Quo Vadis - Henryk Sienkiewicz (best ereader under 100 .txt) 📗

Chapter XLV

MACRINUS, a weaver, to whose house Vinicius was carried, washed him, and

gave him clothing and food. When the young tribune had recovered his

strength altogether, he declared that he would search further for Linus

that very night. Macrinus, who was a Christian, confirmed Chilo’s

report, that Linus, with Clement the chief priest, had gone to

Ostrianum, where Peter was to baptize a whole company of confessors of

the new faith. In that division of the city it was known to Christians

that Linus had confided the care of his house two days before to a

certain Gaius. For Vinicius this was a proof that neither Lygia nor

Ursus had remained in the house, and that they also must have gone to

Ostrianum.

 

This thought gave him great comfort. Linus was an old man, for whom it

would be difficult to walk daily to the distant Nomentan Gate, and back

to the Trans-Tiber; hence it was likely that he lodged those few days

with some co-religionist beyond the walls, and with him also Lygia and

Ursus. Thus they escaped the fire, which in general had not reached the

other slope of the Esquiline. Vinicius saw in all this a dispensation of

Christ, whose care he felt above him, and his heart was filled more than

ever with love; he swore in his soul to pay with his whole life for

those clear marks of favor.

 

But all the more did he hurry to Ostrianum. He would find Lygia, find

Linus and Peter; he would take them to a distance, to some of his lands,

even to Sicily. Let Rome burn; in a few days it would be a mere heap of

ashes. Why remain in the face of disaster and a mad rabble? In his

lands troops of obedient slaves would protect them, they would be

surrounded by the calm of the country, and live in peace under Christ’s

wings blessed by Peter. Oh, if he could find them!

 

That was no easy thing. Vinicius remembered the difficulty with which

he had passed from the Appian Way to the Trans-Tiber, and how he must

circle around to reach the Via Portuensis. He resolved, therefore, to

go around the city this time in the opposite direction. Going by the

Via Triumphatoris, it was possible to reach the Æmilian bridge by going

along the river, thence passing the Pincian Hill, all the Campus

Martius, outside the gardens of Pompey, Lucullus, and Sallust, to make a

push forward to the Via Nomentana. That was the shortest way; but

Macrinus and Chilo advised him not to take it. The fire had not touched

that part of the city, it is true; but all the market squares and

streets might be packed densely with people and their goods. Chilo

advised him to go through the Ager Vaticanus to the Porta Flaminia,

cross the river at that point, and push on outside the walls beyond the

gardens of Acilius to the Porta Salaria. Vinicius, after a moment’s

hesitation, took this advice.

 

Macrinus had to remain in care of his house; but he provided two mules,

which would serve Lygia also in a further journey. He wished to give a

slave, too; but Vinicius refused, judging that the first detachment of

pretorians he met on the road would pass under his orders.

 

Soon he and Chilo moved on through the Pagus Janiculensis to the

Triumphal Way. There were vehicles there, too, in open places; but they

pushed between them with less difficulty, as the inhabitants had fled

for the greater part by the Via Portuensis toward the sea. Beyond the

Septimian Gate they rode between the river and the splendid gardens of

Domitius; the mighty cypresses were red from the conflagration, as if

from evening sunshine. The road became freer; at times they had to

struggle merely with the current of incoming rustics. Vinicius urged

his mule forward as much as possible; but Chilo, riding closely in the

rear, talked to himself almost the whole way.

 

“Well, we have left the fire behind, and now it is heating our

shoulders. Never yet has there been so much light on this road in the

night-time. O Zeus! if thou wilt not send torrents of rain on that

fire, thou hast no love for Rome, surely. The power of man will not

quench those flames. Such a city,—a city which Greece and the whole

world was serving! And now the first Greek who comes along may roast

beans in its ashes. Who could have looked for this? And now there will

be no longer a Rome, nor Roman rulers. Whoso wants to walk on the ashes,

when they grow cold, and whistle over them, may whistle without danger.

O gods! to whistle over such a world-ruling city! What Greek, or even

barbarian, could have hoped for this? And still one may whistle; for a

heap of ashes, whether left after a shepherd’s fire or a burnt city, is

mere ashes, which the wind will blow away sooner or later.”

 

Thus talking, he turned from moment to moment toward the conflagration,

and looked at the waves of flame with a face filled at once with delight

and malice.

 

“It will perish! It will perish!” continued he, “and will never be on

earth again. Whither will the world send its wheat now, its olives, and

its money? Who will squeeze gold and tears from it? Marble does not

burn, but it crumbles in fire. The Capitol will turn into dust, and the

Palatine into dust. O Zeus! Rome was like a shepherd, and other

nations like sheep. When the shepherd was hungry, he slaughtered a

sheep, ate the flesh, and to thee, O father of the gods, he made an

offering of the skin. Who, O Cloud-compeller, will do the slaughtering

now, and into whose hand wilt thou put the shepherd’s whip? For Rome is

burning, O father, as truly as if thou hadst fired it with thy

thunderbolt.”

 

“Hurry!” urged Vinicius; “what art thou doing there?”

 

“I am weeping over Rome, lord,—Jove’s city!”

 

For a time they rode on in silence, listening to the roar of the

burning, and the sound of birds’ wings. Doves, a multitude of which had

their nests about villas and in small towns of the Campania, and also

every kind of field-bird from near the sea and the surrounding

mountains, mistaking evidently the gleam of the conflagration for

sunlight, were flying, whole flocks of them, blindly into the fire.

Vinicius broke the silence first,—

 

“Where wert thou when the fire burst out?”

 

“I was going to my friend Euricius, lord, who kept a shop near the

Circus Maximus, and I was just meditating on the teaching of Christ,

when men began to shout: ‘Fire!’ People gathered around the Circus for

safety, and through curiosity; but when the flames seized the whole

Circus, and began to appear in other places also, each had to think of

his own safety.”

 

“Didst thou see people throwing torches into houses?”

 

“What have I not seen, O grandson of Æneas! I saw people making a way

for themselves through the crowd with swords; I have seen battles, the

entrails of people trampled on the pavement. Ah, if thou hadst seen

that, thou wouldst have thought that barbarians had captured the city,

and were putting it to the sword. People round about cried that the end

of the world had come. Some lost their