I met him again about three years later when in the course of my duties I was forced to mediate in the internal disputes of the Christians, in which I considered I ought to support Cletus. It was a question of who should inherit the shepherd’s stave after Linus. I thought that Clement was still much too young and I think he realized this himself later during his exercises in humility.
His turn will no doubt come one day, but you need not bother ‘ about that, Julius. The Christians have no political significance, in that their religion cannot hold out against the other Eastern religions. But never persecute them all the same, but leave them in peace, for the sake of your grandmother, Myrina, even if they do provoke you sometimes.
I had the remains of Jucundus and Barbus wrapped in a cloth. I also gave several frightened people permission to see to the remains of their kin if they could find them. I did not wish to accept the many gifts that were offered to me in exchange. Most of the bodies had to be taken off to a mass grave near the execution place of the lower orders, fortunately near at hand.
So I was able to hurry to Nero’s feast with a clear conscience and there, at the sight of Tigellinus’ reeking horrors, express my disapproval of his high-handedness. I had already calculated that there would be insufficient food for the huge number of spectators, so I had hurriedly had my wild bulls skinned and dismembered so that I could on my own behalf invite the people to eat the good meat.
But my appetite waned as first several senators glanced oddly at me and even turned their backs on me without returning my greeting, and then Nero thanked me for my part in the show with a surprising lack of enthusiasm and somewhat guiltily. Only then did I hear from his lips of the sentence on my father and Tullia, for Jucundus’ and Barbus’ unexpected appearance in the arena had remained a riddle to me despite the young Christian’s story. I had meant to ask Nero in biting tones, when he was in a favorable mood, how it was possible that a youth who was the adoptive son of a senator could be thrown to the wild animals among the Christians.
Nero described my father’s mental confusion at the meeting of the Senate that morning.
“He insulted me before the whole of the Senate,” he said, “but I did not condemn him. His own brothers in office pronounced the sentence unanimously, so that there was not even any need to take a vote. A senator cannot be condemned, even by the Emperor, without the other senators first being heard. Your stepmother turned the whole thing into a public scandal by her uncontrolled behavior, although with your reputation in mind, I should have preferred to keep the matter secret. The British youth whom your father had adopted took his duties to him far too seriously and declared himself a Christian. Otherwise he would never have been taken to the circus, although he was a cripple and would never have been any use as a knight. It’s no use grieving over his death, for your father was going to disinherit you, presumably because of the state of his mind. Actually you’ll lose nothing, although I’m bound to confiscate your father’s fortune. You know the trouble I’m having finding money to be able to live decently eventually.”
I thought it safest to explain that my father had handed over some of my inheritance seventeen years earlier, for me to fulfill the income demands of the Noble Order of Knights. But I had sold the sites on Aventine before the houses on them had been destroyed by the fire, and I had at first received large sums from my father for the menagerie, but Nero himself had benefited from that at the amphitheater shows.
Nero replied magnanimously that he had no thought of demanding the inheritance I had received so long ago, since he considered that my father’s estate would be quite sufficient and both the State treasury and his own building enterprises would receive a share. Indeed, he gave me permission to select a few souvenirs from my father’s house, as long as I let the magistrates list them first.
To avoid all possible suspicions later, I felt bound to admit that my father had, among other things, given me a goblet which was of great value to me personally. Nero was curious at first, but lost all interest when I told him it was only a wooden mug.
I realized then what danger I had been in because of my father’s insulting behavior, and I added hastily that this time I would not charge Nero a single sesterce for my wild animals and other expenses, as I knew very well that he needed every coin he could find to acquire a dwelling worthy of him. Indeed, I also gave him the rest of the meat from the wild bulls to offer to the people and suggested that he should sell the huge store of clothes that was still at the circus, as well as the jewelry and buckles that had been collected from the prisoners. Perhaps in this way he could pay for a few columns in the new arcade which was to link the buildings on Palatine and Coelius with the Golden Palace on Esquiline.
Nero was delighted and promised to remember my generosity. He was relieved that I had not reproached him for the deaths of my father and the person he thought was my stepbrother, and now acknowledged fully the part I had played in the show, admitting that the theater people had failed miserably and that Tigellinus had merely caused annoyance. The only thing he thought had been successful, apart from the wild animals, was the splendid music from the water-organ and the orchestra, the careful arrangements for which he himself had made.
I thought the clamor of the music had but disturbed the animals and distracted the crowd from some of the climaxes in the show, but this was only my personal opinion and I did not express it. I thought myself incompetent to judge the indifferent results of his efforts when my own had been so successful.
Despite all this, I was diepressed and had no appetite. As soon as I was no longer observed by envious eyes, I made an offering to my father and drank two goblets of wine. I sent my runner to find out where my father had been executed and the whereabouts of his and Tullia’s bodies. But they were not to be found, as I have already related.
I had to content myself with cremating Jucundus’ and Barbus’ remains in the morning on a hurriedly made pyre. I thought Barbus had earned the right to a pyre similar to my son’s by his loyalty and long service. When I had the last flames extinguished with wine, I gathered their ashes myself and placed them in an urn.
Later I put the urn in a mausoleum in Caere I had had built on the burial site my father had once bought. Jucundus was of old Etruscan blood on my father’s side and his mother, Lugunda, was of noble British stock. Barbus, on his side, had shown loyalty unto death, a sign of a certain nobility of mind. On the lid of their urn is a bronze Etruscan cockerel which crows eternal life for them, as you will see one day, Julius, when you go to Caere with the remains of your wretched, perplexed and unworthy father.
I was forced to take part in Nero’s banquet so as not to offend him by leaving early. I will gladly admit that he was very successful with the small displays he had arranged in illuminated places in the park-beautiful dancing, satyrs chasing nymphs among the bushes, a scene with Apollo and Daphne, and other things which might entertain the people and encourage a more fastidious audience to frivolous thoughts. The meal was plentiful, with the help of the meat from the bulls, and the fountains filled the pools with wine which was unmixed with water.
As the instigators of the fire had received their due punishment and all had been atoned for, the foremost ladies in Rome, together with all the colleges of priests, had arranged a superb conciliatory meal which became the climax of the feast in the gardens. For this purpose both the most sacred white stone cones had secretly been fetched from their temples.