wicked contrivance of the prince is not determined, for both are
asserted by historians; but of all the calamities which ever befell this
city from the rage of fire, this was the most terrible and severe. It
broke out in that part of the Circus which is contiguous to mounts
Palatine and Cælius, where, by reason of shops in which were kept such
goods as minister aliment to fire, the moment it commenced it acquired
strength, and, being accelerated by the wind, it spread at once through
the whole extent of the Circus: for neither were the houses secured by
enclosures nor the temples environed with walls, nor was there any other
obstacle to intercept its progress; but the flame, spreading every way
impetuously, invaded first the lower regions of the city, then mounted
to the higher; then again ravaging the lower, it baffled every effort to
extinguish it, by the rapidity of its destructive course, and from the
liability of the city to conflagration, in consequence of the narrow and
intricate alleys, and the irregularity of the streets in ancient Rome.
Add to this the wailings of terrified women, the infirm condition of the
aged, and the helplessness of childhood; such as strove to provide for
themselves and those who labored to assist others; these dragging the
feeble, those waiting for them; some hurrying, others lingering;
altogether created a scene of universal confusion and embarrassment: and
while they looked back upon the danger in their rear, they often found
themselves beset before and on their sides; or, if they had escaped into
the quarters adjoining, these, too, were already seized by the devouring
flames; even the parts which they believed remote and exempt were found
to be in the same distress. At last, not knowing what to shun or where
to seek sanctuary, they crowded the streets and lay along in the open
fields. Some, from the loss of their whole substance, even the means of
their daily sustenance, others, from affection for their relations whom
they had not been able to snatch from the flames, suffered themselves to
perish in them, though they had opportunity to escape. Neither dared any
man offer to check the fire, so repeated were the menaces of many who
forbade to extinguish it; and because others openly threw firebrands,
with loud declarations "that they had one who authorized them"; whether
they did it that they might plunder with the less restraint or in
consequence of orders given.
Nero, who was at that juncture sojourning at Antium, did not return to
the city till the fire approached that quarter of his house which
connected the palace with the gardens of Mæcenas; nor could it, however,
be prevented from devouring the house and palace and everything around.
But for the relief of the people, thus destitute and driven from their
dwellings, he opened the field of Mars and the monumental edifices
erected by Agrippa, and even his own gardens. He likewise reared
temporary houses for the reception of the forlorn multitude, and from
Ostia and the neighboring cities were brought, up the river, household
necessaries, and the price of grain was reduced to three sesterces the
measure. All which proceedings, though of a popular character, were
thrown away, because a rumor had become universally current "that at the
very time when the city was in flames, Nero, going on the stage of his
private theatre, sang _The Destruction of Troy_, assimilating the
present disaster to that catastrophe of ancient times."
At length, on the sixth day, the conflagration was stayed at the foot of
Esquiliæ, by pulling down an immense quantity of buildings, so that an
open space, and, as it were, void air, might check the raging element by
breaking the continuity. But ere the consternation had subsided the fire
broke out afresh, with no little violence, but in regions more spacious,
and therefore with less destruction of human life; but more extensive
havoc was made of the temples and the porticoes dedicated to amusement.
This conflagration, too, was the subject of more censorious remark, as
it arose in the Æmilian possessions of Tigellinus, and Nero seemed to
aim at the glory of building a new city and calling it by his own name;
for, of the fourteen sections into which Rome is divided, four were
still standing entire, three were levelled with the ground, and in the
seven others there remained only here and there a few remnants of
houses, shattered and half consumed.
It were no very easy task to recount the number of tenements and temples
which were lost; but the following, most venerable for antiquity and
sanctity, were consumed: that dedicated by Servius Tullius to the Moon;
the temple and great altar consecrated by Evander the Arcadian to
Hercules while present; the chapel vowed by Romulus to Jupiter Stator;
the palace of Numa with the temple of Vesta, and in it the tutelar gods
of Rome. Moreover, the treasures accumulated by so many victories, the
beautiful productions of Greek artists, ancient writings of authors
celebrated for genius, and till then preserved entire, were consumed;
and though great was the beauty of the city, in its renovated form, the
older inhabitants remembered many decorations of the ancient which could
not be replaced in the modern city. There were some who remarked that
the commencement of this fire showed itself on the fourteenth before the
calends of July, the day on which the Senones set fire to the captured
city. Others carried their investigation so far as to determine that an
equal number of years, months, and days intervened between the two
fires.
To proceed: Nero appropriated to his own purposes the ruins of his
country,[27] and founded upon them a palace; in which the old-fashioned,
and, in those luxurious times, common ornaments of gold and precious
stones, were not so much the objects of attraction as lands and lakes;
in one part, woods like vast deserts; in another part, open spaces and
expansive prospects. The projectors and superintendents of this plan
were Severus and Celer, men of such ingenuity and daring enterprise as
to attempt to conquer by art the obstacles of nature and fool away the
treasures of the prince. They had even undertaken to sink a navigable
canal from the lake Avernus to the mouth of the Tiber, over an arid
shore or through opposing mountains; nor indeed does there occur
anything of a humid nature for supplying water except the Pomptine
marshes; the rest is either craggy rock or a parched soil; and had it
even been possible to break through these obstructions, the toil had
been intolerable and disproportioned to the object. Nero, however, who
longed to achieve things that exceeded credibility, exerted all his
might to perforate the mountains adjoining to Avernus, and to this day
there remain traces of his abortive project.
But the rest of the old site not occupied by his palace was laid out,
not as after the Gallic fire without discrimination and regularity, but
with the lines of streets measured out, broad spaces left for transit,
the height of the buildings limited, open areas left, and porticoes
added to protect the front of the clustered dwellings: these porticoes
Nero engaged to rear at his own expense, and then to deliver to each
proprietor the areas about them cleared. He, moreover, proposed rewards
proportioned to every man's rank and private substance, and fixed a day
within which, if their houses, single and clustered, were finished, they
should receive them. He appointed the marshes of Ostia for a receptacle
of the rubbish, and that the vessels which had conveyed grain up the
Tiber should return laden with rubbish; that the buildings themselves
should be raised a certain portion of their height without beams, and
arched with stone from the quarries of Gabii or Alba, that stone being
proof against fire; that over the water springs, which had been
improperly intercepted by private individuals, overseers should be
placed, to provide for their flowing in greater abundance, and in a
greater number of places, for the supply of the public; that every
housekeeper should have in his yard means for extinguishing fire,
neither should there be party walls, but every house should be enclosed
by its own walls.[28]
These regulations, which were favorably received, in consideration of
their utility, were also a source of beauty to the new city; yet some
there were who believed that the ancient form was more conducive to
health, as from the narrowness of the streets and the height of the
buildings the rays of the sun were more excluded; whereas now, the
spacious breadth of the streets, without any shade to protect it, was
more intensely heated in warm weather.
Such were the provisions made by human counsels. The gods were next
addressed with expiations, and recourse had to the sibyl's books. By
admonition from them to Vulcan, Ceres, and Proserpina, supplicatory
sacrifices were made, and Juno propitiated by the matrons, first in the
Capitol, then upon the nearest shore, where, by water drawn from the
sea, the temple and image of the goddess were besprinkled; the ceremony
of placing the goddess in her sacred chair, and her vigil, were
celebrated by ladies who had husbands. But not all the relief that could
come from man, not all the bounties that the prince could bestow, nor
all the atonements which could be presented to the gods availed to
relieve Nero from the infamy of being believed to have ordered the
conflagration. Hence, to suppress the rumor, he falsely charged with the
guilt and punished with the most exquisite tortures the persons commonly
called Christians, who were hated for their enormities.
Christus, the founder of that name, was put to death as a criminal by
Pontius Pilate, procurator of Judea, in the reign of Tiberius; but the
pernicious superstition, repressed for a time, broke out again, not only
through Judea, where the mischief originated, but through the city of
Rome also, whither all things horrible and disgraceful flow from all
quarters as to a common receptacle and where they are encouraged.
Accordingly first those were seized who confessed they were Christians;
next on their information a vast multitude were convicted, not so much
on the charge of burning the city as of hating the human race. And in
their deaths they were also made the subjects of sport, for they were
covered with the hides of wild beasts, and worried to death by dogs, or
nailed to crosses, or set fire to, and when day declined, burned to
serve for nocturnal lights. Nero offered his own gardens for that
spectacle, and exhibited a Circensian game, indiscriminately mingling
with the common people in the habit of a charioteer, or else standing in
his chariot. Whence a feeling of compassion arose toward the sufferers,
though guilty and deserving to be made examples of by capital
punishment, because they seemed not to be cut off for the public good,
but victims to the ferocity of one man.
In the mean time, in order to supply money all Italy was pillaged, the
provinces ruined, both the people in alliance with us and the states
which are called free. Even the gods were not exempt from plunder on
this occasion, their temples in the city being despoiled, and all the
gold conveyed away which the Roman people, in every age, either in
gratitude for triumphs or in fulfilment of vows, had consecrated, in
times of prosperity, or in seasons of dismay. Through Greece and Asia,
indeed, the gifts and oblations and even the statues of the deities were
carried off.
FOOTNOTES:
[27] According to Suetonius, Nero turned the public calamity to his own
private advantage. He promised to remove the bodies that lay amid the
ruins, and to clear the ground at his own expense. By that artifice he
secured all the remaining property of the unhappy sufferers for his own
use. To add to his ill-gotten store, he levied contributions in the
provinces, and by those means collected an immense sum.
[28] By a law of the Twelve Tables, it was provided that a space of
something more than two feet was to be left between all new-built
houses.
PERSECUTION OF THE CHRISTIANS UNDER NERO
A.D. 64-68
FREDERIC WILLIAM FARRAR
Down to the reign of Nero Christians in the Roman Empire were
regarded by the ruling powers merely as a Jewish sect, harmless and
guilty of nothing which could call for the interference of the
State with their ways of life or of worship. They were therefore
unmolested. But during the reign of the infamous Emperor in whom
they saw antichrist and the actual embodiment of the symbolic
monstrosities of the Apocalypse, the Christians began to be
recognized as a separate people, and from milder persecutions at
first, under cover of legal procedure, they were soon subjected to
outrages, tortures, and deaths than which history has none more
revolting and pitiful to record. In Kaulbach's great painting of
Nero's persecution there is enough of portrayal and suggestion to
add a terrible vividness to the ordinary historian's word-pictures.
The Emperor, surrounded by his boon companions, stands on his
garden terrace to receive divine honors, while a group of suffering
Christians--among them St. Peter, crucified head down, and St.
Paul, passionately protesting against the diabolical work--move to
compassion a company of elderly men and a body of German soldiers
who look upon the horrible spectacle of martyrdom.
This, the first persecution of the Christians, reached its
culminating point of ferocity in A.D. 64, after Nero had been
accused of kindling, or conniving at the work of those who did
kindle, the great fire in Rome. In order to divert attention, even
if he could not turn suspicion, from himself, having charged the
Christians with causing the conflagration, he ordered the
atrocities which added a still darker stain to his personal and
imperial record of shameless crime and savage inhumanity. First
such as confessed themselves to be Christians were dealt with, and
from these information was extorted on which vast numbers were
convicted, "not so much on the charge of burning the city as of
hating the human race."
Nero's character and acts have been depicted by many writers and in
famous works of art, but not even the pencil of Kaulbach can make
more keen the realization of those scenes enacted in this
persecution than the thrilling narration of Farrar, which for
picturesque eloquence, fired with dramatic intensity, has seldom
been surpassed in English literature.
Nero was so secure in his absolutism, he had hitherto found it so
impossible to shock the feelings of the people or to exhaust the
terrified adulation of the senate, that he was usually indifferent to
the pasquinades which were constantly holding up his name to execration
and contempt. But now[29] he felt that he had gone too far, and that his
power would be seriously imperilled if he did not succeed in diverting
the suspicions of the populace. He was perfectly aware that when the
people in the streets cursed those who set fire to the city they meant
to curse _him_. If he did not take some immediate step, he felt that he
might perish, as Gaius had perished before him, by the dagger of the
assassin.
It is at this point of his career that Nero becomes a prominent figure
in the history of the Church. It was this phase of cruelty which seemed
to throw a blood-red light over his whole character and led men to look
on him as the very incarnation of the world-power in its most demoniac
aspect, as worse than the Antiochus Epiphanes of Daniel's Apocalypse, as
the Man of Sin whom--in language figurative indeed, yet awfully
true--the Lord should slay with the breath of his mouth and destroy with
the brightness of his coming, for Nero endeavored to fix the odious
crime of having destroyed the capital of the world upon the most
innocent and faithful of his subjects--upon the only subjects who
offered heartfelt prayers on his behalf--the Roman Christians. They were
the defenceless victims of this horrible charge, for though they were
the most harmless, they were also the most hated and the most slandered
of living men.
Why he should have thought of singling out the Christians has always
been a curious problem, for at this point St. Luke ends the Acts of the
Apostles, perhaps purposely dropping the curtain, because it would have
been perilous and useless to narrate the horrors in which the hitherto
neutral or friendly Roman government began to play so disgraceful a
part. Neither Tacitus, nor Suetonius, nor the Apocalypse, helps us to
solve this particular problem. The Christians had filled no large space
in the eye of the world. Until the days of Domitian we do not hear of a
single noble or distinguished person who had joined their ranks. That
the Pudens and Claudia of Rom. xvi. were the Pudens and Claudia of
Martial's _Epigrams_ seems to me to be a baseless dream. If the "foreign
superstition" with which Pomponia Græcina, wife of Aulus Plautius, the
conqueror of Britain, was charged, and of which she was acquitted, was
indeed, as has been suspected, the Christian religion, at any rate the
name of Christianity was not alluded to by the ancient writers who had
mentioned the circumstance. Even if Rom. xvi. was addressed to Rome, and
not, as I believe, to Ephesus, "they of the household of Narcissus which
were in the Lord" were unknown slaves, as also were "they of Cæsar's
household."
The slaves and artisans, Jewish and Gentile, who formed the Christian
community at Rome, had never in any way come into collision with the
Roman government. They must have been the victims rather than the
exciters of the messianic tumults--for such they are conjectured to have
been--which led to the expulsion of the Jews from Rome by the futile
edict of Claudius. Nay, so obedient and docile were they required to be
by the very principles on which their morality was based, so far were
they removed from the fierce independence of the Jewish zealots, that,
in writing to them a few years earlier, the greatest of their leaders
had urged upon them a payment of tribute and a submission to the higher
powers, not only for wrath, but also for conscience' sake, because the
earthly ruler, in his office of repressing evil works, is a minister of
God. That the Christians were entirely innocent of the crime charged
against them was well known both at the time and afterward. But how was
it that Nero sought popularity and partly averted the deep rage which
was rankling in many hearts against himself, by torturing men and women,
on whose agonies he thought that the populace would gaze not only with a
stolid indifference, but even with fierce satisfaction?
Gibbon has conjectured that the Christians were confounded with the
Jews, and that the detestation universally felt for the latter fell with
double force upon the former. Christians suffered even more than the
Jews because of the calumnies so assiduously circulated against them,
and from what appeared to the ancients to be the revolting absurdity of
their peculiar tenets. "Nero," says Tacitus, "exposed to accusation, and
tortured with the most exquisite penalties, a set of men detested for
their enormities, whom the common people called 'Christians.' Christus,
the founder of this sect, was executed during the reign of Tiberius, by
the procurator Pontius Pilate, and the deadly superstition, suppressed
for a time, began to burst out once more, not only throughout Judea,
where the evil had its root, but even in the city, whither from every
quarter all things horrible or shameful are drifted, and find their
votaries."
The lordly disdain which prevented Tacitus from making any inquiry into
the real views and character of the Christians is shown by the fact that
he catches up the most baseless allegations against them. He talks of
their doctrines as savage and shameful when they breathed the very
spirit of peace and purity. He charges them with being animated by a
hatred of their kind when their central tenet was a universal charity.
The masses, he says, called them "Christians"; and while he almost
apologizes for staining his page with so vulgar an appellation,[30] he
merely mentions in passing that, though innocent of the charge of being
turbulent incendiaries, on which they were tortured to death, they were
yet a set of guilty and infamous sectaries, to be classed with the
lowest dregs of Roman criminals.
But the haughty historian throws no light on one difficulty--namely, the
circumstances which led to the _Christians_ being thus singled out. The
Jews were in no way involved in Nero's persecution. To persecute the
Jews at Rome would not have been an easy matter. They were sufficiently
numerous to be formidable, and had overawed Cicero in the zenith of his
fame. Besides this, the Jewish religion was recognized, tolerated,
licensed. Throughout the length and breadth of the empire no man,
however much he and his race might be detested and despised, could have
been burned or tortured for the mere fact of being a Jew. We hear of no
Jewish martyrdoms or Jewish persecutions till we come to the times of
the Jewish War, and then chiefly in Palestine itself. It is clear that a
shedding of blood--in fact, some form or other of human sacrifice--was
imperatively demanded by popular feeling as an expiation of the ruinous
crime which had plunged so many thousands into the depths of misery. In
vain had the sibylline books been once more consulted, and in vain had
public prayer been offered, in accordance with their directions to
Vulcan and the goddesses of Earth and Hades. In vain had the Roman
matrons walked in procession in dark robes, and with their long hair
unbound, to propitiate the insulted majesty of Juno, and to sprinkle
with sea-water her ancient statue. In vain had largesses been lavished
upon the people, and propitiatory sacrifices offered to the gods. In
vain had public banquets been celebrated in honor of various deities. A
crime had been committed, and Romans had perished unavenged. Blood cried
for blood before the sullen suspicion against Nero could be averted or
the indignation of heaven appeased.
Nero had always hated, persecuted, and exiled the philosophers, and no
doubt, so far as he knew anything of the Christians--so far as he saw
among his own countless slaves any who had embraced this superstition,
which the _élite_ of Rome described as not only new, but "execrable" and
"malefic"--he would hate their gravity and purity, and feel for them
that raging envy which is the tribute that virtue receives from vice.
Moreover, St. Paul, in all probability, had recently stood before his
tribunal, and though he had been acquitted on the special charges of
turbulence and profanation, respecting which he had appealed to Cæsar,
yet during the judicial inquiry Nero could hardly have failed to hear
from the emissaries of the Sanhedrim many fierce slanders of a sect
which was everywhere spoken against. The Jews were by far the deadliest
enemies of the Christians, and two persons of Jewish proclivities were
at this time in close proximity to the person of the Emperor. One was
the pantomimist Aliturus, the other was Poppæa, the harlot-empress.[31]
The Jews were in communication with these powerful favorites, and had
even promised Nero that if his enemies ever prevailed at Rome he should
have the kingdom of Jerusalem.[32]
It is not even impossible that there may have been a third dark and evil
influence at work to undermine the Christians, for about this very time
the unscrupulous Pharisee Flavius Josephus had availed himself of the
intrigues of the palace to secure the liberation of some Jewish priests.
If, as seems certain, the Jews had it in their power during the reign of
Nero more or less to shape the whisper of the throne, does not
historical induction drive us to conclude with some confidence that the
suggestion of the Christians as scapegoats and victims came from them?
St. Clement says in his Epistle that the Christians suffered _through
jealousy_. _Whose_ jealousy? Who can tell what dark secrets lie veiled
under that suggestive word? Was Acte a Christian, and was Poppæa jealous
of her? That suggestion seems at once inadequate and improbable,
especially as Acte was not hurt. But there _was_ a deadly jealousy at
work against the new religion.