David Wishart - Nero

The cost aside — and even without the rest of the city to consider it would drain the Treasury dry — Lucius's Golden House was a magnificent concept. The low-lying ground between the Palatine and the Esquiline was to be flooded to form a huge lake, round which the buildings were set in an artificial landscape of fields, vineyards and woodland with wild and domestic animals roaming freely. A mile-long triple colonnade, broken to allow the Sacred Way and the New Way to pass through, linked the old and new palaces. On the Caelian, adjoining the Temple of Claudius, was a complex of colonnades and grottoes with plants and running water, while the main residential block lay on the Oppian spur of the Esquiline. Even in its roughly sketched-out form I could appreciate the impressiveness of the finished work.

'Won't it be beautiful?' Lucius beamed when he'd talked me through its main points. 'I'm commissioning a statue of myself. A big one, a hundred feet high. It'll go there.' He pointed to the area between the lake and the house's huge vestibule. 'Overlooking the Market Square. So people will know I'm looking after them even when I'm out of Rome, and these bastards in the Senate will see I've got my eye on them.'

Tigellinus sniggered. 'We're getting Zenodotus to do it. He's only done gods so far. It'll be a step up for him.'

'Oh, don't be silly, Tiggy!' It was a token protest, and Tigellinus took it as such. He smiled at me. 'But it will be nice. And of course you're invited to the house-warming, Titus. When it's all finished we'll have a real party.'

'Thank you.' I needn't hold my breath; he'd be building for years. 'By the way, my dear, speaking of gods, I had an odd bit of news myself the other day.'

'Really? Do tell.'

'It seems my head slave Crito has finally got religion and joined a cult.' I kept my voice light. 'The Christians. Have you ever heard anything so daft?'

'Daft is right.' Tigellinus laughed. 'His timing's imbecilic.'

'Oh?' I turned to him, keeping my expression bland. 'Why so?'

'Let's just say he'd be safer lopping his dangler off and signing up for Attis.'

I played the innocent. 'I didn't know it was a dangerous religion.'

'Oh, it's dangerous all right! Or it soon will be. If your pal hasn't paid his dues yet you can tell him not to bother, he won't be getting the good of them.'

'What's all this about?' I looked at Lucius. He was scowling. 'The whole thing sounded harmless enough to me the way Crito described it.'

'Then you were misinformed,' Lucius said shortly. 'The Christians aren't harmless, darling. They eat human flesh and drink blood, for a start.'

I thought of Paullus and the house near the Praetorian Camp. 'But that's nonsense!'

'Are you contradicting me?' Lucius spoke quietly, but there was an edge to his voice that I recognised. Also Tigellinus was grinning; always a bad sign. I closed my mouth and wished I hadn't brought the subject up. 'Titus, I know these people. They're not a proper cult, they're atheists and criminals, perverts of the worst sort.'

'Oh how exciting.'

'I'm not joking, my dear. They're the dregs of society. Even the Jews will have nothing to do with them. And the flesh and blood is right enough. Did Crito tell you about their love feasts?' He used the Greek term.

'No,' I said. 'He never mentioned them.'

'There you are, then. Ask him yourself and see what he says.'

'He didn't tell you his friends were arsonists either, I'll bet.' Tigellinus spat. 'Religious fanatics who'd burn every temple in Rome for the fun of it. Who have burned more than half of them already.'

'And tried to blame it on me.' The emperor's voice was still calm, but his eyes had developed the hot, manic glare I'd seen before. 'They burned my city, Titus. Oh, yes, I have proof, it was a conspiracy. They're animals, fucking animals, and they'll die like animals, every one of them. I won't stop until Rome's clean again.'

Oh, sweet Serapis! Nevertheless, I let the subject drop. I'd done my best as promised and there was nothing more I could do. Besides, to some extent my sympathies lay with Lucius. Although I didn't believe the rubbish about the love feasts — typical gutter rumour; Lucius had probably got it from Tigellinus, along with the whole idea — old Paullus's egotism had annoyed me considerably. Basically he deserved all he got. A bit of persecution would make his Christians appreciate the civilised virtues of tolerance and compromise, and if Lucius had to find a scapegoat for public anger I could think of worse candidates than that sanctimonious crew.

Still, I didn't relish having to tell Crito.

Operations against the Christians began a few days later. Lucius and Tigellinus had obviously been compiling a private dossier of the cult members, because several hundred were rounded up at once and confined to the Mamertine Prison and other holding areas for eventual disposal in the arena. Most were pimps, prostitutes, common thieves and street hawkers, city sweepings of no great loss to society. There was a tacit moratorium on privately-owned domestic slaves — quite rightly so; it would hardly have been fair for their masters to have suffered for the slaves' idiocies — but just in case I sent Crito off to a villa I owned at Alba. Despite, I must say, his own reluctance to go: either the old dear had shaken a tile loose since his conversion or he'd contracted a dose of uncharacteristic heroism. Whichever it was I didn't see why it should lose me a perfectly good head slave.

I found the savagery of the cult's suppression distasteful, even though I appreciated the depth of feeling that lay behind it: all of Rome after the fire was frustrated and angry, and the frustration and anger needed an outlet. How much of Lucius's own anger was genuine I didn't know. Probably most of it; I'd seen before how when he thought himself threatened he would lash out with unaccustomed cruelty that often had no rational basis. In any case, the mob wanted revenge, and revenge was what he gave them.

Most of the executions took place in the newly-built racetrack in the Vatican valley beyond the river. I only went once: sword-fights I enjoy, if the gladiators are professionals, but to my mind there's no real pleasure in seeing unarmed men torn apart by wild beasts. Besides, I found the whole thing curiously unsettling.

There is a special atmosphere about these occasions which you don't get with gladiators, a cheerful hardness on the part of the spectators, totally lacking in sympathy. Natural, of course: the victims are criminals, after all, there to entertain by dying, not by killing. Their terror is part of the fun, and although an agile man will get a round of applause for avoiding the cats he's expected to play the game in the end and die screaming.

The Christians didn't play the game at all.

At first the crowd took it badly: no one likes to be cheated. When the first group were brought in and the beasts were released there was the usual roar that turned to boos and curses when instead of scattering the men and women in the arena knelt down together and waited. Even the beasts — they were panthers and female lions, natural runners — seemed surprised, although not for long: that first group died quickly. The second and third did the same. With the appearance of the fourth group the crowd was deathly quiet, even the mob in the topmost tiers. You could hear the singing distinctly. It was like watching a sacrifice where the audience keep holy silence as the priest cuts the victims' throats.

As I said, unsettling. I left before the fifth group were brought in. I wasn't the only one, either.

That evening Lucius had a party in the Vatican Gardens. I went alone: Silia was still out of Rome. I'd just got out of the litter and was adjusting my party mantle before going through the gate when someone gripped my arm.