by Ken Parejko
The cena libra was in full swing, the men half-drunkenly devouring plate after plate of meat and fish, coming or going from the back-room with naked women or luscious boys in tow when the door into the hall suddenly swung open. The first into the room was a legionary, fully armored, who demanded silence. When the room had quieted two other men came in, small and vulnerable beside the swaggering soldier. One Umbricius recognized as the munera, who’d financed the games, a wealthy businessman from Herculaneum, guest once or twice at his father’s house. The munera’s glance toward Umbricius dripped scorn and bitterness. Alongside him stood the editor, who coordinated the games.
“I hope you’re enjoying yourselves,” the editor announced. “ Thanks to our good friend here,” he put his hand on the munera’s shoulder, “we’ve emptied our purses for you. How’s the wine? It’s Falernian!” The men cheered and applauded. The editor smiled ironically. “I don’t need to tell you that for some of you, it’ll be your last. All we ask is a good show. As you know, the emperor and his son will be in attendance. As to who lives, who dies, that’ll be up to them, not me. But I’ll be sitting alongside them and I’ll put in a good word for anyone who fights well enough to deserve life, and perhaps even freedom.”
He turned towards Umbricius. “As you all know, we have a special guest among us,” he said. “A young man who’s tired of life, taken his oath, and followed through with his training, and from what I hear, quite impressively. Tomorrow we’ll see what he can do. Let’s drink to him.”
The men raised their cups, drained a toast, then shouted support to Umbricius. “We’ve got a small surprise for all of you, though especially for Umbricius,” the editor announced. The legionary alongside him left for a moment. “It’s an honor, you know, to be invited to fight at the dedication ceremony of the arena. So we’ve got a special present for the emperor and the spectators, who I’m sure won’t forget the show you provide them. We’ve scoured the empire’s arenas to find an opponent worthy of our good friend Umbricius. I’ll leave it up to you to decide how well we’ve done!”
The door behind the editor opened and through it stepped a gladiator outfitted as a murmillo, heavily armored. The room became suddenly silent. As he stepped forward his leg-wrappings hissed like a serpent’s tongue. The men fell back around him. He stood in the center of the hall, turned and raised his gladius defiantly. He set the gladius down and lifted the fish-like helmet from his head.
A thick silence followed, then a gasp as men leaned over and whispered to one another.
“We present Faustus Lucinius,” the editor shouted, “direct from the arena of Capua.”
A loud shout went up from the men. It was a great honor to share the ticket with Faustus Lucinius, a Gaul who’d been on the wrong side of a minor rebellion in Lugdunum and chosen the arena over prison. In one victory after another he’d made a name for himself north of the Alps. Eventually he was brought down to face Rome’s finest. He’d already survived more than three years’ fights, an almost-record tenure. His style of combat -- his latest moves, feints, his incredible strength and speed -- were the talk of the empire. He’d become almost as well-known as Petraites, who’d fought a generation ago to the adulation of common-folk and Nero himself, before retiring a wealthy man. In time editors had to search far and wide to find worthy opponents for both. That he was still alive and fighting showed that the best the empire had to offer wasn’t good enough for this Faustus Lucinius.
Umbricius’ heart froze. So, he thought, this is how much they hate me.
Faustus, helmet under his arm, came through the crowd towards Umbricius. He reached out, put a hand on Umbricius’ shoulder, and smiled. The men applauded, and awaited Umbricius’ reaction.
Umbricius carefully lifted Faustus’ hand off his shoulder then spat in his opponent’s face. Faustus wiped the spittle off his cheek, took a bronze wine-cup from someone standing nearby, emptied it, then with one hand bent the cup into an unrecognizable ball of metal which he dropped at Umbricius’ feet. He turned, retrieved his weapons, and left. For the rest of the evening his companions treated Umbricius differently. While though the next day they would fight for their lives, at least for them the outcomes of their contests were as yet undecided.
It was time for them, now, the day’s last fight. The sun had slipped low in the western sky, sliding towards the Bay. The sand was already drenched with the mingled blood of humans and animals, here and there in deep slippery pools, alongside scattered guts and manure around which little clouds of flies had gathered. To the sound of a short fanfare Umbricius entered the arena from the west, Faustus from the east. The crowd fell silent. Umbricius ran anxiously to the arena’s center; his opponent came more languorously, as though already bored. The sound of his sandals on the sand and the whisper of his armor were for the moment the only sound filling the afternoon air.
Though the shadow cast off the high walls of the amphitheater covered much of the arena, at its center, where the two men stopped to face the imperial box, the sun’s heat was still powerful. The crowd, sated somewhat from the day's games, were recharged by the entrance of the famous Faustus Lucinius. Their excitement, carried by their loud cheers and wild applause, was palpable even on the sandy floor of the arena. As he looked up at them, Umbricius felt the high tiers of seats rising like thick walls which barred all chance of escape. Two had walked in, and only one would walk out, a certainty from which he could find no escape.
As the two turned to face one another the rest of the world fell away: the grandiose spectacle, the dual emperors’ presence, the procurators and governors from as far away as Africa, Syria and Egypt, the flags, banners, trumpets and color-guards, the cheering crowd come from up and down the Bay. As they began their clanging battle-dance, Umbricius and Lucinius were for these few moments the focus of complete attention, and the rest of the world didn’t matter and scarcely even existed.
Umbricius approached his opponent first and lunged at him with his trident. Faustus slipped adroitly aside, and the crowd roared. Umbricius charged again. This time Faustus grabbed the trident as it came at him and in one easy motion tore it from Umbricius’ hands. He held it up to the crowd, which roared again, then handed it back to an astonished Umbricius, who felt like an animal being played with before the slaughter. But he would not give up. He raised the trident above his shoulder and stabbed with it at Faustus who this time stepped quickly aside and brought his short sword down on Umbricius’ right shoulder. He held back in his stroke; if he'd followed through he would have taken his opponent's arm off. But the blade cut into Umbricius’ scapula, the pain shooting through him and shaking all his senses awake.
He stepped back, his left hand over the bleeding right shoulder. He tried moving his right arm. Though it obeyed he found he could barely force it to lift the trident. He held the net with his left hand, yelled in anger and charged his opponent again. He stabbed ineffectually with the trident and with the other hand threw the net, which unwound itself, and as though in slow motion he stood watching it unwind, like a great spray rising off the sea as it crashes into the shore, then falling, falling, only to land partly on Faustus’ left arm while most of it draped impotently onto the sand. Faustus put a foot down on the net beside him. Umbricius tugged, but finally had to let go as his big, ugly enemy wound the net around his arm and pulled him closer and closer.
Umbricius backpedaled into a pool of gore and manure. His feet slipped out from under him. He fell. Suddenly he was in the sand, the flies which had been drinking the spilt blood now buzzing about him. As he struggled clumsily to lift himself, slipping again in the greasy pool, Faustus turned disdainfully away. This was too easy, insultingly easy. He looked up at the imperial box and the game’s editor. Though his helmet covered his face, a simple complaint seemed to fly from it: You brought me all this way, for this?
Umbricius, now on one knee, looked upward too, imploring the mercy he knew would not come. His glance slipped for an instant to the emperor’s side, and caugh
t mine. In spite of myself I’d gotten caught up in the struggle below. For only a second or two the two of us looked deeply into each others' eyes, and arrived together at the same thought: how unfair it was that the heavy-set older man, physically weak and asthmatic, would enjoy an evening meal and see the sun rise on the morrow, while the strong, healthy young man in the arena would, in but a few brief moments, breath his last. We experienced this thought together, a commonality which broke down the boundaries of our beings and led to a kind of counter-transference. For an instant Umbricius sat comfortably above, staring down at me, while I lay helpless in the sun’s hot glare, death standing self-assuredly above me. For that instant, I fully tasted Umbricius’ loneliness, for though forty-thousand eyes were on me, none would be beside me.
The moment had come. The outcome of the battle was no longer uncertain. With a slip of his feet Umbricius’ life had slipped out of his hands. His heart rebelled within him, unready to accept defeat, yet burdened with the certainty that it would come, and come soon.
Now Umbricius had two opponents to struggle against: the sweating, grunting animal called Faustus Lucinius who came at him with all his brute force, which he knew he could not stand against, which he never had a chance of standing against, and the other his own sense of doom, in which he was now tangled, as though in a net which made his every move all the more futile.
Umbricius’ legs fought against his will. They were tired and weak, but still he managed to pull himself up and for one last time face his opponent. The pain in his right shoulder was like a child crying out for attention, which he was unable to ignore. He could feel the blood running down his side, a small waterfall of blood. His arms were exhausted. The trident, now in his left hand, felt as though it weighed a hundred pounds. He could see the net lying in an impotent tangle behind Faustus, who stood stupidly smiling a taunting smile at him, and who said, in a voice though clotted by the helmet’s visor unmistakable in its intent: “To Hades with you, then, and quickly.”
It had been, by Umbricius’ standards, a good fight, a game played with a terrible seriousness. A master at escapes, his heart found one last strategy. The game was over, he’d lost, and that was that. He was willing to face the facts, and admit defeat.
“You’ve won,” he said to Lucinius. “I give up.”
He dropped the trident. All he asked now was to walk out of the arena, clean up his wounds, go home to his family in Pompeii, where he would rest for a few months before shackling himself to the family business. At last he was ready for that.
“Well fought, my friend. You’ve beat me,” he said, panting and reaching out his hand to declare the deal done and the competition over.
The crowd grew silent. Faustus had seen this before. At the moment of truth, when death hung over them like a hovering cloud, his opponents would seek out any pathway to escape, any last-minute, futile gesture. He raised his gladius and swung at Umbricius, who somehow found the energy to dodge away.
“I said, it’s over! You’ve won. Now stop it,” Umbricius insisted, like a child taunted on the playground..
But Faustus came at him again, swearing now and growling. This was incomprehensible. If he could only convince that stupid animal, more like a raging bull than a man, that the contest was over, he could rest in peace. But the raging bull wouldn’t listen. Now Umbricius was really angry, and if he hadn’t dropped his weapon, and if he could put his right arm back together, or find the strength in his left, he’d give this Faustus Lucinius a good licking, he would.
Well then, if he couldn’t lick him and he couldn’t talk him into quitting, the thing to do was get away.
Umbricius turned and ran to the other side of the arena, a limping, tired run, but good enough to distance him from the obnoxious animal in the ugly fish-shaped helmet.
At this, of course, the crowd rose to its feet in loud disapproval. By running Umbricius was exposing the charade for what it was, and the audience hated him for it. When he signed the sacramentum gladiatorium, he'd agreed to play by the rules, which did not include running from the very death the crowd now roared for.
As Faustus came his way he tried to run again but collapsed instead in exhaustion onto the floor of the arena, his tongue reaching out for water but finding only befouled sand. Now he lay in a moaning heap of humiliation. In spite of himself and every oath he’d taken with himself to fight bravely to the end he’d let them down, and let himself down. His utter abject cowardice surprised himself, and was the bitterest humiliation of all. Not only could he not win, he could not accept defeat. He cowered, fetus-like, in the sand, closed his eyes and called out for his mother.
He heard Faustus approach, the creak of his armor, the crunch of his sandals in the sand. He fought with all his might to keep his eyes closed, but at the last instant they opened, to see his opponents’ feet, an arm-length away, covered with blood, filth and sand. It was not a pretty sight.
Faustus’ sword rose high, and the yell of the crowd, full of invective and insult against Umbricius, rose with it.
I sat unmoved by the uproar of the crowd and the drama in the arena. My mind was elsewhere, had harkened back to the poor caged lion we’d visited earlier that day. I’d long ago recognized, and often praised, the unique strengths of our culture -- its technology, its discipline and simple devotion to itself as a cause. But the ugly scene unfolding itself before me, the poor misguided youth sacrificing himself to the crowd’s lowest instinct, revealed the darker side of my countrymens' character.
I turned to find Plinia, who sat far behind me in the top tier of womens' seats. She too could not watch. The crowd was like a mad dog, foaming at the mouth. Like me, she felt Umbricius’ humiliation and to her, that was enough to redeem him.
I saw her breath deeply and exhale a long breath. The wine in her stomach, and the fruit and bread which were so appetizing just a short time ago lay sour inside her, and the sourness rose into both our throats. The crowd grew suddenly silent, and we heard, against our wills, the bite of the sword in the body, followed by that animal roar of approval as Umbricius’ blood gushed in an unredeeming stream upon these the final sandy shores of his short, fatuous life.
Chapter 19
Rome
July 1, 79
Accession Day, the tenth anniversary of Vespasian’s reign
Vae, puto deus fio.
“I fear I am becoming a god.”
Vespasians’ last words
Vespasian looked himself. A little thinner than you’d expect, maybe, but he seemed to be having a great time working the crowd as emperor, clown, mule dealer and evangelist for a resurgent Rome all rolled into one. At the moment he was striding along, straight and tall, solemn, magisterial, doling out orders to everyone and no one in particular.
“Fix the friggin’ aqueducts, they’re leaking like a stuck pig! Sweep the goddamn streets!. The sewers are stuck with shite!” he shouted. Then, “In Jupiter’s name, the treasury’s empty! You there, tax ‘em when they pee!”
Then, as though tiring of that game he lifted the bottom of his toga and child-like skipped up the street, smiling, waving to the crowd, in full enjoyment of his place at the head of the parade. He stopped, stood for a moment as though disoriented, turned and slipped in beside Titus. He gave his son a big hug then planted a slobbering kiss on his cheek. Domitian he offered a quick peck. He stopped to talk with a little girl waving at him from along the street. She handed him a lily, white-striped with pink. He buried his nose in the bloom, let out a cry of joy, held it to his heart, threw it high in the air then skipped off again.
Close on his heels came the small troupe of dancers we call the sicinni. These dozen men and women, usually seen in pre-game ceremonies at the amphitheater, provided a comic foil.
Their target today was Vespasian. When he spoke loudly and majestically from a place of imperial power they rose on tiptoe, twirled their canes in the air and bellowed like bulls in heat. When he was quiet or sentimental they swept gracefully around, hugged
one another or hung their heads and wept crocodile tears. Vespasian slipped in beside his mistress Pollia, who walked among the women of the family, where we'd have seen Flavilla Domitilla or Caenis were they still alive. He wrapped Pollia in a warm embrace, dragged her out of the line of parade. “Oh, Pollia,” he sighed, “Poor Pollia!” While she giggled with embarrassment beside him he moved with rigid, almost robotic motions. He bent over at the waist as though hinged there and ran his hands over his calves, knees, thighs. “Here, see for yourself. Oh my god!” he complained, holding her hand to his crotch. “I’m getting stiff already!” Like a child, he cried. “Oh, it’s a rigorous mortality, it is. Oh my love,” he said, moving his hips against hers, “I fear I’ve a stiffness even you can’t undo.” The dancers followed as though on cue. Half of them planted themselves in the street straight and tall, their canes projecting satyr-like from between their legs while the other half came slinking round, like whores looking for business, grabbed the canes, squeezed and stroked them.
Vespasian shook his finger disapprovingly. Steering them towards propriety, he shooed the dancers away, took his mistress’ hand, leaned to kiss it, and shouted a mighty “Felicitas!” After all today was also the Kalends of July, the day set aside to honor Juno as Jupiter’s faithful wife. Up and down the street throngs rose on tiptoe, craning their necks to catch every gesture and word, turning to tell those behind what they'd seen. Laughter roiled through them like a wave on the sea.
Vespasian stopped for an instant, drank in the spectacle and the roar of the crowds. The flutes and drums beat martially, the horns blared soulfully, the colorful standards from the far corners of the empire fluttered above brightly-uniformed officers like butterflies around so many flowers; the prancing lines of cavalry, horses shying, shite-flowers blossoming on the street, the many lines of governors, prefects, subprefects, praetorians, consuls, proconsuls, kings and queens. All come for him. He drank it in like a good wine, to the last drop.
