Fire and persecution

During the reign of Nero, in 62 AD, disaster struck. Tacitus:

To hide his anxious fears about foreign affairs, Nero threw the people's grain, which was so old as to be spoilt, into the Tiber, with the view of keeping up a sense of security about the supplies. There was no addition to the price, although about two hundred ships were destroyed in the very harbour by a violent storm, and one hundred more, which had sailed up the Tiber, by an accidental fire.

In view of the very large number of vessels lost, we are compelled to think of a tsunami. Seismic activity is documented in the same year further south: Pompeii was hit by an earthquake. Another tsunami may have occurred in 44 BC. Writing in the fourth century, Iulius Obsequens recorded this portent:

In Ostia a shoal of fish was left on dry land by the retracting of the sea.

What we must make of the fire of the tow boats on the Tiber, on the other hand, is not clear. Because of the behaviour of Nero, the events may have seemed like a sign of the times to the inhabitants of the harbours. Suetonius:

Whenever he drifted down the Tiber to Ostia, or sailed about the Gulf of Baiae, booths were set up at intervals along the banks and shores, fitted out for debauchery, while bartering matrons played the part of inn-keepers and from every hand solicited him to come ashore.

For safer transport of commodities by ships Nero developed grand designs. Pliny the Elder:

In the marshes on the Bay of Amynclae [between Terracina and Gaeta] the vineyard has died off due to the grower's neglect and the small acreage, more yet in fact because of the canal that Nero started, providing a navigable link from the lake of Baiae to Ostia.

Suetonius once more:

He also began a pool, extending from Misenum to the lake of Avernus, roofed over and enclosed in colonnades, into which he planned to turn all the hot springs in every part of Baiae; a canal from Avernus all the way to Ostia, to enable the journey to be made by ship yet not by sea; its length was to be a hundred and sixty miles and its breadth sufficient to allow ships with five banks of oars to pass each other. For the execution of these projects he had given orders that the prisoners all over the empire should be transported to Italy, and that those who were convicted even of capital crimes should be punished in no other way than by sentence to this work.

View of Lake Avernus. Photo: Historic Mysteries.

Tacitus, starting off with the Domus Aurea, says:

Nero meanwhile availed himself of his country's desolation, and erected a mansion in which the jewels and gold, long familiar objects, quite vulgarised by our extravagance, were not so marvellous as the fields and lakes, with woods on one side to resemble a wilderness, and, on the other, open spaces and extensive views. The directors and contrivers of the work were Severus and Celer, who had the genius and the audacity to attempt by art even what nature had refused, and to fool away an emperor's resources. They had actually undertaken to sink a navigable canal from the lake Avernus to the mouths of the Tiber along a barren shore or through the face of hills, where one meets with no moisture which could supply water, except the Pomptine marshes. The rest of the country is broken rock and perfectly dry. Even if it could be cut through, the labour would be intolerable, and there would be no adequate result. Nero, however, with his love of the impossible, endeavoured to dig through the nearest hills to Avernus, and there still remain the traces of his disappointed hope.

Then, in 64 AD, the great fire of Rome broke out. Tacitus:

Nero at this time was at Antium, and did not return to Rome until the fire approached his house, which he had built to connect the palace with the gardens of Maecenas. It could not, however, be stopped from devouring the palace, the house, and everything around it. However, to relieve the people, driven out homeless as they were, he threw open to them the Campus Martius and the public buildings of Agrippa, and even his own gardens, and raised temporary structures to receive the destitute multitude. Supplies of food were brought up from Ostia and the neighbouring towns, and the price of grain was reduced to three sesterces a peck. These acts, though popular, produced no effect, since a rumour had gone forth everywhere that, at the very time when the city was in flames, the emperor appeared on a private stage and sang of the destruction of Troy, comparing present misfortunes with the calamities of antiquity.

"Nero views the burning of Rome", a painting by Carl Theodor von Piloty, around 1861. Photo: Wikimedia, Inritter.

The harbours were involved with the aftermath as well. Nero used the marshes of Ostia as a dump for the rubble of the fire, and near the coast sacrifices were performed. Tacitus once more:

Of Rome meanwhile, so much as was left unoccupied by his mansion, was not built up, as it had been after its burning by the Gauls, without any regularity or in any fashion, but with rows of streets according to measurement, with broad thoroughfares, with a restriction on the height of houses, with open spaces, and the further addition of colonnades, as a protection to the frontage of the blocks of tenements. These colonnades Nero promised to erect at his own expense, and to hand over the open spaces, when cleared of the débris, to the ground landlords. He also offered rewards proportioned to each person's position and property, and prescribed a period within which they were to obtain them on the completion of so many houses or blocks of buildings. He fixed on the marshes of Ostia for the reception of the rubbish, and arranged that the ships which had brought up grain by the Tiber, should sail down the river with cargoes of this rubbish. The buildings themselves, to a certain height, were to be solidly constructed, without wooden beams, of stone from Gabii or Alba, that material being impervious to fire. And to provide that the water which individual license had illegally appropriated, might flow in greater abundance in several places for the public use, officers were appointed, and everyone was to have in the open court the means of stopping a fire. Every building, too, was to be enclosed by its own proper wall, not by one common to others. These changes which were liked for their utility, also added beauty to the new city. Some, however, thought that its old arrangement had been more conducive to health, inasmuch as the narrow streets with the elevation of the roofs were not equally penetrated by the sun's heat, while now the open space, unsheltered by any shade, was scorched by a fiercer glow. Such indeed were the precautions of human wisdom. The next thing was to seek means of propitiating the gods, and recourse was had to the Sibylline books, by the direction of which prayers were offered to Vulcanus, Ceres, and Proserpina. Juno, too, was entreated by the matrons, first, in the Capitol, then on the nearest part of the coast, whence water was procured to sprinkle the fane and image of the goddess. And there were sacred banquets and nightly vigils celebrated by married women. But all human efforts, all the lavish gifts of the emperor, and the propitiations of the gods, did not banish the sinister belief that the conflagration was the result of an order. Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired. Nero offered his gardens for the spectacle, and was exhibiting a show in the circus, while he mingled with the people in the dress of a charioteer or stood aloft on a car. Hence, even for criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compassion; for it was not, as it seemed, for the public good, but to glut one man's cruelty, that they were being destroyed.

"Nero's torches", a painting by Henryk Siemiradzki, 1876. Photo: Wikimedia, Dmitry Rozhkov.

Suetonius confirms the new building regulations and adds another, intriguing plan of Nero:

He devised a new form for the buildings of the city and in front of the houses and apartments he erected porches, from the flat roofs of which fires could be fought; and these he put up at his own cost. He had also planned to extend the walls as far as Ostia and to bring the sea from there to the old city by a canal.

Ostia and Portus were never in the centre of world history, but right on the edge, always feeling the impact. Shortly after the fire of Rome, Tacitus mentions Ostia as a stopover on the way to a place of exile:

The Senate was then consulted and sentences of exile were passed on Cassius and Silanus. As to Lepida, the emperor was to decide. Cassius was transported to the island of Sardinia, and he was quietly left to old age. Silanus was removed to Ostia, whence, it was pretended, he was to be conveyed to Naxos. He was afterwards confined in a town of Apulia named Barium. There, as he was wisely enduring a most undeserved calamity, he was suddenly seized by a centurion sent to slay him.

In 68 AD Nero's reign ended. He considered escaping by ship, from Ostia, but abandoned the plan. Not much later he committed suicide. Suetonius:

Then taking some poison from Locusta and putting it into a golden box, he crossed over into the Servilian gardens, where he tried to induce the tribunes and centurions of the Guard to accompany him in his flight, first sending his most trustworthy freedmen to Ostia, to get a fleet ready.

The year 69 AD is known as the Year of the Four Emperors: Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and Vespasian. A cohort in Ostia, probably with fire fighting as one of its duties, is mentioned twice by Tacitus:

Meanwhile, from a trifling cause, whence nothing was apprehended, there arose a tumult, which had nearly proved fatal to the capital. Otho had ordered the 17th cohort to be brought up to Rome from Ostia, and the charge of arming it was entrusted to Varius Crispinus, one of the tribunes of the Praetorian Guard.

Vitellius, however, when his brother joined him, and when those who are skilled in the arts of despotism began to creep into his confidence, grew more arrogant and cruel. He ordered the execution of Dolabella, whose banishment by Otho to the Colonia Aquinas [Aquino, near Montecassino] I have before mentioned. Dolabella, on hearing of the death of Otho, had entered the capital. Plancius Varus, who had filled the office of praetor, and had been one of Dolabella's intimate friends, founded on this a charge, which he laid before Flavius Sabinus, prefect of the city, implying that Dolabella had escaped from custody, and had offered to put himself at the head of the vanquished party; and he also alleged that the cohort stationed at Ostia had been tampered with.

Two portraits of Vespasian were found in Ostia. A fragment of a portrait was found in the Piccolo Mercato, in 1908. A colossal portrait was found on the Campus of the Magna Mater, in 1868-9. An arm holding a globe may belong to it.

A colossal portrait of Vespasian in the Museo Nazionale Romano (h. 0.40). Photo: Wikimedia, Livioandronico2013.

Vespasian emerged victorious. Suetonius mentions the presence of marines during his reign:

When the marines who march on foot by turns from Ostia and Puteoli to Rome, asked that an allowance be made them under the head of shoe money, not content with sending them away without a reply, he ordered that in future they should make the run barefooted; and they have done so ever since.

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