_ Light from the burning city filled the sky as far as human eye
could rcack The moon rose large and full from behind the
mountains, and inflamed at once by the glare took on the color of
heated brass. It seemed to look with amazement on the
world-ruling city which was perishing. In the rose-colored abysses
of heaven rose-colored stars were glittering; but in distinction from
usual nights the earth was brighter than the heavens. Rome, like a
giant pile, illuminated the whole Campania. In the bloody light
were seen distant mountains, towns, villas, temples, mountains,
and the aqueducts stretching toward the city from all the adjacent
hills; on the aqueducts were swarms of people, who had gathered
there br safety or to gaze at the burning.
Meanwhile the dreadful element was embracing new divisions of
the city. It was impossible to doubt that criminal hands were
spreading the fire, since new conflagrations were breaking out all
the time in places remote from the principal fire. From the heights
on which Rome was founded the flames flowed like waves of the
sea into the valleys densely occupied by houses, -- houses of five
and six stories, full of shops, booths, movable wooden
amphitheatres, built to accommodate various spectacles; and
finally storehouses of wood, olives, grain, nuts, pine cones, the
kernels of which nourishcd the more needy population, and
clothing, which through Caesar's favor was distributed from time
to time among the rabble huddled into narrow alleys. In those
places the fire, finding abundance of inflammable materials,
became almost a series of explosions, and took possession of
whole streets with unheard-of rapidity. People encamping outside
the city, or standing on the aqueducts knew from the color of the
flame what was burning. The furious power of the wind carried
forth from the fiery gulf thousands and millions of burning shells
of walnuts and almonds, which, shooting suddenly into the sky,
like countless flocks of bright butterflies, burst with a crackling,
or, driven by the wind, fell in other parts of the city, on aqueducts,
and fields beyond Rome. All thought of rescue seemed out of
place; confusion increased every moment, for on one side the
population of the city was fleeing through every gate to places
outside; on the other the fire had lured in thousands of people from
the neighborhood, such as dwellers in small towns, peasants, and
half-wild shepherds of the Campania, brought in by hope of
plunder. The shout, "Rome is perishing!" did not leave the lips of
the crowd; the ruin of the city seemed at that time to end every
rule, and loosen all bonds which hitherto had joined people in a
single integrity. The mob, in which slaves were more numerous,
cared nothing for the lordship of Rome. Destruction of the city
could only free them; hence here and there they assumed a
threatening attitude. Violence and robbery were extending. It
seemed that only the spectacle of the perishing city arrested
attention, and restrained for the moment an outburst of slaughter,
which would begin as soon as the city was turned into ruins.
Hundreds of thousands of slaves, forgetting that Rome, besides
temples and walls, possessed some tens of legions in all parts of
the world, appeared merely waiting for a watchword and a leader.
People began to mention the name of Spartacus, but Spartacus was
not alive. Meanwhile citizens assembled, and armed themselves
each with what he could. The most monstrous reports were current
at all the gates. Some declared that Vulcan, commanded by
Jupiter, was destroying the city with fire from beneath the earth;
others that Vesta was taking vengeance for Rubria. People with
these convictions did not care to save anything, but, besieging the
temples, implored mercy of the gods. It was repeated most
generally, however, that Caesar had given command to burn
Rome, so as to free himself from odors which rose from the
Subura, and build a new city under the name of Neronia. Rage
seized the populace at thought of this; and if, as Vinicius believed,
a leader had taken advantage of that outburst of hatred, Nero's hour
would have struck whole years before it did.
It was said also that Caesar had gone mad, that he would command
pretorians and gladiators to fall upon the people and make a
general slaughter. Others swore by the gods that wild beasts had
been let out of all the vivaria at Bronzebeard's command. Men had
seen on the streets lions with burning manes, and mad elephants
and bisons, trampling down people in crowds. There was even
some truth in this; for in certain places elephants, at sight of the
approaching fire, had burst the vivaria, and, gaining their freedom,
rushed away from the fire in wild fright, destroying everything
before them like a tempest. Public report estimated at tens of
thousands the number of persons who had perished in the
conflagration. In truth a great number had perished. There were
people who, losing all their property, or those dearest their hearts,
threw themselves willingly into the flames, from despair. Others
were suffocated by smoke. In the middle of the city, between the
Capitol, on one side, and the Quirinal, the Viminal, and the
Esquiline on the other, as also between the Palatine and the
Caelian Hill, where the streets were most densely occupied, the
fire began in so many places at once that whole crowds of people,
while fleeing in one direction, struck unexpectedly on a new wall
of fire in front of them, and died a dreadful death in a deluge of
flame.
In terror, in distraction, and bewilderment, people knew not where
to flee. The streets were obstructed with goods, and in many
narrow places were simply closed. Those who took refuge in those
markets and squares of the city, where the Flavian Amphitheatre
stood afterward, near the temple of the Earth, near the Portico of
Silvia, and higher up, at the temples of Juno and Lucinia, between
the Clivus Virbius and the old Esquiline Gate, perished from heat,
surrounded by a sea of fire. In places not reached by the flames
were found afterward hundreds of bodies burned to a crisp, though
here and there unfortunates tore up flat stones and half buried
themselves in defence against the heat. Hardly a family inhabiting
the centre of the city survived in full; hence along the walls, at the
gates, on all roads were heard howls of despairing women, calling
on the dear names of those who had perished in the throng or the
fire.
And so, while some were imploring the gods, others blasphemed
them because of this awful catastrophe. Old men were seen
coming from the temple of Jupiter Liberator, stretching forth their
hands, and crying, "If thou be a liberator, save thy altars and the
city!" But despair turned mainly against the old Roman gods, who,
in the minds of the populace, were bound to watch over the city
more carefully than others. They had proved themselves
powerless; hence were insulted. On the other hand it happened on
the Via Asinaria that when a company of Egyptian priests
appeared conducting a statue of Isis, which they had saved from
the temple near the Porta Culimontana, a crowd of people rushed
among the priests, attached themselves to the chariot, which they
drew to the Appian Gate, and seizing the statue placed it in the
temple of Mars, overwhelming the priests of that deity who dared
to resist them. In other places people invoked Seraph, Baal, or
Jehovah, whose adherents, swarming out of the alleys in the
neighborhood of the Subura and the Trans-Tiber, filled with shouts
and uproar the fields near the walls. In their cries were heard tones
as if of triumph; when, therefore, some of the citizens joined the
chorus and glorified "the Lord of the World," others, indignant at
this glad shouting, strove to repress it by violence. Here and there
hymns were heard, sung by men in the bloom of life, by old men,
by women and children, -- hymns wonderful and solemn, whose
meaning they understood not, but in which were repeated from
moment to moment the words, "Behold the Judge cometh in the
day of wrath and disaster." Thus this deluge of restless and
sleepless people encircled the burning city, like a tempest-- driven
sea.
But neither despair nor blasphemy nor hymn helped in any way.
The destruction seemed as irresistible, perfect, and pitiless as
Predestination itself. Around Pompey's Amphitheatre stores of
hemp caught fire, and ropes used in circuses, arenas, and every
kind of machine at the games, and with them the adjoining
buildings containing barrels of pitch with which ropes were
smeared. In a few hours all that part of the city, beyond which lay
the Campus Martius, was so lighted by bright yellow flames that
for a time it seemed to the spectators, only half conscious from
terror, that iii the general ruin the order of night and day had been
lost, and that they were looking at sunshine. But later a monstrous
bloody gleam extinguished all other colors of flame. From the sea
of fire shot up to the heated sky gigantic fountains, and pillars of
flame spreading at their summits into fiery branches and feathers;
then the wind bore them away, turned them into golden threads,
into hair, into sparks, and swept them on over the Campania
toward the Alban Hills. The night became brighter; the air itself
seemed penetrated, not only with light, but with flame. The Tiber
flowed on as living fire. The hapless city was turned into one
pandemonium. The conflagration seized more and more space,
took hills by storm, flooded level places, drowned valleys,
raged, roared, and thundered. _