In the year of the consulship of Marcus Licinius and Lucius Calpurnius, the losses of a great war were matched by an unexpected disaster, no sooner begun than ended.One Atilius, of the freedman class, having undertaken to build an amphitheatre at Fidena for the exhibition of a show of gladiators, failed to lay a solid foundation to frame the wooden superstructure with beams of sufficient strength; for he had neither an abundance of wealth, nor zeal for public popularity, but he had simply sought the work for sordid gain.Thither flocked all who loved such sights and who during the reign of Tiberius had been wholly debarred from such amusements; men and women of every age crowding to the place because it was near Rome.
And so the calamity was all the more fatal.The building was densely crowded; then came a violent shock, as it fell inwards or spread outwards, precipitating and burying an immense multitude which was intently gazing on the show or standing round.Those who were crushed to death in the first moment of the accident had at least under such dreadful circumstances the advantage of escaping torture.
More to be pitied were they who with limbs torn from them still retained life, while they recognised their wives and children by seeing them during the day and by hearing in the night their screams and groans.Soon all the neighbours in their excitement at the report were bewailing brothers, kinsmen or parents.Even those whose friends or relatives were away from home for quite a different reason, still trembled for them, and as it was not yet known who had been destroyed by the crash, suspense made the alarm more widespread.
As soon as they began to remove the debris, there was a rush to see the lifeless forms and much embracing and kissing.Often a dispute would arise, when some distorted face, bearing however a general resemblance of form and age, had baffled their efforts at recognition.
Fifty thousand persons were maimed or destroyed in this disaster.
For the future it was provided by a decree of the Senate that no one was to exhibit a show of gladiators, whose fortune fell short of four hundred thousand sesterces, and that no amphitheatre was to be erected except on a foundation, the solidity of which had been examined.Atilius was banished.At the moment of the calamity the nobles threw open houses and supplied indiscriminately medicines and physicians, so that Rome then, notwithstanding her sorrowful aspect, wore a likeness to the manners of our forefathers who after a great battle always relieved the wounded with their bounty and attentions.
This disaster was not forgotten when a furious conflagration damaged the capital to an unusual extent, reducing Mount Caelius to ashes."It was an ill-starred year," people began to say, "and the emperor's purpose of leaving Rome must have been formed under evil omens."They began in vulgar fashion to trace ill-luck to guilt, when Tiberius checked them by distributing money in proportion to losses sustained.He received a vote of thanks in the Senate from its distinguished members, and was applauded by the populace for having assisted with his liberality, without partiality or the solicitations of friends, strangers whom he had himself sought out.
And proposals were also made that Mount Caelius should for the future be called Mount Augustus, inasmuch as when all around was in flames only a single statue of Tiberius in the house of one Junius, a senator, had remained uninjured.This, it was said, had formerly happened to Claudia Quinta; her statue, which had twice escaped the violence of fire, had been dedicated by our ancestors in the temple of the Mother of Gods; hence the Claudii had been accounted sacred and numbered among deities, and so additional sanctity ought to be given to a spot where heaven showed such honour to the emperor.
It will not be uninteresting to mention that Mount Caelius was anciently known by the name of Querquetulanus, because it grew oak timber in abundance and was afterwards called Caelius by Caeles Vibenna, who led the Etruscan people to the aid of Rome and had the place given him as a possession by Tarquinius Priscus or by some other of the kings.As to that point historians differ; as to the rest, it is beyond a question that Vibenna's numerous forces established themselves in the plain beneath and in the neighbourhood of the forum, and that the Tuscan street was named after these strangers.
But though the zeal of the nobles and the bounty of the prince brought relief to suffering, yet every day a stronger and fiercer host of informers pursued its victims, without one alleviating circumstance.Quintilius Varus, a rich man and related to the emperor, was suddenly attacked by Domitius Afer, the successful prosecutor of Claudia Pulchra, his mother, and no one wondered that the needy adventurer of many years who had squandered his lately gotten recompense was now preparing himself for fresh iniquities.That Publius Dolabella should have associated himself in the prosecution was a marvel, for he was of illustrious ancestry, was allied to Varus, and was now himself seeking to destroy his own noble race, his own kindred.The Senate however stopped the proceeding, and decided to wait for the emperor, this being the only means of escaping for a time impending horrors.