Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz — Read

Evening exhibitions, rare up to that period and given only exceptionally, became common in Nero's time, both in the Circus and amphitheater. The Augustians liked them, frequently because they were followed by feasts and drinking-bouts which lasted till daylight. Though the people were sated already with blood-spilling, still, when the news went forth that the end of the games was approaching, and that the last of the Christians were to die at an evening spectacle, a countless audience assembled in the amphitheater. The Augustians came to a man, for they understood that it would not be a common spectacle; they knew that Caesar had determined to make for himself a tragedy out of the suffering of Vinicius. Tigellinus had kept secret the kind of punishment intended for the betrothed of the young tribune; but that merely roused general curiosity. Those who had seen Lygia at the house of Plautius told wonders of her beauty. Others were occupied above all with the question, would they see her really on the arena that day; for many of those who had heard the answer given Petronius and Nerva by Caesar explained it in two ways: some supposed simply that Nero would give or perhaps had given the maiden to Vinicius; they remembered that she was a hostage, hence free to worship whatever divinities she liked, and that the law of nations did not permit her punishment.

Uncertainty, waiting, and curiosity had mastered all spectators. Caesar arrived earlier than usual; and immediately at his coming people whispered that something uncommon would happen, for besides Tigellinus and Vatinius, Caesar had with him Cassius, a centurion of enormous size and gigantic strength, whom he summoned only when he wished to have a defender at his side -- for example, when he desired night expeditions to the Subura, where he arranged the amusement called sagatio, which consisted in tossing on a soldier's mantle maidens met on the way. It was noted also that certain precautions had been taken in the amphitheater itself. The pretorian guards were increased; command over them was held, not by a centurion, but by the tribune Subrius Flavus, known hitherto for blind attachment to Nero. It was understood, then, that Caesar wished in every case to guard himself against an outburst of despair from Vinicius, and curiosity rose all the more.