by Simon Turney
It was too much.
There were rumbles in the senate constantly. Any other time, I would have warned Commodus, urged him to release the tension in the cable, make peace with the senate, slow his changes, but I could not do so now. I had to watch as he took umbrage at the senate’s dissent and instead of stitching closed the wound, opened it ever wider. A new slogan began to appear in Rome, one that had no other purpose than to offend those same senators.
Coins. Statues. Inscriptions. Especially in the forum, near the senate house.
Populus Senatuseque Romanus.
What a challenge. ‘For the People and the Senate of Rome’. Openly, blatantly, the emperor had put the people above their ancient senate. A guaranteed move to create love and devotion among the people, and the soldiery and the equites were content enough, but to the senate it was the ultimate insult. And that affront was compounded by new taxes levelled solely at the rich, refilling the imperial coffers at their expense. The people watched their grand entertainments, satisfied in the knowledge that they were being paid for by those sour old oligarchs.
The divided opinion of the different classes was clearest around the colossus by the amphitheatre. There, flowers and offerings were left daily by the public on the grand pedestal, for now that grand bronze figure bore the beard and accoutrements of Hercules and Commodus, the great club and a lion at its feet. The emperor’s many titles were listed on the base, along with the new addition: ‘Champion of Secutors’, as though that were some kind of imperial title. And slogans were scratched on the stone. Herculi Commodiano. He was, if anything, more beloved than ever of the people of the new city of Colonia Commodiana.
But those who still thought of it as Rome – the old blood and the old money who sat impotent in the curia, dreaming of the days they had made a difference – refused to look up at that colossus as they passed.
Not that they passed it often. The majority of those who came near the great statue were heading to or from the amphitheatre, and the senators rarely attended games now. For some of the more impressive events over the summer, the closest tier of seating to the action in the amphitheatre stood largely empty, for it was reserved for the Roman elite and, of that class, only the emperor and his consilium now attended. Then, towards the end of summer, the senatorial seating rule was abolished altogether and the equites moved forward, filling the best seats in the venue. Another dagger in the back of the senate’s supremacy, not that they hadn’t invited that one.
Once, ten years ago, a young man had tried to put a blade in Commodus in these very stands. He had claimed to be acting on behalf of the senate, though the plot was in truth limited to the emperor’s sister and her cronies. Now, the situation had changed. Now, I half expected to see a similar blade appear, truly on behalf of that order.
Indeed, Senator Clarus had begun making speeches in the curia openly disparaging the emperor’s treatment of their order and his lavish gifts to the lower class. His words carried weight among the powerful, and the seething resentment of their entire class was almost tangible. Falco, another outspoken aristocrat, began to harangue the populace, telling them that they were devoting too much praise to Hercules and that the other gods would become angry. I worried about the effects these men were having, though I had my own troubles at that time.
The emperor ignored the danger of the senate, for the common people loved him. Commodus rode high on a wave of popularity, and he bathed in it.
All I could do was encourage it, when every fibre in my body screamed at me to suppress this grandiosity before it triggered something dreadful. He never asked my advice, and I could not give it anyway. He stopped coming to my bed, sleeping in a different apartment in the palace. We even sat apart in public. Slowly, I came to accept that I needed to do more than simply be supportive and accepting. But what? Without being accused of trying to control him again, how could I hope to win him over?
I had started attending the races and the games again. I had to. If I ever wanted Commodus back, I had to always be there for him, and never pushing, and while I worked out how best to win him, I had to continue being the woman he wanted. So I watched him race chariots around the circus as though he were a low-born sportsman, enjoying the extreme danger. In fairness, he was very good at it. Had he been born in another life, he would have made a champion driver. But still, such low and perilous entertainment was not the place for an emperor, and even I agreed with the senate on that. I watched him hunt beasts – all manner of great animals imported from across the empire – in the arena with the venators. Huge grey things with a horn on their heads that gored a dozen men before they fell, yet Commodus was there, among them. Lions. Panthers. Bears. Wolves. He faced them all with his low-born and enslaved companions. Even the equites now were beginning to feel uncomfortable with such displays, for all the general populace cheered him on. I watched it all. And when Commodus sat in the pulvinar with me, he was never truly with me. Our seats had been separated, and Praetorians filled the gap between us.
The message was clear. I tried endlessly to close that gulf between us, to play the perfect wife, but it was having little effect. I began to fear that the shades of Cleander and Bruttia had ruined us for good and, try as I might, I could not see the way to improve matters.
Summer rolled into autumn, and autumn gave way to winter, all with continued grandness and dangerous exploits that thrilled the public and offended the senate. All that time I sat with the emperor and yet I sat alone. Even when he deigned to look at me, there was a horrible mix of disappointment and mistrust in his eyes. Nothing I could do changed that look.
The disaffection of the senate continued to grow. Those stuffy old men made certain to use the old months, refused to acknowledge that their city was anything other than Rome, refused to accept Hercules as a god, or anything other than a Greek hero. They came a hair’s breadth from openly insulting the emperor and I could see Commodus seething about it – or, at least at the time, I thought that was what it was. Worse still, there was a rash of vandalism, with Herculean statues defaced, their inscriptions scratched out. Even the new inscription on the base of the colossus was chiselled away one night.
Soon, things would come to a head with the senate, and I thanked God that at least it would be tolerant Commodus that would deal with it, and not the vile Cleander or strict Perennis, though it was hard to ignore the fact that this Commodus was the one that Cleander had created, not I.
November came – now the month of Invictus – and brought with it the Plebeian Games. Unlike the majority of the festivals of Rome, which had been instigated by the nobles with the aim of pleasing Rome’s various social strata in order of precedence, the Ludi Plebeii had been created by the plebeian aediles in the distant past purely for the lower classes, perhaps in answer to the grand designs of their betters. The festival had, over the years, grown into an annual event that even the higher classes enjoyed, for it was a grand celebration. Over fourteen days of that month there were athletic contests, races and fights, spectacles and plays.
Commodus, of course, paid particular attention to the Plebeian Games. Their very nature suited him, for he was a man of the people and eschewed that same aristocratic order that the games had been created to snub. The senators’ money was yet again drained into the imperial coffers and thrown at events to please the plebs.
I was at the Circus Flaminius for the opening event of the games. The venue was considerably smaller than the great Circus Maximus, and was used for foot and horse races rather than chariots. Over the centuries, it had been encroached upon by the city’s blocks such that now, when events were held and temporary wooden seating stands created, they backed directly onto other buildings. I sat on my wooden seat with a thick purple cushion, while on the other side of a couple of expressionless guards sat Commodus, bathing in the vocal adulation of the crowd.
For this first special day of the festival, he had gone a step further tha
n usual. Though he still wore his Greek white and gold chiton, now he had a lion’s pelt around his shoulders as some sort of cloak and a huge club rested beside his chair. Hercules himself had come to the games.
There was a procession of priests and lower-class notables, musicians and dancers, and then, after a short but impressive speech from the emperor, the games began.
I watched thirty horse races in the space of two hours. Never had I seen so many horses. The prizes alone must have bled the vaults of the Temple of Saturn dry. Golden wreaths and chests of coin, parcels of land and property across Italia. Men became rich that day. One racer, I heard, went from being a freedman with a talent for racing to being a knight of Rome in the space of an hour, for he had won sufficient land and coin to qualify him for that honour.
And as if the lavishness of that opening event was not enough, Commodus then gave a signal as the last prize was dished out, and his men appeared in strategic positions all around the circus and proceeded to throw purses of coins into the crowd at random. I wept inside for the fact that I knew he was going too far and I was utterly helpless, unable to stop it.
There was a break, then, for a noon meal and for the people to recover and then settle on any further events they wished to attend, for there were two or three venues in use at all times over the fourteen days, such was the volume of gold thrown at the games.
Much to my relief, Commodus rode in only one chariot race that festival, though it was the first and the most important. I heard afterwards that folk came from as far afield as Africa and Hispania to watch the emperor race that day. He drove for the Greens, and managed to achieve a respectable third place.
Respectable. As if an emperor racing at the circus could ever be such a thing.
I sat and watched the race. I cheered enthusiastically while dying inside a little. I waited until Commodus had bathed, changed, had a couple of abrasions and cuts dealt with and then joined me in the pulvinar. I congratulated him on his good place in the race. He acknowledged me with just a faint nod, but with that nod came something unexpected.
A smile.
It had been more than half a year since he had smiled at me. I had been convinced that my role as good, supportive little Marcia was not enough and I would have to do more. I had begun to think his shell of distrust unbreakable. But with that upturn of the mouth came hope. Perhaps the gap between us could be bridged after all.
That night I thanked God and made promises that no good Christian should ever have had to make in the first place. To be faithful and loyal. Not to seek the death of my countrymen, whether they be friends or enemies. Not to poison or curse or betray. All things I had done in my time, but I would be a new woman. I would be a good woman. And, in being so, perhaps once again I would be his woman.
I half hoped he would come to me that night, though in truth I did not expect such a change so swiftly. I promised myself that, since it seemed I did not need to find a new path to healing, I would not only continue my campaign of support, but would even build upon it. I took a chance. It was perhaps ill-advised, and I’m sure my reputation suffered, but I was becoming desperate to repair the breach. Perhaps I was even becoming as manic as he, in my own slightly more staid way. I certainly worried that I was going too far, just as my love was now wont to do.
The first day of games in the amphitheatre that he attended, which was the third day of the festival, he emerged from the imperial apartments once more dressed as Hercules, that great club over his shoulder. There was a purpose to his mode of dress today, for I knew at least something of what he had planned. Commodus stepped out into the cold garden, followed by Eclectus with his now common frown of disapproval, and a dozen Praetorians and gladiator guards. And he saw me.
His smile told me I had done something good.
I had deliberated for some time in the small hours over what to do, and when I had settled on a course and sent out my slaves to find everything I needed, I then deliberated on whether it was a good idea. I had made vows to be a good woman, and not to manipulate or control, yet in essence what I was doing, currying favour this way, was dangerously close to doing just that.
I shivered in the chilly late autumn air, for I was clad in the garb of the ancient warrior woman I had been in that statue, Greek-style dress, hair held back with a circlet, bow over my shoulder and quiver at my side. I drew the line at exposing a breast, but still my appearance was clear. My identity obvious.
‘An Amazon?’ He smiled appreciatively. ‘Will your god not punish you?’
It sounded harsh, but it was said with the inflection of a friendly jibe, and I smiled back.
‘For your great day, I’m sure I shall be forgiven.’
We left for the Flavian amphitheatre together. We rode in the same carriage for the first time in half a year, a clear sign that what I was doing was working and that the wound was slowly closing and healing. We arrived at the arena, though not in a grand display for the public as I had expected. We arrived in all but secret, making our way into the dark halls of that great structure unseen by the people of Colonia Commodiana. We parted ways there, in those shadowy corridors, and I was escorted to my seat. Somehow, the knowledge that the emperor and his mistress were close once more had gone ahead of us. Our seats were together, though his remained empty.
I watched with the rest of the people as the day’s games began.
The opening parade was grander than usual, which in itself was no surprise to any of us, given Commodus’ love of ostentatious display. We watched, the crowd hungry and cheering, as the gladiators, the musicians, dancers, jugglers, everyone they expected, entered through the Gate of Life and circled to the adulation of the crowd, then returned to the darkness of the working area beneath the stands. Then came the Vestals and the priests, reverent and stately, making their way to their seats. At other times, the senate would be with them, but the paltry handful of toga-clad hopefuls that attended were hardly deserving of such a grand appellation. Only two of the more important luminaries of that ancient body attended, and Clarus and Falco would only have deigned to do so because they had been selected as next year’s consuls and they would want the people to see them. The public didn’t really care about the senate or the consuls, though. They cheered the priests and priestesses, and then the senior officers and prefects as they made their way into the stands.
A hush fell. This was when the emperor traditionally put in his appearance, entering the pulvinar and bowing to the roar of the spectators, possibly throwing a few gifts into the crowd. The silence dragged out. The emperor did not come.
Suddenly there was a creak, and a door below the lowest row of the seating opened, leading out onto a wooden walkway that ran around the entire circuit of the arena, marked out at points around the circumference with stacks of javelins and pots of glowing fire. A grand fanfare played high in the stands, and the crowd, confused, looked back and forth between the imperial box where they anticipated the arrival of Commodus and the small door where action seemed more imminent.
Hercules entered the amphitheatre through that small door.
Commodus was clad in the demigod’s garb, though he had discarded his club, which was being carried uncomfortably by one of the lictors who emerged after him. Instead, he bore a bow and a quiver. This was still Hercules, though. This was the Hercules who had shot the Nemean lion, the Hercules who had slain the Lernaean Hydra with flaming arrows . . . the reason for the burning bowls of pitch I had noted all around the edge of the arena suddenly became clear.
Commodus threw out his arms in triumph and the crowd roared. He jogged around the entire circuit of the place, arms raised, bow in hand, drinking in the praise of the crowd. It was an impressive entrance, I had to admit. The senators would hate it, but the people could imagine nothing better.
The emperor completed his circuit and stood, powerful and impressive, above the sand of the arena proper on his timber walkway
, as the crowd continued to roar, so loud and approving that they even drowned out the fanfare that accompanied the arrival of the sacrifice.
A white bull was led across the sand to the altar that had been reverentially placed at the centre, and where the few priests who were not seated in the stands stood waiting for their part in proceedings. The bull was sacrificed in the traditional manner and the invocations and offerings made to Jupiter. Half the crowd followed the ceremony, the rest still watching their golden emperor, half expecting some strange activity to occur. Commodus, though, waited respectfully for the rituals to end, for the altar and the carcass to be removed, for the priests to leave in silent procession and even for the slaves to rake the beast’s blood into the sand.
Finally, the show was ready to begin. Traditionally, the beast hunts are the first event, and the crowd rumbled in anticipation as more slaves emerged onto the sand with wooden hoardings that they proceeded to use to divide the arena into four parts. It took perhaps a quarter of an hour to make everything ready, then the slaves vanished again, leaving the oval quartered and an expectant crowd. Finally, the animals were released. A bear into one section, a lion in another, a leopard in the third and a wolf into the last. The crowd fell into a hush, which was filled with the varied sounds of the vicious beasts prowling in their enclosures. The emperor gave an almost imperceptible nod, which was picked up by some unseen functionary. Leaning his bow against the rail, he moved from foot to foot, limbering up, preparing for his show.
