16 - In Green Pastures

A single cry of mourning and desolation went up from the Trans-Tiber for every single Jewish home had at least one person missing. In fact, some families rejoiced if only one of its members had been dragged off to Nero’s circus on the Vatican. The congregation gathered in the synagogue from early morning till late at night praying and chanting psalms for the martyrs agonizing in the cellars and crypts of the arena.

A ring of Jewish wives, daughter, mothers, and sisters lingered by the walls of the circus. Their grief broke out in passionate gestures and in a high wailing that tore its way through constricted throats and quivering lips. Hands were lifted frantically to heaven, imploring the compassion of the Almighty. Some women tore their clothing and threw ashes on their heads. Others beat their breasts with clenched fists.

In a wider ring around them the Roman masses, dressed in festive attire with garlands on their heads, enjoyed these preliminaries to the great entertainment to come.

Meanwhile the circus was filling with people, aristocrats as well as commoners. They all brought plenty of food and wine, either from home or from the many booths set up on the Vatican, for it would be a long and thrilling spectacle. One day wouldn’t be enough for all the blood and victims needed to compensate Rome for its calamity.

Never before had so many human victims been prepared for a single spectacle. The crypts were jammed with “Christians” to provide a wide variety of entertainments. The Roman mob licked its chops in anticipation of seeing tender children who could offer no resistance, and strong men making frantic and futile efforts to escape or to defend themselves. There would be old people shrinking from the jaws and fangs of the animals.

The latecomers lamented that they would have to sit in the outer ring and wouldn’t be able to hear the bones crunch.

The women were no less feverish than the men, pushing through the crowd just as furiously and threatening to scratch out the eyes of the men and women who jammed the entrances. The ushers could not maintain order. The struggle carried the mob right up to the very walls of Caesar’s loge. Some scuffles took place as patrician slaves cracked skulls right and left to clear a path for the litters.

At last the gigantic circus was so filled that the gates had to be closed leaving only those who were too late to get in and the ring of wailing Jewish women outside.

Once the movement ceased, some sort of order was restored, and the spectators settled as best they could into their places, a sea of white togas, garlanded heads, and half naked bodies. Caesar lolled on his throne surrounded by his intimates, while Poppea, swollen with pregnancy and shamelessly uncovered, sat at his side. A squad of Praetorians, resplendent in silver breastplates and horned helmets, guarded the imperial loge, under Tigellinus’ command.

Because of the heat Nero had dropped his toga and sat comfortably in his light tunic, which was considered an act of disrespect toward the people. But Nero didn’t have the discipline to submit to physical discomfort even if he was trying to woo them. His wreath, so carefully arranged by his slave, had already slipped to one side of his head, as though he were already drunk. The smell of sweaty flesh rising from the imperial loge was as heavy and sickening as that which rose from the masses jammed into the tiers.

In another disappointment Nero did not stage any formal demonstration. He just sat slumped on his throne like a resting butcher. He did lean over now and then to whisper something to a member of his suite and he threw kisses to people in other loges. Only Poppea, half-naked though she was, seemed disturbed by this utter lack of dignity.

The procession of victims that always preceded a spectacle of this kind to whet the appetites of the spectators, also fell short of expectations. The men, women and children who were driven into the arena at the point of a spear came out wailing and lamenting. Only Jew-Christians would have the nerve to spoil such a great festival in this way. Even the men made no effort to display the courage proper to those who were about to die in the presence of Caesar. The highly disgusted Romans saw only a pitiful mob of miserable Jew-peddlers who refused to play up the occasion.

The ones who’d been dressed up in animal skins, such as lions, foxes and sheep, wouldn’t even respond with the expected behavior. In short, the sacrificial procession was a miserable failure, due to the lack of public spirit by the Jews. Only the women made a certain contribution, for having been stripped naked, they struck a most amusing pose as they tried to cover their private parts with their hair or their hands.

And when these half-crippled tatterdemalions were driven past the imperial loge, they didn’t even have the respect to look up at Caesar. Instead, they just muttered to themselves words that the mob couldn’t make out due to their own uproar.

“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want,” they said, their voices becoming firmer as they went along. “He makes me lie down in green pastures.

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me.”

This was the armor they wore as they advanced into the place of death, and it worked wonders for them. They saw tranquil meadows beyond the abyss of death. And on the meadows they saw one with open arms, saying, “Come to me, all you who suffer and are heavily burdened.”

The murmur grew stronger and it swelled into a chant that became audible over the obscene uproar of the circus.

“I hope for you, O God. I commit my spirit into Your hands.”

Tigellinus, sitting in Nero’s loge, bit his lips. The filthy Christians had spoiled the parade. He just knew that they’d deliberately done this to disgrace him. So he signaled the overseers in the arena, and they drove the victims back into the vaults.

Lucan said, “A flock of sheep would have shown more courage, O Caesar.”

But on the other side Petronius said, “No, the trouble is they show too much courage. They have the courage to ignore even you, O Caesar.”

In any case, it was time to get down to the day’s business. Caesar gave the sign, the trumpets blew a fanfare, and the cage doors holding the wild beasts were opened.

The first to be released were a herd of wild oxen. As they moved out from the shadow of the circus wall, they were bewildered, blinded by the sudden light, and irritated by the tumult. The audience gasped in delight, however, for they saw that a woman had been loosely tied to the horns of each ox. Their white bodies flashed as the sunlight struck them. And even in this extreme danger, the women were still contorting themselves in shame, trying to cover their nakedness with their hands.

The beasts were roused from their stupor as the women’s hair fell across their eyes. They started rearing, stamping, and flinging themselves about wildly trying to rid themselves of their human cargo. One by one, the women were thrown into the air. A scream, an unintelligible outcry, and the body was lifted into the air again, but this time on, not between, the horns of the ox. The body quivered, and the blood spurted. The smell of fresh blood sent the beasts into a frenzy, so that they pranced and circled with their impaled victims, snuffing the hot steaming air. Again the bodies were thrown down on the sand and lifted up, and what had been, just a few moments ago, a human being, was now a mass of ripped and trampled flesh, covered with splashes of red.

The audience rose to its feet, applauding wildly, and a great roar of salute to Caesar rolled across the arena.

A few moments later the attendants charged in and herded the oxen back to their cages. Half a dozen carts were rolled in, and the bodies were thrown into them pell-mell. Fresh sand was scattered over the red patches, and the second spectacle began.

The doors to the prison vaults were opened and a gang of slaves drove out a group of men, women, and children covered with animal skins fastened around the shoulders tightly enough that they couldn’t be thrown off. Some were standing; others were forced to crawl. Some of the women held infants to their breasts. The horrible, motley group shrank back, but the whips fell on them and they moved forward in a confused mass.

Again no face was turned toward Caesar. Again the strange infuriating chant rose from the assembly, “Though I walk through the valley. . .” The slave attendants tried in vain to scatter them apart by lashing their faces, but they would not scatter, nor would they approach the imperial loge. They clung together, a compact mass, chanting psalms.

Who can fathom the secret of such souls? Who can penetrate to the mystery wrought by God in His elect at that moment? Only one who has been touched by God’s grace and who has rested in the shadow of His love can understand how God lifted His chosen ones to Himself and in that moment transformed their earthly anguish into heavenly glory. For they no longer saw with the eyes of flesh, they no longer knew what was taking place around them. Translated into spheres inaccessible to us, they were beyond the reach of mortal evil.

Successful in this last test, they walked out into the arena to see Christ even before their eyes closed in death. He came to them and stood before them with open arms; he drew them up to him on the cross, so that their sufferings might mix with his and they might become one with him.

Though their bodies shrank from death, their souls were filled with bliss.

“I rejoiced when they said to me, Come let us go to the house of the Lord.”
“Hallelujah! Praise the Lord, praise Him all servants of the Lord!”

The gates of the cages were pulled back, and a pack of wild bloodhounds emerged. They’d been starved over the last few days and they bounded toward the human group huddled at the center of the arena and then paused for a moment, a few steps away. They lifted their muzzles, sniffed, and emitted a long howl.

That was the moment the men and women clinging together saw Christ distinctly and unmistakably in front of them.

“Christ is with us!” one cried. “I see him!”
At once a dozen voices rose around her, “I see him too!”
“Lord, lord, take us to you!”

This burst of excitement startled the bloodhounds. Their throats moaned and they paused. The spectators rose in one mass, astounded by the picture. Men, women and children were singing and the beasts were hesitant in front of their prey. Then one of the bloodhounds crept forward, sniffed, and closed its jaws suddenly on a piece of goatskin covering a child. It’s nostrils quivered at the smell of the uncovered human flesh and, as if stung by an arrow, it reared and flung itself with fangs and claws on the little one.

That was the signal; in an instant the spell was snapped. The howling, baying pack dashed forward, the skins were ripped down, and wild canine jaws closed on human flesh. The victims did not struggle. Their flesh was ripped, blood burst forth, and all that was heard were those strange words so terrible in Roman ears.

“Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.”
“O Lord, take us to you.”

During the blood bath, something happened that took the crowd’s breath away. As the bloodhounds tore the victims apart, a man was putting up a fight! But he wasn’t fighting for himself. Kneeling on all fours, he was shielding a little child with his ripped flesh. He held the child with one hand, and with the other, as well as with a foot, he was trying to beat off the bloodhound’s attack, while edging his way toward the side of the arena. But strangely, the bloodhound seemed intent on the child rather than on the protecting adult. It kept pushing its muzzle under the man’s belly, to get at the white flesh of the little one. The man somehow managed to twist and squirm and push so as to keep himself between and beast and the victim.

This spectacle aroused a mixture of emotions in the Romans. There was suspense as to the outcome, of course, but there was also a strange feeling of pity, utterly out of keeping with the event. The bloodhound finally fastened it jaws on the man’s leg and began to drag him backwards. When they reached Caesar’s loge, the dog stopped and the eyes of tens of thousands of spectators were riveted to the scene. The man was ripped from head to foot and the blood streamed from a hundred wounds. But with a last conscious effort he was still shielding the infant.

A mother offering this mad and hopeless resistance to the inevitable probably wouldn’t have drawn as much attention. But that a father should display this desperate love, this tenderness at the gates of death, was strange and somehow moving.

And the spectators lifted their thumbs, and shouted to Caesar, “Let him be!”

But Caesar didn’t give the signal of the upturned thumb, and the man in the arena came to the end of his strength. With bloody claws and dripping fangs the dog thrust and snapped at the infant, ripping the man’s limbs. One last snap of the jaws overturned the man, and the dead child rolled into the sand. The bloodhound dragged it off.

The man lay motionless and was taken for dead. But suddenly he stirred, and stemmed his gashed elbows against the ground. He couldn’t struggle to his knees. He only managed to lift his head, and to make a signal toward Caesar’s loge with one hand.

Then, in a loud, clear voice, he called out, “Tigellinus! The child you rejected is now with the lord!”

Tigellinus recognized Antonius, his slave.

Then he dropped into the sand again, murmuring, “Lord, take me to you!”

Attendants cleared the hounds from the arena, carried out the remnants of the dead bodies, and sprinkled new sand on the ground to make ready for the third spectacle.


And so it went throughout the day. Group after group of human beings, pack after pack of wild beasts, until the mob became bored. It was always the same, men, women, children, blood, prayers, roaring, claws, fangs. The hot sun beat down, and the stink of dead meat and of living perspiring flesh hung in the air. It was just too much.

But then all of Nero’s enterprises went this way, lacking proportion and producing the opposite of the intended effect. Besides, the Christians wouldn’t fight. They just prayed and let themselves be eaten. The spectators might as well have been watching a group of butchers at work. People were nodding off and many would have gladly slipped away, but they were afraid of the countless spies scattered throughout the circus. It wasn’t safe to be lacking in the proper enthusiasm at a great spectacle generously arranged for the Roman masses by Caesar. But after each spectacle the applause became lighter; no roars of salutation rolled toward the imperial loge.

Even Nero himself was bored. He didn’t move though. He just lay there perspiring, his thick flesh oozing out of his tunic. Petronius had used up all his prepared jests, trying to keep up Caesar’s interest, and he was racking his brain for something to say. In his soul he cursed Nero for this interminable, monotonous, unimaginative slaughtering of Jews. Even Poppea, for all her cold, insolent bearing, was weary to the soul. Her attendants kept pouring perfumes on her to drive away the stink of blood and perspiration. But most disgusting to her was the nearness of the imperial carcass. And Nero himself would have been glad to call a halt, but he felt obscurely that the longer he sat there, the more he suffered the dreary, bloody spectacle, the more completely he would erase from the Roman minds their original suspicion of his guilt.

Once again his gross and stupid strategy miscarried. For as the masses became over sated with the slaughter and their restlessness increased with the long day, their attention and resentment swung from the arena to the emperor. There was nothing left to hate in the miserable Christians for even the dulled, brutish hearts of the Romans were touched by the spectacle of so many women and children being fed to the wild beasts.

Some even dared to whisper to their neighbors, “Is this how criminals die? Could these kind of people set fire to a city?”

If not for the presence of Tigellinus’ men, such remarks would have been made more loudly and grown into a demonstration. But his men were everywhere. So the people feigned enthusiasm, and in their hearts they wished that Nero and Tigellinus were the ones in the arena instead of the Christians.

The signal finally came to stop the spectacle. The mob dashed out of the circus as furiously as it had dashed into it, stopping at the food booths to snatch up the reeking sausages and stuff them into their mouths, washing them down with gulps of sour wine. And here came Nero moving through the crowd with his suite, determined to show the Romans that he was with them on this day. Petronius, who’d been cursing him in his heart for the hideous and revolting show in the arena, cursed him even more heartily for being compelled to take part in this demonstration of democratic sentiment.


This was by no means the end of the great punishment, for a double row of crosses stretched along the middle of the campus on the Vatican hill, and a human form was nailed to each one. The bloody limbs of the victims were steeped in oil, and the crosses were heavily overlaid with wax. The crucified ones had already been suffering on them throughout the day, but death was not to be granted to them until nightfall.

At dusk the human torches were kindled. Then, at one end of the alley of blazing bodies, Nero appeared in his chariot, wearing a red tunic, the symbol of Jupiter. An attendant at his side held up the imperial eagle of Rome. Tigellinus, dressed in green, Nero’s color in the races, flashed a white cloth, and Nero tugged at the reins.

The white horses started forward, and the imperial chariot sped down the alley between the blazing crosses. A wail of pain accompanied him down the flickering alley.

An old Jew, hanging on one of the first crosses, cried out, “Father in heaven, forgive them, for they know not what they do!”

And down the long course of fiery crosses the cry was repeated, “Father in heaven, forgive them, for they know not what they do!”

The old Jew gathered enough strength to raise his voice again, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One!”

And again down the double line of torches the cry rang out, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One!’


Even this last spectacle failed to cleanse Nero from the suspicion that he had set fire to Rome. The impression left on the masses had nothing to do with the guilt of the Christians. It centered, instead, on the picture of a man crawling around the arena on all fours, keeping his body between the fangs of the bloodhound and the infant he protected.

And the exhausted Romans asked, “Did infants also set fire to Rome?”

“What do you think, Petronius,” asked Lucan, “did infants too set fire to Rome?”

“The children suffer for the sins of the fathers,” answered Petronius.

“I don’t understand.”

“Didn’t you hear what the slave called out to Tigellinus? And didn’t you get the meaning? Tigellinus set fire to Rome, and his child was therefore thrown to the beasts.”

This bitter witticism was repeated and became very fashionable in Rome.

“What? Infants too set fire to Rome?”
“The children suffer for the sins of the fathers.”

And everyone knew who and what was meant.