Текст книги "Empire"

Автор книги: Steven Saylor

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Текущая страница: 25 (всего у книги 45 страниц)

“Preferred plays and poetry and that sort of thing, didn’t he?” said Titus helpfully. “My versatile brother likes both gladiators and poetry, don’t you, Domitian? Quite a poet himself. Wrote a rather good one about the battle on the Capitoline Hill, when that fiend Vitellius set the Temple of Jupiter on fire. Domitian saw it all with his own eyes; came up with some verses so vivid I feel I was there myself – I smell the smoke and hear the screams. Just the sort of thing I want you to do, Martial, for the games today.”

“No one who sees these games will have need of my verses, Caesar, for they shall never forget them,” said Martial. “But to the unfortunate few who miss this occasion, I will strive to convey some small hint of the glorious sights and sounds I’ve witnessed, however inadequate my words maybe.”

Domitian snorted. “The ‘unfortunate few’ who aren’t here today – including your friend Dio. Who are these philosophers, to think they’re so much better than everyone else? It was our father’s dream to see this amphitheatre opened. He died before that could happen, but we persevered without him. Titus put a great deal of work into these games, we all did, more care and effort than a do-nothing like your friend Dio could possibly imagine, yet the philosopher thinks himself too good to accept this generous gift to the people of Roma.”

“Some men are simply squeamish,” said Titus charitably. “Cicero had no stomach for gladiator shows. Nor did Seneca.”

“But they attended them, nonetheless,” said Domitian. “These games are as much a solemn duty as they are a celebration, brother. Those who don’t attend – indeed, who make a show of their absence – disparage the memory of our father.”

“I wouldn’t go that far, little brother. But you make an excellent point. Gladiator games began as a way to honour the dead. Our ancestors forced prisoners to fight to the death at the funeral games to mark the passing of great men. We’ve come a long way from those early days, as the building of this amphitheatre demonstrates – what would Romulus with his thatched hut make of this place? Nonetheless, the gladiator games today hearken back to the very first such games, because they honour the passing of a great man, our father. Every drop of blood spilled today will be shed in his honour.”

“And every drop of wine poured today should be drunk in his honour,” said Martial. The words were risky, breaking the somber mood created by the emperor, but the risk paid off. Titus smiled at Martial’s turn of phrase and raised his cup.

“Let us drink, then, to the Divine Vespasian,” said Titus.

Wine was poured for the guests. As Lucius raised his cup, he was suddenly conscious of the extraordinary nature of the moment. He stood in the imperial box, close enough to touch all three children of the Divine Vespasian, sharing wine with Caesar himself – and all because of his friendship with a poet!

Lucius and his friends returned to their seats.

The games resumed with a series of matches between men and beasts, culminating in the appearance of the famed Carpophorus, who was in excellent form, uncannily nimble for a man so heavily muscled and apparently able to read an animal’s thoughts as he anticipated his opponent’s every movement.

Lulled by the afternoon heat and too much wine, Lucius dozed during Carpophorus’s long performance, waking intermittently to witness the bestiarius armed with a dagger to fight a bear, armed with a club to fight a lion, and taking on not one but two bison with his bare hands. Each time he killed a beast, Carpophorus slung the carcass over his brawny shoulders and paraded around the arena to show it off. Waking and dozing and seeing nothing but Carpophorus in combat, over and over again, Lucius seemed trapped in an endlessly repeating dream of slaughter.

At last Lucius was roused by a thunderous ovation as the multitude rose to its feet to acclaim the bestiarius after his final match.

Lucius stood with the rest. He blinked, yawned, and rubbed his eyes. “How many animals did the fellow kill?” he asked Martial.

“What! Weren’t you counting along with everyone else?”

“I dozed.”

“You and the emperor both, I imagine. Carpophorus took on a total of twenty animals, one after another. That must be a record. And he suffered hardly a scratch. The man’s invincible. If they want to find an even match for him, they shall have to bring in a hydra, or maybe one of those fire-breathing bulls that Jason encountered in the land of Colchis.”

The gladiator matches followed. Lucius was glad that Epictetus and Dio had not come; the contests were bloodier than any he could recall, and seemed endless, stretching on for hour after hour. Long before the final match between two of the most famous gladiators, Priscus and Verus, Lucius thought that even the most ardent lover of the games must be sated. But as Priscus and Verus engaged, Lucius looked at the imperial box and saw Domitian standing at the parapet, clutching the railing with white knuckles, watching the contest with rapt attention and responding with his whole body, jerking, scowling, grunting, clenching his teeth, and exclaiming under his breath. His little boy stood beside him, mimicking everything his father did. Meanwhile, the emperor remained seated, watching the match without emotion, occasionally casting a sardonic glance at his agitated brother and nephew.

Priscus was a gladiator of the Thracian type, wearing a broad-brimmed helmet with a grille that covered his face and a griffin ornament; greaves covered his legs up to the thighs, and he carried a small round shield and curved sword. Verus was a Murmillo, the traditional opponent of a Thracian, so called for the mormylos, a fish, that decorated his helmet; his right leg was padded with a thick gaiter and he was armed like a Roman legionary with a short sword and a tall, oblong shield.

The two fighters were so evenly matched that neither seemed able to draw blood from the other, but the gracefulness of their movements was so striking and the violence of their sudden clashes so thrilling that theirs was by far the most exciting contest of the day. Even Titus stopped chatting with his sister and daughter and sat forward in his chair, while his brother became increasingly animated. There was no doubt which gladiator Domitian favoured; he kept shouting the name of Verus, and when a senator seated nearby began to yell encouragement to the Thracian, Domitian hurled a cup at the man and told him to shut up.

Titus rolled his eyes at the sudden outburst but made light of it. “Perhaps the Murmillo should add a wine cup to his weaponry. My brother draws more blood than does Verus today.”

The senator, who was using a fold of his toga to stanch the bleeding from a cut on his forehead, flashed a crooked smile to acknowledge the emperor’s wit.

The match had many high points and suspenseful moments, eliciting gasps and shrieks and even some outbursts of weeping from the exhausted, sun-dazed spectators. A last Titus put an end to it. He rose to his feet and gave a signal to the master of the games to stop the contest. Priscus and Verus removed their helmets. Faces covered with sweat, chests heaving, they gazed up at the emperor, awaiting his judgement.

In one hand, Titus held a wooden sword, the traditional gift to a gladiator who had earned his freedom. After such a closely fought match, with no clear victor, to which gladiator would he grant the sword?

The partisans of the two gladiators began to chant their names – “Priscus! Priscus!” and, “Verus, Verus!” The two groups were so evenly dispersed throughout the stands that the names merged into a jumbled shout of two syllables.

The emperor disappeared from the imperial box. The crowd grew confused and the chanting trailed off, until a gate beneath the imperial box opened and Titus strode into the arena. His appearance on the blood-strewn sand thrilled the crowd, which gave a deafening roar as Titus approached the two waiting gladiators, holding the wooden sword before him.

Titus reached the gladiators. His back was to Lucius, who found himself wishing he could see the emperor’s expression. The crowd began to chant the names of their favourites again.

Titus stepped forward. The crowd fell silent. Titus paused. Instead of awarding the wooden sword, he raised his left arm to show that he was carrying a second sword. Stepping forward, he presented the wooden swords to both gladiators at once. Verus and Priscus were both declared victors; both were rewarded with freedom. Such a thing had never been done before.

As the grinning gladiators lifted their wooden swords high in the air, the spectators rose to their feet in the last and most thunderous ovation of the day. At first they shouted the names of the gladiators, but gradually the mingled roar resolved into a single word repeated over and over: “Caesar! Caesar! Caesar!”

Lucius scanned the vast bowl of the amphitheatre. He had never seen so many people in one place, or so vast an outpouring of emotion. At the very centre of it all was the emperor.

Titus was still a young man. With luck, he might reign for many years, until Lucius himself was old. He had certainly made an auspicious beginning. All the disasters and trials of the last year – the destruction of Pompeii, the plague in Roma, the fire that had devastated the city – were eclipsed by the stunning success of the inaugural games. Titus had not merely distracted the citizens, he had inspired them with a sense of unity and restored confidence. More feasting and plays and spectacles would follow in the days ahead, at venues all over the city, but it was hard to imagine anything that could match the splendour of the opening day of the Flavian Amphitheatre.

The two gladiators made their exit. The emperor gave a final salute to the people and left the arena. The imperial box was empty. The arena was deserted. There were no more acrobats, no more contests, no more spectacles to behold.

As he gazed at the thousands of spectators around him, it occurred to Lucius that the crowd itself was the true spectacle. Seated in a circle, with everyone visible to everyone else, the spectators had spent as much time watching one another as they had watching the games. The sound of the gathering, whether a murmur or a roar, was intoxicating; the acoustics of the place could capture a whisper or a laugh from across the way or amplify the roar of the crowd to superhuman volume. Already the great amphitheatre had taken on a life of it own: from that day forward, this would be the gathering place for all Roma, rich and poor, great and small, the living embodiment of the spirit of the city and the will of its people. The world outside the amphitheatre might pose dangers beyond human control – plague, earthquake, fire, flood, all the perils of war – but within the protective shell of the amphitheatre existed a cosmos in miniature where the people of Roma were like gods, gazing down at the little world of the arena where mortals and beasts lived and died at their whim.

Perhaps Epictetus and Dio should have come, Lucius thought; how else could they understand the collective grandeur experienced by the spectators? And who but his philosopher friends could help Lucius make sense of the curious feeling of detachment that cast a cold shadow over his enjoyment of that moment, that drained the experience of its glamour and made it seem hollow and empty? Amid the blur of so many faces and the dull, throbbing roar of so many voices, Lucius suddenly felt more alone than he had ever felt before in his life.

But he was not alone. Amid the vast crowd, two eyes looked back at him. Surrounded by her fellow Vestals, close enough to touch if had dared to do so, Cornelia was smiling at him. She said nothing, nor did she need to. Lucius knew he would see her again.

AD 84

Lucius made ready to set out from his house on the Palatine, dressed not in his toga but in a worn, brown tunic borrowed from one of his household slaves. No Roman wife, married to a man of property, would have allowed her husband to leave the house looking so drab and nondescript; but at thirty-seven, Lucius still had no wife, nor had he any intention of acquiring one. He came and went as he pleased, unconstrained by concerns of family or by most of the societal obligation that applied to men of his age and wealth.

As he stepped out the front door, his heart began to race. How absurd, he thought, that a man his age should feel such adolescent excitement at the prospect of a sexual tryst, and with a woman who had been his lover for more than three years. Yet the thrill he felt at seeing her never diminished; it grew stronger. Was it the danger that excited him? Or was it because they were able to meet so seldom, which made each occasion special?

He looked up at the cloudless sky. He would have preferred the anonymity of a hooded cloak, but on a hot summer day such a garment might attract more attention than it deflected. He took a few steps down the narrow street, then looked back at his house. How absurdly big the place was, for a single man to dwell in. A huge staff of slaves was required just to keep the place running. Sometimes he felt that the slaves were the true inhabitants and he was simply an occupant.

How he preferred the tiny house on the Esquiline that was his destination, the place he had purchased for the sole purpose of meeting his lover.

He made his way down the slope of the Palatine and across the heart of the city, passing the Arch of Titus and the Flavian Amphitheatre, glancing up at the towering Colossus of Sol. He passed through the crowded Subura, hardly conscious of the noise and the odors. He ascended the steep, winding path up a spur of the Esquiline Hill and paused for breath at the little reservoir called the Lake of Orpheus, so named because the splashing fountain was decorated by a charming statue of Orpheus with his lyre surrounded by listening beasts. The house of Epaphroditus was nearby, but Lucius turned in a different direction.

At last he arrived at his destination. The house was small and unassuming, with nothing to distinguish it. The door was made of unpainted wood without even a knocker for ornament. He pulled a key from his tunic and let himself in. There was no doorkeeper to admit him; there were no slaves at all in the house. That in itself made the house a special place. Where did a man ever go in Roma where he could be truly alone, without even slaves present?

She was waiting for him in the tiny garden at the centre of the house, reclining on a couch. She must have only just arrived, for she was still dressed in the hooded cloak she had worn to cross the city. Unlike Lucius, she could not possibly go out in public without hiding her face, even on a day as hot as this.

He sat beside her without saying a word. He pulled back the hood. The sight of her short blonde hair excited him. It gave her a curiously boyish look and made her different from other women. Only the other Vestals and their female servants ever saw her like this, without her headdress; the sight of her cropped hair, like the sight of her naked body, was his alone, a privilege both sacred and profane that was enjoyed by no other man on earth. He ran his fingers through her hair, intoxicated by a sense of possession.

He put his mouth on hers and tasted her sweet breath. He slid his hands inside the cloak and touched warm, sleek flesh. He gasped. Beneath the cloak, she was wearing nothing at all, not even a sleeping gown or a simple tunic. She had crossed the city like this, naked except for slippers and a hooded cloak.

“Madness!” he whispered. He pushed back the cloak and buried his face against her neck. She laughed softly, touching her lips to the inner folds of his ear, nipping gently at the earlobe with her teeth. She opened the cloak and let it fall, so that she was suddenly naked in his arms

He threw off his tunic and made love to her, as quickly and desperately as a boy. It was selfish of him, because he knew she preferred a much slower rhythm. But she indulged him, and seemed to draw pleasure from his trembling, uncontrollable excitement. All his emotions crested at once and poured from him in a flood. He wept, which aroused her; as if to draw more tears from him she dug her fingernails into his back and drew him closer to her, exerting a strength that never failed to surprise him, wrapping her limbs around him as the tendrils of a vine embrace a stone.

He did not have to work to reach the climax: it came upon him unbidden, like a fire that consumes all before it. It consumed her as well, for he felt her shudder against his sweating flesh and clench the part of him inside her. She cried out so long and so loudly that people in the neighbouring houses must have heard. Let them hear, he thought; they would know they heard a woman in ecstasy, but they could not know she was a Vestal.

When it was over, they lay close together, their naked bodies touching, saying nothing and savouring the afterglow.

When he had first met her, he was struck at once by the beauty of her face, but he could not have imagined how beautiful her body was. It took his breath away the first time he saw her naked; it still took his breath away. Over the years he had paid to take his pleasure with some of the most accomplished and alluring courtesans in Roma, but he had never known any woman with more beautiful breasts or more sensual hips than Cornelia; the voluptuous curves and the pale, marmoreal perfection of her flesh induced him to explore every part of her with his hands, eager to discover the most secret and sensitive parts of her body. Her breasts and hips were like those of Venus, ripe and womanly; her slender calves, her small hands, and the hollows of her neck and throat were as smooth and delicate as those of a child.

She was beautiful. She was also passionate. Not even the most skilled courtesan had ever responded to his touches with so much vitality, or touched him so lewdly and shamelessly in return. At times he felt he was the more vulnerable partner, a quivering slave of pleasure at the mercy of a completely uninhibited lover able to give or withhold ecstasy with the merest brush of her fingers or the soft caress of her breath.

She was beautiful, passionate – and dangerous. What he did with Cornelia was not only illicit and irreverent, it was illegal. Their lovemaking was a crime as serious as murder. He took no perverse pleasure in that fact, or so he told himself. Yet why had he chosen Cornelia, of all women? Deep down, he sensed that the forbidden nature of their relationship played some role in his excitement, but like a leaf caught on the flood he did not question how he had come to be in such a situation, or make any attempt to resist the force that carried him along. He simply accepted that he was at the mercy of a power greater than himself and submitted to it.

Cornelia gave him the greatest physical pleasure he had ever experienced, but she also fascinated him in ways that had nothing to do with her body. He had never known a woman who could converse so knowledgeably about the world; she was as educated as Epictetus, as witty as Martial, as worldly as Dio. As a Vestal, she knew everyone of importance and was in a position to follow everything of significance that happened in the city. She was far more connected than was Lucius to the spheres of politics and society; she opened a window to those worlds through which he could gaze from a comfortable distance, maintaining his customary detachment. She was not only the best possible bed-mate but the most interesting conversationalist he knew. He could talk to Cornelia about anything, and what she had to say was always of interest.

As the glow of their frenzied lovemaking subsided and the sweat of their bodies cooled, they gradually drew apart. They lay side by side, touching at the hips and shoulders, staring at the ceiling above.

“What excuse did you give this time?” he said.

“For my absence from the House of the Vestals? I’ve assumed responsibility for looking after the lotus tree in the sacred grove attached to the Temple of Lucina here on the Esquiline.”

“How much care does a lotus tree need?”

“This one is over five hundred years old. We tend it very lovingly.”

“And what makes it special to the Vestals?”

“All lotus trees are sacred. There’s a lotus tree in the grove next to the House of the Vestals. When a girl is inducted, her hair is cut for the first time and the locks are hung on the tree as an offering to the goddess. It’s a beautiful ceremony.”

“I’m sure it is.”

“Something’s troubling you. What is it, Lucius?”

He sighed. “A messenger came to my house yesterday. He delivered a letter from Dio of Prusa.”

“Ah, your dear friend who was exiled by the emperor. Where is the famous sophist now?”

“In Dacia, if you can believe it’s possible for a letter to travel all the way to Roma from beyond the Danube.”

“They say that Dacia is one of the few civilized lands that the Romans have yet to conquer.”

“One of the few wealthy lands we’ve not yet looted, you mean.”

“How cynical you are, Lucius. Do you not accept the notion that Roma has a special role given to her by the gods, to bring Roman religion and Roman law to the rest of the world, one province at a time?”

He was never quite sure how seriously to take Cornelia when she spoke in a patriotic vein. When all was said and done, despite her disregard for her vow of chastity, she considered herself a devoted priestess of the state religion.

“They say the Dacians have been crossing the Danube and making incursions into Roman territory,” she said, “enslaving farmers on the frontier, looting villages, raping women and boys. It’s almost as if King Decebalus is deliberately provoking Domitian to attack him.”

“Or at least that’s what the emperor wants us to think. It’s an old Roman ploy, pretending that an enemy is responsible for the start of a war we greatly desire to wage. Titus spent the last of the treasure their father looted from the Jews, so Domitian needs money. If he wants to get his hands on King Decabalus’s gold, a war to revenge outrages against Roman citizens will serve his purposes nicely.”

She made a dismissive gesture with her hand. “Enough of that! I won’t waste our time together debating the Dacian question. You were talking about your friend Dio. Is he terribly despondent?”

“Not at all. His letter was actually quite cheerful. Still, his exile weighs heavily on me.”

She sighed. “Men cross Domitian at their peril – even a harmless sophist like Dio.”

“But philosophers aren’t harmless, or so Dio says. He believes the power of words and ideas is as great as the power of armies. Apparently, Domitian believes that, too. What a contrast to his brother, who proclaimed that he had no fear of words and let people say whatever they wished. The reign of Titus is beginning to look like a golden age.”

“Curious, how golden ages are always so brief,” said Cornelia. “I wonder if Titus’s reign in retrospect seems so golden precisely because it lasted for only a few years. ‘He put not a single senator to death,’ they say. Perhaps he simply didn’t live long enough. When he died of that sudden illness – no one ever suggested there was foul play – Domitian took over without bloodshed. Right away he banished some of Titus’s most fervent supporters, men he felt he couldn’t rely on. But when brother succeeded brother, what really changed? Very little. Still, people were at once nostalgic for Titus, because he died young and handsome and beloved, so Domitian started at a disadvantage. He was never as personable or even-tempered as his brother-”

“That’s an understatement! You’ve seen Domitian’s behaviour at the amphitheatre – his apoplectic fits during gladiator matches, the way he shouts encouragement to one fighter and yells threats at anybody who favours the other. He lowers the tone of the whole place. Spectators emulate him. Fights break out. Some days there’s more blood in the stands than on the sand.”

“You exaggerate, Lucius. Like you, I would prefer to see more decorum in the amphitheatre – the place is dedicated to Mars, and the spectacles are religious rituals – but the sight of so much bloodshed releases powerful emotions in people, even in the emperor, it seems. More disturbing to me are the manoeuvrings in the imperial court. I suppose trouble must develop in every reign, sooner or later – factions form, rivalries emerge, intrigues simmer. It was all made worse when Domitian’s son died.”

“How he loved that little boy! The child was the mirror image of his father, always with him at the games, emulating his every movement.”

“The boy wasn’t just a beloved child. For an emperor, an heir is insurance, because the very existence of a son discourages rivals. When the boy died, Domitian was not only grief stricken, he became acutely suspicious of everyone around him. His courtiers in turn became suspicious of him. Once such an atmosphere develops, even the smallest action by the emperor sets people’s nerves on edge.”

“Exile is hardly a ‘small action’ if you’re the one who’s banished.”

“True,” she said.

“Nor is losing your head.”

“You’re talking about Flavius Sabinus, the husband of Domitian’s niece. That was most unfortunate, and almost certainly uncalled for. My friends in the imperial court tell me Domitian had no real cause to believe Flavius was conspiring against him; the man was arrested and beheaded nonetheless. Unfortunately for your friend, Dio was often seen in the company of Flavius Sabinus.”

“Was that a crime?”

“Perhaps not, but if Domitian had accused Dio of conspiring against him, your friend would have lost his head along with Flavius. Instead, Domitian banished him. Dio is lucky to be alive.”

“Alive, but exiled from Italy, and forbidden to return to his native Bythinia. That’s a steep price to pay for having been a welcome visitor to the home of Titus’s daughter and son-in-law. Do you know the first thing Dio did after he fled Roma? He went to Greece to consult the oracle at Delphi. The oracle is famous for giving ambiguous guidance, but not this time. ‘Put on beggar’s rags,’ Dio was told, ‘and head for the farthest reaches of the empire and beyond.’ So off he went, beyond the Danube.”

“For a man with Dio’s curiosity,” said Cornelia, “travel to far-off lands must offer a splendid chance to learn more about the world. Think of all the obscure metaphors and allusions he’ll be able to work into those learned discourses of his.”

Lucius smiled. “He used just such a metaphor in his letter, referring to the funeral practices of the Scythians. ‘Just as these barbarians bury cup-bearers, cooks, and concubines along with a dead king, so it is a Roman custom to punish friends, family, and advisers for no good reason when a good man is executed.’”

Cornelia drew a sharp breath. “Did you burn the letter?”

“Of course, after I read it aloud to Epaphroditus and Epictetus.”

“Did you read it to anyone else?”

“To Martial, you mean? How he would have loved it! But no, I didn’t share it with him. Dear Martial – Titus’s fawning poet one day, Domitian’s lapdog the next. He was still working on those poems about the inaugural games when Titus died. What to do with all that hard work? Rewrite the verses to suit the new emperor, of course. The book’s just been published. Domitian is apparently quite pleased, and that pleases Martial, because he says Domitian is a more discerning critic than his brother ever was. But Martial would say that. A poet has to eat.”

“While philosophers starve?” Cornelia stretched her arms above her head and extended her toes. Her body rubbed against his, and Lucius felt a stirring of renewed excitement.

“Dio isn’t starving,” he said. “He says the Dacians are actually quite civilized, despite the fact that they worship only one god. The temples and libraries of Sarmizegetusa can’t have much to offer compared to those of Roma, but King Decebalus is reputed to have one of the largest hoards of gold in the world. Where there’s that much wealth, a celebrated philosopher from Roma needn’t go hungry. There’ll always be some Dacian nobleman willing to feed a man who can bring a bit of wit and erudition to his table.”

Lucius rolled onto his side, facing her. He ran his hand over the sinuous curve of her hip, then trailed his fingers across the delta formed by her thighs. “His letter was actually rather inspiring. Nothing seems to dampen his sprits; he always looks for the good in the bad. Dio says his exile may actually be a blessing, despite the trouble it’s caused him. That’s what the Stoics teach. Every misfortune that befalls a man – poverty, illness, a broken heart, old age, exile – is simply another opportunity for a lesson to be learned.”

“Is that what you believe, Lucius?”

“I don’t know. I listen to my philosopher friends and I try to make sense of what they tell me. Epictetus says it isn’t a given event that disturbs us, but the view we take of it. Nothing is intrinsically good or bad, only thinking makes it so. Therefore, think good thoughts, and find contentment in the moment.”

“Even if you’re ill or hungry or in pain, or far from home?”

“Epictetus would say that even an affront to one’s body, like illness or torture, is an external event, outside our true selves. The self of a man is not his body, but the intelligence that inhabits his body. That self is the one thing no one else can touch, the only thing we truly possess. The operation of our own will is the one thing in all the universe over which we have control. The man who learns to accept this is content, no matter what his physical circumstances, while the man who imagines he can control the world around him is invariably confused and embittered. So you see men who are oppressed by the worst sort of misfortunes, yet who are happy nonetheless, and you see men who are surrounded by luxury and have slaves to carry out their every wish, yet who are miserable.”