Pliny, Letter 10.33

1While I was touring a distant part of the province, a huge fire at Nicomedia destroyed many private houses and two public buildings, the Gerusia and the Iseum, although a road lay between them. 2It spread more widely, first through the violence of the wind, then through the inertia of the people, who, it is well established, stood by idle and motionless as spectators of so great a disaster; 2and besides, there was nowhere in public any pump, any bucket, in short any equipment for putting out fires. 2These, indeed, will be provided, as I have already ordered; 3you, my lord, consider whether you think a guild of workmen should be established, of no more than a hundred and fifty men. I shall see to it that no one but a genuine workman is admitted and that they do not use the right granted for any other purpose; 3nor will it be difficult to keep watch over so few.