The Far Arena Read online

  He marched in eating an apple, bouncing with the sap of an early afternoon and an appetite on the fly. He greeted Miriamne as though she were a visiting ambassador and he were a senator. He greeted me, like an honoured guest to our house, all proper and impeccable. His grammarian was famous for teaching the proper and formal way of things, and not even the oldest family of the city would sway that man to compromise with newer fashions.

  We could have bought a grammarian and tutored Petronius at home, but the better families did not do that, preferring that young Romans rub and butt against each other as part of the finest education. Of course, the grammarian owned the best Greeks.

  Because my name excited so much emotion in the city, Petronius needed armoured slaves who brought him from house to grammarian and back to house. The slaves were trained by a lanista, not only to use weapons, but never to discuss slave gossip and any other things that might have to do with the arena games. There was not an armoured slave who did not fancy himself a gladiator, unless it was flogged out of him.

  'I have something to tell you, Petronius,' I said.

  'Yes, father?' he said. He wore a light yellow tunic, of perfect colour and stitch. He was large, already as big as Miriamne, a big woman, but with a touch of sharpness around his black eyes.

  His beard was a few tentative hairs around his chin, carefully unshaven, for the first shave would be on the morrow for his fourteenth birthday. Then, formally, in front of the proper people, our family tonsor would cut his beard for the first time, and this beard would be burned as an offering to Mars, officially our household god, and my personal god publicly, even though Miri-amne did not even believe Mars existed and had often told me so.

  It was not that I believed in Mars, or that he had anything to do with any victory of mine, or that it made one spit of difference if one burned calves before Mars or urinated down his finely chiselled helmet over his finely chiselled head.

  One did not worship the gods of Rome for the gods, but for Rome. Religion properly and publicly pursued was a showing of one's place with Rome, and while Publius with his patrician foundation could afford to mock the gods publicly. I could not. I had to prove my Romanness daily. Because of this, Petronius would have to prove it less, and his son not at all.

  'Are you ready for the tonsor, tomorrow?' I asked. Miriamne hugged Petronius firmly, then released him with the admonition: 'He is your father. Honour him.' And she left.

  'For fourteen years, my father, I have been ready for the tonsor'

  'Good,' I said 'Very good. Very, very good. That is good. It is good. Very.' 'Beards grow, father.'

  'Yes, do they not? What is it the famous Greek poet Horace said about beards ? He said something funny, if I remember.'

  'Horace is Roman, father, one of us. Homer is Greek. A great poet, father, but not Horace.'

  Petronius yelled for a slave to bring him honey and plums before he finished the apple He was ungainly and sat falling into the pillows like so much furniture cracking at the joints. But he had a sharp wit.

  'This is a family secret. I am going to be made a senator. It does not mean I will ever be a patrician, but we will get you a patrician wife, and you may someday wear the broad stripe on your toga.'

  'Is that what you want to tell me, father ?' he asked. 'You do not seem pleased.'

  'Why are you pleased ? You own half the senate anyhow.' 'What makes you think so ?' 'Everyone say so.' 'And what do you say ?'

  I say nothing. ‘I am your son.’

  And with this he made a reference to what I had taught him on a birthday; for each birthday I gave him not only some toy or gift of immediate joy, but something I had learned in life. A whitish burn welt remained on my right side. Burns remain forever, although it was only seven years before. He grew so quickly, yet it seemed like too short a time for seven years. Seven years before, Petronius was seven, and on that birthday he received a carved wooden doll that spun when a cord was pulled.

  On that day, he learned his first lesson of each birthday. That first lesson was on silence about the family. I could never forget. Slaves had heated an iron and were sent away so that Petronius could be alone with me.

  ‘I want to show how important it is that you keep family business family,' I had said.

  ‘I am seven and big,' he said.

  'Very big. You are important, Petronius. Now you must know that some things hurt. Some things hurt very much. You are old enough.'

  'A spanking hurts. Pebbles in sandals hurt, oh, so much.'

  'Yes, they do, Petronius.'

  'Mother spanks me.'

  'Because she loves you.'

  'You love me.'

  'Yes, I do.'

  'You don't spank me.'

  'No. No. I don't. Petronius, you are a big boy. And you can hurt me. The most dangerous thing in the world is the human mouth. Not its teeth, but its tongue.'

  ‘I don't want to hurt you, father. You give me things.'

  'Lift the handle of that iron there,' I said, pointing to a rod as red as the coals it rested on at one end. We had done this before Mars's statue. Some soot from the coals collected on the ceiling.

  Petronius, straining, lifted the cold, black end of the rod, almost dropping the hot point to the floor when he had raised the rod up and out of the coals.

  I lifted my tunic, exposing my stomach.

  'Press the rod here as I talk.'

  'No. It will hurt.'

  ‘Do it.’ ‘No.'

  'I will hurt you, Petronius.'

  'No,' he shouted, and I snatched the rod from him and made him look as I pressed it burning into my stomach.

  'With your mouth you can hurt me more than this, Petronius. Look, Petronius. Look at how little it hurts. But your mouth can hurt much.'

  It did hurt, but gladiators are often trained with hot rods to force the muscles and mind to do things they might ordinarily shy from.

  The rod sizzled when it went back into the coals.

  'You can hurt me more by saying things that are said in the house. The burn does not hurt. You can hurt by saying what is said here to your friends or anyone. What is said at home stays at home.'

  'Promise it doesn't hurt,' cried Petronius.'

  'It doesn't hurt, darling. It doesn't hurt at all.'

  The scar carried two pale welts like marble fingers across the right side of my stomach. Seven years later it had not diminished. But when Petronius said he was my son, I could trust that I could disclose things, knowing he would not carry them elsewhere. The public thing was, of course, Publius.

  'I have something else to tell you, which you may have heard. It is, of course, all over the city.'

  'Publius ?'he said, smiling.

  'Yes', I said.

  'You are going to have trouble with the big amphitheatre.' 'How do you know? Where do you hear these things about the arena?'

  'I know. Everyone knows. Everyone goes to the games but me.'

  'Yes, and not all of them come back from the riots.'

  The trouble with your match that started the riot was that it wasn't held in the Colosseum where people could see it. That was the trouble with those games.'

  There were other things,' I said, dismissing the subject with a short wave of my hand. 'The arena is none of your business.'

  'I have not said anything to anyone. I am told nothing, and it is no small burden you have placed on me, your son, to be ignorant of the only important thing in Rome today.' He gestured like a grown orator, his face grave with the weightiness of his little problem. The grammarian had taught him well.

  There are many important things in Rome; they just do not tease the Roman mind,' I said.

  The grammarian had all the boys stand and brought me before them. He said I was the son of Roman virtue. He said it was possible with a little Roman blood to be more Roman than someone with a mother and father both Roman and Roman since the founding of the city.'

  'And it did not amuse you that Publius is suddenly less Roman than I, because
he is a foolish, defenceless person ?'

  'It made me proud to be your son. When he said the Roman blood of your courageous father flowed in your body and now mine, and not a drop had been diluted, I wept with pride.'

  'Knowing this was the same man who taught you that gods copulated with geese and that my father died trying to retrieve the lost eagles in wildest Germany, when you know quite well I paid in coin you saw with your eyes, put in the palm of the poet taking my instructions on my ancestry, which I told you was a lie.'

  'Your father was Roman.'

  'Very,' I said. 'And in no way did he ever do anything of virtue in his entire life. Ever.'

  'Why are you angry ?' asked Petronius.

  'I am offended that your mother's blood and my mother's blood is suddenly inadequate for you. Your mother is a great woman and so was your grandmother.'

  'My grandmother was so great that this is the second time you have mentioned her, the first being that you would tell me about her when I grew up. No. Roman is the best thing to be.'

  'It is a thing to use, not be. Like my sword. But I do not bring too much of it into our peristilium. I am glad your birthday is close, for there is a truth I have found in the arena that will be the gift I will give you.'

  'And the one I want ?'

  'That is a surprise,' I said, and I felt good again. For I did not like arguing with Petronius, especially since I now did not have such a secure advantage. And being my son, he knew just which thrust hurt the most.

  'I want to see your match with Publius. Isn't it so, that this will be the last time you will be in the arena? That is the rumour. Isn't it so?'

  'I thought it was a secret.'

  'More than two people cannot hold a secret. You have told me that'

  'You wish to see me ?' 'Yes.'

  'Kill your friend Publius?' I do not know why I expected him to say no, but I hoped it.

  'Yes, it will make it more interesting. Someone I know instead of some musclebound youth you import to butcher.'

  'They say that, too ?' My anger burned, hidden.

  'Some say it. I assumed it was true because you are so calculating in everything.'

  'You want seats?'

  'Your special seats from which one can see everything with the finest view. The ones in your network of chambers where the women are, and dancers are, and where the golden flute is played.'

  'The "chambers" in the large arena is one cubicle. There is a slip at sand level from which a slave, standing on a small iron table, can see the emperor's seats. Through it we hear the mood of the crowd. There are no women, just body slaves and armoured slaves, the kind that escort you around the city. There is a heavy door and jugs of water in case of riots. There are no flutes.'

  Then I will stay there.'

  'You can barely see anything from there but what I have told you. The slit has often been blocked by an animal's body.'

  'I want this more than anything, father. Please. Please. It tears at my liver to be the only one in the entire world who will be denied this.'

  'You want the arena. Here is the arena.' And for the first time I used my hand to strike him. I slapped one side of his face and the other side. I slapped again, and his fuzzy cheeks with the little beard welted and became red. And what was worse, I gave him that stone smile I use for small arenas where my face could well be seen. He begged me to stop, and I told him I was giving him the arena. He raised one finger begging mercy, as obviously his schoolmates had taught him was done in the arena. I stopped.

  "There are the vestal virgins,' I said pointing to the god of the house, 'and there the emperor,' pointing to the atrium. 'Do you think you have put up a good enough fight for them to let you live?'

  'This is unfair,' he said.

  'Welcome to the arena,' I said, raising my hand in a gross gesture. He cringed, and no sword has ever cut like that sight.

  I spent a life keeping the arena and even business out of my . peristilium, and I myself had brought it in with my own hands. How I longed for the pain of that burning rod against my belly when lessons were so easy.

  On the day of his birthday, the tonsor cut Petronius' beard. I gave the tonsor a gold coin, which would bring his peculium almost to the point of his freedom. The welts were gone from Petronius' cheeks, for I had been careful not to break bone or skin but only sting. The tonsor gave me the beard in a silver bowl, and I gave the bowl to Lucius Aurelius Cotta, the silver-haired patriarch of the Aurelii who had honoured my house for this ceremony. Miriamne did not attend, which I had allowed as her right. She disapproved of Roman gods, belonging to Christians who constantly called upon her to interfere in our family life, especially with Petronius. Varro was there. Publius of course was not.

  Galbas and Tullius had met my son in the atrium early that morning as I received retainers. With Petronius at my side, they offered gifts of gold and silver and prophesied great activities for Petronius' loins. He delivered well his spoken gratitude, each sentence as though he were born patrician and already in the senate place he would have from me.

  In the atrium, the emperor's emissary said that the divine Domitian would have come himself but for the great burdens of state. He delivered three gold swords to Petronius, who swore, in an excellent memorized speech, his loyalty to his emperor who was Rome, indivisible one from another, each but a word for the other. The emissary smiled, amazed that so young a child could be so proficient in oratory. And I was truly proud, even though Petronius had no smiles for me. But I had many for him.

  The emissary had other words, quiet and private for me. Domitian was worried. These were his personal games, and now the Vatican arena seemed too large for a single combat even with the other shows.

  ‘I told you to tell him that,’ I said.

  Petronius had taken his gold swords back in the house to an accounts clerk who would store them for an occasion on which they might honour the emperor in return.

  ‘I spoke to him of what you told me. We have had a good riot and we need the big arena. But this is too big,' he said. His words were hushed, as were mine, but each word was shot like stones from ballistae.

  'It was not I who lured Publius into that arena.'

  'Domitian is worried about what Publius will wear!'

  ‘So am I.'

  'So you agree with Domitian ?'

  'Absolutely. We are going to have real problems getting a good fight out of him in that heavy officer's armour.’ 'Canyou talk to him?' 'No. I thought Domitian would.'

  ‘I have. Publius insists upon dying his own way. He says he may not have lived well, but he's going to die well.'

  'Oh, gods, and he's not even drinking,' I said, raising my hands in supplication to the ceiling.

  'Can you help him die well ? If he dies well, it can work.'

  'He won't stop being Publius to die.'

  'You might disembowel him.'

  Through a breastplate ? No one would see it’

  'Can you dismember him ?'

  'Maybe, but my spatha is made for fighting, not butchering. It's a thrust, not a slash.' Take a short sword.' 'Why not a feather?' Take a short sword auxiliary.’ it bangs, and it's clumsy. It ruins my style.' 'What are we going to do ?' ‘I will do something.’ 'What.'

  'Whatever I can do, and whatever Publius will help me do.’

  'In passing.. .’ said the emissary. 'How much ?' I asked

  ‘Ten million sesterces.’

  ‘Never.'

  'You're getting publicly freed from the arena. You are getting a senate seat, and not only were you not born an equestrian, you have been a slave. And, Eugeni, you have made an immense, immense fortune under the benign rule of our divine Domitian.'

  'He's getting this show free from me.'

  'He needs money to make sure this is a good show.'

  Ten million would never reach the arena sands. Except with hundreds of pairs of gladiators and perhaps new animals, I rarely see more than five million.'

  ‘Not enough.'

  'I h
ave not said five million. I am not as wealthy as the great imagination of Rome has me. You have seen my retainers, their great length, their big appetites, their loathing of a day's work. Yes, much money has come to me. I watch it go by. I am a conduit, not a container.'

  'Seven million.'

  'Five.'

  'Six.'

  'Done, and my love and loyalty to divine Domitian.’ 'He has the wooden sword.'

  'Much more costly than three gold ones,' I said, and the emissary smiled and said he would relay what I had said, for Domitian had a good sense of humour besides a great sense of justice.

  I personally gave the emissary gold worth fifteen thousand sesterces, but in the coin of aureus. This was to assure Domitian's laughing at my jokes for his benefit, the money being for the emissary's judicious thoughts and words.

  Thus were the morning preparations before Petronius watched the first shavings of his face go up in flames before the bust of Mars.

  We endured Lucius Aurelius Cotta's sonorous account of his great family, to which we belonged. His patrician stripe was so wide and so bright a purple I could not help eyeing it, until I caught Petronius' sullen stare. Cotta went through the names of the great Aurelii, mentioning the consul in the distant past, when the republic was more a republic and not as it was today. He knew no tongue was free with Domitian's spies so prevalent, but he implied he did not like the strength of the patrician class diminished by the growing, almost complete, rule of the emperor.

  For me, of course, I felt the opposite. I never could have become an equestrian in the old days of the republic and even to dream of Petronius wearing a patrician stripe would then have been folly. It was a time before Rome was the empire of the world, before the great numbers of slaves and before even the games themselves, centuries and centuries before. And I wondered if my family would last centuries and what my descendants would feel to know they had the ages behind them.