it, and most of them had been witness to some form of it at some point in their lives. Fire was their most sacred possession, and fire was their fiercest enemy.
The story of the great conflagration that burned two-thirds of the city down more than three hundred years before was still told as a cautionary tale. During the night of July 18, a blaze started in the merchantsâ area. There were too many structures, all made of wood, squeezed too close together. Hot summer winds fanned the flames until one by one, the stores and dwellings, some five-, six-stories high, caught on fire. For six days and seven nights, the inferno raged, and then for several days afterward, it smoldered.
The city was left in ruins.
The historian Tacitus wrote an account describing how terrified men and women, the helpless old and thehelpless young, fugitives and lingerers alike, tried to escape all at once, which only added to the confusion.
Some, it was said, those whoâd lost too much, or who were consumed with guilt at not having been able to save their loved ones, chose not to run, but freely gave themselves to the fire and died in the blaze. To make it worse, many who might have helped had been afraid to fight, since menacing gangs were attacking those who tried. Thatâs where the rumors came from that Nero had ordered the fire to persecute early Christians. After all, Nero had been tormenting them for years, using them as human torches, crucifying and sacrificing them. But would the emperor destroy his own city, his own treasures?
Others blamed that great inferno on angry gods and ill luck. Still others believed the early Christians themselves started the fire to destroy the pagan city they despised. For weeks before that fated July night, in the streets of the poorest neighborhoods, early radical upstarts were passing out leaflets prophesying the burning destruction of Rome and stirring up public opinion against the old order.
Now, three centuries later, as Julius ran toward the temple, nostrils burning, feeling the heat on his face intensifying, he worried that this blaze was politically motivated. He and many of the other high priests held that these were the last days of the Roman Empire, as theyâd known it. The emperor and the Bishop of Milan were seeing to that. The ideological fight between the all-encompassing pagan order and the thousands of Romans who believed in the teachings of the Jewish prophet Jesus, or who paid lip service to it in order to curry favor with their emperor, was becoming an ugly battle between two ways of life, between many gods and one god.
Paganism was a mosaic, like the designs on the temple floors. It was made up of dozens of sects, faiths and cultsit had absorbed over the years. As a result, religious freedom reigned in Rome for centuries. Why must an old faith be destroyed to make room for a new one?
Using the gray, billowing clouds as a map toward the site, Julius could tell that the fire was close to the Atrium Vestae, the house where the Vestals lived, just behind the circular Temple of Vesta at the eastern edge of the Roman Forum. The eighty-four-room palace built around an elegant courtyard had burned to the ground several times in the past. Ironic that the Goddess Vesta was the greatest threat to those who kept her safe.
As the strong orange blaze reached higher into the blackened sky, one by one they came: priests and citizens, breathing in the fumes, choking on them, but determined to save the house and ensure the fire didnât encroach on the temple. It wasnât only buildings at risk, but legendary treasures that were said to be hidden in a secret substructure under the holy hearth.
By the time Julius arrived there were two dozen firefighters, men from every walk of life who volunteered and were trained to race to the fire site and fight the blaze as soon as it was reported. One small fireâbecause of all the wooden buildingsâcould turn into an inferno in no
The story of the great conflagration that burned two-thirds of the city down more than three hundred years before was still told as a cautionary tale. During the night of July 18, a blaze started in the merchantsâ area. There were too many structures, all made of wood, squeezed too close together. Hot summer winds fanned the flames until one by one, the stores and dwellings, some five-, six-stories high, caught on fire. For six days and seven nights, the inferno raged, and then for several days afterward, it smoldered.
The city was left in ruins.
The historian Tacitus wrote an account describing how terrified men and women, the helpless old and thehelpless young, fugitives and lingerers alike, tried to escape all at once, which only added to the confusion.
Some, it was said, those whoâd lost too much, or who were consumed with guilt at not having been able to save their loved ones, chose not to run, but freely gave themselves to the fire and died in the blaze. To make it worse, many who might have helped had been afraid to fight, since menacing gangs were attacking those who tried. Thatâs where the rumors came from that Nero had ordered the fire to persecute early Christians. After all, Nero had been tormenting them for years, using them as human torches, crucifying and sacrificing them. But would the emperor destroy his own city, his own treasures?
Others blamed that great inferno on angry gods and ill luck. Still others believed the early Christians themselves started the fire to destroy the pagan city they despised. For weeks before that fated July night, in the streets of the poorest neighborhoods, early radical upstarts were passing out leaflets prophesying the burning destruction of Rome and stirring up public opinion against the old order.
Now, three centuries later, as Julius ran toward the temple, nostrils burning, feeling the heat on his face intensifying, he worried that this blaze was politically motivated. He and many of the other high priests held that these were the last days of the Roman Empire, as theyâd known it. The emperor and the Bishop of Milan were seeing to that. The ideological fight between the all-encompassing pagan order and the thousands of Romans who believed in the teachings of the Jewish prophet Jesus, or who paid lip service to it in order to curry favor with their emperor, was becoming an ugly battle between two ways of life, between many gods and one god.
Paganism was a mosaic, like the designs on the temple floors. It was made up of dozens of sects, faiths and cultsit had absorbed over the years. As a result, religious freedom reigned in Rome for centuries. Why must an old faith be destroyed to make room for a new one?
Using the gray, billowing clouds as a map toward the site, Julius could tell that the fire was close to the Atrium Vestae, the house where the Vestals lived, just behind the circular Temple of Vesta at the eastern edge of the Roman Forum. The eighty-four-room palace built around an elegant courtyard had burned to the ground several times in the past. Ironic that the Goddess Vesta was the greatest threat to those who kept her safe.
As the strong orange blaze reached higher into the blackened sky, one by one they came: priests and citizens, breathing in the fumes, choking on them, but determined to save the house and ensure the fire didnât encroach on the temple. It wasnât only buildings at risk, but legendary treasures that were said to be hidden in a secret substructure under the holy hearth.
By the time Julius arrived there were two dozen firefighters, men from every walk of life who volunteered and were trained to race to the fire site and fight the blaze as soon as it was reported. One small fireâbecause of all the wooden buildingsâcould turn into an inferno in no
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