Paulina and Claudia asked us to pray together with them in the name of Christ for the blessing on our marriage. Antonia smiled contemptuously.
“A name is a name,” she said, “if you believe in the power of it. I myself support him because I know how bitterly the Jews hate him. The Jews are in favor at the court at this moment to an intolerable degree. Poppaea helps them into office and Nero showers insane gifts onto a Jewish pantomimic, although he insolently refuses to appear on Saturdays.”
The proud Antonia in her bitterness obviously had no thought for anything but opposing Nero by every means. Even if she had no influence, she could be a dangerous woman. I thanked my stars that she had had the sense to come to my house after dark in a sedan with drawn curtains.
But I was so oppressed that I humbled myself to the extent of taking part in Christian prayers and praying for forgiveness of my sins. I thought that I needed all the heavenly help I could get in this matter. Cephas and Paul and several other holy Christian men had been able to perform miracles on the strength of the name of Jesus of Nazareth. I went so far that together with Claudia, after our guests had gone, I drank from my father’s goblet before we went to bed, for once reconciled with each other.
After that we slept together as if we were already married, and no one in the household took much notice. I cannot deny that my vanity was flattered by sharing my bed with the daughter of an Emperor. So I was attentive to Claudia and submitted myself to her caprices during her pregnancy. The result was that the Christians got a firm foothold in my house. Their cries of praise echoed from morning to night so loudly that our nearest neighbors were disturbed.
Book IX
Tigellinus
No rain had fallen for a long time, apart from thunderstorms, and Rome was tormented by the heat, the dirt, the smell and the dust. In my garden on Aventine, the leaves on the trees were covered with dust and the grass rustled dryly. Aunt Laelia was the only person to enjoy the heat. She, who because of her age was usually cold, had herself carried out into the garden where she sniffed with an experienced air.
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“Real fire weather in Rome,” she said.
It was as if for a moment her head had cleared. She began to relate for the hundredth time the story of the fire which had ravaged the slopes of Aventine many years ago. My father’s banker had bought the burned-out sites cheaply and had had the apartments built on them which provided me with the whole of the income required for the Order of Knights, until I sold them the previous winter.
When I sniffed the air I could smell the smoke, but it did not worry me, for I knew that the fire brigades in all sections of the city would be on the alert in this heat, and that it was forbidden to light a fire unnecessarily. It was not even windy. The air was still and suffocating from the early hours of the morning onward.
From somewhere far away came the sound of horn signals and a curious murmuring, but not until I was on my way into the city did I see that the side of the great race-course facing Palatine was in flames. Huge clouds of smoke were billowing up from the wax, incense and cloth booths. These highly inflammable small buildings had no firewalls at all, so the fire had caught on and spread like lightning.
People were seething like ants all around the fire. I thought I saw fire brigades from at least three sections of the city clearing wide firebreaks to stop the raging sea of flames from spreading. I had never seen such a large fire before. It was an oppressive sight, but nevertheless did not worry me overmuch. In fact, I thought that the fire brigade from our part of the city should not have gone down there, but should have stayed and guarded the slopes of Aventine.
I sent one of my men to warn Claudia and the household, and on the way to the menagerie I looked in at the City Prefecture to ask how the fire had started. A messenger had been sent on horseback to fetch my former father-in-law back from his country estate, but his next-in-command seemed to have things well in hand.
He blamed the Jewish small traders and the circus people in the shops at the Capua gate for carelessness, but he was confident that their highly inflammable goods would burn up quite quickly. In fact he considered keeping order a much more difficult task than confining the fire, for slaves and other rabble had at once hurried to the spot to make the most of the opportunity by plundering the circus shops.
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