Quo Vadis: A Narrative of the Time of Nero
if one or two hundred persons were sent out at once, the beasts would
grow tired, become sated, and not tear all to pieces before evening.
Others declared that an excessive number of victims in the arena would
divert attention, and not give a chance to enjoy the spectacle properly.
As the moment drew near for opening the vomitoria, or passages which
led to the interior, people grew animated and joyous; they discussed
and disputed about various things touching the spectacle. Parties were
formed praising the greater efficiency of lions or tigers in tearing.
Here and there bets were made. Others however talked about gladiators
who were to appear in the arena earlier than the Christians; and again
there were parties, some in favor of Samnites, others of Gauls, others
of Mirmillons, others of Thracians, others of the retiarii.
Early in the morning larger or smaller detachments of gladiators began
to arrive at the amphitheatre under the lead of masters, called lanistæ.
Not wishing to be wearied too soon, they entered unarmed, often entirely
naked, often with green boughs in their hands, or crowned with flowers,
young, beautiful, in the light of morning, and full of life. Their
bodies, shining from olive oil, were strong as if chiselled from marble;
they roused to delight people who loved shapely forms. Many were known
personally, and from moment to moment were heard: “A greeting, Furnius!
A greeting, Leo! A greeting, Maximus! A greeting, Diomed!” Young maidens
raised to them eyes full of admiration; they, selecting the maiden most
beautiful, answered with jests, as if no care weighed on them, sending
kisses, or exclaiming, “Embrace me before death does!” Then they
vanished in the gates, through which many of them were never to come
forth again.
New arrivals drew away the attention of the throngs. Behind the
gladiators came mastigophori; that is, men armed with scourges, whose
office it was to lash and urge forward combatants. Next mules drew, in
the direction of the spoliarium, whole rows of vehicles on which were
piled wooden coffins. People were diverted at sight of this, inferring
from the number of coffins the greatness of the spectacle. Now marched
in men who were to kill the wounded; these were dressed so that each
resembled Charon or Mercury. Next came those who looked after order in
the Circus, and assigned places; after that slaves to bear around food
and refreshments; finally, pretorians, whom every Cæsar had always at
hand in the amphitheatre.
At last the vomitoria were opened, and crowds rushed to the centre. But
such was the number of those assembled that they flowed in and flowed
in for hours, till it was a marvel that the Circus could hold such a
countless multitude. The roars of wild beasts, catching the exhalations
of people, grew louder. While taking their places, the spectators made
an uproar like the sea in time of storm.
Finally, the prefect of the city came, surrounded by guards; and after
him, in unbroken line, appeared the litters of senators, consuls,
pretors, ediles, officials of the government and the palace, of
pretorian officers, patricians, and exquisite ladies. Some litters were
preceded by lictors bearing maces in bundles of rods; others by crowds
of slaves. In the sun gleamed the gilding of the litters, the white and
varied colored stuffs, feathers, earrings, jewels, steel of the
maces. From the Circus came shouts with which the people greeted great
dignitaries. Small divisions of pretorians arrived from time to time.
The priests of various temples came somewhat later; only after them were
brought in the sacred virgins of Vesta, preceded by lictors.
To begin the spectacle, they were waiting now only for Cæsar, who,
unwilling to expose the people to over-long waiting, and wishing to
win them by promptness, came soon, in company with the Augusta and
Augustians.
Petronius arrived among the Augustians, having Vinicius in his litter.
The latter knew that Lygia was sick and unconscious; but as access to
the prison had been forbidden most strictly during the preceding days,
and as the former guards had been replaced by new ones who were not
permitted to speak with the jailers or even to communicate the least
information to those who came to inquire about prisoners, he was not
even sure that she was not among the victims intended for the first
day of spectacles. They might send out even a sick woman for the lions,
though she were unconscious. But since the victims were to be sewed up
in skins of wild beasts and sent to the arena in crowds, no spectator
could be certain that one more or less might not be among them, and no
man could recognize any one. The jailers and all the servants of the
amphitheatre had been bribed, and a bargain made with the beast-keepers
to hide Lygia in some dark corner, and give her at night into the hands
of a confidant of Vinicius, who would take her at once to the Alban
Hills. Petronius, admitted to the secret, advised Vinicius to go with
him openly to the amphitheatre, and after he had entered to disappear in
the throng and hurry to the vaults, where, to avoid possible mistake, he
was to point out Lygia to the guards personally.
The guards admitted him through a small door by which they came
out themselves. One of these, named Cyrus, led him at once to the
Christians. On the way he said,--
“I know not, lord, that thou wilt find what thou art seeking. We
inquired for a maiden named Lygia, but no one gave us answer; it may be,
though, that they do not trust us.”
“Are there many?” asked Vinicius.
“Many, lord, had to wait till to-morrow.”
“Are there sick ones among them?”
“There were none who could not stand.”
Cyrus opened a door and entered as it were an enormous chamber, but
low and dark, for the light came in only through grated openings which
separated it from the arena. At first Vinicius could see nothing; he
heard only the murmur of voices in the room, and the shouts of people in
the amphitheatre. But after a time, when his eyes had grown used to the
gloom, he saw crowds of strange beings, resembling wolves and bears.
Those were Christians sewed up in skins of beasts. Some of them were
standing; others were kneeling in prayer. Here and there one might
divine by the long hair flowing over the skin that the victim was a
woman. Women, looking like wolves, carried in their arms children sewed
up in equally shaggy coverings. But from beneath the skins appeared
bright faces and eyes which in the darkness gleamed with delight and
feverishness. It was evident that the greater number of those people
were mastered by one thought, exclusive and beyond the earth,--a thought
which during life made them indifferent to everything which happened
around them and which could meet them. Some, when asked by Vinicius
about Lygia, looked at him with eyes as if roused from sleep, without
answering his questions; others smiled at him, placing a finger on their
lips or pointing to the iron grating through which bright streaks of
light entered. But here and there children were crying, frightened by
the roaring of beasts, the howling of dogs, the uproar of people, and
the forms of their own parents who looked like wild beasts. Vinicius as
he walked by the side of Cyrus looked into faces, searched, inquired, at
times stumbled against bodies of people who had fainted from the crowd,
the stifling air, the heat, and pushed farther into the dark depth of
the room, which seemed to be as spacious as a whole amphitheatre.
But he stopped on a sudden, for he seemed to hear near the grating
a voice known to him. He listened for a while, turned, and, pushing
through the crowd, went near. Light fell on the face of the speaker,
and Vinicius recognized under the skin of a wolf the emaciated and
implacable countenance of Crispus.
“Mourn for your sins!” exclaimed Crispus, “for the moment is near. But
whoso thinks by death itself to redeem his sins commits a fresh sin, and
will be hurled into endless fire. With every sin committed in life ye
have renewed the Lord’s suffering; how dare ye think that that life
which awaits you will redeem this one? To-day the just and the sinner
will die the same death; but the Lord will find His own. Woe to you, the
claws of the lions will rend your bodies; but not your sins, nor your
reckoning with God. The Lord showed mercy sufficient when He let Himself
be nailed to the cross; but thenceforth He will be only the judge,
who will leave no fault unpunished. Whoso among you has thought to
extinguish his sins by suffering, has blasphemed against God’s justice,
and will sink all the deeper. Mercy is at an end, and the hour of God’s
wrath has come. Soon ye will stand before the awful Judge in whose
presence the good will hardly be justified. Bewail your sins, for the
jaws of hell are open; woe to you, husbands and wives; woe to you,
parents and children.”
And stretching forth his bony hands, he shook them above the bent heads;
he was unterrified and implacable even in the presence of death, to
which in a while all those doomed people were to go. After his words,
were heard voices: “We bewail our sins!” Then came silence, and only the
cry of children was audible, and the beating of hands against breasts.
The blood of Vinicius stiffened in his veins. He, who had placed all his
hope in the mercy of Christ, heard now that the day of wrath had come,
and that even death in the arena would not obtain mercy. Through his
head shot, it is true, the thought, clear and swift as lightning, that
Peter would have spoken otherwise to those about to die. Still those
terrible words of Crispus filled with fanaticism that dark chamber with
its grating, beyond which was the field of torture. The nearness of that
torture, and the throng of victims arrayed for death already, filled
his soul with fear and terror. All this seemed to him dreadful, and a
hundred times more ghastly than the bloodiest battle in which he had
ever taken part. The odor and heat began to stifle him; cold sweat came
out on his forehead. He was seized by fear that he would faint like
those against whose bodies he had stumbled while searching in the depth
of the apartment; so when he remembered that they might open the grating
any moment, he began to call Lygia and Ursus aloud, in the hope that, if
not they, some one knowing them would answer.
In fact, some man, clothed as a bear, pulled his toga, and said,--
“Lord, they remained in prison. I was the last one brought out; I saw
her sick on the couch.”
“Who art thou?” inquired Vinicius.
“The quarryman in whose hut the Apostle baptized thee, lord. They
imprisoned me three days ago, and to-day I die.”
Vinicius was relieved. When entering, he had wished to find Lygia; now
he was ready to thank Christ that she was not there, and to see in that
a sign of mercy. Meanwhile the quarryman pulled his toga again, and
said,--
“Dost remember, lord, that I conducted thee to the vineyard of
Cornelius, when the Apostle discoursed in the shed?”
“I remember.”
“I saw him later, the day before they imprisoned me, He blessed me, and
said that he would come to the amphitheatre to bless the perishing. If I
could look at him in the moment of death and see the sign of the cross,
it would be easier for me to die. If thou know where he is, lord, inform
me.”
Vinicius lowered his voice, and said,--
“He is among the people of Petronius, disguised as a slave. I know not
where they chose their places, but I will return to the Circus and see.
Look thou at me when ye enter the arena. I will rise and turn my face
toward them; then thou wilt find him with thy eyes.”
“Thanks to thee, lord, and peace be with thee.”
“May the Redeemer be merciful to thee.”
“Amen.”
Vinicius went out of the cuniculum, and betook himself to the