But not everyone in his family was accounted for.
He called to his son, “Lucius, you know the way to the villa. You can lead the others there, can’t you?”
“Of course I know the way, father. But what are you talking about? You’ll lead us there.”
Titus sighed. “No. I have to go back.”
Chrysanthe heard him and spun around. “Don’t be ridiculous, husband! What could you possibly have forgotten that’s worth going back for?”
“I’ll join you later tonight, or perhaps in the morning. Don’t worry about me. The gods will look after me.”
Titus stopped in his tracks. The crowd surged past him, carrying his household onto the bridge and quickly out of sight.
It was a struggle to move against the current. He was jostled and poked and cursed at, and several times he was almost knocked down. At last he cleared the thickest part of the crowd and was able to move more freely.
He made his way to the Forum. Here the flames were haphazard, with some buildings alight and others as yet unscathed. Had the holy hearthfire, which must never go out, been transferred to a sacred vessel by the Vestals and taken to safety, as in the days when the Gauls invaded the city? How strange, to worry about a fire going out in the middle of an inferno!
Above the Forum, the whole Palatine appeared to be aflame. The Auguratorium, the ancient Hut of Romulus, the temples, the houses of the rich, the imperial residence – was everything destroyed? The catastrophe was beyond comprehension.
He pressed on and reached the Subura. There were large areas here where the flames had not yet reached. What a conflagration that would make, if all these towering tenements, built so closely together, should catch fire! He tried to remember the streets that would take him to Kaeso’s latest residence, but found himself lost in the darkness and the unfamiliar maze of alleys. What a fool’s mission he had undertaken! What mad impulse had driven him back into the city to look for his brother? What were the chances he could possibly find Kaeso amid so much confusion?
Titus rounded a corner and came upon a large area where a tenement had recently been demolished. In the open space, a small group of people had gathered and were watching a burning building nearby. In the middle of the group were Kaeso and Artemisia, holding hands.
While all the other people around were in frantic motion, Kaeso and his friends stood perfectly still. With their faces turned towards the fire, they seemed to be in a kind of trance. Some stood in silence with linked hands. Others clapped or sang or shouted prayers to their god. Some seemed to be weeping with joy.
“The end has come! The end has finally come! Praise God!” cried one of the women, raising her hands.
“This is judgement day! Roma has been judged and found wanting!” cried a man in a tattered tunic with a long white beard. “Fools call on their false gods to save Roma, but I say God has cursed Roma! God has damned Roma! Praise God and all his works! And of all his works, this is the mightiest, to smite this wicked city and destroy it!”
Some passersby overheard the man’s ranting and were outraged. They shook their fists, shouted curses, and threw stones at the Christians, then hurried on.
Titus strode into the gathering. He walked up to Kaeso. His brother had a blissful expression, lit by the flames. He did not notice Titus at first. Finally he lowered his eyes and looked at his brother in surprise.
“Titus! Why are you here?” Kaeso looked perplexed, then smiled. “Have you come to join us at last?”
“I came to see that you were alright, Kaeso.”
Kaeso grinned and nodded. “Words can’t describe my joy!”
“At what? Seeing the city of our ancestors burned to the ground?”
“This is the end of the world, Titus. The day we’ve been waiting for, longing for.”
“Don’t be absurd! Come with me, before it’s too late.”
“‘Too late’? Those words have no meaning now. This is the end of all things, the end of time itself. Praise God!”
Suddenly the burning building collapsed. The Christians let out a collective sigh of ecstasy at the awesome sight, but as showers of cinders and bits of flaming debris swept towards them, they retreated in confusion. Even Kaeso gave a start and staggered back from the fiery blast. The golden amulet at his breast glittered bright red in the firelight, like a flaming cross.
Without thinking, Titus reached out, grabbed the fascinum, and gave it a hard yank. The twine necklace snapped. Titus turned and ran back the way he had come, clutching the talisman in his fist, desperate to return to the bridge and be reunited with his family.
Let Kaeso perish in the flames, if that was his desire. Titus would not allow the fascinum of his ancestors to be lost in the conflagration.
For days the fires continued to rage.
From his country estate on the far side of the Tiber, Titus could see the distant glow of the flames at night. During the day he could see great columns of smoke.
Eventually the glow grew dimmer and the smoke diminished. Had the fires been extinguished?
The news he received from neighbours and passersby was confusing and contradictory. The fires had been contained but continued to burn in isolated areas; the fires had spread all the way across the Field of Mars to the Tiber, consuming the whole city, so that nothing was left to burn; the fires had been put out several times, but someone kept setting more fires. It was impossible to know what to believe.
Was his house still standing? If the house was lost, Hilarion and the two slaves should have come to join him, but they had not. Was the house destroyed, then, and were all three slaves dead?
At last Titus decided to venture back to the city. Lucius wanted to come with him. Feeling anxious and uncertain about what he might find, Titus was glad to have his son for company. They took bodyguards with them. Who knew what degree of order prevailed in the city?
As they neared the Tiber, the smell of smoke grew stronger. That was not a good sign. But no vast clouds of smoke loomed over the city. There was very little traffic on the road, and they crossed the bridge with almost no other people in sight. It was as if Roma had been completely abandoned. But this was a temporary illusion. The fire had not reached the waterfront, leaving the wharves and warehouses intact, and here and there they saw sailors and dockworkers going about their business. Nor had the fire consumed the Capitoline Hill. Above them, the great temple precinct, including the most ancient and sacred Temple of Jupiter, appeared to be unscathed.
Titus had intended to head directly to the house, but Lucius suggested they scale the Capitoline first; from its summit they could see virtually the entire city and ascertain the state of things. Titus acquiesced, in part because he dreaded finding his house in ruins and was willing to postpone the discovery a little longer.
Long ago, when he first came to Roma, Titus had stood on the Capitoline and gazed out over the city, marveling at the view. Now he stood with his son in the same spot and was aghast at the extent of the damage. To be sure, while small fires still burned in a few scattered locations, in most places the flames had been extinguished. And the extent of the damage was not as great as he had feared. The worst of the devastation was on the Aventine and the Palatine and in the low area between the Palatine and the Esquiline. Much of the Forum was undamaged, the Field of Mars had largely escaped the ravages of the fire, and only a few areas of the Subura had been destroyed. Looking towards the Aventine, he could not tell whether his house still stood or not. Some parts of the neighbourhood looked blackened and charred but others appeared unscathed.
When Titus had first stood on this spot to take in the view, Kaeso had been beside him. Where was his brother now? Titus touched the fascinum at his breast and whispered a prayer to Jupiter, greatest and most powerful of gods, that his brother was still alive, and – since the world had not ended, as Kaeso had so joyfully predicted – that he had seen the foolishness of his beliefs and was ready to repent of his atheism and return to the worship of the gods.