A dippy dog called Anethum, the property of Thalia, did his best to cheer me up that spring. He was a big, warm, floppy old thing who rolled the whites of his eyes manically, and who had been trained to act in pantomimes. He could play dead. A useful trick for anyone.
Anethum was making his debut as a warm-up act at the Megalesian Games in honour of Cybele. These are a welcome highlight, starting off the theatre season in April when the weather improves, and are preceded by a drawn-out series of dauntingly peculiar Phrygian rites. As usual the whole business had started back in the middle of
March with a procession of persons bearing reeds, which are sacred to Attis, the Great Mother's beloved, whom she apparently first discovered lurking in a bed of bullrushes. (A perfectly understandable act if he had any inkling that his future role was to castrate himself with a potsherd while in a crazed frenzy.)
A week later the Sacred Pine tree of Attis, cut at the dead of night, had been borne to the Temple of Cybele on the Palatine and hung up with wool and with violet crowns while the blood of sacrificial animals was splashed about. If you have a sacred pine tree, obviously you like it treated with reverence. This was followed by a street procession of the Priests of Mars, who leapt about vigorously to the accompaniment of sacred trumpets, causing a few stares in our sober city even though they did it every year.
Then, in honour of the wounds Attis inflicted on himself; the chief priest of the cult ritually slashed his own arm with a knife; given the very specific nature of what Attis had endured, the fact it was only the priest's arm had always caused me great amusement. At the same time, a wild dance was being enacted around the Sacred Pine tree; to keep up his spirits the chief priest flagellated himself and his fellows with a whip hung with knucklebones; the priests' mutilations were later turned into permanent tattoos as a sign of their dedication. There were screams and yells from devotees, faint from fasting and hysterical from the dance.
More bloody rites and solemn liturgies occurred for those who still had the stamina, followed by a day of formal rejoicing and the real start of the great festival. The reward for lasting out the blood and violence was a general carnival" Citizens of all ranks donned improbable masks and disguises. Thus freed from being recognised, they indulged in improbable behaviour too" Shocking. The priests of the cult, who were norn1alIy confined to their enclosure on the Palatine on the grounds that they were foreign and frenzied, were now let out for an annual bash. Flutes, drums and trumpets pounded out strange eastern music with unnerving rhythms as they whirled through the streets. The sacred image of the goddess, a silver statue, its head mystically represented by a great black stone from Pessinus, was taken to the Tiber and washed. The sacrificial implements were also cleaned up, then transported home in showers of rose petals.
Alongside the processional elements ran a secret women's orgy, famous for positively Bacchic scenes. Women who ought to know better tried to revive the old traditions, though in the new Flavian mood of respectability they were on to a loser there. “I can assure you,” Helena assured me gravely, “after the doors are closed to men, all that really happens is mint tea and gossip.” She then claimed that the rumours of frenetic debauchery were just a confidence trick to cause worry to the male sex, and I believed her, of course.
The Games started three days after the Kalends of April. Once again a procession bore the sacred image through the streets in a chariot, with the priests of the cult singing Greek hymns and collecting coins from the populace. (Always a useful way for people to dispose of out-of-date and foreign small change.) The chief priest took a prominent role; he was supposed to be a eunuch, a fact borne out by his wearing a purple frock, a veil, long hair under an exotic eastern turban with a peaked top and ear lappets, necklaces, and a portrait of the goddess on his breast, while carrying a basket of fruit to symbolise abundance, plus a bundle of cymbals and flutes. Conch shells boomed alarmingly. It ought to be terribly exotic, a grim cult that should probably be expelled from the city, but for those who wanted to believe that Trojan Aeneas had founded Rome, then Mount Ida was where Aeneas hewed the wood for his ships and the Great ldaean Mother was the mythical mother of our race; Cybele was here to stay. You could see it as a lot more respectable than us all being descended from a pair of murderous twins who had been fostered by a she-wolf.
Once the Games started, we endured several days of earnest drama in the theatres. Then the chariot races took place in the Circus Maximus, with the statue of Cybele enthroned on the spina beside the central obelisk. She had been carried there in the solemn entry procession on a litter placed in a chariot drawn by tame lions. That had depressed me, remembering Leonidas.
By the time of the races I was in an oddly detached mood. The exotic rituals of the Megalesis had reinforced it. Normally one to avoid such festivals, I found myself taking part in the public gawping, yet in a grey spirit. This was Rome. Alongside the archaic mysteries of religion, other more sinister traditions still flourished: unfair patronage, grinding establishment snobbery, and the harsh cult of blighting the aspirations of the little man. Nothing would change.
It was with relief that we had reached the races and gladiatorial displays. That first ceremonial start, with the president of the Games clad in triumphal uniform as he led in the participants through the main gate of the Circus Maximus was always more vital than any of the succeeding summer shows. It heralded a new dawn. Winter was over. The procession trod on a carpet of spring flowers. The open-roofed theatres and circuses would hum with life again. The streets would abound with life by day and night" Competitive arguments would dominate public discussion. The ancillary trades-snack-sellers, betting touts, prostitutes-would flourish. And there was always a chance that the Blues would drive the Greens off the racetrack and come in victorious.
In fact the one bright spot in my life that April was that my team coasted home. It always carried the secondary benefit that any discomfiture of their archrivals the Greens upset my brother-in-law Famia. That spring the Greens were fielding lousy teams; even the big Cappadocian greys of whom Famia had boasted to me so outrageously on the day the leopardess escaped were actually shipwrecked first time out. In between drowning his sorrows, Famia kept trying to persuade his faction to adopt a radical new purchase strategy, while the Blue teams thundered past them time and again and I enjoyed myself sniggering"
Work was slack. The Census assessments were tailing off, as they had been bound to. To help him forget how Laeta had cruelly axed his sick-pay, Anacrites busied himself tidying up final reports that were already satisfactory; I left him to grumble and tinker. Instead, one fine, bright day when most of Rome was feeling optimistic, I had volunteered to help Thalia present her wonderdog in his first public acting role. It was, of course, unthinkable for a respectable citizen to appear in a stage performance. But I felt gloomy and obstreperous; breaking the rules suited me just fine. I only pushed it to the limit: all I had to do was look after the dog when he was off-stage.
The pantomime was at the Theatre of Marcellus. It took place at the end of the morning, just before everyone transferred to the Circus Maximus for the races and gladiatorial displays which would happen after lunch. This was a temporary measure: the great stone Amphitheatre of Statilius Taurus where gladiators used to perform had been destroyed in Nero's Great Fire ten years ago. The flamboyant new Flavian creation at the end of the Forum had been designated its formal replacement, but while that was being built the Circus Max stood in. Being the wrong shape, it was not entirely successful, so today we had an extra few hours of theatricals.
A lively programme had been advertised for later in the afternoon at the Circus: gladiators, a fom1al venatio, and to start with an execution of prisoners. One of them, finally, was to be the mass murderer Thurius.
Thurius, in whom I had such an interest, would be despatched by a new trained lion, the property of an importer called Hannobalus who had a curious history: although he was wealthier than anyone else Anacrites and I had investigated, we had been forced to conclude that this man's Census declaration was unimpeachable.
He came from Sabratha, but was otherwise a mystery man. As far as we were ever able to tell, he had told the Censors nothing but the truth-with an insolence that seemed to say he was doing so well in his business that deception was beneath him. We never met him; there was nothing in his accounts to make us demand an interview.
He seemed to have a complete contempt for cheating-or as Saturninus, Calliopus and all our other subjects for study would call it, the finer points of accountancy" This man had paid an enormous tax bill as casually as if it were a snack-bar tab for two rissoles. His lion was reckoned to be first-rate too.
With my mind on the execution, it was hard to give Thalia's trained dog his due. However, we had planned that if he was a success I would turn the event to my advantage, so I had to concentrate. It was a comedy with a large cast of characters, its frenetic scenes accompanied by Thalia's circus orchestra-a fine ensemble which included the strenuous tones of long trumpets, circular horns, and Sophrona the sweetly pretty water-organist. As the organ boomed a throbbing crescendo the dog trotted out, with his coat burnished and his tail up. Pretty quickly the audience allowed themselves to be won over by Anethum's appealing personality. He was a charmer, and he knew it" Like every playboy since antiquity, he was utterly brazen; the crowd knew they ought to have seen through him, but they let him get away with it.
At first the dog was merely required to pay attention to the action and behave appropriately. His reactions were good-especially since the ludicrous plot was so hard to follow most people just looked around for drink-sellers. At one point, for reasons I didn't tax myself with, one of the clowns on stage decided to do away with an enemy and supposedly poisoned a loaf: Anethum ate the bread, swallowing it down greedily. He then appeared to shiver, stagger, and nod drowsily as if drugged; finally he collapsed on the ground.
Playing dead, the dog was dragged about and hauled to and fro. When he continued to lie prone, however roughly he was towed across the stage, it looked as if he might really have been killed-a lousy sacrifice to popular taste in drama. Then, on cue, he slowly roused himself shaking his great head as if waking from a deep, dream filled sleep. He looked around, and then ran to the right actor, on whom he fawned with doggy joy.
He was such a good performer, his revival had an eerie quality. People were strangely moved. This included the president of the Games. As Thalia and I had known, today's president was not some half-baked praetor but, resplendent in a palm-embroidered triumphal robe, the Emperor himself: When the play ended (a relief all round, frankly), word came down for the dog's trainer to attend on Vespasian.
Thalia bounded out followed by me on the end of Anethum's lead.
“New career, Falco?” As soon as Vespasian spoke, I knew I would get nowhere. Straightening up after parring the wonderdog, the old man gave me one of his long cool stares. His broad forehead creased characteristically into a frown.
“At least dog-walking has the benefits of fresh air and exercise-that's better than working for the Censors, sir.”
As they queued to leave the theatre prior to walking around to the Circus, the crowd was making a lot of noise. Nobody was interested in what passed between the Emperor and mere proponents of a speciality act. My hope of achieving a decent life was being destroyed here, yet it attracted little public notice-and even less sympathy from Vespasian himself:
“Problem? Why can't you send in a petition decently?”
“I know what happens to petitions, sir.” Vespasian must be aware how they were deflected by the very clerks who were thwarting me. He knew all about the Palace secretariats. But he also had no truck with people insulting his staff: I could see Claudius Laeta lurking among the retinue. The urbane bastard was in his best toga, and unconcernedly chomping a packet of dates. He ignored me.
Vespasian sighed. “What's your gripe, Falco?”
“A difference over fees'“
“Sort it out with the bureau who commissioned you.”
The Emperor turned away. He only paused to signal a slave to bring Thalia a bulging purse in reward for her trained dog's charm and cleverness. Turning back again to salute her as she curtsied, Vespasian blinked a bit at the flutterings of her indecent skirts, then inadvertently caught my eye. He looked as though he was growling under his breath.
I said in a low voice, “Helena Justina and I would like to offer our sympathies on your great loss, sir.”
I reckoned if Antonia Caenis had ever discussed my case, he would remember what she had said" I left it at that. This was how it had to be: I had made one last throw, and I would not try to pressurise him any more. That would spare him embarrassment. And it would spare me losing my temper in front of the sneering imperial retinue"
Thanking Thalia, I strode off to the Circus Maximus where I joined Helena at our seats in the upper terraces. Down below, they were already carrying in the placards which recorded the appalling deeds of the men who were to be executed. All around the stadium slaves were sweeping the sand smooth ready for the lions and criminals. Attendants were placing veils on the statues, lest the divine effigies be offended by the convicts' shame and the ghastly sights to come. The stakes to which the condemned criminals would be tied had been hammered into place.
The convicts themselves had been dragged in, chained together by the neck. They were huddled near an entrance, being stripped naked by an armour-clad warder. Surly deserters from the army, spindly slaves caught in flagrante with their noble mistresses, and a notorious mass murderer: a good haul today" I did not try to identify Thurius' Soon he and the rest would be dragged out and tied to their stakes; then the beasts, whom we could already hear roaring outside, would be loosed to do their work.
Helena Justina was waiting for me, pale and straighbacked. I knew she had come today because of my personal need to see Thurius die; she saw it as her duly to accompany me, though I had not asked her to do it" We shared our significant events. Supporting me, even when she loathed what was about to happen, was a task from which Helena would not flinch" She would hold my hand-and close her eyes.
Suddenly I was overcome by all the frustrations that had darkened my life for so long. I jerked my head. “Come on.”
“Marcus?”
“We're going home"“
The trumpets were sounding to announce the gluttony of death. Thurius was being dragged out now to be eaten by the big new Sabrathan lion but we would not be watching the spectacle. Helena and I were leaving the Circus. And then we were leaving Rome.
Part 2
Cyrenaica: April AD74