The Devil Will Come

NINETEEN

Rome, AD 64

IT WAS MID-JULY and many of the noble families of Rome had retreated from the scorching heat to the breezier climes of their villas on the western coast or their estates high in the piney hills. A million of the less fortunate were left behind. The shimmering air above the metropolis reeked of smoke from tens of thousands of cooking fires and a thin layer of black ash settled on roofs and cobbles like a sinister summer snow.

Everything was parched: men’s throats, the sandy soil, the fissured timbers and rafters of the ancient tenements. Water, always important to Rome, was never more vital than during the rainless drought of that hot summer.

A thousand freedmen and slaves worked perpetually in the city’s water gangs, keeping the aqueducts, reservoirs and kilometers of pipes in order. A hundred public buildings, five hundred public basins and bathhouses and dozens of ornamental fountains received running water around the clock but for weeks the loudest sound that the system produced had been grumbling.

Water wasn’t flowing as it should; it was trickling. The basins were dangerously low, the bathhouses were raising their prices, the brewers were charging more for beer. The vigiles, the night-owls of the city, knew the hazard. Organized into seven cohorts of a thousand men each, they slept by day and by night they patrolled the impossibly narrow dark lanes of the vast capital, prowling for incipient house fires. Their only effective weapons were bronze and leather buckets which they passed from hand to hand in human chains from the nearest basin or, if close enough, the Tiber. But this season the water levels were too meager to do much good and the vigiles knew why. It was more than drought.

The puncturers were relentless and the water commissioner, a close relative of Prefect Tigellinus, was getting rich.

Before decamping for Antium a fortnight earlier, Nero had told Tigellinus, ‘Have your brother-in-law bleed it dry,’ and virtually overnight corrupt water bosses had their gangs of puncturers tap into the system with illegal pipes. Torrents of tax-free water rushed to Lemures privateers and the vigiles could do little more than bite their nails to the quick as they watched Rome turn to kindling. It had been twenty-eight years since the last major fire.

July was a festival month and the chariot-race season was in full swing. Nothing distracted the masses from the misery of the heat and humidity like a day of sport at the Circus Maximus. Up to 200,000 Romans crammed into the stands to root for one of their teams, the Blues, Reds, Greens or Whites, each controlled by a corporation. Quadrias – four-horse chariots – raced around the long narrow U-shaped track and if the drivers and animals survived the hairpin turns the prizes were great. Below the stands were several bustling floors of wine bars, hot-food shops, bakeries and plenty of prostitution dens.

The day was propitious in other ways, too. Balbilus had told Nero that it would be so after poring over his astrological charts. Sirius, the Dog Star, rose in the heavens that night, signaling the hottest days of the summer. But furthermore its path took it through the House of Death. That had sealed it. The time of destiny had come.

There was a full moon that night but because it was cloudy it shone little light on the thousands who were queuing at the Circus Maximus gates for a dawn admission to the grounds.

Deep in the bowels of the Circus’s grandstands, Vibius, Balbilus’s creature of the night, and another man crept through a dark passageway into a cheerfully lit shop. There a leather-aproned baker was sliding loaves into a roaring oven.

‘We’re not open,’ the baker barked.

Vibius walked calmly toward him and ran a sword through his gut upwards to his heart. The baker fell hard and when his wife ran from the second room where the dough was curing the other man killed her likewise with one hard thrust.

A man screamed. Out of the corner of his eye Vibius saw the baker’s son bursting from the curing room with rage in his heart and an iron bar in his hand. With a dull thud of crushed bone Vibius’s colleague crumpled. Vibius wheeled and pounced on the strapping lad, sliced his neck hard and clean and watched him fall onto his mother’s lap.

Cursing, Vibius stepped around the bodies and used the baker’s pallet to scoop embers from deep inside the brick-lined oven. With a flick of his wrists he dumped a red-hot heap into a corner. Instantly the floorboards began to smoke and hiss and in mere moments a line of flame crept up the wall to the rafters.

Vibius returned to the dark corridor and hustled down the stairs, his job imperfectly done. Soon he was mingling with the crowd, waiting for the show to well and truly start.

One floor above the baker there was a lamp-oil shop, laden with heavy amphorae. The clay vessels burst in the heat and fed the fire so spectacularly that the northeastern corner of the Circus Maximus exploded in a fireball. With a collective gasp, the crowd pointed at the blaze and began to stampede. The flames leapt skyward and almost immediately the fire bells of the nearby vigilis station of the district known as Regio IX began to jangle.

A cohort of vigiles mobilized but their bucket brigades quickly exhausted the meager local water supply and all they could do was shout evacuation orders into the night. The circus was ringed with rickety tenements, some with illegally built upper stories so shoddily constructed that they practically leaned onto each other across narrow cobblestone lanes. The blaze ran quickly through the blocks of tenements, leaving behind collapsed buildings and charred bodies. Whipped by a strong seasonal wind the fire spread south into Regio XII and then to Regio XIII before jumping the Servian Walls which had once marked the southern boundary of Rome before urban sprawl had stretched the city limits.

The streets filled with frightened, powerless people as the inferno hurtled down some blocks and danced across roofs. One narrow winding street after another was consumed by flames, often with masses of men, women and children trapped by fallen masonry or walls of fire. And although there would be tales of men helping others to escape and beating back pockets of flames, there would also be reports of shadowy figures moving through the city, throwing burning brands into hitherto untouched buildings.

By morning light a pall of heavy smoke hung over many of the southern regions of Rome and the fire was advancing up the Aventine Hill toward wealthy homes and temples. Then the winds shifted ominously and started to drive the fire in the north to the southern slopes of the Palatine and Caelian Hills. The city was doomed.

From the highest balcony of his villa on the Via Appia, Balbilus looked north to the billowing clouds of smoke. Vibius joined him, sooty from his exertions, and was offered a goblet of wine to slake his thirst.

‘It’s too close for comfort,’ Balbilus growled.

‘The wind is turning southerly,’ Vibius said.

‘I can predict the movement of the heavens, but not the wind,’ the swarthy astrologer said. ‘I would rather not lose my house.’

‘I think mine has already gone,’ Vibius said without a trace of emotion.

‘Your family can come here. All the Lemures families who are in peril can come. Put the word out.’

A Praetorian cavalry contingent arrived at Antium as the sun was setting. The city had a new port which Nero had built but the Praetorians trusted their horses more than boats. Nero had turned Antium into a protected enclave settled by Praetorian veterans and retired centurions. He had rebuilt the seaside palace of Augustus to his liking and included a raised columned complex that extended for two thousand meters along the seafront. For his amusement he had built numerous gardens, temples, pools and most importantly, a theater where he could practice his art.

When the cavalry arrived to inform him about the fire in Rome Tigellinus received the report impassively but refused to let the messenger, who was carrying a personal dispatch from the Prefect of Rome, see the Emperor. Nero was in the wings preparing to take the stage for an evening competition. Dressed in an unbelted, Greek-style tunic he mingled with his competitors, all local lads who knew with certainty that Nero would be the judges’ favorite. When it was his turn he took to the stage of the half-moon theater and peered out at an audience of toadies – retired soldiers, senators in his entourage, local Antium magistrates and a cohort of his special troops, the German bodyguard. Though Antium was a good distance from Rome, there was a faint smell of ash in the air and the news of the fire was beginning to take hold. The audience whispered and fidgeted and if not for the royal performance they would have sought out the messengers for more information.

Nero lifted his lyre and began to sweetly sing a song, The Sack of Ilium, about the destruction of Troy by the Greeks during the Trojan War. He would win the competition, of course, but no one seemed pleased to be entertained about a great city being laid waste by fire.

In the slums of the Esquiline Hill stray embers settled onto roofs and balconies and were stamped out by vigilant citizens and slaves before they caught hold. Peter the Apostle was there on one of his pastoral missions as Bishop of Rome. He was a weary but persistent traveller, enduring the months-long mule-train journeys to Jerusalem and Rome from his home in Antioch in Greece where he also served as bishop. Rome had been a tough assignment. His disciples were converting as many slaves and freedmen as they could but the citizens were hostile to the Christian cult, as they called it. But Peter had a small flock and, like lambs, they needed the guidance of a shepherd’s staff from time to time.

Cornelius the tanner had become a priest of the new church and his house was one of their common prayer and meeting points. Peter stood by one of the tenement’s windows in a room packed with devotees. A glowing ember floated by and Peter watched it for a moment before turning back to the papyrus in his hand. He had recently written an epistle to his faithful followers and he wanted them to hear it come from his own lips. ‘So, dear brothers and sisters, work hard to prove that you really are among those whom God has called and chosen. Do these things, and you will never fall away. Then God will give you a grand entrance into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Therefore, I will always remind you about these things – even though you already know them and are standing firm in the truth that you have been taught. And it is only right that I should keep on reminding you as long as I live. For our Lord Jesus Christ has shown me that I must soon leave this earthly life, so I will work hard to make sure you always remember these things after I am gone. For we were not making up clever stories when we told you about the powerful coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. We saw His majestic splendor with our own eyes when He received honor and glory from God the Father. The voice from the majestic glory of God said to Him, ‘This is my dearly loved Son, who brings me great joy.’ We ourselves heard that voice from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain. Because of that experience, we have even greater confidence in the message proclaimed by the prophets. You must pay close attention to what they wrote, for their words are like a lamp shining in a dark place – until the Day dawns, and Christ the Morning Star shines in your hearts.’

When Peter was done, Cornelius drew him aside to a corner by the cooking stove. ‘Fine words,’ he said.

‘They are from my heart,’ Peter answered.

‘You spoke of leaving your earthly life.’

Peter seemed resolute. Another ember blew past the window. ‘It will happen soon. Rome is being consumed by the fires of hell and I fear Nero will be looking to place the blame.’

‘They’ll look to us, but some say it’s the Lemures.’

‘Superstitions, surely,’ Peter said.

Cornelius whispered, ‘I know a man who swears he saw a charred body in the rubble of the Circus Maximus. It had a tail.’

Peter arched an eyebrow. ‘If true, then evil may indeed be among us.’

‘You should leave Rome,’ Cornelius insisted. ‘Let’s have you returned to Antioch.’

‘No,’ Peter said, ‘I will stay. It was meant to be. Christ suffered for me and now it is my turn to suffer for Him. You know, Cornelius, what they don’t understand is that killing us only makes us more powerful. Come, friend, let’s try to help our brethren. And if there’s evil about, let us confront it.’

*

Tigellinus held the messenger at bay until the morning. He knew Nero was in a revelatory mood and wouldn’t have appreciated the interruption of matters of empire. Besides, Nero had known about the fire before it happened, hadn’t he? Still, the Prefect of Rome’s message had to be delivered and when the Emperor was gently awakened by his private secretary, Epaphroditus, an attentive Greek Lemures, he was informed that a contingent of Praetorians had arrived from Rome bearing important news.

After an hour of bathing and perfuming, Nero received the soldiers in his grand reception room, attended by Tigellinus, Epaphroditus, and his devoted assassin, Acinetus. The letter he was handed was stark. The Circus Maximus was destroyed. The southern regions of the city were ablaze. The fire was uncontrollable.

‘And what am I to do?’ Nero asked rhetorically. ‘Am I to carry a bucket? Surely this is a matter for Prefect Sabinus to deal with. That’s his job! My job is to sing tonight in competition. There is said to be a Thracian with an excellent voice who will be my rival. I cannot disappoint my audience.’

‘Shall I deliver a written reply to Prefect Sabinus?’ the Praetorian commander asked.

‘Tigellinus can pen something if he likes,’ Nero said. ‘By the way, is there any danger to the Esquiline Hill?’

The soldier replied he didn’t believe so and Nero dismissed the cohort with an imperial wave.

Nero called for some watered wine. ‘It seems you’ve done a good job of it, Tigellinus.’

‘Rome took many a day to build but it can be destroyed in a very few,’ Tigellinus said with a smile.

‘Remember,’ Nero said irritably, ‘I’m as interested in destruction as you, but I just completed the Domus Transitoria and I fancy living there until the Domus Aurea is built on reclaimed land.’

The Domus Transitoria was a long, colonnaded palace that ran from the Palatine all the way to the Gardens of Maecenas, occupying much of the Esquiline Hill in Regio III. But building the Domus Aurea was his ultimate goal, a palace so grand and audacious it would eclipse all buildings in Rome. He had personally approved the plans and drawings. It would sit on 200 acres of burnt-out land at the foot of the Palatine Hill. The entrance hall would be high enough to accommodate a 40-meter statue of himself, a true Colossus of Rome. This entrance hall, three stories high, which Nero dubbed the Millaria, would run for two kilometers along the Forum valley through the fire-ravaged Carinae and Suburba districts. There would be an enormous pool, a veritable sea in the middle of Rome which he would use for lavish pageants.

‘I am confident that the land you need for the Domus Aurea is already consumed,’ Tigellinus said. ‘If the winds are favorable, the Domus Transitoria should be safe. I too am worried about my shops at the Basilica Aemilia.’

Nero was not inclined to offer sympathy. He had made Tigellinus the second-most powerful man in Rome and immensely wealthy.

‘If you lose your precious Basilica you’ll build a larger one with smaller shops and charge higher rents. You know how it works. We’ll use Lemures marble quarries, cement and timber works for our new constructions. We’ll give prime land to our allies. We’ll get our personal levy on every transaction. We’ll make a fortune on the back of all the suffering and death. How fine is that? By the way, are we spreading the word that the Christian Cult is behind this?’

‘It’s being done.’

Nero rose and stretched. ‘It’s a good day, Tigellinus. Leave me now. I’m going to rest my throat for the evening’s competition.’

The fire raged on. Flames climbed the Palatine, Caelian and Aventine Hills and fierce winds drove them north toward the Esquiline Hill and the heart of Rome.

Later in the day a Praetorian messenger arrived with news which firmly caught the Emperor’s attention. The Domus Transitoria was threatened. With that, Nero angrily sent back orders that everything had to be done to protect his properties and ordered preparations for his departure to Rome by sea the following morning.

Nero arrived in one of a flotilla of small boats that sailed up the Tiber under a filthy brown sky. As his boat drew closer to the city he marveled at the great clouds of smoke and the fierce balls of fire which rose majestically into the air. The usual dock areas in Regio XIII had been razed so the flotilla had to find a landing downstream beside the Campus Martius.

Accompanied by Tigellinus, Nero was taken by litter to meet with Sabinus, the Prefect of Rome, who gave him a sober summary: the city was at the mercy of the fire. It was beyond the control of man. They passed through the Esquiline Gate, then entered the smoldering Gardens of Maecenas which days earlier had been the loveliest spot in Rome. Nero climbed to the top of the hill and ascended the squat Tower of Maecenas for the ultimate view of his burning city. Across the valley the Palatine Hill and all the old imperial palaces of Augustus, Germanicus, Tiberius and Caligula were burning. The Forum Romanum was gone, the House of the Vestals, the Temple of Vesta, the Regia, the ancient home of the kings of Rome – all consumed. With a heavy sigh, Nero watched the flames licking at the Domus Transitoria. A firebreak constructed by Praetorian cohorts and imperial slaves had failed.

‘I’m sorry your palace is burning,’ Tigellinus said glumly.

Nero shrugged. ‘It will all be for the good. Meanwhile, let’s stay here and watch the fire. It possesses a certain beauty, does it not?’

On the fifth day of the fire Nero toured the city, acting like a proper emperor: directing the firebreaks, ordering temporary shelter for the refugees on the Campus Martius and calling for grain stores to be delivered from Ostia. Yet despite his public overtures, there were widespread rumors that he and his henchmen were behind the conflagration and there was growing resentment that he had taken so long to return to Rome.

When informed of the rumors, Nero’s creative response was ‘Fight fire with fire.’ Soon every Praetorian and vigiles commander was ordered to pass the word to the citizens of Rome that they had evidence that Christian arsonists were to blame – their retribution for the Roman crucifixion of Christ. Before long, vigilantes were patrolling the city, hauling known Christians from any unburned dwellings and shops and killing them on the spot.

By the next morning the winds had died down and the fires had stopped spreading. But one piece of news sent Nero into fits of rage. While he had completely lost his Domus Transitoria and would have to make ready a temporary palace, he learned that Tigellinus’s pride and joy, the Basilica Aemilia, had survived the inferno without so much as a scorch mark on its marble façade. Tigellinus was even said to be boasting of his good fortune.

Nero’s underling had fared better than his emperor! So he sent word over to Balbilus’s estate that some rough justice was in order. That evening a fire broke out in a fancy silk and linen shop on the lowest floor of Tigellinus’s building.

It soon engulfed the entire complex – and so began the second phase of the great fire. It would spread up the Capitoline Mount and ravage the sacred temples that had escaped earlier destruction. The Temple of Jupiter the Stayer would be lost, the Temples of Luna and Hercules, the Theatre of Taurus. On the down-slope of the Capitoline Hill the fire would breach the Servian Walls and demolish large public buildings on the southern edge of the Campus Martius where hoards of refugees were huddling. Had it not been for an expanse of stone colonnades and a sudden drop in the wind, the fire would have burned through the refugee camp and killed thousands more. When it finally ended two days later only four of Rome’s fourteen districts would have escaped destruction.

When word spread that the Basilica Aemilia was burning, the priest Cornelius was summoned because several members of his congregation had stores within the building and Christians were duty-bound to help their brethren. Peter the Apostle was by Cornelius’s side when the messenger arrived and the two of them rushed to the scene with a contingent of Christian men.

Vibius had not been pleased by the order to torch the Basilica Aemilia in broad daylight but Balbilus had been unwilling to disobey a direct command from the Emperor. As Vibius emerged from a rear window just before a plume of fire burst into the rear alley, a shopkeeper saw him and gave chase but lost him in the winding side streets.

When Cornelius, Peter and their lot arrived, the complex was fully ablaze and there was little for them to do but join the swelling crowd and comfort distraught shop-owners.

Peter placed his arm around the shoulder of a sobbing wine merchant and whispered that Christ would look after the man and his family. The merchant suddenly stiffened and pointed. ‘That’s the man I saw who started the fire.’

Vibius had returned to watch his handy work from a vantage point six-deep in the crowd. At the sight of the merchant pointing at him he hurried to the rear of the throng.

In his youth in Bethesda Peter had been a fisherman; he and his brother Andrew had gotten into plenty of hard scrapes to protect their fishing grounds. Jesus had preached non-violence but Peter never shied away from an injustice. ‘Let’s give chase!’ he shouted and the group of Christians moved as one.

The younger men kept close with the fleeing Vibius but the older ones stretched out, struggling to keep their nearest comrade within view. Peter and Cornelius took up the rear, trotting southwards as best they could through the crowded smoke-filled lanes.

When Peter and Cornelius reached the Porta Appia, Peter was obliged to stop and rest. ‘We’ve lost sight of them,’ Peter said ruefully. ‘I’m sorry to be burdensome.’

‘I hope I’m half as fleet when I’m your age,’ Cornelius said.

Soon one of their group was running back toward them. ‘We’ve got him trapped,’ the man said breathlessly. ‘He’s nearby in a villa.’

Balbilus’s villa had become a haven.

Nearly a hundred Lemures were gathered in Balbilus’s reception rooms, their own homes threatened or burned. Most of them were wealthy, the women and children spoiled, and the lack of their usual comforts had made for a surly competitiveness for basic necessities. Balbilus had good personal stores of grain and wine but he would need to ask Nero to send special provisions within a short while.

He was in his bedchamber on the top floor of the villa bitterly muttering at the ruckus that had erupted below when his servant Antonius knocked urgently at his door.

‘What is it?’ Balbilus asked the man irritably. ‘What are my visitors complaining about now? Aren’t they grateful they’ve a roof over their heads?’

‘There’s a mob,’ Antonius said breathlessly. ‘They’ve entered the gates.’

‘What mob?’

The servant pointed out the window.

Balbilus slipped on his sandals and went onto the balcony. A crowd was in his garden, wielding torches, and when they saw the tall olive-skinned patrician peering down at them they began shouting.

‘What is it you people want?’ Balbilus called down.

One shouted back, ‘We want the man who started the fire at the Basilica Aemilia! We know he’s here!’

‘I assure you, there’s no one here who started any fires,’ Balbilus bellowed back.

Another man yelled, ‘Give him to us or we’ll burn you out.’

‘I am the Emperor’s astrologer! Leave here at once or you’ll have to answer to the Praetorians!’

Balbilus turned away.

‘Go away, scum,’ Antonius shouted down at them before closing the window.

‘Who are they?’ Balbilus asked him.

‘I don’t know, master.’

‘Find out.’

Balbilus hurried down the stairs and found Vibius drinking wine in the crowded courtyard.

‘You were followed,’ Balbilus growled at him.

‘So I hear,’ he answered coolly. ‘I told you we should have waited until nightfall.’

‘Maybe so. Now what do we do?’

Vibius finished his drink, tossed the goblet into the reflecting pool and unsheathed his sword.

‘What good will that do against a mob?’ Balbilus asked.

‘While they’re chasing after me, take everyone down to the columbarium. It’s your only hope. They may burn the villa but they’ll leave as soon as their stomachs start growling. Get word to Nero. Go to Antium. You’ll think of something. I’ll kill as many of them as I can.’

There were more shouts from the garden and a torch flew through one of the reception room windows. A young Lemures quickly plucked it from the floor and doused it in the pool.

In the garden Peter and Cornelius had arrived. ‘Cease your violence!’ Peter shouted at the torch-thrower. ‘Know you whether there are innocents inside?’

Vibius waved his sword and ran out a side door. Roaring and swearing fiercely at the assembled throng he fled toward the Via Appia. The younger Christian men were upon him like dogs on a hare.

A strong young Christian caught up with Vibius and tackled him from behind. The two men grappled fiercely on the ground for a few seconds. At first contact, Vibius had dropped his sword but he managed to get his hands around the young fellow’s neck and pressed his thumbs hard against his windpipe. Gasping, the man pushed Vibius away with a foot to the chest. As they separated, a chain around the man’s neck broke off in Vibius’s hand.

Vibius cast it away and grabbed the nearby sword. Rising to one knee, he sliced the Christian’s belly open in a deft move, spilling coils of guts. On his feet again, Vibius fled toward the Appian Way, the men in hot pursuit.

‘Quickly!’ Balbilus yelled at the Lemures. ‘To the columbarium! Follow me!’

They streamed from the villa through his fruit grove and entered the rectangular mausoleum with its barrel-vaulted roof. Antonius held the trapdoor open until his master and all his guests had descended the narrow stairs. Then he pushed a small altar over the trapdoor to conceal it and ran toward the grove, hurdling over the man with spilled guts. Something he saw on the ground caused him to stop: a silver medallion attached to a broken silver chain. He picked it up, swore an oath and ran back to the columbarium.

Satisfied that the coast was still clear, Antonius slid the altar aside and banged on the trapdoor.

‘Master, it is Antonius! I know who they are! Open quickly!’

Balbilus did so and looked up the gloomy shaft. Antonius dropped the medallion into his hands, closed the trapdoor and once again concealed it with the altar. In the grove he stopped under a tree, sat down and without a second’s hesitation defiantly slit his own throat.

By the light of a smoky oil lamp Balbilus examined the pendant.

The chi-rho monogram.

It was the Christians!

Damn them to the heavens! May Nero slay every Christian man, woman and child. May they be cursed for eternity!

A hundred Lemures crammed into the columbarium, fighting for every centimeter of floor space.

Balbilus stood under his fresco of astrological signs and demanded quiet. A small child cried. He threatened to kill her if someone didn’t shut her up.

‘Hear me,’ he hissed. ‘We need only to survive the night. In the morning we’ll find sanctuary elsewhere. We’re stronger than they are. We’re better than they are.’

Above ground one of the Christians had seen Antonius running away from the mausoleum. He found him still twitching and warm, blood pouring from his neck. Soon the Christian man was running to find Cornelius and Peter. ‘Come!’ the man insisted. ‘You must see this!’

When they stood over Antonius’s corpse, the man pulled down the slave’s breeches.

‘Dear Lord!’ Cornelius cried.

Peter steadied himself with an outstretched arm against the trunk of a tree.

Antonius had a tail.

When the young Christian men returned to the villa, their fists and sandals stained with Vibius’s blood, they found Peter by the tree. One of them had a knife in one hand – and something else in the other. He showed it to the Apostle. It was a bloodstained pink length of tail.

‘There is no denying it,’ Peter said, shaken. ‘They are not ghosts. They are real. What must we do when we find true evil – evil such as can only be the work of the Devil himself – in our midst?’ he asked.

‘We must purge it,’ Cornelius said.

‘There is no other answer,’ Peter whispered. Then he raised his voice. ‘In the name of Almighty Christ you may set the torch and send these devils back to Hell.’

Balbilus looked to the dark ceiling and heard the muffled shouts of the Christian marauders and the sound of their stamping feet.

The Lemures squatted in front of him, packed tight like salted fish in a barrel: the men stoic, the women angry, the children fidgety. Above their heads, the loculi in the walls were full of ash-filled urns and the skeletal remains of their recent ancestors. The pungent smell of rot filled their nostrils.

Suddenly the muffled shouting above their heads stopped and all grew quiet.

Balbilus strained and listened.

He heard the voice of Peter but couldn’t make out the words.

Balbilus heard a faint whooshing sound and felt his ears pop as a roaring fire took hold above and sucked some of the air out of the chamber.

He felt his skin tingle as the temperature in the vault crept higher by the minute.

After a long while he heard a thunderous rumble when the vaulted roof crashed down onto the mausoleum floor.

More time passed and he saw the oil lamps sputter out one by one in the depleted air. When the last one died they were in complete darkness.

And in that darkness he heard the gasps and wheezes of a hundred men, women and children.

He was the strongest and the last to go. Sinking to his knees in the blackness and angrily clutching the chi-rho pendant so hard that it made his hand bleed, his final emotion was a shuddering rage so great and hot that it seemed to incinerate his brain.

It would be weeks before the soil of Rome was cool underfoot but Nero swiftly set about bringing some cheer to his beleaguered citizens.

His soldiers rounded up every Christian who had survived the fire and had been foolish enough not to flee. There were few public spaces left to celebrate their mortification properly so Nero invited Rome’s refugees to the gardens of his only untouched estate, across the Tiber.

There, at his personal racetrack, as hungry citizens feasted on fresh bread, Nero made a grand entrance dressed as a charioteer astride a golden quadria. To a blare of trumpets Peter the Apostle was dragged onto the track. He’d been arrested along with the priest Cornelius and several followers at a Christian house near the Pincian Hill. When the soldiers arrived Peter had smiled at them as if he were welcoming old friends.

Pater was hauled onto a high wooden platform at the center of the racetrack for all to see and Tigellinus loudly proclaimed him to be the ringleader of the plot to destroy Rome. When he finished his speech he sat beside Nero in the royal stands and they watched together as the Praetorians began their work with hammer and spikes.

‘We have it on good authority that this man Peter and his mob were the ones who trapped Balbilus and the others,’ he told Nero.

‘My hate for them was already great,’ Nero said through clenched teeth. ‘Now it is a thousand times greater. They killed my great astrologer and have taken from us the cream of the Lemures. Members of their Church will forever be our foremost enemies. Kill them. Crush them. Damn them to eternity.’

‘What shall we do with Balbilus?’ Tigellinus asked.

‘He is at rest in his own columbarium. Let him lie there in peace with the others.’

Peter was laid out on a wooden cross not so different from the one that Pontius Pilate had used to crucify Jesus. Iron spikes were driven through his palms and ankles but whereas Jesus had been suspended in the usual manner, Nero bestowed upon Peter the further indignity of being nailed upside down.

The gentle old man died slowly and painfully in the afternoon heat, proclaiming to the end – too softly for anyone to hear – his love for God, his love for his savior and friend Jesus Christ, and his absolute belief that good had vanquished at least some of the evil in the world.

For the crowd’s immeasurable pleasure, as Peter’s life was ebbing away, two hundred Christian men and women were dragged into the stadium, stripped naked, flogged and tied to stakes. Ravenous dogs, mad at the scent of blood, were brought in to finish them off.

And that night and for nights on end Nero’s gardens were the scene of a ghastly display: Christians whom Nero had dipped in animal fat and turned into human torches to illuminate the husk of a city that had once been the great Rome.