Quo Vadis

Have you ever read the Quo Vadis book written by Henryk Sienkiewicz?

I tell you, this is really a great book. I found it by chance when I search for new books on a book store. First, I’m not so interesting on this book since the cover looks so usual. Nothing is special. But when I read a short synopsis on the back cover I changed my mind. I also found out the writer was given a Nobel Prize for this book. So I know, this is great book. The Noble Prize itself telling me this.

Quo vadis means “Where Are You Going?” I know Nero was a terribly cruel Roman Caesar who killed millions of Christians in Roman Emporium during his reign. Nero was also famous as a killer of his own mother, brother and his two wives. He is also one of some kings who choose to marry a beautiful looking young man.

This book described how Nero put Roman Capital on fire just to fulfill his need of creating a good poet about a burning kingdom.

This insane king has intentionally burn his own city and still have a special time to read his new poet in front of all aristocrats while standing watching the burning city.

People soon find out that’s something wrong with this fire. Rumor said that Nero himself has set that city on fire. People who are already lost all their belongings become so furious. They demand an answer and responsibility from Caesar himself due to this rumor. Some people on the parliamentary have already heard about the rumor too, but they were too afraid to face the cruel Caesar.

Fear of losing his emporium, Caesar decides to blame the follower of a new religion that widely spread in Rome. The first Christians in Rome. This new belief has millions of followers and still rapidly grows in number. People in Rome still believe in various kinds of gods and idolatry, while Christians believe in only one God. Caesar and his followers claim this new religion as a bad religion which predicted as the main cause of Roman’s collapse. By blaming the Christians, they can both kill all the followers and demolish Christianity for good.

This new rumor spread rapidly. People of Rome hunt and capture all Christians among them and put all those people in jail. The furious people want to punish whoever caused this massive damage to their beloved city. They easily believe that Christians were the bad people and a bad religion. Millions of Christians were dead killed by gladiators, beasts or weapons. All this processes were held on a famous place called amphitheater. The people of Rome were so enjoy watching this massive massacre.

All the beasts such as tigers, lions and bears, from different countries were sent to Rome for this purpose. Caesar even uses hundreds of bodies as human torches. Caesar will walk from every torch to watch the victim’s face closely. He also punished the apostles St. Peter and St. Paul by crucify them. All of this madness was done just to demolish Christianity in Rome. Is it truly demolishing Christianity from Rome? Nero was very wrong. In fact, now Rome is famous as the center of Christianity in the whole world.

St. Peter’s Basilica was build as the monument of St. Peter. Christianity spreads out to every part of the world. And Nero was known as a cruel king who burn Rome for poet and kill millions of innocent people to cover his arson.

This book has successfully made me sleepless last night. I can’t wait to read the end part of the story so I decide to continue reading till 5AM (call me crazy..lol..) But it was all worth it. This book is definitely worth it to be the reason of a sleepless night.

That’s all for today, folks. Enjoy your weekend...