Текст книги "The Seven Wonders: A Novel of the Ancient World (Novels of Ancient Rome)"

Автор книги: Steven Saylor

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“Do what?”

“What I promised them: throw your hotheaded friend off the scent, make him back off his pledge to lodge an accusation against them.”

Bitto dismissed the question with a wave of her hand. “It will be no problem. I’ll tell Straton that we’ve all been mistaken about the two widows, that I had a long talk with them to clear the air, and I now see that all those rumors of murder are completely unfounded.”

“And will Straton simply take your word for that?”

Bitto narrowed her eyes. “Do you doubt my powers of persuasion, Gordianus?”

I nodded thoughtfully. “I’ve heard of such people—born in the image of the god Hermaphroditus, having parts of both sexes—but I’ve never encountered such a person before.”

“I have,” said Bitto, “but only in certain temples on certain sacred occasions. Many believe that such individuals possess magical powers, and their peculiarity is a mark of divine favor that especially suits them to serve in certain sacred capacities—as the mouthpiece for an oracle, for example. When Tryphosa gave birth and saw the child’s dual sex, she might have proclaimed the truth instead of hiding it.”

I shook my head. “I suggested something like that to her myself. ‘And have my child be raised as a holy freak?’—those were her exact words. Apparently, when the child was born, there was some indication of dual gender, but the male aspect appeared to predominate, and the midwife told them that the female cavity might eventually close up altogether, so Tryphosa and her husband decided to name the child Timon and raise it as a boy. Then her husband died, and Tryphosa had sole responsibility for the boy’s upbringing. But beginning with puberty, the ‘boy’ increasingly took on feminine characteristics—not just physically, as when her breasts began to bud, but in her personality, as well. The child began to think of herself as a girl, and wanted to dress and behave as one. Mother and child experienced a great deal of confusion and indecision, but ultimately, together, they concocted a scheme to go off on a journey and return with a bride—the bride being Timon himself, or herself, now renamed Corinna.”

“So bride and groom were one and the same!” said Bitto. “Did no one ever see the two of them together at the same time?”

“From what Tryphosa told me, there were a handful of occasions, as when they first returned to Halicarnassus, when the bride and groom were seen in public together—but the bride was played by one of their slaves, who wore a veil so that no one could see her face.”

“And the ‘death’ of Timon—how was that managed?”

“They waited until they could acquire a recently deceased body, reasonably similar in age and appearance to Timon, then hastily held a private funeral ceremony and burned the corpse. I suspect they had to pay a few bribes along the way, but ‘Timon’ was dead and his body reduced to ashes before any outsiders had a chance to pose awkward questions. From that time on, the child lived exclusively as Corinna, the widow of her former self.”

“But how can Corinna hope to maintain this pretense? If she ever tries to marry—or ‘remarry,’ I suppose—her husband will see her for what she is on their wedding night.”

I shrugged. I was learning that the world was not a simple place, and the people in it were full of surprises. “However Corinna plans to deal with her future, she’s determined to do so as a woman. That is her choice, and her mother has done everything possible to help her realize her transition from boy to girl. That’s why they attended the ritual at the spring of Salmacis the other night.”

“I didn’t see Corinna there.”

“I thought I did, but I wasn’t sure, so I didn’t mention it at the time. After everyone else left, a few people, under priestly supervision, were allowed to enter the pool. Corinna drank from the pool and stayed in the water a long time, hoping to eradicate the vestiges of her masculinity. Alas! Having seen her naked, I must conclude that the gods did not see fit to grant her wish.”

“Poor girl!”

I nodded. “So you can see, Bitto, why it would be such an injustice for those two to be persecuted by Straton or by anyone else. In a way, they did ‘murder’ Timon, but his disappearance harmed no one. I believe mother and child should be left alone, each free to pursue her destiny as she chooses, don’t you? You might even consider befriending them, Bitto. They are your neighbors, after all.”

She pursed her lips. “I suppose I could invite them over to dinner sometime.”

“Corinna is shy, but she’s a lovely girl. As for her mother—what is it about Halicarnassus that breeds such strong widows? Tryphosa struck me as a very forceful woman, intelligent and resourceful and fiercely independent. She reminded me of you, in fact.”

Bitto smiled at this compliment. There on her balcony, beneath a sky full of stars, she rewarded me with a tender kiss.

*   *   *

Spring turned to summer. The month of Sextilis arrived, and if Antipater and I were to attend the Games at Olympia—and see the Temple of Zeus with its colossal statue of the god—it was time to board a ship and set sail.

Bitto had warned me that no man could possess her, including myself. When she saw us off at the wharf, she waved until she dwindled from sight, but I saw no tears in her eyes. It was I who felt a pang of loss at our parting. I blinked and bowed my head.

“What’s the matter, Gordianus?” asked Antipater.

“Just a bit of sea spray. It stings a little,” I said, wiping my eyes.

The last I saw of Halicarnassus was the Mausoleum, its massive tiers rising to a templelike facade of huge columns and gigantic statues, and the step-pyramid roof with its quadriga of glittering gold surmounting all—the widow Artemisia’s everlasting mark on the landscape. But it was another widow of Halicarnassus who left an everlasting mark upon my life.

IV

O TEMPORA! O MORES! OLYMPIAD!

(The Statue of Zeus at Olympia)

“Have you ever seen anything like it?” said Antipater. “Have you ever imagined such a spectacle?”

I had not. Romans love a festival; a play or two put on in a makeshift theater, an open-air feast, chariot races in the Circus Maximus—all these things I had seen many times in my eighteen years. But no celebration in Rome could compare with the free-spirited chaos, or the sheer magnitude, of the Olympiad.

Greeks love an athletic competition. One could almost say they live for these events, where naked young men show off their manly prowess in fierce competitions. Several cities in Greece host such contests, but the Games at Olympia, held every four years, are the grandest and most well attended. They are also the oldest. Antipater and I had arrived for the 172nd Olympiad. Multiplying that number by four, I realized that the Games at Olympia had been going on for nearly seven hundred years. When the first Olympiad was held, Romulus and Remus were mere infants suckling at the she-wolf’s teats, and Rome did not yet exist.

This would be the third Olympiad Antipater had attended in the span of his long life. It was to be my first.

Simply to reach Olympia proved to be an ordeal. From Ellis, the city that administered the Games, the journey took two days. The road was jammed with wagons and pedestrians. Antipater and I rode in a hired mule-cart along with several other travelers, proceeding on the crowded road at a pace that bored even the lazy mules. Food and wine, sold at roadside stands or from moving carts, were plentiful but expensive. Water was harder to come by. After a long, hot summer, the river that ran alongside the road was nearly dry. Local landowners with access to a spring charged exorbitant fees for drinking water. Bathing was out of the question.

On the first night out we slept on the ground, for the rooms at every inn were already taken, with some guests sleeping on the rooftops. Many travelers brought their own tents. Some of the richer visitors, accompanied by entourages and slaves, brought entire pavilions. Competition for flat, smooth patches of ground amid the rocky terrain was fierce.

“Where will we sleep when we reach Olympia?” I asked.

“About that, Gordianus, you need not worry,” said Antipater, and I did not ask again. On our journey to see the Seven Wonders, I was learning to trust my old tutor about our travel arrangements and not to question him too closely.

On the second day, as we drew near Olympia, the road became so congested that the cart came to a standstill.

“Let’s walk the rest of the way,” said Antipater, climbing cautiously from the cart. He stepped behind a boulder and I followed him, thinking he meant to relieve himself and ready to do so myself. But as soon as we were out of sight, Antipater produced an eye patch and affixed a putty nose to his face.

I laughed. “What’s this, Teacher? Do you intend to put on mime shows when we finally reach Olympia?” The query was half in earnest. Antipater loved to entertain an audience.

“I am disguising myself because I do not wish to be recognized in Olympia,” he whispered.

“But that hasn’t been a problem in our travels so far.”

“True, Gordianus, but as you can see, the whole of the Greek world is arriving in Olympia. There’s no telling whom we might encounter. So while we are here, I shall sport a false nose as well as a false name.”

“You’re likely to run into something, wearing that eye patch.”

“I’ll take the risk.”

I laughed. “How peculiar you sound! It must be the putty, pinching your nose.”

“Good. My voice shall be disguised as well.”

Instead of returning to the crowded road, Antipater insisted that we follow a winding footpath up a hillside, saying it would be worth our while to see the lay of the land. When we reached the crest of the hill, I saw below us the valley of the river Alpheus, with Olympia laid out like a city in miniature.

Properly speaking, Olympia is not a city, but a religious center. Its only purpose is to host the Games, which are dedicated to Zeus. I had expected to see a racetrack or two, some public squares for the wrestling and boxing competitions, crowds of spectators here and there, and of course the Temple of Zeus, which contained the famous statue by Phidias, the Wonder of the World we had come to see. But everything about Olympia was of a magnitude far exceeding my expectations.

I took in the awesome natural beauty of the setting, an alluvial plain dotted with poplars, oaks, and olive trees, with pine-covered hills in the distance. Looming just behind Olympia was Mount Kronos, not a particularly high peak but imposing because it stood alone, and famous because of its history; on its summit Zeus wrestled his father, the king of the Titans, for control of the universe. In the valley below, Apollo once took on Ares in a boxing match, and emerged victorious. Off to the east, where the stadium now stood, Apollo defeated Hermes in a footrace. Hercules himself paced out the running track for them—and there it was, freshly groomed and ready to be used by this year’s contestants, covered with raked white sand that sparkled under the bright sun.

At the heart of the complex was the famed Altis, the Sacred Grove of Zeus. Enclosed by a wall, the Altis still contained a number of trees—including the fabled olive tree planted by Hercules, from which the winners’ wreaths would be harvested—but where once a wild forest grew, there now stood a host of temples, shrines, civic monuments, and colonnades, erected over the centuries. The Altis also contained thousands of statues, some of gods, but many more depicting nude athletes, for every winner of an Olympic event was entitled to be immortalized in bronze. Dominating all else was the massive Temple of Zeus with its soaring columns and a roof made of marble tiles. The frieze that ran all the way around the temple, below the roof and above the columns, was decorated with gilded shields that glittered under the afternoon sun.

Outside the Altis were a great many buildings of practical purpose, including assembly halls, barracks for athletes, and an opulent lodge where only the most important visitors to the Games would be housed.

Thronging the entire site, filling the valley and spilling onto the hillsides, were tens of thousands of visitors. I had never seen so many people in one place.

We descended into the valley and were swallowed by the festive crowd. My eyes and ears were given no rest. Here was a juggler, and there a poet with a lyre reciting verses. A hawker announced the upcoming program of recitations, musical performances, and philosophical debates. A herald called for family members of contestants to register for a limited number of reserved places in the stadium. A buxom fortune-teller at a makeshift stall loudly proclaimed to a doddering graybeard that he would live to be one hundred, then took the fellow’s money, pushed him aside, and called for the next customer.

Men rushed this way and that, or stood in groups, talking, eating, and laughing. A religious procession passed by, headed by a priestess in a trailing white gown followed by little boys carrying trays of burning incense. The sweet smoke mingled with the scent of freshly baked flatbread from a nearby food vendor, and then with a confusion of perfumes as a party of visiting dignitaries—Egyptians, to judge by their nemesheaddresses—passed in the opposite direction, carried on gilded litters.

We found ourselves in a vast marketplace where vendors hawked an amazing variety of charms, amulets, and souvenirs. There were tiny images of athletes—runners, wrestlers, boxers, javelin throwers, charioteers—as well as miniature replicas of Phidias’s statue of Zeus, executed in painted wood, metal, and even glass.

While Antipater examined a small statue of the famous Discus Thrower by Myron, I was distracted by a pair of beautiful women who sauntered by, laughing and whispering to each other. One was blond and the other brunette and both were as tall as Amazons. Their chitons were so flimsy it seemed the merest breeze might blow them away. Married women were not allowed in Olympia, but other sorts of women were. The blond saw me looking at her and nudged her companion. They both gave me sultry smiles, making it clear their company was for sale—and far beyond my means.

It seemed that the entire world had contracted to a single, swirling vortex, and I stood in the very center of it.

That was when Antipater saw the look on my face and asked if I had ever seen or even imagined such a spectacle—the crowded, chaotic festivity of Olympia on the eve of the Games—and I could only shake my head in wonder, admitting by my silence that I had not.

Continuing to make our way through the throng, we came to a group of spectators who stood in a compact circle. From their bursts of laughter I assumed quite a funny mime show was being performed—or perhaps not, for the laughter had a derisive edge to it and was peppered with catcalls and scoffing noises. Some of the spectators turned away and stalked off, shaking their heads and making faces. Antipater and I slipped into their spots to see what the fuss was about.

The tall man who was holding the crowd’s attention was barefoot and dressed in beggar’s rags, with long, scraggly hair and a beard that might have concealed a bird’s nest or two. His naked limbs were long and spindly. His skin, dark and leathery from long exposure to the sun, made his blue eyes all the more startling, especially since he maintained a wide-eyed stare that showed circles of white all around.

“Fools!” he shouted, shaking a gnarled walking stick in his equally gnarled fist. “You say you come here to honor Zeus, but all you honor is your own appetites. Those you truly worship are not the gods, but the athletes who compete for your amusement—the stupidest and most worthless among you!”

“If the Games are so stupid, what are you doing here, you old fool?” someone shouted back at him.

“Just as a good doctor rushes to help in places full of the sick or wounded, so the wise man must go where idiots gather,” declared the beggar.

“Ugh!” exclaimed Antipater. “The man is a Cynic, here to spoil everyone’s enjoyment.”

“Ah! So that’s what a Cynic looks like.” I had heard of these itinerant philosophers, who cared nothing for personal comfort (or hygiene) and went about loudly disparaging all the things that gave their fellow mortals pleasure. According to Antipater, Cynics were common in the Greek-speaking world, but I had never seen one in Rome, where it was hard to imagine that such antisocial gadflies would ever be tolerated.

A man in a green chiton spoke up. “How dare you come here, to the most sacred of all the Games, and speak against the athletes? What gives more pleasure to the gods than beauty, and what could be more beautiful than the sight of young men running in competition? I put it to you that running is the most noble of mortal pursuits.”

“What you’re really saying is that you get a thrill from watching all those naked, straining backsides,” said the Cynic. The crowd laughed and the object of his derision blushed bright red. “What’s so noble about running, anyway? The rabbit and the antelope are the fastest of creatures—and the most timid! Do you think Zeus gives a whit which coward can flee the fastest?”

This elicited more jeering. In Rome, the crowd would have pelted the fellow with bits of food, or even with stones. But though they sneered and shook their heads, no one raised a hand against the Cynic or made any effort to silence him. Just as the Greeks worship athletes, they also respect the free speech of philosophers—even Cynics.

I turned to Antipater and lowered my voice. “The fellow does have a point.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, what is all this fuss about who can run the fastest, or throw a stick the farthest, or keep on throwing punches after his head’s a bloody pulp? The idea that all these tens of thousands of people should travel hundreds of miles just to watch some athletic competitions—it’s all a bit silly, isn’t it?”

Antipater looked at me as if I had uttered a shocking blasphemy. “I suggest you keep those thoughts to yourself, Gordianus. A Cynic can get away with saying such things, but a visitor from Rome is expected to show more respect.”

“But surely you’re not like these others, Teacher? You’re a poet. What have you to do with running and jumping and throwing?”

Antipater simply stared at me. I had forgotten how very Greek he was—and how passionately all Greeks love athletics. Cynics are the only exceptions.

“You can take the boy out of Rome…,” Antipater muttered, shaking his head. Then he stiffened as the Cynic suddenly rushed up to him.

“You! One-eye!” shouted the Cynic. “Don’t I know you?” He twisted his head this way and that, crouching low and peering up at Antipater, as if trying to see under the eye patch.

“I think not.” Antipater drew back, looking flustered. All eyes were on him now. “Who are you, Cynic?”

“I am Simmius of Sidon. And whoare you? And how did you lose that eye?”

“That is none of your business. But if you must know, I am Zoticus of Zeugma.”

“And who’s this young fellow?” The Cynic turned to me. The odor of his unwashed body was overpowering. “Is this one of the athletes who’ll be competing tomorrow? He has a boxer’s nose—a wrestler’s arms—a discus thrower’s chest. A candidate for the pankration, perhaps?”

As Antipater had informed me, the pankration was the most brutal of Greek combat sports, invented by Hercules and Theseus. It was a combination of boxing and wrestling with no holds barred; broken bones and even fatalities could result.

“My name is Gordianus,” I declared, straightening my back. Of Rome,I was about to add, but there was no need, since the Cynic spotted my accent at once.

“What’s this? A Roman, taking part in the Games?”

I shook my head. “I’ve come to see the statue of Zeus—”

Ignoring my answer, the Cynic turned to the crowd and launched into a fresh rant. “From the beginning, and for hundreds of years, only those of Greek descent could compete in the Olympiad. Now, to please our Roman overlords, there’s talk of allowing anyone who can simply speak Greek to take part in the Games—even Romans! What’s next? Shall we open the Olympiad to competitors from all over the world, so foreigners can boast and spit on the ground and erect statues of themselves in the Sacred Grove of Zeus?”

Simmius abruptly wheeled around, ran back to Antipater, and resumed his scrutiny. “But I could swear I know you. What’s this thing?” He reached out with two fingers, and I realized he was about to pinch Antipater’s putty nose, which had lost some of its shape under the fierce sun and was looking a bit peculiar.

“Come away, Teacher!” I grabbed Antipater’s arm and pulled him out of the Cynic’s reach. “I’ve had enough of this fellow’s rancid odor.”

The Cynic peered after us for a while, then turned back to his audience and resumed his diatribe.

“Simmius of Sidon, the fellow calls himself. That’s your hometown, Teacher. Doeshe know you?”

Antipater shrugged. “A man meets many people over the course of a long lifetime. One can’t remember them all.”

“He might look very different if he were to take a bath and trim his beard. But surely you wouldn’t forget those blue eyes. They’re quite striking.”

Antipater shook his head. “Who can remember anything, in this stifling heat? Come, let’s find our quarters for the night.”

“And where would that be?”

“We must look for the tent that’s been pitched by a man named Exagentus.”

We asked around, and soon enough were directed to an area not far from the stadium. I had been expecting a modest accommodation where we might stow our things and later bed down with others in cramped quarters, but the tent of Exagentus turned out to be one of the grander pavilions, a veritable palace of many rooms made of brightly colored canvas held up by ornately carved poles. Exagentus was not about, but a slave who had been told to expect Zoticus of Zeugma greeted us and allowed us to enter, asking us first to remove our shoes. The ground inside the tent was strewn with rugs that felt delightfully soft under my tired feet. The slave showed us to a small side chamber and informed us we would have it all to ourselves. The space contained two narrow cots for sleeping. Between them was a small table with a silver pitcher filled with water and two silver cups. Next to one of the cots a flap opened to the outside, so that we could come and go as we pleased.

I filled a cup and drank thirstily. The water was sweeter than any wine. “How did you merit this bit of luxury?” I asked, falling back on one of the cots, which was surprisingly comfortable.

Antipater shrugged. “One knows people. One calls in a favor now and then.” He pushed the eye patch up to his forehead and rubbed the skin around his eye.

“But who is our mysterious host?”

“A friend of a friend.”

“But surely you know something about him.”

“Exagentus is a wealthy man from Pontus, if you must know,” said Antipater curtly. The long day of traveling had made him testy.

“Pontus? The kingdom of Mithridates?” It seemed that Mithridates came up everywhere we went. “Pontus is awfully far from Olympia, isn’t it?”

Antipater nodded. “Pontus is at the farthest edge of the Greek-speaking world, to be sure, but King Mithridates himself is part Greek, and a great many of his subjects are Greek speakers of Greek ancestry. No doubt there will be athletes from Pontus competing in the Games, and our host wishes to cheer them on.”

“Whoever he is, he must be wealthy indeed, to afford such a—”

A braying of trumpets interrupted me. The steady murmur of the crowd outside the tent rose to a cheer.

Antipater smiled. “They’ve arrived!”

“Who?”

“Come and see, Gordianus!” He put on his shoes and hurriedly replaced the eye patch. “Is my nose on straight?”

I followed him out the flap and into the crowd, which was moving in a rush to greet the arrival of the athletes. The procession was headed by men in purple robes wearing olive wreaths and clutching wooden rods forked like a serpent’s tongue at one end. These were the Olympic judges, who would oversee each event; their forked rods were not mere symbols of authority, but weapons to be used on any athletes who dared to cheat or flout a rule. Behind the judges were several hundred youths, some dressed in loose chitons but most wearing only loincloths, all tanned to a golden brown after a month of outdoor training and elimination rounds in Ellis. Some had the long legs and slender build of runners, while others were brawny with muscle. Most were my age or only slightly older. Only a handful looked to be in their late twenties, and even fewer in their thirties—longtime veterans of the Games who, against the odds, were still viable competitors.

The procession drew nearer, passing between us and the wall that enclosed the Altis. The crowd went wild with excitement. Men waved their arms and shouted the names of the most famous athletes, who smiled and waved back. Some of the competitors looked cocky and aloof, but most of the young men in the procession appeared to be as giddy with excitement as the spectators. For many, this was their first journey away from home.

“Behold the best that Greece can offer!” cried Antipater. “It brings a tear to one’s eye.” I grunted and shrugged, then realized he meant this literally, for I saw him reach up and dab a bit of moisture from each cheek. I looked around and realized that Antipater was not the only spectator shedding a tear at the sight of the athletes entering Olympia. How sentimental these Greeks were, especially the older ones, always looking back to the golden days of their youth spent in a gymnasium!

From the corner of my eye I saw a figure in rags scramble atop the Altis wall. Simmius of Sidon stood upright and loomed above the parade of athletes, waving his scrawny arms and howling like a dog to catch everyone’s attention.

“Are these your heroes?” he shouted. “These vain young cocks, all puffed up with pride and self-love? What good is an athlete, I ask you? What do they do but run around in circles, punch each other in the face, and roll in the dirt like animals, grunting and grabbing each other by the crotch? And for such nonsense you all cheer and roll your eyes to heaven! Shame on you all! Instead of fawning over these brutes, you should line them up and slay them for sacrifice, like oxen—that way you’d all at least get a good meal out of them. Oh, you find my words offensive, do you? I say that a young man who exalts his body and neglects his mind has no more soul than an ox, and should be treated with no more consideration, yet you make idols of these creatures. What truly makes a man noble? Not playing games, but confronting the hardships of everyday life. Not wrestling for an olive wreath, but wrestling day and night to sort truth from falsehood. Not lusting after fame and prizes, but seeking truth, and living an honest life.”

“The athletes are here to honor Zeus!” shouted someone.

“Are they? I’ll tell you why most of these greedy fellows come here—they’re hoping to strike it rich. Oh, an olive wreath is all they’ll get from the judges, but every city rewards its winners with a fortune in gold and silver, as we all know. Not only do you bow down to these men and throw your sons and daughters at them, you make them rich as Croesus. Then you watch them grow fat and bloated and turn into the very opposite of what they once were. Your beloved Olympiad is a farce!”

Some in the crowd jeered at the Cynic, while others tried to ignore him. The athletes passing before the wall looked up at him and laughed. Some made obscene gestures at him. Suddenly, one of them bolted from the procession and bounded up the wall. He was tall and broad, with massive limbs and a deep chest, and wore only a loincloth. His pale, close-cropped hair and eyebrows, bleached by the sun, were almost as white as his dazzling grin.

“Isn’t that Protophanes of Magnesia?” said someone in the crowd.

“He’s favored to win the pankration,” said another. “What a splendid specimen!”

The young athlete certainly presented a striking contrast to the shaggy, bony Cynic. Protophanes might have been satisfied to show off his own physical perfection next to Simmius’s unsightliness, but with his fellow competitors cheering him on, the brawny athlete stripped off his loincloth, grabbed hold of the Cynic—who flailed his arms in a show of feeble resistance—and stuffed the garment in Simmius’s mouth, tying it in place. The humiliated Cynic turned his back on the crowd and struggled to remove the gag. Next to him, Protophanes stood naked atop the wall, stuck out his chin, and raised his arms in a victor’s pose, pumping the air with his fists.

The crowd roared with laughter. Athletes jumped up and down, grinning and slapping each other on the shoulder. In a spontaneous act of homage, some of them followed Protophanes’ example and stripped off their loincloths, then waved them above their heads. The action spread like wildfire through the procession. In a matter of moments, every one of the hundreds of athletes was naked and had his arms in the air. The onlookers were delighted.

I looked back at the wall and saw that Simmius had vanished; the Cynic must have climbed down the far side, into the Altis enclosure. Protophanes remained atop the wall for a moment longer, soaking up the adoration of the crowd, then jumped down to rejoin his fellow athletes, who cheered and swarmed around him, playfully pelting him with their discarded loincloths.

I glanced at Antipater, half-expecting to see another sentimental tear run down his cheek, but his expression was grave.

“Are you not amused, Teacher? Much as I might tend to agree with your fellow Sidonian, I wasn’t sad to see someone shut him up. What a grating voice he has!”

Antipater shook his head. “I fear it’s the judges who are not amused. Look at them.”

The purple-robed elders at the head of the procession had come to a halt and were staring, stone-faced, back toward the commotion. They whispered among themselves, then at last turned around and strode on. The grinning athletes fell back into ranks and resumed the procession. Protophanes strutted past us, smiling and waving to acknowledge the accolades of the crowd, unaware of the judges’ dour reaction.