The Nero Prediction (26 page)

The fireman, puzzled, dropped his eyes. “Augustus?”

“Go on man,” Nero said. “Your report.”

“It’s bad Caesar but we expect it to be contained soon.”

It wasn’t contained. By dinner the news was grave. Tigellinus himself briefed Nero. "The east side of the Circus is in flames, Caesar. The fire is raging in the valley between the Palatine and the Caelian hills. The imperial palaces themselves might be in danger."

Nero lifted his lips from the decoction of boiled water cooled with snow that he'd been sipping for his voice. "The palaces? How did it get to my palaces? They’re full of irreplaceable works of art!"

"The firemen blame arsonists. Men have been caught setting fires. It looks like they’re trying to burn down the Palatine."

Nero struck a loud, ecstatic chord on his kithara. “It’s them! The Christians! Tell Rome her emperor is on his way!”

Four hours later we were in the city. The south side was a lake of fire. Nero ordered his staff to set up headquarters on the north east side in the Gardens of Maecenas which had been part of the palace complex since Augustus's time. The estate straddled the old republican wall as it ran up the Esquiline hill. From the vantage point of the wall, now a fashionable promenade, it was clear that the south east of the Palatine, which included the palace of Augustus, was already in flames.

As I hurried southwards with Nero along the arcades of the Transitional Palace, which linked the Palatine with Maecenas's Gardens, the black smoke billowing out of broken windows and gutted roofs assumed the dreadful shapes of alarm and confusion as it rushed at us like the army of the night. Every now and then its ranks would part long enough to reveal hundreds of palace slaves carrying paintings and books under both arms or statues on their backs. A garden cart piled high with art treasures rushed past us as its panicked horse fled the flames, spilling a king's ransom every time it hit a pot hole.

Faced with a seemingly endless list of awful choices, Nero didn’t sleep that night. Which buildings were to be destroyed as fire breaks so that not everything was lost? Soldiers had to be posted to protect the men making the fire breaks from mobs who were convinced they were helping the arsonists.

For five days the fire roared like a ravenous beast. Buildings collapsed with the sound of distant thunder. The air, hot as the breath of an oven, was alive with darting sparks. It was easy to confuse night and day, the shrouded sun with the bloody full Moon.

Historic shrines such as Vesta's temple, where the Roman household gods were stored, king Numa's house: all gone. Great centers of popular entertainment such as the Circus Maximus and the theater of Marcellus: gutted. Everywhere temples were ablaze or already ashes: Romulus's temple of Jupiter, the great altar of Hercules, the temples of Isis and Sarapis, Augustus's temple of Apollo, the temple of the Moon.

Dire predictions fed on fantastic rumors. Someone calculated that the fire had broken out precisely four-hundred-and-eighteen years, four-hundred-and-eighteen months and four-hundred-and-eighteen days after the burning of Rome by the Gauls. This symmetry proved beyond doubt that the conflagration was the work of Fate.

 Supernatural voices were heard calling out warnings in the night. Huge, grimacing faces appeared in the smoke. Every time the Sun leapt into sight, it appeared to be larger, redder, hotter. It was late afternoon of the fifth day of the fire that Tigellinus brought the news.

Like Nero's, Tigellinus's face was drawn from lack of sleep, the brilliant velvet eyes bleary. “Augustus, finally we have one of them. He was run down by a mob. It's lucky a patrol rescued him before he was torn to pieces."

"You have him?"

"Yes Caesar and he admits to everything. He seems proud of it."

The arsonist was chained to an ornamental tree in the garden. His skin was so blackened by soot that at first I thought he was a Nubian. His eyes were shut although he was clearly not unconscious.

Nero squinted at the black, bearded figure. "Is there a bucket of water left in Rome? I'd like to see who I'm dealing with."

The arsonist was doused and his face wiped.

It was Zebah, the Jew with the beak of a nose.

He smiled contemptuously at Nero. "Hail Beast! You are about to burn in hell. Do you know that?"

Nero's lips twitched as he searched for the right words. "Are you a Christian?"

"Yes, just as you are the Beast whose name is a number."

Nero's voice was gentle. "Yes, I've heard that. Is it true that it was you Christians who set fire to the city?"

Zebah stuck his beak in my direction. “Ask your slave. Perhaps he has the answer.”

Nero turned to me, puzzled. “Well do you, Epaphroditus? I’ve been noticing that ever since we got here when some of the common people kneel to me they seem to be looking at you.”

“I’ve met this man, dominus. He was at one of those Christian meetings. I think he’s one of their leaders. Unfortunately that’s all I know.”

Zebah laughed. "No man started it, Beast, and no man can extinguish it for it is the fire which comes at the end of the world."

"So who’s spreading it?"

 "Those of us who have seen the light."

"Why?"

 "Because the prophet has instructed us to make smooth the path of the lord."

"A lord who glories in destruction?"

"In the destruction of your world, yes, for his kingdom has come and very soon he shall ride in on clouds of glory."

A mighty fire that will descend from heaven and consume the world of the Beast, a fire that enraptures the pure but tortures the impure throughout eternity
– Mark the Lion’s prediction.

Excitement spread over Nero's face like flame over pitch. "When? When is he making his grand entrance?”

“He is already here. Everywhere. He walks in the flames.”

“Then there’s no time to lose. I must fight back! Orpheus's lyre charmed the beasts, Amphion's moved stones, but Nero's must save the world!" 

Less than an hour later, while Rome burnt, Nero was singing from the top of Maecenas's tower, a spire of volcanic tufa so tall that its summit was hidden in the smoky pall which covered the city, waging musical war against Chaos itself. He was still singing when the rising Moon, waned to half already, began slicing her way like a bloody scythe through the black billows riding on the south wind, singing not only
The Sack of Troy
but favorite pieces from his other compositions as well.

A voice came out of the darkness. "Epaphroditus." She was blackened with soot but I recognized the eyes.

"What are you doing in the city?" I hissed at her. "You'll get yourself killed!"

She ignored my question, instead raised her eyes to where Nero, invisible in the smoke, was singing. "After all you have heard and seen, you still worship the Beast, don't you? Listen to him howling at the Moon like a dog while his city burns to the ground. Doesn't he disgust you?"

My voice crackled with irritation. "You don't know what you're talking about. While he'd been fighting this fire night and day your saintly side-kicks have been running around with matches helping it along. They're the ones that disgust me."

Nothing, it seemed, could touch the exultation that was shining through her grime. "When will you open your heart? Not only the end of Nero but the end of time itself is upon us, can't you tell?"

"Rachel, you're losing your grip on reality.  It's a fire, that's all it is."

She laughed, yet there was no shrillness in it, only serene confidence. "Can't you feel it? Oh, how I wish you could! It's a spiritual flame that permeates everything, consumes everything. It has burnt away all my fear and all my doubt. Now I am one with its exquisite and eternal bliss. I’m in heaven already!"

"A man named Zebah has been caught spreading the fire. He's a Christian and he's talking about real fire, not spiritual fire."

Rachel grasped my hands. "Epaphroditus, the miracle of the return is so far beyond any previous human experience, is it any surprise that we interpret it in different ways? Spread the fire, try to put it out. Neither matters, the end of all things is close at hand. For your eternal soul's sake, pray, purify yourself, help us destroy the Beast, there is no more time!"

I looked up at Nero, a lonely figure at the top of the world. Imperceptibly, the crow of victory crept into his voice. It was because of what was happening to the crescent of fire that was spread like a dropped curtain at his feet. It was disappearing. I watched, astonished, as flames flickered and died, listened to the hoarse cheering of weary but victorious men.

Rachel's eyes were brimmed with tears. "I can feel Satan hardening your heart. Open your eyes. Share the holy spirit with me."

 Her touch inflamed me. There was something I wanted to share with her but it wasn't religion. "You're right, I don't believe, but that has nothing to do with your Satan. There are no reports of fires, spiritual or otherwise, anywhere except here in Rome. It looks like this one is coming under control.”

She seemed to be swimming off into another world. “When the time comes…”

“It will never come. Just as you believe in a Christ who comes to destroy the world, I believe in Antichrist who has come to save it with music and art and literature. It's you who's been blinded, not me."

She dropped my hands. There was a terrible sweetness in her laugh. "You call this light that sets me on fire ‘blindness’? It's more real than you are.”

Poetic Justice

July 24, 64 A.D.

Nero was still in a state of nervous excitement when I returned to the palace. He'd slept for less than three hours after coming down from Maecenas’s tower and when he awoke he'd immediately called for Balbillus.

I found the astrologer waiting outside the imperial bedroom. He looked grim but wouldn't share his thoughts with me. I allowed him to follow me in.

Nero moved his jaw carefully to avoid an accidental cut from his barber's razor. "You've probably already heard, Balbillus, but I'm going to see to it that a new city rises out of the ashes, one with wide, straight streets, built of stone instead of wood, with water laid on everywhere. Last night, when I was quenching the Christian fire with song, it occurred to me that I should do more, I should sweep the slate completely clean, give the city a new beginning, a new date of birth, a new destiny."

Balbillus drew in a long, quiet breath. "Caesar?"

"Find me the soonest propitious day to make the announcement. The name Rome just won't do any more, its too barbaric, rings with the alarms of war. Neropolis has a much more civilized sound to it, reminds one immediately of art and music."

Balbillus shuffled his papers, for once at a loss for words.

Neropolis, city of the senses, a glorious expansion of the exquisite resort that had been thrown up on the banks of Agrippa's lake. I liked the idea but I wasn't sure that the Romans were ready for it. It also worried Tigellinus which made music the subject of one of our less pleasant meetings.

"Ah, Epaphroditus!" he said as I walked into his office, "I see so little of you these days, hear from you even less. It seems you’ve been pining for that little slut of yours, the one Poppaea gave you. She’s disappeared into the sewers, it seems. True or false?”

The bantering air, the wry grin only added to my irritation. “I’m sure you didn’t call me from the emperor’s side to talk about girls.”

I'd gone too far. The color drained from Tigellinus's face and there were dangerous shards of ice in his violet eyes. "Enough of your damned insolence! I realize that all you slaves care about is lining your own pockets but fat pockets won't do you much good when the roof comes crashing down on your head. You're encouraging Nero’s self-destruction with this musical nonsense, can't you see that?"

 "You may not believe this," I said, careful not to sound as if I was insinuating something about him, which of course I was, "but Nero means much more to me than money or position. I believe that he's a great man, perhaps the greatest you Romans have ever produced. It's an honor to serve him."

"Honor! What's honorable about applauding him, as I've seen you do, when he tells the Consuls that he's rehearsing night and day to save Rome from some hairy radical who is about to crawl out from under a stone and challenge him to a musical contest? That's folly, not honor!"

“Although,” I reminded him quite coolly, “there was a time when you encouraged his musical ambitions too. Have you changed your mind?”

“Of course I haven’t! There’s nothing wrong with an emperor being interested in music, even amusing himself by playing and singing to close friends like he did on Agrippa’s lake. But with encouragement from sycophants like you he’s gone beyond reason. He’s at the point of making a fool of himself and Rome will not have a fool for an emperor.”

What Tigellinus was saying came very close to treason but I did my best to sound like the voice of reason. "According to Xenophon, Nero's physician, the emperor has an artistic temperament which means that he is liable to phases of exalted mood. Apparently it's a characteristic of many of the very greatest artistic geniuses, particularly poets and musicians. Plato calls it the madness of the muses and says that mania helps the artist break the chains of custom and convention and ascend into a world where he sees the eternal form behind the fleeting substance. Xenophon supports my belief that this is what is happening with Nero, triggered by the stress of the fire, he says. He counsels us to let the mania run its course because once it has Nero's mental state will return to what we think of as normal. Trying to shake him out of his dream, he says, could cause him irreparable harm. It could also cost us our heads."

Tigellinus was scratching the point of his chin, a sign that he'd calmed down. "Irreparable harm? But Nero is being irreparably harmed every day by these rumors, you've heard them, that it was he who set Rome on fire in a mad search for musical inspiration. Divinely mad or not, he must refute these accusations and bring the true arsonists to justice or his silence will be taken as an admission of guilt. Go to him, persuade him to do something, I don't care how you do it. Better still, take me with you because he won't see me on my own. His own Praetorian Prefect. Unbelievable!"