The Far Arena (8 page)

The family agreed to make a payment of two million after they had obtained the praetorship. Demosthenes advised me loudly against it.

'Dominus,' he said, 'we will need the skilled slaves immediately.'

The mother sighed. 'It is a shame to Rome when a gladiator can extort a Roman when she seeks only the rightful position for her son. "Extort" is the word, too. And by whom - a gladiator? -when most gladiators are matched in the tens of pairs. A gladiator negotiating freely,' she said. She lowered her eyes. 'Done,' she added.

Now came the question of which arena would be best. Sponsors often did not understand, and it was my responsibility to help them, if they could be helped.

'I would suggest the Flavian amphitheatre,' I said. It sets off a single match much better
...
The arena at the Vatican is too large. It's better for animals. Races even. It does not make a gladiator look good.'

'It makes the sponsor look very good,' said the woman sharply. The son, who had been watching his political career hang on his mother's nods, agreed.

'The Vatican,' he demanded.

Each arena had its points. The Flavian was smaller, had awnings, and was better for a single match, but it lacked a direct escape route for the emperor should the mobs become uncontrollable. The Vatican had a tunnel to the palace.

And the Vatican did not remind Domitian, a Flavian, how the family's generosity had been wasted. They had paid for and built the ampitheatre at the square of the Colossus of Nero, a statue of the Claudian.

But i
nstead of calling the Flavian ampitheatre the Flavian amphitheatre, they kept the familiar name of the Colossus, calling it the Colosseum, and Domitian resented that.

'I would recommend, once again, against the Vatican,' I said.

'Gladiator, to your swords, if you please,' said the mother.

I should have known. Perhaps
it was negotiating at a latifun
dium, which I hate, which let me become careless. Demosthenes had done what he was supposed to do. I should have done what I was supposed to do. We should never have taken so much money from them before the match. If I had known we had broken them, I would have loaned them money or even returned it for the financing of the game.

But on the day of the festivities, it was too late. And it was a hot day. And the Vatican arena had no awnings.

The promised lions mounting prostitutes turned out quite naturally to be a farce. They failed to couple with the women, who had been heavily drugged. Women could do it with bulls and asses, but no conscious one would ever think of surviving a lion, much less induce it to mate. The prostitutes stumbled and the lions yawned, and then the master of the games, undoubtedly under the orders of the patrician aedile who was drinking his way through his day of glory just as undoubtedly with unwatered wine, ordered bestiarii into the arena. And this might have saved the day if they had killed the lions, but the aedile was saving money, and they slaughtered the drugged prostitutes and merely goaded the lions back toward their pens. Laughter turned quickly to anger, and there were no elephants. The patricians had spent their wealth, assuming I would save their games. They were broke.

There were convicted criminals in armour. When things go bad, they go bad without end. This crew must have violated some laws of commerce, for weapons seemed strange in their hands. They quickly reached some form of mutual truce, whereby sword met shield and shield met sword and a harmless clanging ensued, which further aggravated the crowd. And worst of all and most unforgivable of all was the slowness with which events followed one another, so what might have served as reason for mirth now became that ominous rumbling of one hundred and fifty thousand people, larger than most cities and some nations.

This was the sort of danger that only three well-equipped and seasoned legions might thwart. But by law as ancient as the kings before the Roman Republic, no emperor except Sulla dared bring a full armoured legion inside the city walls. Available were only the praetorians who protected the emperor; three urban cohorts, who were supposed to defend the city in emergencies but actually protected the emperor like the praetorians; and the vigiles, who were supposed to subdue armed gangs and fires but only subdued their own swords and staffs for the hand that offered coin.

If the mob got its head, there was nothing in Rome to stop it.

Two men in plebeian seats started their own exhibition with fists, and the crowd cheered them until eight of the urban cohorts assigned to the arena without weapons got between them. The cheering was an especially dangerous sign. It showed the crowd had lost interest in what was happening on the sand.

'They're fighting, and he's still there,' said Plutarch. He was a big round man and stood on a firm table in my cubicle looking out of a small vertical hole which was at the level of the sand. From there he could see the emperor's seats. When he said 'they're fighting', he meant the crowds. When he said 'he's still there', he meant the emperor.

There was no further explanation necessary. In this cubicle his word was supreme. He was a slave, and yet none of my patrician guests were allowed to interrupt him. He could tell by sounds what crowds were thinking. He knew my weapons, what they should be kept in, when they should be given, who should give them, who should rub my muscles, when the oils were ready.

He had been trained as a gladiator, and I had bought him as that, but his real talent was servicing my arena needs and understanding that the most crucial element was timing. The empire consumed thousands of gladiators each year, most of them better than Plutarch had been.

None was better at servicing a gladiator, yet at times Plutarch would mention how he wished he could have taken to the sand to win his freedom and wealth. And yet at other times, he mentioned he was glad he had not killed, which might have been because of some strange Eastern cult he had joined.

'These games are gone,' he said.

‘
Nothing?'
I asked.

‘
Nothing they can do.'

'And he's still there?'

'Waiting for you, dominus.
’

Plutarch's large frame alighted clumsily on the floor. I rose from the small couch where I was being oiled. Everyone looked to me.

Plutarch shook his head slowly. The games were doomed. I looked to a solid patrician friend who understood a bit of politics.

'He should know better,' I said to Marcus Quintus Varro, a former officer in the thirteenth Gemina and an owner of land near Herculaneum. I asked that he go quickly through the arena tunnels to the emperor's seats and tell Domitian to leave. Nothing was going to save these games, and he should not be associated with them.

'He would know himself, would he not ?' said Varro.

'He should,' I said; and he knew it was of great import because I never spoke to my companions before a match.

'I'll go,' said Vergilius Flavius Publius, a young patrician of such catholic earnestness that a refusal of anything to him became an affront to his dignity. Publius was delicate, with a soft face, and a voice that squeaked when he got angry, which was often, and I could see him ignored or halted by some arena slave, happy to safely affront a patrician toga. Arena slaves have great authority over things like gates and locks and little passages, and they exercise it wantonly at these times.

'I can do it' said Publius, forgetting no one is allowed to speak to me first.

'Publius,' called Varro, but Publius was through the body slaves and armoured slaves at the entrance before Varro could stop him, and I was in my own thoughts where I meticulously strip all distractions before an event. I only realized Varro had not gone when I heard the mob begin the low rolling chant of my name. 'Eugeni, Eugeni, Eugeni.'

Plutarch climbed on the table again.

'He's still there,' said Plutarch. I should have been in the tunnel before the portal to the arena sand, but m
y slaves had not led me there. ‘
What?'

'Domitian remains,' said Plutarch. 'We're keeping you here so that he will know to leave.' 'Do they riot ? Only riot would stop Varro.' 'I'm here,' said Varro. 'Oh,'I said.

'Domitian has not been informed,' said Plutarch. 'He will know to leave when you do not appear. We keep the master of the games outside. When Domitian leaves, you go.'

All was well. I have good slaves, and everyone crucial to my survival knows that freedom and wealth follow jobs well done. In a few moments I felt the touch on my shoulder and followed my men to the portal.

I could feel the stamping of feet on seats outside in the very stones near my head. There is a sweet smell of mountain air in the fetid tunnel, where I feel I am young and can run all day. There is no darkness or sun, and every sound is clear.

'Blade's sharpened,' said a slave into my ear, which meant the secutor had added recent sharpness to his weapon, which would have been unneccessary if he intended just a display.

We walked into the sun on the sand. As the light came full to me, my slaves stripped off my unfastened robe and put a spatha, a long sword with a point more like a spear than a sword, into my right hand and a shield into my left hand. The shield is soft wood, the size of a child's bowl, reinforced with steel that can block, parry, and punch.

The secutor wore a yellow helmet of solid gold, carried a short sword and a shield, and was girdled with gold and bronze. His sword arm had leather wrapping. Domitian was not in his box, and the secutor, not thinking, went to the empty seat for the formal obeisance. I went to the aedile, whose mother's face boiled red. The aedile, too drunk to realize he had financed a farce, smiled at me. I made great comic motions to the crowd, and the mother yelled down at me that she would litigate over a breach of contract, meaning that I was not fulfilling my obligations to the games by making mockery before them. It was not the worst of all possible threats, since not only did I already have the property, but several magistrates in the patrician's seats were smiling with me. I did not circle the arena to let the people examine my body as usual. I gave a cursory salute to the aedile, who waved in return, until his mother slapped down his arm forcefully. She knew the danger of the riot and, were she not a patrician, undoubtedly would have fled discreetly from this seething crowd. But patricians tend to throw their lives after fortunes and consider the fear of death some inferior instinct to be suppressed. While I, raised as a slave, know better and only disguise my fear.

So I pretended boredom there under the hot sun, and careful I was to make my gestures gross, because subtlety is invisible to one hundred and fifty thousand pairs of eyes.

The secutor finally offered a longer formal salute to the aedile, and the mother graciously accepted it. The crowd hooted and made gestures. And I, very casual in appearance, got a large stain of blood between me and the oncoming secutor, who also tried to salute me. I did not return it, and the crowd applauded and chanted, 'Eugeni, Eugeni, Eugeni,' which sounds like Scythian drums when it picks up rhythm. It appeared as though I were leading the crowd in contempt of the games.

Even on the sand, blood can be slippery, although not as slippery as on earth or rock or wood. There, blood is like oil, which is why sand is so necessary for the games. The secutor, trying to avoid the stain, appeared unwilling to close on me, and I, in my casual, circling shuffle, appeared bored and above it all. Yet any discerning eye would have noticed that the spatha, hanging limply from my right hand, never touched the sand, and the small punching shield, while seeming to dangle casually at the end of a relaxed arm, always stayed waist high and facing the secutor. Just as he set to show that it was really I who ran, I turned my back on him. If he had allowed this act to continue and had then engaged me in a performance of some duration, whereby we could seduce the attention of the crowd, a small possibility would have remained that we might save some glory of the games that day. Although I could not see such a dissatisfied arena allowing a loser to live.

I turned. He closed and gave me that planted foot, and my spatha was in and out of his throat like the snapping of a catapult before he got his ponderous shoulder and full body into his sword.

His thrust came anyhow, weaker and slower for having been mortally struck, and I slapped it away with my shield and wrested off
his gold helmet as his head went by.

To the stands it looked as though I had just touched him gently with the tip of my weapon to keep him away and that removing the gold helmet was the greater labour. He struggled around on his hands and knees like a cow waiting to be mated, and I trotted with the helmet against my chest towards the 'Portal of Life' as though nothing were wrong.

I did not wait for a signal of death from either the crowds or the vestal virgins, whose official responsibility it was to judge these matters, but who always followed the will of the crowd. They would pass their decision on to the emperor, who by tradition gave the final decision on life or death.'