wooden amphitheater, for the cellars there are still in use as emergency housing, and the great circus lies in ashes. It’ll have to be my circus on Vatican. It’s a bit cramped, of course, but we can arrange festivities for the people and a free feast in the evening in my gardens alongside, below Janiculus.”
I was not sure what he had in mind, but was bold enough to remark that first it would be necessary to hold a public trial and that probably not many people could be charged with arson on the evidence at present available.
“Why public?” asked Nero. “The Christians are criminals and slave runaways without citizenship. There’s no need for a hundred-man college to sit in judgment on such people. A decree by the Prefect will do.”
Tigellinus explained that a surprising number of the arrested people were citizens and no charge could be brought against them except that they had admitted to being Christians, and that it was difficult for him because he could not keep five thousand people on the Praetorium parade ground for several days.
The arrested citizens also seemed to have sufficient funds to be able to prolong the trial by appealing to the Emperor, even if they were sentenced in the ordinary court. So the Emperor must decide beforehand whether confessing to being a Christian was sufficient grounds to be sentenced by the court.
“Did you say five thousand?” said Nero. “No one has ever yet used so many people at once in a show or even in the greatest triumphs. I think it would be enough with just one show. We can’t have a people’s feast lasting several days. That would just delay the building work even more. Would you be able to have them marched immediately through the city to the other side and lodge them in my circus? Then the people will have a preview of the show and can give expression to their anger over these terrible crimes. As far as I am concerned, they can tear a few of them to pieces on the way, as long as you see to it that there is not too much disorder.”
I saw that Nero still had no real conception of the whole matter or its proportions.
“Don’t you understand?” I said. “Most of them are respectable and honorable people, girls and boys among them, whom no one could suspect of any evil. Several of them wear togas. You’re not seriously thinking of letting the people insult the Roman toga?”
Nero’s face clouded and he peered at me for a moment, while his thick neck and fat chin stiffened.
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“You obviously doubt my powers of understanding, Manilianus,” he said, showing his displeasure by using my surname. But then he burst out laughing as he immediately had another idea. “Tigellinus can have them marched through Rome naked,” he suggested, “and then the people will have even more fun and no one will know who is respectable and who isn’t.”
Then he shook his head.
“Their apparent innocence,” he went on, “is only on the surface. My own experience has taught me to doubt those who mask their evil with external piety and virtuous habits. I know so much about the Christian superstition that the severest punishment is too mild for their ill deeds. Do you want to hear?”
He looked around inquiringly. I knew it was best to keep silent when he wished to speak, so we all asked him to continue.
“The Christian superstition,” said Nero, “is so shameful and horri-fying that such a thing could only have originated in the East. They prac- tice horrible magic and threaten to burn up the whole world one day. They recognize each other by secret signs and they assemble in the evenings behind locked doors to eat human flesh and to drink blood. For that purpose they collect children which people have left in their care and sacrifice them at their secret meetings. When they’ve eaten and drunk, they fornicate together in every natural and unnatural form. They even have intercourse with animals, at least with sheep, according to what I have heard.”
He looked triumphantly around. I think it annoyed Tigellinus that Nero in this way had forestalled him before he himself had had time to present his summary of the results of his interrogations. Perhaps he also felt the need to speak on his own behalf, for anyhow he spoke now with contempt.
“You can’t try them simply for fornication,” he said. “I know people quite near here who also assemble behind locked doors to fornicate together.”
Nero burst out laughing.
“It’s quite another matter,” he said, “if people assemble in full agreement for their own pleasure and to study such pastimes. But don’t tell Poppaea everything, for she isn’t quite so tolerant as one might wish. But the Christians do such things as a kind of conspiracy in honor of their god, hoping for all kinds of advantages over other people. They think anything is permissible to them, and the day they come to power, they’ll judge everyone else. That’s an idea which could be politically dangerous if it weren’t so ridiculous.”
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