POPPÆA
In the tenth year of Nero’s reign Rome was swept by a terrible fire. It began at the eastern end of the Circus Maximus, between the Palatine and Cælian hills. It swept along the bases of the Palatine and Aventine hills, through the Velabrum on the one hand and the Forum on the other. It raged six days, destroying both private dwellings and public buildings. Many of the old cherished landmarks of Rome, like the Regia (or palace) of Numa, the Temple of Jupiter Stator, and the Temple of Vesta, were ruined. When it was thought to have subsided a renewal of it, or another fire, broke out on the outskirts of the city beneath the Pincian hill and raged toward the Viminal and the Quirinal. Of the fourteen districts, or regions of the city, three were entirely obliterated, while seven others were more or less severely injured. Not only noted buildings but elegant patrician homes and many rare works of art,—works that could not be duplicated,—were altogether lost.
The poorer people, of course, were brought into a condition of great hardship and suffering. The conflagration occurred when the tyrannies and cruelties of Nero had largely increased the number of his personal enemies, when mutterings of contempt and hatred against him had become frequent, and when his iniquitous excesses had led many to believe that he could be guilty of anything. The fact that some incendiaries were seen at work, who said they were acting under orders, and the rumor that while the city was burning Nero had watched the flames from the tower of his villa, and had there chanted the “Sack of Troy” with the accompaniment of his own lyre, favored the suspicion that he had himself caused the awful calamity. Some claimed that he did it in order that he might rebuild the capital more magnificently and call the new Rome by his own name. But these suspicions cannot be proved.
It is enough to affirm that under the additional miseries caused by the fire the people had become bold to express their exasperation with the existing reign. Not even the imposing religious ceremonies, conducted to appease the gods, could quiet the popular outcries. Nero seems to have felt that it was necessary to divert suspicions from himself by presenting other victims.
Tacitus tells us that to save himself, this emperor sacrificed “those whom, hated on account of their vices, the vulgar called Christians.” This name, he says, was derived from one Christus, who was executed in the reign of Tiberius by the procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate. And he adds that “the accursed superstition, for a moment repressed, spread again, not over Judea only, the source of this evil, but in Rome also, where all things vile and shameful find room and reception.” This Neronian persecution, so horrible in its bitterness and bloodshed, we shall have occasion to consider later in connection with the sufferings of the early Christian martyrs.
We may remark here that some, such as the historian Gibbon, have found a difficulty in accepting the plain assertions of Tacitus and Suetonius on this subject on the ground that there was nothing in the known habits and teachings of the Christians at this early period to call down upon them such bitter hatred. They were peaceable citizens and had hardly yet become distinct from the Jews in the observation of the Romans. It has been suggested that Tacitus and others, writing some time after the event, were describing what was really a persecution of the Jews in Rome and that, because they had incurred the displeasure of Nero by their turbulent disputes over an expected Christ or over certain false Christs and because, in Tacitus’ time, the Christians proclaimed the Christ as having come, the historian had not kept these facts distinct and was attributing to the Christians an unpopularity which, so early, belonged to them only as part of the Jews. Merivale suggests that there may be an element of truth in this theory. That is to say, the Jews, when persecuted for their Messianic enthusiasm, may have succeeded in transferring the odium to the Christians as being in this respect far more intense than themselves.
That Nero did subject the believers of Jesus to great cruelty and that Paul, if not Peter, suffered martyrdom during his reign have been accepted beliefs from such early times and are so consistent with the otherwise well-known caprice and severity of Nero that there seems no reason to doubt the facts. The Neronian persecution may have been short and limited to Italy, but it was sharp and bloody. The reckless tyranny of Nero was supported by the voluptuousness and heartlessness of his age. The statements of the Apostle Paul in the first chapter of his Epistle to the Romans are not too strong concerning the gross immorality of society. Stoicism promulgated, indeed, some noble ideals and may even have been stimulated to do its best by the challenges of Christianity, but the body politic was corrupt throughout.
After the great fire Nero addressed himself with zeal to the rebuilding of Rome. He had a pride in making his capital splendid and especially in erecting for himself his famous palace called “the Golden House.” This seems to have been a connection and combination, by means of arches and porticos, of the palaces on the Palatine with others on the Esquiline. In these buildings, which required several acres, he followed the Greek models of architecture and ornament. A conspicuous feature among them was his own colossal statue set up near what is now called, from it, the Colosseum. To defray the expense of these and other buildings he exacted or confiscated the wealth of other men and even stole with impious cupidity some of the rich gifts which had been placed in the temples. The growing discontent and opposition to him, therefore, became more manifest among the nobility. Conspiracies were formed against him. Some of these he was able to put down; but others sprang up in their places. Sometimes, alarmed by them, he drowned his fears in a flood of popular flattery gained by his undignified performances in the circus and the theater both at home and abroad. When his wife Poppæa died, some asserted that it was a consequence of his own brutal treatment. One great man after another, some of them honored by historians as almost personifications of virtue, lost their lives by poison or by the sword, by assassination or by compelled suicide, as victims to his jealousy or his covetousness.