The remaining Christians were now driven out to the bulls. To my delight they abandoned their general indifference and behaved with incredible courage, as if suddenly seized with a longing for death, hurling themselves as if in a race straight at the bulls and flinging themselves onto their horns. The crowd shouted their acclaim and even began to feel a little sympathy for them.
But when this game came to an end, the bulls began to gore the crucified, knocking over the crosses and butting the protective fence with such force that those sitting nearest seriously began to fear that it would not hold. But the games were over now.
After a glance at the sky, I was able to heave a sigh of relief and order the bowmen to kill off the bulls. This they did so skillfully and courageously, often in close combat, that the spectators gave them their grateful applause as well, although I had feared that this necessary final number would bore the crowd.
Tigellinus had wanted to burn the protective fence with its nailed Christians at the very end, but Nero would not agree in case the fire spread and destroyed his circus. As the crowd streamed out through all the entrances, several Praetorians went around the arena killing the Christians with their lances, for Nero considered it reasonable that they should not suffer any longer than the Christians who had been burned at the stake or killed by the wild animals.
If anyone wonders why I did not spare my valuable wild bulls, then I shall say that it would have been stupid and lowered the whole value of the show if some of the crowd had been encouraged to stay on during the evening to watch the long and dreary business of capturing them. The bulls were so wild that several keepers at the menagerie might have lost their lives. But anyhow I was going to send such a colossal bill to Nero for my animals that I did not mourn the loss of my Hyrcanian bulls.
Tigellinus, who always had to be to the fore, thought he had the best of the day’s surprises prepared for the people as the crowd now hurried to the festive meal Nero had promised everyone in Agrippina’s gardens. He had used his right of jurisdiction outside the walls and had ordered that the park should be illuminated by the three thousand Christians who had been separated from the rest in the morning and put under guard in the gardens. There simply was no room for a circus show including five thousand people in the arena.
While the show had been in progress, poles and posts had been erected along the park roads and around the pools, and then the Christians had been chained to them. When there were no more iron chains left, the remainder were nailed to them through their hands.
Then the Christians were smeared with pitch and wax, of which Tigellinus’ procurator had, after a great deal of trouble, obtained a few loads. This would not be sufficient for any lasting illumination, so oil and such had also to be used. And on top of this, the Praetorians who had been allotted the task were disgruntled at missing the circus show, having instead to dig holes and erect poles in the heat of the autumn sun.
So when the’ crowd hurriedly left the circus to go to the meal as darkness fell, the Praetorians ran on ahead and set fire to the living torches along the route. They burned with screams of pain and a spreading suffocating stench, and the people did not really appreciate this incredible sight. Indeed, the more educated among them lost appetite because of the unpleasant smell of burning human flesh and began to go home. Others feared the fire might spread through the gardens when drops of burning pitch and wax scattered on the dry grass as the Christians writhed and struggled. Many people burned their feet as they tried to stamp out the smoking embers around the poles.
Thus when Nero, still dressed as a charioteer, came driving along the roads flanked by these human torches, he did not receive the acclaim he had expected. Instead, a sullen silence was maintained, and he saw several senators on their way back to the city.
He stepped down from his chariot to go to the people and press their hands, but there was no laughter at his jokes. When he tried to make Petronius stay, the latter said that he had endured a dull show for friendship’s sake, but there were limits to what his stomach would tolerate. He did not feel like eating even the very best steak in the world if it were spiced with the sickly fumes of human flesh.
Nero chewed his lips, his mouth swollen, and in his charioteer’s costume he looked more like a muscular, sweaty wrestler. He realized he had to find something else to amuse the people to make up for Tigellinus’ tasteless arrangements. To add to everything else, half-burned people began to fall from the poles as their ropes were scorched away and others in their pain tore loose their nailed hands and rushed flaming into the crowd.
Their pain-filled, shrieking, creeping, tumbling figures, hardly even human any longer, aroused nothing but terror and loathing. Angrily, Nero ordered them to be killed at once, together with those who were screaming loudly on their poles, disturbing his orchestra and its artistic playing.
He gave orders to have as much incense burned as could be found and for the park to be sprayed with perfume which had originally been intended for the guests. Everyone knows what this extravagance must have cost, not to mention all the ruined iron chains.
For my part, I was still busy with my duties at the circus, having briefly received the congratulations for a successful show from the more notable spectators. After that I hurried down to the arena to supervise the Caronians’ work with their clubs, but more than anything else to gather up what still remained of Jucundus and Barbus.
I found them quite easily. To my surprise, I found a Christian youth in the middle of all the torn bodies, his head in his hands and completely unhurt. When he had wiped away the blood that had poured over him, he had neither bite, scratch nor grazes from kicks on him. He stared dully up at the evening stars and asked whether he were in paradise. Then he told me he had thrown himself down in the sand, refusing to aggravate the wild animals by offering resistance. It was understandable that he had been saved, for neither lions nor wild bulls normally touch a person who acts as if he were dead. Many men trying to capture them have saved their lives in the same way.
I regarded his escape as a kind of omen and put my own cloak over his shoulders to save him from the Caronians’ clubs. I received my reward for this, for he could give me an exact account of everything Jucundus and Barbus had done and what they had discussed among the other prisoners.
The space had been so tight-packed with Christians that they had not even been able to sit down, and quite by chance the youth had found himself jammed next to Jucundus. Then too, Barbus had grown slighdy deaf in his old age and had had to tell Jucundus to speak up as he whispered his story of the foolish conspiracy among the boys.
The Christian youth regarded his escape as a miracle and said that Christ must have needed him for other purposes, although he had hoped to find himself in paradise with the other Christians by the evening. So I gave him some clothes, of which there were plenty, and saw to it that he was released unharmed through a side entrance of the circus.
He hoped that Christ would bless me for my mercifulness and my good deed and assured me that he believed that even I should one day find the true way. He innocendy told me that he had been a disciple of Paul and had been baptized Clement. This extraordinary coincidence made it easier for me to give way to Claudia’s whim that my son should be called Clement.
The young Christian misunderstood my surprise and explained apologetically that he was by no means especially good-tempered, but indeed had to practice humility to do penance for his impetuousness. This was why he had thrown himself down and refused to meet evil with evil. So he blessed me once again for my goodness and went into Rome along the road lit by human torches. But he was so certain that Christ needed him for some task to come that he probably did not grieve for long over not being allowed to accompany the others to paradise.