This is the eighth post of Henryk Sienkiewicz’s
historical novel, Quo Vadis.
You can find Post #1 here.
Post #2, here.
Post #3 here.
Post #4 here.
Post #5 here.
Post #6 here.
Post #7 here.
Chapters
50 thru 56
Summary
After Petronius returns to his home, which out of fortune had been spared from the fire. He is convinced his life will be taken by Nero, and he weighs the moral depravity of his enemies. If his life must end, he concludes he will do what he can to save Vinicius and Lygia. He tells Vinicius what transpired at Nero’s, and impels him to go save Lygia before she is rounded up. He is also determined to stifle the plans of Tigellinus and Nero. Petronius rests with Eunice, who he will dearly miss when his life is taken. A centurion arrives with a letter from Caesar, an invitation to listen to Nero’s new composition. The centurion also tells him he’s on the way to round up Christians for the games. Petronius goes off to listen to Caesar and he and Tigellinus are clearly in tension. But Petronius as the great arbiter of elegance is back to his advantage listening to Nero’s composition. On the way back he stops at Vinicius’ home. Through the streets he hears the chants of “To the Lions the Christians.” Vinicius is home in a desperate mood. He did not reach Lygia in time. She has been carted to the prison. He and Petronius decide to go to the prison. On the way, Petronius kills an abusive drunk, and from Petronius’s familiarity with the guards they are led in where the Christians are singing hymns.
For the games, an enormous wooden amphitheater is being built. Wild animals are sought from within and beyond the empire and then caged in Rome. Christians are being violently rounded up across the city. Petronius has Acte visit Lygia in prison where she brings Lygia clothing and food. Guards are bribed to prevent Lygia from being raped and other violence. Nero is fixated on providing the greatest spectacle ever seen in Rome. Vinicius does all he can to save Lygia, bribing everyone in the prison. He even wants to beg Caesar but Petronius advises against it. It would only harden Nero’s heart further. Vinicius offers himself as a sacrifice to Christ and cannot understand why Christ would let this tragedy happen.
Everything Vinicius attempts in trying to save Lygia fails. Finally the amphitheater’s construction is complete. It is finally coming to a head. The prisons are overfilled with Christians and disease was spreading. Vinicius passed whole nights outside the prison, kneeling and praying. He finds out that Peter was not imprisoned and where he is staying. He goes to Peter and finds him praying with other Christians. Vinicius asks where is Christ in this evil? Peter tries to comfort everyone and strengthened them with his prayers. Peter reminds them that Christ was crucified, and yet he rose from the dead. Raising his hands and his eyes fixed into a vision, Peter continues to pray and bless. When he finishes, Vinicius falls to his knees at Peter’s feet and implores him to pray for Lygia. He offers his life to spare her’s.
After, Vinicius once again goes to the prison, this time with new hope from the power of prayer. He finds out that Lygia has taken ill and that one of the Pretorian guards is a Christian himself. Filled with a little more hope, Vinicius goes to Petronius’s house. Petronius tells him of an incident that happened that day at Nero’s. Poppaea had brought her child from a previous marriage to Nero performance, and the boy fell asleep in the middle of it. Nero hurled a goblet at the boy and injured him. Petronius believes that he and Poppaea can come to an agreement, Petronius saving her son Rufius if she saves Lygia. The first of the games are scheduled in ten days, so there is a little time to work the deal. In the meantime, Lygia is with fever, which has spared her from being defiled. Vinicius writes a letter to Lygia and delivers it himself to the prison. He spends another night outside where he has a terrible dream. When he wakes, he finds a retinue with Chilo at the center. Chilo has been highly rewarded and is an aristocrat himself now. Vinicius accuses him of betraying Lygia, and Chilo responds that when he was in need Vinicius had him flogged.
Lygia writes back to Vinicius, telling him no matter what happens she will always be his. She does not fear what might happen to her. Vinicius writes back that he will go every day to the walls of the prison and that he believes Christ will save her. Petronius meets with Poppaea, who he finds caring for Rufius who is now in a fever. He proposes the deal to her, and she says the only way to convince Nero to release Lygia is for the head Vestal Virgin to persuade Caesar. Poppaea leaves that evening to go to the Virgin, but when she was out two hired men carried out Nero’s orders to strangle the boy and toss his body into the sea. When Poppaea returns and finds the boy disappeared, she screams in agony.
The day of the Morning Games is here but these games will last all day given all the Christians that need to be killed. The amphitheater is packed, and the audience is amazed at the sound of the Christians singing hymns. Vinicius ventures down to the Christian cell where he finds many sewn into animal skins to be attacked by the wild animals. He finds Crispus there preaching repentance for their upcoming day of wrath. Two well-known gladiators were to open the games with a match. In the fight one makes a misstep and falls and asks for mercy. Nero, having lost previously with this gladiator refuses mercy, and the gladiator is killed. Next small armies of soldiers fight battles, and there is so much killing that the bodies are piled up and the blood runs across the entire arena. The audience is enthralled with the bloodbath. Chilo, on the other hand, not used to these games is repulsed by the slaughter. The Romans laugh at his innocence. Next the Christians are up to be slaughtered. They are led out dressed in animal skins, women with children and unarmed men. They kneel in prayer and look to heaven. Wild dogs are let loose upon them and they tear human flesh limb from limb and satiate themselves on the carcasses. Up above in the elevated section, Peter has been snuck in and, visibly moved, prays and blesses the martyrs below. Chilo watching flesh being torn off bodies faints from the revulsion. The lions were to be kept for the next day, but the audience in their bloodlust call for them now. Nero wishing to please and with more Christians on hand he gives the order to let the lions in. The lions storm the arena and gorge on the Christians. Blood is everywhere. Nero then lets all the wild beasts enter, and the spectacle becomes an orgy of blood. To clear the arena, Nero orders archers to kill the animals after all the Christians have been slaughtered. Bodies of Christians and beasts cover the arena. After the bodies are cleared, Nero steps down into the arena and with his harp sings his composition. Peter up above is seen crying.
At evening while the crowds are departing, Nero disappointed at not being praised for his song asks Petronius why the song was not appreciated. Petronius explains it was the wrong time and place, the crowd gorged on the bloodbath. Still he compliments the song and mentions a line that needs improving. Chilo, recovered, obsequiously compliments Nero’s song. They all talk about the Christians that in their dying moments are looking as if in a vision toward heaven. Petronius and Vinicius depart and they find Nazarius, the son of Miriam, at Vinicius’s home. He confirms that Lygia is still in prison, ill from fever, and he has been assigned to load caskets of the dead. Petronius comes up with a plan to place Lygia, simulating being dead, into a casket and have her taken out with the dead, where Vinicius will take her out of the casket. That evening they try the plan and as they wait for the procession Nazarius comes up to say she was taken to another prison, the Esquiline dungeons, before they could put her in the casket.
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Michelle
Comment:
It was even more striking having St. Peter witness this.
Kerstin
Comment:
The scenes in the arena are hard to read. So much blood and gore.
###
The
first excerpt from these chapters is from chapter 51 where we see the frenzy the
Roman people were seized with against the scapegoated Christians as they wanted
to purify themselves of whatever malediction the gods had given them.
The cry, "Christians
to the lions!" was heard increasingly in every part of the city. At first
not only did no one doubt that they were the real authors of the catastrophe,
but no one wished to doubt, since their punishment was to be a splendid amusement
for the populace. Still the opinion spread that the catastrophe would not have
assumed such dreadful proportions but for the anger of the gods; for this
reason "piacula," or purifying sacrifices, were commanded in the
temples. By advice of the Sibylline books, the Senate ordained solemnities and
public prayer to Vulcan, Ceres, and Proserpina. Matrons made offerings to Juno;
a whole procession of them went to the seashore to take water and sprinkle with
it the statue of the goddess. Married women prepared feasts to the gods and
night watches. All Rome purified itself from sin, made offerings, and placated
the Immortals. Meanwhile new broad streets were opened among the ruins. In one
place and another foundations were laid for magnificent houses, palaces, and temples.
But first of all they built with unheard-of haste an enormous wooden
amphitheatre in which Christians were to die. Immediately after that
consultation in the house of Tiberius, orders went to consuls to furnish wild
beasts. Tigellinus emptied the vivaria of all Italian cities, not excepting the
smaller ones. In Africa, at his command, gigantic hunts were organized, in
which the entire local population was forced to take part. Elephants and tigers
were brought in from Asia, crocodiles and hippopotamuses from the Nile, lions
from the Atlas, wolves and bears from the Pyrenees, savage hounds from
Hibernia, Molossian dogs from Epirus, bisons and the gigantic wild aurochs from
Germany. Because of the number of prisoners, the games were to surpass in greatness
anything seen up to that time. Cæsar wished to drown all memory of the fire in
blood, and make Rome drunk with it; hence never had there been a greater
promise of bloodshed.
The willing people helped
guards and pretorians in hunting Christians. That was no difficult labor for
whole groups of them camped with the other population in the midst of the
gardens, and confessed their faith openly. When surrounded, they knelt, and
while singing hymns let themselves be borne away without resistance. But their patience
only increased the anger of the populace, who, not understanding its origin,
considered it as rage and persistence in crime. A madness seized the
persecutors. It happened that the mob wrested Christians from pretorians, and
tore them to pieces; women were dragged to prison by the hair; children's heads
were dashed against stones. Thousands of people rushed, howling, night and day
through the streets. Victims were sought in ruins, in chimneys, in cellars.
Before the prison bacchanalian feasts and dances were celebrated at fires,
around casks of wine.
In the evening was heard
with delight bellowing which was like thunder, and which sounded throughout the
city. The prisons were overflowing with thousands of people; every day the mob
and pretorians drove in new victims. Pity had died out. It seemed that people
had forgotten to speak, and in their wild frenzy remembered one shout alone:
"To the lions with Christians!" Wonderfully hot days came, and nights
more stifling than ever before; the very air seemed filled with blood, crime,
and madness.
And that surpassing measure of cruelty was answered by an equal measure of desire for martyrdom,—the confessors of Christ went to death willingly, or even sought death till they were restrained by the stern commands of superiors. By the injunction of these superiors they began to assemble only outside the city, in excavations near the Appian Way, and in vineyards belonging to patrician Christians, of whom none had been imprisoned so far. It was known perfectly on the Palatine that to the confessors of Christ belonged Flavius, Domitilla, Pomponia Græcina, Cornelius Pudens, and Vinicius. Cæsar himself, however, feared that the mob would not believe that such people had burned Rome, and since it was important beyond everything to convince the mob, punishment and vengeance were deferred till later days. Others were of the opinion, but erroneously, that those patricians were saved by the influence of Acte. Petronius, after parting with Vinicius, turned to Acte, it is true, to gain assistance for Lygia; but she could offer him only tears, for she lived in oblivion and suffering, and was endured only in so far as she hid herself from Poppæa and Cæsar.
###
The
second excerpt comes from chapter 50, the start of the Morning Games. After opening the ceremonies and a gladiatorial
bout which ended in a thumbs-down death dictum from Nero, the Christians are
led into the amphitheater covered in animal hides. Wild dogs are let in for the slaughter of the
kneeling and praying Christians.
The turn of the
Christians was at hand. But since that was a new spectacle for people, and no
one knew how the Christians would bear themselves, all waited with a certain
curiosity. The disposition of the audience was attentive but unfriendly; they
were waiting for uncommon scenes. Those people who were to appear had burned
Rome and its ancient treasures. They had drunk the blood of infants, and
poisoned water; they had cursed the whole human race, and committed the vilest
crimes. The harshest punishment did not suffice the roused hatred; and if any
fear possessed people's hearts, it was this: that the torture of the Christians
would not equal the guilt of those ominous criminals.
Meanwhile the sun had
risen high; its rays, passing through the purple velarium, had filled the
amphitheatre with blood-colored light. The sand assumed a fiery hue, and in
those gleams, in the faces of people, as well as in the empty arena, which
after a time was to be filled with the torture of people and the rage of savage
beasts, there was something terrible. Death and terror seemed hovering in the
air. The throng, usually gladsome, became moody under the influence of hate and
silence. Faces had a sullen expression.
Now the prefect gave a
sign. The same old man appeared, dressed as Charon, who had called the
gladiators to death, and, passing with slow step across the arena amid silence,
he struck three times again on the door.
Throughout the
amphitheatre was heard the deep murmur,—
"The Christians! the
Christians!"
The iron gratings
creaked; through the dark openings were heard the usual cries of the scourgers,
"To the sand!" and in one moment the arena was peopled with crowds as
it were of satyrs covered with skins. All ran quickly, somewhat feverishly,
and, reaching the middle of the circle, they knelt one by another with raised
heads. The spectators, judging this to be a prayer for pity, and enraged by
such cowardice, began to stamp, whistle, throw empty wine-vessels, bones from
which the flesh had been eaten, and shout, "The beasts! the beasts!"
But all at once something unexpected took place. From out the shaggy assembly
singing voices were raised, and then sounded that hymn heard for the first time
in a Roman amphitheatre, "Christus regnat!" ["Christ
reigns!"]
Astonishment seized the
spectators. The condemned sang with eyes raised to the velarium. The audience
saw faces pale, but as it were inspired. All understood that those people were
not asking for mercy, and that they seemed not to see the Circus, the audience,
the Senate, or Cæsar. "Christus regnat!" rose ever louder, and in the
seats, far up to the highest, among the rows of spectators, more than one asked
himself the question, "What is happening, and who is that Christus who
reigns in the mouths of those people who are about to die?" But meanwhile
a new grating was opened, and into the arena rushed, with mad speed and
barking, whole packs of dogs,—gigantic, yellow Molossians from the
Peloponnesus, pied dogs from the Pyrenees, and wolf-like hounds from Hibernia,
purposely famished; their sides lank, and their eyes bloodshot. Their howls and
whines filled the amphitheatre. When the Christians had finished their hymn,
they remained kneeling, motionless, as if petrified, merely repeating in one
groaning chorus, "Pro Christo! Pro Christo!" The dogs, catching the
odor of people under the skins of beasts, and surprised by their silence, did
not rush on them at once. Some stood against the walls of the boxes, as if
wishing to go among the spectators; others ran around barking furiously, as
though chasing some unseen beast. The people were angry. A thousand voices
began to call; some howled like wild beasts; some barked like dogs; others
urged them on in every language. The amphitheatre was trembling from uproar.
The excited dogs began to run to the kneeling people, then to draw back,
snapping their teeth, till at last one of the Molossians drove his teeth into
the shoulder of a woman kneeling in front, and dragged her under him.
Tens of dogs rushed into
the crowd now, as if to break through it. The audience ceased to howl, so as to
look with greater attention. Amidst the howling and whining were heard yet
plaintive voices of men and women: "Pro Christo! Pro Christo!" but on
the arena were formed quivering masses of the bodies of dogs and people. Blood
flowed in streams from the torn bodies. Dogs dragged from each other the bloody
limbs of people. The odor of blood and torn entrails was stronger than Arabian
perfumes, and filled the whole Circus.
At last only here and there were visible single kneeling forms, which were soon covered by moving squirming masses.
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