Complete Short Stories (50 page)

Through her chalk and rouge Arruntia blushes a deep red. Licianus hides
his aquiline nose in an agate wine-cup. Ascalus assumes a theatrical posture, like Ajax defying the lightning. But Arruntius bursts into a roar of drunken laughter and thumps me on the back. ‘Egnatius,’ he yells, ‘you’re a man after my own heart! Go on! Roast that she-ass for us on the public spit!’ Both sisters-in-law giggle nervously. They hate Arruntia, but are scared of scenes, especially when
Arruntius has been drinking. He never knows his own strength; and this, indeed, was his plea long ago when, suspecting Arruntia’s mother of infidelity…

‘Choose, then, most beautiful of women, Rome’s own Helen!’ I insist, perfectly master of the situation. ‘Choose!’

Arruntia cups her chin in deep thought. Will she? Won’t she?

The dramatic hush is broken by a loud crash and horrified shrieks
from somewhere high above us, followed almost immediately by an echoing boom and a still louder shriek. Fascinated, I watch the street wall slowly buckle and give… Then everything falls at once!

Did any of us survive? I doubt it. My next distinct memory is of being a child once more. Martial music sounds. Mother lifts me up to watch, through a well-glazed English nursery window, the decorated
carriages and red-coated soldiers of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee procession.

I

O
UTSIDE THE WINESHOP
everyone was teasing the mild-mannered stranger who wore the grey cloak of a Greek philosopher. The usual run of philosophers are much-travelled, sharp as needles, knowing as vultures; but this one seemed ignorant and artless, a regular hick.

‘In Hell’s name, where do you spring from?’ Scorpus asked. ‘Anyone would think you’d been asleep a thousand years and
just woken up!’

‘From Myconos, the Aegean island. It’s not very big, but quite famous. Why, the Giants who attacked Heaven are buried beneath our granite rocks, which the God Hercules threw at them. And we show the Tomb of Ajax, too – a Trojan War hero.’

The philosopher then began to quote Homer, but Scorpus cut him short. ‘You’re not a real Myconian,’ he teased.

The philosopher blushed. ‘How
did you guess?’

‘Look at your thatch!
“Myconi calva omnis juventas!”
– All Myconians are bald as pumpkins, even boys.’

‘Yes,’ he mumbled. ‘My family, I confess, originated in Athens. Political refugees. This thick hair does make me somewhat conspicuous at home. But I have the most beautifully bald wife and children.’

He spoke in such earnest tones that we took to him in a big way. ‘Ever travelled
before?’ I asked, when the laughter had subsided.

‘Some years ago I attended a course in philosophy at Athens. From there I went to the Olympic Games: an unforgettable experience! As Homer says…’

‘Forget Homer! We’re not buying Homer. Did you see good sport at Olympia?’

‘Sir, it was fabulous! A score of events crammed into five days! First, the sacrifices and the classification of athletes;
then a contest between trumpeters. Great Heavens, you should have watched them puff out their cheeks until they looked like pigs’ bladders – veins swelling on foreheads, eyes bulging. A little fellow from Sicily ought to have won, but the judges disqualified him after an objection; it seems he had once served a prison
term at Syracuse for striking a priest. Only freeborn Greeks of good character
may compete at Olympia. But, by Jove, how he blew – what sweet thunder! Next, to whet our appetite, the boys’ races! So two days glided by in the horseshoe Stadium. No less than forty thousand visitors must have gathered there from all over the Greek world! We put up tents and picnicked beside the river. The third day, the day of champions… Two-hundred-yard sprint, quarter-mile and two-mile footraces.
Classical wrestling. A race between armed soldiers carrying shields and spears; our Myconian champion came in third. Hard-glove boxing. Free-style wrestling. Magnificent! The competitors had trained for years.’

‘
Footraces
!’ scoffed Bufotilla, Scorpus’s green-eyed girl friend, blowing her nose daintily with thumb and fore-finger, and wiping them on my cloak. ‘Left, right; left, right; left, right
– elbows jogging, lungs whistling, eyes glazed – round and round and round… I can’t imagine a drearier spectacle.’

‘Ah, dear women!’ sighed the philosopher, ‘you’re all alike – pretending to despise the Games which you are forbidden, on pain of death, to witness!’

Bufotilla stared at him. ‘Forbidden – on pain of death? And why, pray?’

‘Because Olympic athletes wear no clothes, young lady,’
replied the philosopher.

‘By the Girdle of Venus, what’s wrong with that? Don’t you have nude mixed bathing at public baths in Greece?’

This time it was the philosopher who stared at Bufotilla.

‘Well, don’t you?’ she insisted, sharply.

Scorpus had heard vague talk, some place or other, about the Olympic Games, and broke in: ‘Big prizes, eh? Heavy bonuses?’

‘No, Sir. The same award serves
all events: an olive-wreath, cut with a golden sickle from the sacred tree.’

‘Yes, yes, that’s the token award, I don’t doubt. But how much cash does it mean? You can’t tell me that these fellows train for years, then flock to Olympia from all over the Greek world, in the hope of winning only a wretched wreath, such as they could cut anywhere themselves?’

The philosopher smiled reprovingly.
‘We are Greeks, not barbarians,’ he said.

‘So what? Doesn’t anyone ever sell a race or match at Olympia?’

‘They swear a solemn oath beforehand that they won’t. At the altar of Olympian Zeus, in front of all the judges.’

‘And if an athlete breaks his oath?’

‘The judges fine him severely, and the city he represents is shamed. At Olympia, you can see rows of bronze images flanking the Temple
steps. They were paid for with fines imposed on men who bribed their opponents to lose: long rows of images, worth I don’t know how much.’

‘Thanks, I knew that money came into it somehow,’ said Scorpus. ‘It
always does.’

We burst out laughing, but the philosopher saw no joke. ‘It’s true,’ he said, ‘and on each image is engraved a warning that the Olympic Games were founded by Hercules as a contest
in manliness, not in money; and that the Gods always discover cheats.’

‘Oh, get on with your tale! Bufotilla’s growing nervous; aren’t you, my honey? We want to hear about the chariot race. That’s the main draw at any Games.’

‘Not at Olympia. When we talk of bygone Olympics, we always identify them by the name of whichever athlete won the sprint – our earliest and most important athletic event.
The chariot-race winner may be a moribund old prince from Cadiz, or the Black Sea provinces, who never saw Greece before but happens to own a good stable. In the sprint, it is the
man
who wins, the
man
whom poets celebrate – not a team of dumb horses. Therefore we philosophers despise the chariot race: it infringes the Olympic rule that money is no substitute for manliness.’

‘Haven’t you forgotten
the charioteer?’ asked Scorpus gently, stroking his large nose. Any other member of Scorpus’s profession would have knocked the philosopher down, instead, and jumped on him. But Scorpus could afford to be forbearing.

‘Oh, yes,’ the philosopher answered. ‘Charioteers get the best out of their teams, I suppose; but at Olympia nobody pays them much attention. It is not a dangerous race: a driver
who deliberately fouled an opponent’s chariot, why, he would be disgraced for life!’

This drew fresh guffaws from our party, and Bufotilla cried: ‘By all the Gods in Heaven and Hell, what a nation of sissies! No wonder our Roman legions went through you like string through cheese!’

Scorpus, controlling his mirth with a great effort, said: ‘Go on about this most ethical chariot race. How many
laps are run?’

‘Laps? Just one – as in Homer’s day.’

‘Mention Homer again, and I’ll
scream
!’ screamed Bufotilla.

‘And the length of the run?’ Scorpus asked.

‘Five hundred yards.’

‘You call that
sport
?’

‘Certainly!’

‘Then you’d better watch a Roman race this afternoon, and improve your education. Take charge of him, Glabrio, will you? See he gets a seat with the Family.’

I said I would.
Then along came a crowd of young noblemen, all wearing blue favours, caught sight of Scorpus, lifted him on their shoulders, cheering madly, and bore him off.

‘With what paragon of men have I had the honour to converse?’ exclaimed the philosopher.

‘With Scorpus: our greatest charioteer for generations. He’s turned the
tide of fortune from the Green faction to the Blue – won us over eleven hundred
victories since the Emperor’s accession. Worth nearly two million in gold! If he’d slit your throat just now, when you talked of charioteers as though they were country carters, would any Roman have dared inform against him? Not one! So far as he’s concerned, police and magistrates can go to Hell. He hobnobs with the Emperor Domitian himself. Senators’ wives and daughters pant for him, but he
brushes them off like flies.’

‘This Scorpus comes of noble stock?’

‘Noble? His father was a slave from York, employed in the Imperial stables. And if you want to know why he despises the Olympic chariot race no less than you philosophers do, it’s because
his
course is seven times round the Great Circus, with bloody murder lurking at each post. Few charioteers escape a broken leg or arm for long.
Ten races; twenty perhaps, if they’re lucky: then, crash!… Scorpus’s luck has been phenomenal; only three serious accidents in five years. Everyone wonders why he doesn’t retire on the winnings.’

‘Why doesn’t he?’

‘Says he mustn’t fail his public. But I don’t think it’s quite that. In his heart he despises the public; all experienced charioteers do. I guess he just gets a kick out of playing
with death. Besides, if he retired, tell me some other job he could take and still feel a man – short of turning gladiator?’

A poster on the wineshop wall announced that one of Menander’s comedies would be playing that afternoon in Pompey’s Theatre. The philosopher wanted to see it. ‘No,’ I said, ‘you’re not going!’

‘Why not?’ he asked, rebelliously.

‘For three good reasons. First, because
it’s in Latin translation; and you’re short on Latin.’

‘I’ll risk that.’

‘Second, because you’ll find the Theatre’s altogether too big. I’ve been around in Greece; I’ve seen plays acted there… Audiences of two thousand at the most. Here, they’re nearer sixty thousand! Against all that talking and coughing and shuffling, how can dialogue be followed, even with a wind blowing from the right quarter?
And the back rows can’t easily distinguish between the players. So prostitutes always wear yellow; old men wear white; the hero wears mixed colours; merchants, purple; beggars, red; etcetera… And all you get of the comedy, besides madly expensive sets, are fragments of shouted dialogue, and theme songs. Theme songs played by the orchestra, sung by the choir, and danced by Paris.’

‘Who may Paris
be?’

‘The leading man, whom our women dote on. As he cavorts across the stage he registers terror, anguish, obscene passion, filial tenderness, corny humour, bestial cunning – the whole works! Does it all with gestures.
Menander would turn in his grave to see what’s happened to his lines; and I gather you respect Menander? Our actresses strip to the buff in aid of greater realism. And no holds
barred. It’s a liberal education, sometimes… Why, recently the Emperor let a convict be substituted for the brigand chief in the last act of
Laureolus
, and actually be crucified onstage!’

‘What is your third reason?’

‘The most important one! It’s that Scorpus expects you to watch the chariot-racing in the Great Circus. See?’

We ate lunch – bread and black puddings – at another wineshop, near
the Citadel. The big race wouldn’t be run for another two hours; which left us plenty of time to visit the late Emperor Titus’s Amphitheatre, commonly called The Colosseum. I own a couple of good seats there, on the shady side; and even if I forget my tickets, I can always get in as a member of Scorpus’s ‘family’. I’m his saddle-master: the man solely responsible for his reins, traces and harness…

We strolled past the Forum. A pretty girl in a violet silk gown, wearing half a pound of bangles and necklaces, linked the philosopher’s arm endearingly in hers. ‘Coming for a walk, Socrates?’ she inquired. ‘I could ask you some tough questions.’

I firmly unhooked them, and shooed her away.

‘Why did you do that?’ he bleated.

‘I’d hate my friends to find me arm in arm with a philosopher
and
a prostitute…’

‘But I thought prostitutes always wore yellow?’ he sighed. What superb innocence! I must remember to tell Scorpus!

This being the noon interval, we found the Colosseum less than half-full: a mere thirty thousand spectators. During the interval, second-class entertainment is the rule – animal turns or acrobatics; but I’m glad we went, because a ‘No-reprieve’ show was put on. ‘No-reprieve’
is an amusing alternative to crucifixion – and the criminals appreciate it: death comes quick, and most of them get the pleasure of killing as well as the misfortune of getting killed. Ten criminals were announced that day: among them bandits, men convicted of incest or arson, and parricides. A villainous lot, except for one fine-looking Sicilian bandit, by name Julius Ferox. Every woman
in the audience waved her scarf at him on hearing that, before his capture, he’d flattened three soldiers and their sergeant. Julius would appear third.

A roll of kettle-drums, and the parricide was led in, naked. He glanced wildly about: gates shut and barriers too high to scramble over. Then in strutted another criminal in full armour, with shield and sword – a mad Moor from Tangiers, who had
burned down an apartment house, causing considerable loss of life. He caught his man after a long chase which ended rather tamely, because the desperate parricide took a leap at the barrier
and knocked himself out. Then the Moor was himself disarmed by two guards, who gave his gear to Julius Ferox. The Moor had not run three paces before Julius thrust him through the lungs.