stamp for mere cruelty. The features of the human monster before
me were mild and almost handsome; a heavy eye and a figure tending to
fulness gave the impression of a quiet mind, and but for an occasional
restlessness of brow and a brief glance from under it, in which the
leaden eye darted suspicion, I should have pronounced Nero one of the
most indolently harmless of mankind.
He now remanded his pupil to its perch, took up the lyre, and throwing a
not unskilful hand over the strings in the intervals of his performance,
languidly addressed a broken sentence to me.
[Sidenote: The Escape]
“You have come, I understand, from Judea; they tell me that you have
been, or are to be, a general of the insurrection. You must be put to
death; your countrymen give me a great deal of trouble, and I always
regret to be troubled with them. But to send you back would be only an
encouragement to them, and to keep you here among strangers would be
only a cruelty to you. I am charged with cruelty; you see the charge is
not true. I am lampooned every day; I know the scribblers, but they must
lampoon or starve and I leave them to do both. Have you brought any news
from Judea? They have not had a true prince there since the first Herod
and he was quite a Greek, a cut-throat and a man of taste. He understood
the arts. I sent for you to see what sort of animal a Jewish rebel was.
Your dress is handsome, but too light for our winters. You can not die
before sunset, as until then I am engaged with my music-master. We all
must die when our time comes. Farewell—till sunset may Jupiter protect
you!”
I retired to execution, and before the door closed heard this
accomplished disposer of life and death preluding upon his lyre with
increased energy. I was conducted to a turret until the period in which
the Emperor’s engagement with his music-master should leave him at
leisure to see me die!
Yet there was kindness even under the roof of Nero, and a liberal hand
had covered the table in my cell. The hours passed heavily along, but
they passed; and I was watching the last rays of my last sun when I
suddenly perceived a cloud rise in the direction of Rome. It grew
broader, deeper, darker as I gazed; its center was suddenly tinged with
red; the tinge spread; the whole mass of cloud became crimson; the sun
went down, and another sun seemed to have risen in its stead. I heard the
clattering of horses’ feet in the courtyards below; trumpets sounded;
there was evident confusion in the palace; the troops hurried under arms,
and I saw a squadron of cavalry set off at full speed.
As I was gazing on the spectacle before me, which perpetually became
more menacing, the door of my cell slowly opened, and a masked figure
stood upon the threshold. I had made up my mind, and demanding if he were
the executioner, told him “I was ready.” The figure paused, listened to
the sounds below, and after looking for a while on the troops in the
courtyard, signified by signs that I had a chance of saving my life.
[Sidenote: Rome Aflame]
The love of existence rushed back upon me; I eagerly inquired what was to
be done. He drew from under his cloak the dress of a Roman slave, which
I put on, and noiselessly followed his steps through a long succession
of small and strangely intricate passages. We found no difficulty from
guards or domestics. The whole palace was in a state of extraordinary
alarm. Every human being was packing up something or other; rich vases,
myrrhine cups, gold services, were lying in heaps on the floors; books,
costly dresses, instruments of music, all the appendages of luxury, were
flung loose in every direction—signs of the sudden breaking up of the
court. I might have plundered the value of a province with impunity.
Still we wound our hurried way. In passing along one of the corridors,
the voice of sorrow struck the ear; my mysterious guide hesitated; I
glanced through the slab of crystal that showed the chamber within.
It was the one in which I had seen the Emperor, but his place was now
filled by the form of youth and beauty which had crossed me on my
arrival. She was weeping bitterly,[28] and reading with passionate
indignation a long list of names, probably one of those rolls in which
Nero registered his intended victims, and which in the haste of departure
he had left open. A second glance saw her tear the paper into a thousand
fragments and scatter them in the fountain that gushed upon the floor. I
left this lovely and unhappy creature, this dove in the vulture’s talons,
with almost a pang. A few steps more brought us into the open air, but
among bowers that covered our path with darkness. At the extremity of
the gardens my guide struck with his dagger upon a door; it was opened;
we found horses outside; he sprang on one; I sprang on its fellow, and
palace, guards, and death were left far behind.
[Sidenote: The Progress of Destruction]
He galloped so furiously that I found it impossible to speak, and it
was not till we had reached an eminence a few miles from Rome, where we
breathed our horses, that I could ask to whom I had been indebted for
my escape. But I could not extract a word from him. He made signs of
silence and pointed with wild anxiety to the scene that spread below. It
was of a grandeur and terror indescribable. Rome was an ocean of flame!
Height and depth were covered with red surges that rolled before the
blast like an endless tide. The flames burst up the sides of the hills,
which they turned into instant volcanoes, exploding volumes of smoke and
fire; then plunged into the depths in a hundred glowing cataracts; then
climbed and consumed again. The distant sound of the great city in her
convulsion went to the soul. The air was filled with the steady roar of
the advancing blaze, the crash of falling houses, and the hideous outcry
of the myriads flying through the streets, or surrounded and perishing in
the conflagration.
Hostile to Rome as I was, I could not restrain the exclamation: “There
goes the fruit of conquest, the glory of ages, the purchase of the
blood of millions! Was vanity made for man?” My guide continued looking
forward with intense earnestness, as if he were perplexed by what avenue
to enter the burning city. I demanded who he was, and whither he would
lead me. He returned no answer. A long spire of flame that shot up from
a hitherto-untouched quarter engrossed all his senses. He struck in the
spur, and making a wild gesture to me to follow, darted down the hill.
I pursued; we found the Appian choked with wagons, baggage of every
kind, and terrified crowds hurrying into the open country. To force a
way through them was impossible. All was clamor, violent struggle, and
helpless death. Men and women of the highest rank were hurrying on foot,
or trampled by the rabble that had then lost all respect of condition.
One dense mass of miserable life, irresistible from its weight, crushed
by the narrow streets and scorched by the flames over their heads,
continued to roll through the gates like an endless stream of black lava.
We now turned back and attempted an entrance through the gardens of some
of the villas that skirted the city wall near the Palatine. All were
deserted, and after some dangerous bounds over the burning ruins we
found ourselves in the streets. The fire had originally broken out on
the Palatine, and hot smoke that wrapped and half-blinded us hung thick
as night upon the wrecks of pavilions and palaces; but the dexterity and
knowledge of my inexplicable guide carried us on. It was in vain that I
insisted upon knowing the purpose of this terrible traverse. He pressed
his hand on his heart in reassurance of his fidelity, and still spurred
on.
We now passed under the shade of an immense range of lofty buildings,
whose gloomy and solid strength seemed to bid defiance to chance and
time. A sudden scream appalled me.
[Sidenote: In the Arena]
A ring of fire swept round its summit; burning cordage, sheets of canvas,
and a shower of all things combustible flew into the air above our heads.
An uproar followed, unlike all that I had ever heard, a hideous mixture
of howls, shrieks, and groans. The flames rolled down the narrow street
before us and made the passage next to impossible. While we hesitated,
a huge fragment of the building heaved, as if in an earthquake, and
fortunately for us fell inward. The whole scene of terror was then open.
The great amphitheater of Statilius Taurus had caught fire; the stage
with its inflammable furniture was blazing below. The flames were
wheeling up, circle above circle, through the seventy thousand seats
that rose from the ground to the roof. I stood in unspeakable awe and
wonder on the side of this colossal cavern, this mighty temple of the
city of fire. At length a descending blast cleared away the smoke that
covered the arena. The cause of those horrid cries was now visible. The
wild beasts kept for the games had broken from their dens. Maddened by
affright and pain, lions, tigers, panthers, wolves, whole herds of the
monsters of India and Africa, were enclosed in an impassable barrier
of fire. They bounded, they fought, they screamed, they tore; they ran
howling round and round the circle; they made desperate leaps upward
through the blaze; when flung back, they fell, only to fasten their fangs
in each other, and with their parching jaws bathed in blood, die raging.
[Sidenote: Mamartine, the Roman Prison]
I looked anxiously to see whether any human being was involved in this
fearful catastrophe; but to my relief, I could see none. The keepers
and attendants had obviously escaped. As I expressed my gladness I was
startled by a loud cry from my guide, the first sound that I had heard
him utter. He pointed to the opposite side of the amphitheater. There
indeed sat an object of melancholy interest—a man who had either been
unable to escape or had determined to die. Escape was now impossible.
He sat in desperate calmness on his funeral pile. He was a gigantic
Ethiopian slave, entirely naked. He had chosen his place, as if in
mockery, on the imperial throne; the fire was above him and around him,
and under this tremendous canopy he gazed without the movement of a
muscle on the combat of the wild beasts below, a solitary sovereign, with
the whole tremendous game played for himself, and inaccessible to the
power of man.
I was forced away from this absorbing spectacle, and we once more
threaded the long and intricate streets of Rome. As we approached the end
of one of those bewildering passages, scarcely wide enough for us to ride
abreast, I was startled by the sudden illumination of the sky immediately
above, and, rendered cautious by the experience of our hazards, called to
my companion to return. He pointed behind me and showed the fire breaking
out in the houses by which we had just galloped. I followed on. A crowd
that poured from the adjoining streets cut off our retreat. Hundreds
rapidly mounted on the houses in front, in the hope by throwing them
down to check the conflagration. The obstacle once removed, we saw the
source of the light—spectacle of horror! The great prison of Rome, the
Mamartine, was on fire.
Never can I forget the sights and sounds—the dismay—the hopeless
agony—the fury and frenzy that then overwhelmed all hearts. The jailers
had been forced to fly before they could loose the fetters or open
the cells of the prisoners. We saw those gaunt and wo-begone wretches
crowding to their casements, and imploring impossible help; clinging
to the heated bars; toiling with their impotent grasp to tear out the
massive stones; some hopelessly wringing their hands; some calling on
the terrified spectators, by every name of humanity, to save them; some
venting their despair in execrations and blasphemies that made the blood
run cold; others, after many a wild effort to break loose, dashing
their heads against the walls or stabbing themselves. The people gave
them outcry for outcry, but the flame forbade approach. Before I could
extricate myself from the multitude, a whirl of fiery ashes shot upward
from the falling roof; the walls burst into a thousand fragments, and the
huge prison, with all its miserable inmates, was a heap of embers!
[Sidenote: Through Increasing Misery]
Exhausted as I was by this endless fatigue and yet more by the melancholy
sights that surrounded every step, no fatigue seemed to be felt by
the singular being who governed my movements. He sprang through the
burning ruins; he plunged into the sulfurous smoke; he never lost the
direction that he had first taken; and tho baffled and forced to turn
back a hundred times, he again rushed on his track with the directness
of an arrow. For me to make my way back to the gates would be even more
difficult than to push forward. My ultimate safety might be in following,
and I followed. To stand still and to move seemed equally perilous.
The streets, even with the improvements of Augustus, were still scarcely
wider than the breadth of the little Volscian carts that crowded them.
They were crooked, long, and obstructed by every impediment of a city
built in haste after the burning by the Gauls, and with no other plan
than the caprice of its hurried tenantry. The houses were of immense
height, chiefly wood, many roofed with thatch, and all covered or
cemented with pitch. The true surprise is that it had not been burned
once a year from the time of its building. Nero, that hereditary
concentration of vice, of whose ancestor’s yellow beard the Roman orator
said, “No wonder that his beard was brass, when his mouth was iron
and his heart lead,” the parricide and the poisoner, might plausibly
exonerate himself of an act which might have been the deed of a drunken
mendicant in any of the fifty thousand hovels of this gigantic aggregate
of everything that could turn to flame.
We passed along through all the horrid varieties of misery, guilt, and
riot that could find their place in a great public calamity; groups
gazing in wo on the wreck of their fortunes in vapor and fire; groups
plundering in the midst of the flame; crowds of rioters, escaped felons,
and murderers, exulting in the public ruin, and dancing and drinking with
Bacchanalian uproar; gangs of robbers stabbing the fugitives, to strip
them; revenge, avarice, despair, profligacy, let loose naked; undisguised
demons, to swell the wretchedness of this tremendous infliction upon a
blood-covered empire.
Still we spurred on, but our jaded horses at length sank under us; and
leaving them to find their way into the fields, we struggled forward
on foot. The air had hitherto been calm, but now gusts began to rise,
thunder growled, and the signs of tempest increased. We had gained an
untouched quarter of the city, and had pushed our weary passage up to the
gates of a large patrician palace, when we were startled by a broad sheet
of flame rushing through the sky. The storm had come in its rage.
[Sidenote: The Palace Aflame]
The range of public magazines of wood, cordage, tar, and oil, in the
valley between the Cœlian and Palatine hills, had at length been involved
in the conflagration. All that we had seen before was darkness to the
fierce splendor of this burning. The tempest tore off the roofs and swept
them like floating islands of fire through the sky. The most distant
quarters on which they fell were instantly wrapped in flame. One broad
mass, whirling from an immense height, broke upon the palace before us. A
cry of terror was heard within. The gates were flung open, and a crowd of
domestics and persons of both sexes, attired for a banquet, poured into
the streets. The palace was wrapped in flame.
My guide then for the first time lost his self-possession. He staggered
toward me with the appearance of a man who had received a spear-head in
his bosom. I caught him before he fell, but his head sank, his knees bent
under him, and his white lips quivered with unintelligible sounds. I
could distinguish only the words—“Gone, gone forever!”
[Sidenote: Salathiel Finds Salome]
The flames had already seized upon the principal floors of the palace,
and the volumes of smoke that poured through every window and entrance
rendered the attempt to save those still within a work of extreme hazard.
But ladders were rapidly placed, ropes were flung, and the activity of
the attendants and retainers was boldly exerted, until all were presumed
to have been saved and the building was left to burn. My overwhelmed
guide was lying on the ground when a sudden scream was heard, and a
figure in the robes and with the rosy crown of a banquet—strange contrast
to her fearful situation—was seen flying from window to window in the
upper part of the mansion. It was supposed that she had fainted in
the first terror and been forgotten. The height, the fierceness of the
flame, which now completely mastered resistance, the volumes of smoke
that suffocated every man who approached, made the chance of saving this
unfortunate being utterly desperate in the opinion of the multitude.
I shuddered at the horrors of this desertion. I looked round at my
companion; he was kneeling in helpless agony, with his hands lifted up
to heaven. Another scream, wilder than ever, pierced my senses. I seized
an ax from one of the domestics, caught a ladder from another, and in a
paroxysm of hope, fear, and pity scaled the burning wall. A shout from
below followed me.
I entered at the first window that I could reach. All before me was
cloud. I rushed on, struggled, stumbled over furniture and fragments of
all kinds; fell, rose again, found myself trampling upon precious things,
plate and crystal; and still, ax in hand, forced my way. I at length
reached the apartment where I had seen the figure. It had vanished!
A strange superstition of childhood, a thought that I might have been
lured by some spirit of evil into this place of ruin, suddenly came
over me. I stopped to gather my faculties. I leaned against one of the
pillars—it was hot; the floor shook and cracked under my tread; the walls
heaved, the flame hissed below, while overhead roared the whirlwind and
burst the thunder-peal.
My brain was fevered by agitation and fatigue. The golden lamps still
burning; the long tables disordered, yet glittering with the ornaments of
patrician luxury; the Tyrian couches; the scarlet canopy that covered the
whole range of the tables, and gave the hall the aspect of an imperial
pavilion, partially torn down in the confusion of the flight, all assumed
to me a horrid and bewildering splendor. The smoke was already rising
through the crevices of the floor; a huge volume of yellow vapor slowly
wreathed and arched round the chair at the head of the banquet-table. I
could have imaged a fearful lord of the feast under that cloudy veil.
Everything round me was marked with preternatural fear, magnificence, and
ruin.
A low groan broke my reverie. I heard the broken words:
[Sidenote: Pursued by Fire]
“Oh, bitter fruit of disobedience! Oh, my father! oh, my mother! shall
I never see you again? For one crime I am doomed. Eternal mercy, let
my crime be washed away! Let my spirit ascend pure! Farewell, mother,
sister, father, husband!”
With the last word I heard a fall, as if the spirit had left the body.
I sprang toward the sound—I met but the solid wall.
“Horrible illusion!” I cried. “Am I mad, or the victim of the powers of
darkness?”
I tore away the hangings—a door was before me. I burst it through with a
blow of the ax, and saw stretched on the floor, and insensible—Salome!
I caught my child in my arms; I bathed her forehead with my tears;
I besought her to look up, to give some sign of life, to hear the
full forgiveness of my breaking heart. She looked not, answered not,
breathed not. To make a last effort for her life, I carried her into
the banquet-room. But the fire had forced its way there; the storm had
carried the flame through the long galleries, and spires of lurid light
already darting through the doors, gave fearful evidence that the last
stone of the palace must soon go down.
I bore my unhappy daughter toward the window, but the height was deadly;
no gesture could be seen through the piles of smoke; the help of man
was in vain. To my increased misery, the current of air revived Salome
at the instant when I hoped that by insensibility she would escape the
final pang. She breathed, stood and opening her eyes, fixed on me the
vacant stare of one scarcely roused from sleep. Still clasped in my arms
she gazed again, but my wild face, covered with dust, my half-burned
hair, the ax gleaming in my hand, terrified her; she uttered a scream and
darted away from me, headlong into the center of the burning. I rushed
after her, calling on her name. A column of fire shot up between us; I
felt the floor sink; all was then suffocation—I struggled and fell.