Titus happened to know that Nero was away from Roma, down at his villa at Antium. At least the emperor was safe.
Titus found Chrysanthe in their bedroom. He was going to tell her to begin packing her more valuable jewellery, but she was already doing so. He ordered Hilarion to fetch a specially designed trunk from the storage room and bring it to the vestibule. Tending to the task himself, Titus began to take the wax masks of his ancestors from their niches, wrapping each one in linen and stacking them carefully in the trunk.
Lucius appeared. “Can I help, father?”
“Of course, son,” said Titus, glad to see the boy take an interest in his ancestors. Lucius took the mask of his namesake in his hands. Looking from the mask of his father to the face of his son, Titus smiled to see how closely Lucius resembled his grandfather.
“Are we leaving the house, father?”
“I don’t think it will come to that. Still, it never hurts to be prepared.” Titus meant what he said. He was not seriously worried, at least not yet, but already in the back of his mind he was calculating the time it would take to reach their country house on the far side of the Tiber. It was usually only half a day’s journey, but the roads might be crowded with others fleeing the city.
“There, that’s the last of the ancestors, carefully packed away,” he said. “Now I think I shall go and take a look at the fire myself.”
“May I go with you, father?” said Lucius.
Titus hesitated. His impulse was to say no, but Lucius was nearly a man, after all. In some families, he would already have received his manly toga. Titus could hardly order him to stay at home with his mother.
“Of course, son. You’ll come with me, and together we will see what there is to see.”
Taking only a pair of bodyguards with them, father and son set out. Smoke was thick in the air, stinging their eyes and making Titus cough. The streets were full of people. Some seemed to be going about their normal business, conversing and even laughing as if nothing untoward was taking place. Many more were heading away from the fire, towards the Tiber, looking anxious. Common people pushed carts piled high with their meager possessions. Groaning under the weight, slaves carried litters and sedans normally used for passengers but instead loaded with trunks and precious objects. One of the most bizarre sights was a gilded litter carried by an elegantly outfitted troupe of Nubian slaves, in which the passenger was a bronze statue of Aphrodite reclining. Young Lucius laughed aloud at the strangeness of it.
People were on their knees, praying before the Ara Maxima. A huge throng had gathered in front of the Temple of Fortune, where harried-looking priests were trying to calm the wailing women on the temple steps.
Titus and Lucius passed a cart loaded with scores of round leather boxes. No doubt the capsae contained the prized scrolls of some devoted bibliophile. Titus had not even thought of what would become of his small library in a fire. Did he own enough capsae to stuff them all into, if he needed to carry them to safety? Some of his books were quite old and valuable, like the history of Livius that had been a gift from Claudius to Titus’s father.
The entrances to the Circus Maximus were open, so they went inside and ascended the steps to the highest tier of seats in the curve at the far western end. A number of others had done the same thing. It was as if they were spectators at a play staged by Vulcan himself. The far end of the circus was a bowl of flame that reached as far as the spine down the middle of the track. To their left, much of the slope of the Palatine above the circus was aflame, including a small part of the imperial complex. The fire had also engulfed the farthest slope of the Aventine. With a gasp, Titus realized that his local baths, the place he had considered visiting that morning, must be completely lost to the fire. He thought of the little man who always greeted him at the entrance and the Egyptian slave boy who performed massage and flirted so outrageously with the customers. Had they been trapped by the fire? What if Titus had gone there earlier this morning? Would he still be alive?
A hot wind blew down the length of the Circus Maximus, stinging Titus’s eyes and filling his mouth with the taste of ash. He wiped his hand across his face and saw that his fingers were black with soot.
Titus had seen enough and was ready to leave, but Lucius pointed to a distant group of vigiles who could be seen at work on the Aventine. A small group of spectators inside the circus had gathered, leaning over the upper parapet of the viewing stands to watch them.
“Father, let’s go see!”
“We should head back. Your mother will be worried-”
“But others are watching. It must be safe. Please?”
In truth, Titus was curious himself to see the vigiles at work. They walked along the upper parapet until they reached the crowd and could go no farther. It was just as well; this was as close to the flames at the end of the circus as Titus cared to go. Leaning over the parapet, they had a clear view of the vigiles below.
Flames had just been sighted on the roof of a building of three stories just across the street from the circus. The vigiles were using all their tools to fight the fire before it could claim the building. A portable pump with a tank of water had been rolled as close as possible. While two of the men aimed the huge metal nozzle, four others worked the see-saw pump that sent a jet of water streaming all the way to the roof of the building. More vigiles, calling on citizens to help them, had formed a bucket brigade to continuously replenish the tank with water from a neighbourhood fountain.
Farther away, another group of vigiles was attempting to demolish a building already lost to the flames. A ballista of the sort the legions used to hurl missiles – essentially a huge crossbow with a hand-cranked ratchet to set the tension – was used to launch three-pronged iron hooks attached to chains. Aimed with uncanny precision, one hook after another landed inside a window frame and caught fast. When five of the hooks were in place, the vigiles formed teams, seized the chains, and heaved in unison. The burned-out wall gave way and collapsed with a shower of sparks. The vigiles dropped the chains, took up picks and axes, and ran to break up the fallen debris.
“What they’re doing must be incredibly dangerous!” said Lucius. “But look there, farther up the hill. Aren’t they actually setting a fire?”
With their prefect barking orders at them, some of the vigiles took up firebrands, lit them from the smoldering embers of the demolished building, and set fire to a long, narrow, one-story building at the periphery of the conflagration.
“I think that must be what’s called a fire break,” said Titus. “If they can destroy that building quickly, you see, the gap they’ll create may put an end to the fire’s progress, as least in that direction.”
Lucius nodded, fascinated by both the fire and the techniques used to combat it. “Could I join the vigiles someday?”
Titus laughed, and quickly looked around, thankful that no one in the crowd seemed to have overheard. Tradition and the law said that Lucius was almost a man, but he still had some boyish ideas about the world. “The vigiles are all slaves and freedmen, Lucius. Such labour is not for freeborn men, not even those of the lowest social rank.”
“But who commands them? Like that fellow there, shouting orders?”
“Men of the equestrian class are eligible to serve as prefects of the vigiles. But no patrician would ever stoop to such a prefecture. If you’re looking for adventure, for a young man of your social rank there’s always a military career-”
“But soldiers don’t put out fires. They burn down cities on purpose.”
Titus pursed his lips. “Yes, sometimes fire is a weapon used by the legions. But I’m sure the troops are trained to put out flames, as well, when the enemy uses fire against us.” He thought of an example. “When your many-times-great-uncle the Divine Julius was trapped with his army in Cleopatra’s palace at Alexandria, the Egyptians tried to burn him out. They set fire to a warehouse attached to the Great Library. I imagine Caesar’s men were responsible for putting out that fire before it spread out of control.”