by Randy Singer
“Now to him who is able
To do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine,
According to his power that is at work within us,
To him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus
Throughout all generations, forever and ever! Amen.”
CHAPTER 87
It was one hour before dawn, nearly two months after Paul had departed, when Theophilus put down the reed pen, his eyes bleary and moist, his memoirs finished. The others in the house were fast asleep, and he contemplated his achievement in weary silence. He had ended the memoirs just the way he wanted them to end—with a fitting doxology to the power of God and the glory of Christ.
The idea for the memoirs had come from Paul. An accomplished writer himself, the apostle believed in the power of ink on parchment to inspire people and capture ideas with a permanency that the fleeting rhetoric of speech could never match.
It had taken Theophilus nearly one month less than it had taken Luke for his writings, but then again, writing one’s own memoirs required less research. During the day, Theophilus had continued to teach Mansuetus and the other students in his school of rhetoric. But he toiled on his manuscript deep into the night, hunching over the parchment by candlelight as he summoned the memories and emotions of every life-changing event. For eight weeks he ate little and barely slept. On several occasions he was still hard at work when the cock’s crow signaled the start of a new day.
There were times when he had called on Flavia, asking her to recount some of the events she had experienced. She had wept when she described the day Mansuetus the gladiator died. She alternated between smoldering rage and lingering shame when she recalled her interactions with Caligula.
But it was more than the urging of Paul that had kept Theophilus awake at night, painstakingly transcribing his life’s story. Cicero had done this, and to a certain extent so had Seneca. It was a way of impacting future generations, of passing values from father to son. The soul was immortal, outliving the body. In some ways, a story might live forever as well.
On top of this, Theophilus had a sense of foreboding after Paul’s trial, the same dark emotions he had experienced after the assassination of Caligula. He had a premonition that he and the other followers of the Nazarene would soon experience the full brunt of Nero’s wrath. For whatever reason, Nero was toying with them. Eventually, like the exotic animals at the games, he would hunt them down.
The day after he finished his writings, Theophilus carefully placed the parchment scrolls in a box. He sealed it with wax and, accompanied by Flavia, carried the box to the temple of Vesta. The Virgins were the custodians of Rome’s most important documents, including the wills and memoirs of its most prominent citizens.
They entrusted the memoirs to Rubria and gave her strict instructions. If both Theophilus and Flavia died, the memoirs should be given to Mansuetus and no one else. Mansuetus could decide whether to release part of them, all of them, or none. He could decide, for example, if he wanted it known that his parents had been coconspirators in the assassination of Caligula. As it stood now, those who had opposed Caligula were considered heroes. But Rome was a fickle mistress, and today’s heroes were tomorrow’s villains.
If Mansuetus did not survive them, Rubria was to release the memoirs to the public. But neither she nor Mansuetus should release them at all until after the death of Seneca, in order to protect the man from any retribution.
Theophilus had prayed that the memoirs might somehow, someday, shine a light on the corruption of the imperial system and foster a movement to restore the Republic. But even if that never occurred, even if the memoirs were read only by Mansuetus, they had been worth every minute he had slaved over them.
In truth, they were written for an audience of one. Perhaps it was just the dark mood that seemed to follow Theophilus after every major victory, but he worried that he might never see Mansuetus grow fully into manhood. It was why he and Flavia had put a letter to their son in the same sealed box, explaining that there were things about their past they had never told him but now wanted him to know. The memoirs contained that story. They had told Mansuetus about his namesake but wanted their son to someday read a firsthand account of the courage and dignity with which Mansuetus the gladiator had faced death.
Theophilus had included the raw details of his own greatest failings as well—his cowardice at the trial of Jesus, his drunken ranting after the trial of Apronius, his plotting to assassinate Caligula.
“Your son needs to see your failures as well as your triumphs,” Paul had counseled. “Our weaknesses make room for God’s power.”
And there were plenty of weaknesses. Theophilus decided to write with brutal honesty, reflecting the one question that Seneca had long ago taught him to ask, the same question that Pilate had so flippantly posed at the trial of Jesus: What is truth? The words would lose their power, Theophilus believed, if he strayed from the truth to protect his own reputation.
Flavia had insisted on baring her own soul as well, sometimes over the protests of Theophilus. She had violated her vows as a Vestal yet had ultimately found forgiveness. That had to be part of the story. “The whole truth,” she said, “is more powerful than a partial lie.”
When they delivered the scrolls, they made Rubria promise to safeguard them with her life. Afterward, they left the temple without speaking. There was something about leaving the completed memoirs with the Vestal that seemed to heighten the danger around them. While writing his story, Theophilus had a sense of invincibility—that God wouldn’t let him die without completing this important work. But now that the memoirs were done, he felt a certain vulnerability, the shadow of a seething emperor looming large over every step.
“I feel like I left a piece of my heart in that box,” Flavia said.
Theophilus felt the same way. “It’s been quite a journey.”
“And it’s not over yet,” Flavia quickly responded. “Not even close.”
Theophilus couldn’t be so sure. He said nothing.
But as usual, Flavia could read it in his eyes. “You worry too much,” she said, moving next to him. He put his arm around her as they walked.
“Maybe,” he said unconvincingly.
“‘Life, if well lived, is long enough.’”
The quote surprised him. “I thought you didn’t like Seneca.”
“Despise the man; embrace the teachings.”
They had been married more than sixteen years, and she still had a knack for throwing him off-balance.
The words she had quoted were true enough. Seneca knew how to turn a phrase, how to inspire people toward an exemplary life. But it was Flavia, at least in the eyes of her husband, who best knew how to live one.
CHAPTER 88
In the ensuing weeks, Theophilus kept up with developments in Rome by sending one of his servants into the city each day to transcribe relevant portions of the Acta Diurna—the official daily news sheets posted by the emperor’s clerks in the Forum. The Acta contained the latest information about military campaigns, trials, scandals, and Caesar’s various exploits. Each report was, of course, personally approved by Nero himself.
Even after editing, the reports made it clear that Nero was becoming increasingly narcissistic and unpredictable.
The emperor had apparently decided that his artistic talents should be shared with a wider audience than just the citizens of Rome. Greece, the cradle of the arts, was calling.
Nero’s premier event took place on the stage of a packed theater in Naples, where the audience, spurred on by the wildly cheering Augustiani, lavished praise and a standing ovation on the emperor.
According to the Acta reports, an earthquake rocked Naples later that evening, and the theater collapsed. If the earthquake had occurred a few hours earlier, thousands would have died. It was, in the eyes of Nero, a sign of blessing from the gods.
A few months after Caesar returned to Rome, the Acta announced his plans to again travel abroad. This time he would visit Alex
andria. The trip was scheduled to take place during the first week in June. Nero issued a public proclamation, assuring Roman citizens that things would remain “unchanged and prosperous” while he was away. He would not stay long, and when he returned, there would be a great celebration. He was the father of Rome, and the city would always be first in his heart.
But two days later, Nero canceled the Alexandria trip. The reason had a familiar ring and made Theophilus more suspicious than ever. It was almost as if Nero, like a trained actor improvising from a script, had taken Paul’s Damascus Road experience and made it his own.
According to the Acta, Nero had been making the rounds of the temples to sacrifice to the gods before he left for Alexandria. It was the start of the Vestalia celebration, and the festival would begin with a simple ceremony at the temple of Vesta, which Nero would grace with his presence.
But when he entered the temple, the hem of his robe caught on something, and he couldn’t move. He was immediately seized with trembling and a sense of imminent danger. Without warning, everything went dark.
Blinded, the emperor was carried in a litter back to his palace. His sight was miraculously restored later that night when someone laid hands on him, the same way that Ananias had laid hands on Paul. For Nero, the experience constituted a kind of spiritual awakening, and his plans abruptly changed. The day after his sight was restored, he issued a decree, carried word for word in the Acta and copied by the servants of Theophilus:
I have seen the sad countenances of our citizens. I have heard their secret complaints at the prospect of my undertaking such a long journey, when they cannot bear even my briefest excursions, accustomed as they are to being cheered in their misfortunes by the sight of the emperor. Therefore, as in private relationships, the closest ties are the strongest, so the people of Rome have the most powerful claims and must be obeyed in their wish to retain me.
The Acta praised the emperor for his decision to remain in Rome. The omen from the temple of Vesta could not be ignored. Misfortune lurked on the horizon, and Rome needed him. The emperor would be there for his people.
Theophilus read the breathless account and scoffed at Nero’s newfound benevolence toward his people. The emperor was making plans. For some unknown reason, he had concocted a spiritual excuse to remain in the capital city.
Nero’s pledge to remain in Rome notwithstanding, the emperor and his huge entourage of bodyguards, servants, and magistrates left the stifling city on July 14 and headed to Antium, a coastal city thirty-five miles away. Nero had an elaborate palace there that sprawled along the coast for eight hundred yards, cooled by the westerly winds that skimmed across the surface of the Mediterranean.
Theophilus was one of the few aristocrats who did not make the trip to Rome to watch Caesar leave. Those who did told Theophilus it was quite a procession, at one time stretching all the way from the Via Sacra to the Esquiline Hill.
According to reports, Nero did not plan on staying in Antium long. He would be back in time for the final festivities of the scheduled games honoring Julius Caesar and his patron deity, Venus. Those games would climax with three days of chariot races in the Circus Maximus, and Nero, who never missed a race, would be there.
But first he was scheduled to take the stage at his own personal theater in Antium, dressed in the unbelted tunic of a citharede, to perform a ballad in front of many of Rome’s most prominent citizens. The Acta even mentioned the title of the ballad—“The Sack of Ilium”—a melancholy song about the destruction of Troy by the Greeks during the Trojan War made possible by the shrewd deployment of the Trojan horse.
It was a complex and technical piece, one that would call upon the full range of Nero’s acting and vocal abilities. But there seemed to be little doubt, at least among those who wrote for the Acta, that Rome’s greatest performer would pull it off brilliantly.
CHAPTER 89
Theophilus was roused from his sleep by a servant who had in turn been alerted by a runner coming from Rome. It was the middle of the night, and when Theophilus stepped outside, he could see the flames even from his portico two miles outside the city. Fires were common in Rome, but he had never seen one of this magnitude. The flames leapt into the sky as if reaching up to torment the city’s gods, sparks flying in every direction. He quickly woke Mansuetus and the household servants. They all grabbed buckets and shovels and together headed to Rome to see if they could be of any help.
On the road they passed thousands of panicked residents running for their lives. Most were frantic, occasionally glancing over their shoulders at the orange flames dancing in the night. Others hysterically searched for loved ones. Some passed with blank-faced stares, trudging forward as if half-dead. They had probably seen all of their possessions go up in flames.
Theophilus pieced together what had happened from the harried stories of those he met on the way. The fire had started near the Circus Maximus, where thousands of slaves had been preparing the stadium for the Ludi Victoriae Caesaris. Fed by cooking oils, lamp fuel, hay, straw, and wood, the flames had turned the Circus Maximus into a huge, crackling inferno.
From there, the fire had spread quickly, consuming hundreds of shops and apartment buildings. The narrow streets served as wind tunnels to fan the flames. Huge vats of oil and tar had exploded. Sparks floated on the wind and found new sources of fuel in other sections of the city.
As Theophilus, Mansuetus, and their servants approached the city, the smoke and smell of the fire hit them before the heat. At first it smelled of oil, tar, and paint. But as they grew closer, they could pick up the more putrid odor of the burning flesh of animals and humans. Thick smoke blinded and choked them, but they forged ahead, searching for bands of vigiles, the trained firefighters responsible for extinguishing the flames.
Theophilus had expected a more organized firefighting effort, but chaos ruled. Here, a woman ran through the streets carrying a baby, screaming as she looked for her other children. There, an entire family huddled together as buildings collapsed around them. People jumped from the top floors of apartment buildings, crushing bones as they landed in the streets. Theophilus and his servants were able to drag some to safety. Others were consumed by the raging fire.
The flames spread, destroying the great granaries on the lower slopes of the Aventine Hill and the abandoned marketplace on the Caelian Hill. Worried that he and the others would soon be surrounded by the flames, Theophilus ordered his group to retreat to the Forum. There, they joined vigiles, slaves, and Praetorian Guards who worked feverishly to empty the great temples of their sacred objects. Surely the fire couldn’t spread here to the great stone-and-marble center of civilization, to the ancient temples of the Roman gods.
But within hours, the ravaging beast proved them wrong. Theophilus stood next to Mansuetus and watched slack-jawed as Nero’s enormous Domus Transitoria, a new wing of his palace, became kindling for the hungry blaze. Expensive works of art, precious artifacts from the four corners of the empire, Nero’s wardrobe, lyres, and self-aggrandizing statues—everything was devoured in a matter of minutes.
Unstoppable, the flames spread down the Via Sacra, like a great leviathan lapping at the Forum. It rained a million sparks and embers as Theophilus and his team retreated.
The travertine stone became a bed of lava. The temple of Vesta, containing Rome’s mother hearth, was itself consumed by flames. The Vestals had already fled their nearby house, carrying as many precious artifacts with them as they could. With a triumphant roar, the fire engulfed the House of Vestal and seemed to feast there for a moment, hungry, looking for its next prey on the Forum.
As Theophilus watched from a safe distance, he heard the vigiles lament the loss of so much of Rome’s history. Only the most precious artifacts had been removed from the temple in time. So many other sacred objects and virtually every important document in the city of Rome had now been reduced to ashes. There was talk that a few of the most precious documents, like the last wills of Julius Caesar and August
us Caesar and Nero himself, had been rescued. But Theophilus knew that his own memoirs, which he had obsessed over for the past two months, had likely been consumed in an instant. The thought made him sick to his stomach, but he had no time to dwell on it.
He and the others worked feverishly with the vigiles ahead of the flames, pulling down row after row of buildings, flattening the structures in an effort to starve the fire. At times they worked so close to the fire that the heat singed their hair and eyebrows. To Theophilus, it seemed the flames might melt their faces. Great walls of fire towered over them, forcing them to retreat and set up new lines of defense as sparks were carried by the wind beyond their hasty demolitions.
Sometimes rivers of fire would flow past them to other sections of the city. Buildings behind them would begin to burn and other structures would glow with embers. Someone would shout an order and another hasty retreat would occur. Theophilus and his companions would weave their way out of the labyrinth of flames—exhausted, choking, bewildered, and half-blind from the smoke. Staggering, they would find another line of defense and help to demolish more buildings only to have the fire overtake them again.
Halfway through the night, Theophilus and his team decided they could be more useful helping residents flee ahead of the flames. The elderly, disabled, and sick littered the roads, crying for assistance, desperately trying to avoid being trampled by the mobs. Small children who had been separated from their parents roamed aimlessly, panicked and sobbing. Theophilus, Mansuetus, and their servants saved as many as they could, escorting them to a safe hill nearly a mile outside the city.
As dawn broke, the team regrouped on that same hill to rest. Great regions of the city had been reduced to ashes. In others, billows of smoke wafted to the sky. The fire continued to spread in all directions, devastating everything in its path. The wind seemed to have changed directions, and streams of flames branched out everywhere. Thousands of firefighters continued to demolish great portions of the city in a desperate attempt to head off the flames.
