He was left with no money and had to ask for a loan, so he took on even more work.
Marcellus finally slunk off with his congregation, moving into the house of one of the faithful brethren, where they were going to wait the return of the Anointed.
“Just wait, son! Hang on tight!”
Him he gave no money.
Uri was left with Hagar in the peasant cottage on the Via Nomentana. He bought it outright for what was, in fact, a rock-bottom price, but the peasant was happy to move out. It was a mud brick house, prone to damp and to mold, and no money was left for renovations. But it would be good for as long as it lasted before falling about their ears.
Uri let his wife know that he wouldn’t mind her moving in with one of their daughters on Far Side, but Hagar chose to commute: twice a week she would walk over to Far Side, cook for Eulogia, then walk back to Via Nomentana. On these days Irene would go over to Eulogia’s place to pick up half of the food. The lazy old bag, thought Uri. Hagar is working more for her daughters than she ever did for me. There was no need to cook for Uri as servants brought lunch for those employed on the construction site at a fairly cheap price; it may not have been ritually pure, but then neither was painting men and beasts on walls in accord with Mosaic law.
Looking at Hagar’s dim, ugly, lackluster features, Uri was amazed. How much the two of them had been through at each other’s sides and yet not together. If Uri said something, Hagar did not understand, and even if she did happen to, she pretended not to. For sure the Lord had not created them for each other, so it was a miracle that they had children nonetheless. How could that be?
These were years of peace, with the world governed by Burrus, the one-armed Praetorian prefect, and the wise Seneca, with people just nodding when Britannicus, the natural-born son of Claudius, was killed: that was the price of tranquility. Seneca had allegedly warned Nero against killing by cautioning: “However many people you slaughter you cannot kill your successor.” In his wise letters of a Stoic to Marcia, the daughter of Cordus, Seneca preached poverty and humility, meanwhile amassing three hundred million sesterces for himself in four years; people nodded and read his book with that in mind.
There was a flurry of excitement when Nero divorced Octavia, Claudius’s daughter, whom he had wed when he was sixteen, and married Poppaea Sabina, who had been the lover and wife of his friend Otho. Otho was sent to be prefect of Lusitania; it was a miracle he was not killed. Nero then took Octavia back, but had second thoughts and chose instead to have her dispatched; Claudius’s ugly daughter was just twenty, yet she had to die. Tales went around that Nero even made love to his mother in the closed carriage, the stains were there to be seen in the coach and on their garments, and after that Nero deprived her of all her bodyguards and had her board a boat with a collapsible cabin, designed to fall in on top of her and sink at Bauli. The ceiling of her cabin did indeed collapse, but she managed to swim free; only her lady-in-waiting, Acerronia Polla, perished, wounded in the wreck and stabbed to death by the oarsmen. The emperor finally managed to have his mother slaughtered, with Agrippina commanding Herculeius, the ship’s captain who was her assassin: “Strike it in my womb!” When he viewed her undraped corpse Nero was said to have remarked: “I had so beautiful a mother!” and went on to organize a big funeral for her.
Otherwise nothing noteworthy happened; business went on. Wars with the Brits and Germani proceeded, but those events were far afield; Nero negotiated a spectacular détente with the Parthians, greeting their king and ambassadors with kisses and games. In the Forum there was excited discussion about how the emperor had ordered that henceforth it would be necessary to pay to lodge an appeal with the Senate, in effect a new form of tax.
In Far Side excitement was aroused by the visit paid on the elders by Tiberius Julius Alexander and an equine-featured character, the new alabarch of Alexandria, who was being introduced by Tiberius Julius Alexander to the city prefects.
It was Demetrius, it dawned on Uri, son of Tryphon, the Alexandrian elder.
He had postured against the alabarch and his family until, in the end, he had made his peace with the hated figure of Tija. He had wanted it badly; how astute Apollos had been to spot it.
What has become of Apollos?
Nero put on many games. Seawater was piped into a wooden amphitheater erected on the Campus Martius, along with genuine sea monsters, with gladiators struggling in an underwater battle with them. The emperor also established the Neronia, a contest in three parts, which was planned to be quinquennial, with music and literature, gymnastics and wrestling, horse and chariot racing on the program. Nero thus ran through his inherited fortune even quicker than Caligula had, so that the Seneca-Burrus duo introduced new taxes, and even forbade the sale of any kind of cooked viands in the taverns, with the exception of beans. That was not at all to the liking of the populace, who of course marveled at the games, and had no end of enjoyment at seeing a lady in her eighties shaking a leg among the high-born women who were led onto the stage: she was Aelia, who had also continually danced and crooned in Claudius’s house although she was already old then. A concession brought in by Cladius under which a full menu had been provided for plebeians was rescinded, and they went back to distributing only food parcels; that was also not to people’s liking either, but money was also scattered into the crowds, along with wooden balls, inscribed as if they were coins, which could be redeemed for foodstuffs, drinks, clothes, or knick-knacks — people liked those, scrimmaging and getting into fights over them.
In the center of Agrippina’s lake Tigellinus, a favorite of Nero’s, had built a great raft, which was towed around by boats. The raft was decorated with gold and ivory, like Phidias’s statues, and he had wild animals, birds, and sea creatures brought from distant lands; onto the shore of the lake were led high-born women who offered themselves like courtesans, all naked, many thousands of them, and numerous men of rank and plebeian riffraff were also invited to the debauchery. In the course of this Nero had himself given in marriage to a character by the name of Pythagoras playing the role of husband, with himself wearing the bridal vein, people handing over real money as a dowry to the couple, with witnesses to the marriage and even priests being found, and ending in chain copulations, in which a special corps of Augustans, as they called themselves, an impudent bunch selected by Nero from the young men of the order of knights and sturdy young commoners, led the field. It was the talk of the town for weeks.
It was then that the conflagration broke out.
It started in the Circus among the booths; it is possible that the sausage grillers had been careless, or at least it was said, but with the wind it spread quickly, sweeping over to the Palatine; the buildings along the narrow streets clinging to the side of the hill went up in flames, the area around the Forum, the emperor’s palace, a great many temples, shrines, storehouses, hutments, and tenement buildings caught fire, with the shrine to Luna, the statue to Hercules, the Temple of Jupiter Stator, the shrine to Romulus, the residence of King Numa Pompilius, the temple of Vesta, and the Subura district burned down, as did the libraries with their irreplaceable scrolls. The fire did not spread as far as the outer part of the Via Nomentana, but did reach the inner part, with the tall tenement buildings catching fire. Either the wind carried sparks, or the landlords kept their wits about them and set their own houses alight, knowing the insurers would pay out. It became a conflagration and the vigiles were rushed off their feet. Fire had also broken out on Aventine Hill, said people who rushed over there to find a good spot from which to watch the magnificent spectacle. The fire fanned out to the whole city; Esquiline Hill was ablaze, possibly kindled by sharp-witted plebeians of the lowest class because while the vigiles were busy fighting the fire they had license to rob. Uri trudged toward the inner city on the second day but did not see much, just glowing patches. People were racing around with water or stolen livestock, soldiers trotting by as well as groups of vigiles with their wagons; there was a shortage of water, maybe because the aqueducts had been cut off. A mad panic had overcome the city, so Uri went back home.