by Albert Noyer
“Claudia’s no Vestal, except in your mind.”
Diotar ignored Virilo’s scoffing comment and sat down. He selected a piece of bread with a delicate gesture, and dipped it into a dish of honey, before asking, “We’ve been associates how long, Galleymaster?”
“About two years. Since you happened on me in Olcinium. My boat was named Aurora back then.”
“And well known to customs officials at Olcinium.”
“That bunch of thieving extortionists.”
“Virilo, spare me your righteousness.” Diotar licked honey off a fleshy index finger. “You put in at that run-down Dalmatian port, instead of Epidamnus, because you found that the maxim, ‘A bribe will enter without knocking,’ was well known to customs inspectors at Olcinium. In fact, their door was always conveniently left open.”
“And the door of that swindling provincial governor at Scodra,” Virilo growled.
“Even with that, costs are less and our profits high. The province of Prevalitana is on the far western edge of the Eastern Empire, barely under the control of Emperor Theodosius. It’s well known that most of the tax officials he sends to Olcinium from Constantinople have a way of being mysteriously swallowed up in the mountain valleys of the interior.”
“Meanwhile, my daughter is pregnant and you still want to take her to that infernal temple?”
“I need her for the rites.” Diotar wondered if Virilo was going to be difficult again. It was reasonable for him to be upset, but the matter with Claudia’s lover was at an end. “The magistrate will declare Atlos’s death to be a particularly gruesome suicide, but he won’t fail to see the irony of the method. The bishop won’t allow Christian burial for an unknown slave who killed himself, but I’ll have Atlos buried in the old pagan necropolis outside the Lawrence Gate.”
“We can’t have palace interrogators coming here to investigate,” Virilo warned.
Suddenly alarmed, Diotar countered, “Why would they come here? The body was found in the heretic’s church.”
“Claudia was with Atlos.”
“The girl is blameless, she has the Sacred Disease. The surgeon will attest to that.” Diotar helped himself to an olive. “The cult of Cybele is growing, Virilo. I’m forced to celebrate the Megalensia elsewhere this year, but I plan on holding the September procession here.”
“In Ravenna?” Virilo gave a dry laugh. “The bishop will have you arrested and exiled.”
Diotar reddened beneath his pale make-up. “You doubt my intelligence, Galleymaster? I realize the last thing palace authorities want is a riot in the streets by Christians, so I’ll get permission to stage one of Rome’s oldest rituals, purely as an historical pageant.”
“What historical pageant?”
“The Megalensia commemorates the arrival of Cybele’s statue in Rome at the time of the Republic,” Diotar told him. “The goddess was credited with the Roman victory over Hannibal in the wars with ancient Carthage.”
“So?”
“So?” Diotar shook his head and exhaled a long breath of frustration. “The Vandals captured Roman Carthage six months ago. Can’t you see the parallel? Our time to act is now.”
Virilo shoved his plate of olive pits aside with a curt thrust. “I still wish my daughter wasn’t involved.”
“Then you wish against Fate,” Diotar retorted. “Your Claudia is the reincarnation of the Vestal, Claudia Quinta, who pulled the barge with Cybele’s statue up the Tiber.”
“Reincarnated only in your pagan mind.”
“Like Christians, the followers of Cybele believe in immortality, an afterlife,” Diotar said evenly, controlling his temper. “We celebrate with a ritual meal. Even atonement through suffering.”
“Castration,” Virilo scoffed, “is hardly a penance the bishop would assign sinners.”
The ArchGallus thought it better to change the subject to the next day’s journey. “Is your galley loaded for the run to Olcinium?”
“The last of Maximin’s pepper will be brought ashore today. His wool bales, oil and wine amphorae will be stowed in the Cybele’s hold by morning.”
“Northwest winds?”
“Probably favorable. Be on board with your novices by the first hour watch.”
Diotar noticed a shaft of sunlight illuminate the tiles in the hallway. It was time to begin the morning ritual. “I must conduct prayers for our safe journey,” he said, wiping his fingers on a damp napkin as he stood. “Will you join me, Galleymaster?”
“You have my daughter for that”—Virilo pushed back his chair—“I need to get to the dock and take care of my own Cybele.”
“A partnership between galley and goddess that works to our mutual benefit.”
Virilo glared at Diotar, but stalked out of the room without further comment.
In his quarters, Diotar selected a pink linen tunic and small gold crown studded with gems. After dressing, he slipped a golden bracelet on his arm, then arranged a long necklace of ivory beads around his neck. As he squinted in a polished silver mirror to finish applying rouge and eye liner, Diotar thought back to his own initiation at Pessinus, in the Asian province of Phrygia.
His uncle, Sebastos, who had conducted the ritual, taught that castration was an entrance into the blessed Nature of beings who were above the world, a method of gaining access to an immortal life where there were neither male nor female genders. He had said that Magna Mater, the Great Mother, was the image of Matter, the recipient of the higher forms of the visible world, but sterile, like the eunuchs who served her. It was all a bit confusing for a ten-year-old, but his uncle had promised that those who broke with the material world would be rewarded with immortal life.
After a final glance in the mirror at his smooth, fleshy face, Diotar went through the door that connected his quarters with Cybele’s temple.
The two-story room smelled of incense. Sunlight entering through a high window was still centered on the ceiling, just above the statue of Cybele. Diotar saw that Adonis had placed a vase of violets and field wildflowers at the base of the goddess’s image. A few flies buzzed round a silver dish of moretum, an offering of soft cheese laced with herbs that was set next to a clutter of terracotta images; votive offerings to the goddess that spread over the base.
Cybele was represented as a smiling, full-breasted, pregnant Earth Mother, who gave fertility alike to men and beasts and vegetation. She sat on a throne, her sandaled feet resting on a footstool symbolizing the stability of the earth. A turreted crown on her head represented the goddess’s protection over towns. Adonis had placed a mother-of-pearl pendant on her forehead, carved with the June sign of the Zodiac, the Crab, to suggest the renewed summer fruitfulness growing in her womb.
Diotar glanced at a mural painted on the shrine’s right hand wall. It depicted the Megalensia procession he had mentioned to Virilo, that first entrance of Cybele’s cult statue into Rome over six hundred years ago. The image of the Phrygian goddess showed her sitting on a dais, holding a scepter and the drum that called worshippers to her, while priests and attendants formed a line behind the platform. Some held cymbals, others sprigs of greenery. Four carriers leaned on canes, waiting for the signal to lift the statue and lead the procession.
The tranquil scene was a marked contrast to the painting on the opposite wall, which Diotar used to instruct novices about the cosmology of the Cybelene cult. He had ordered the artist to show the goddess and her lover, Attis, ascending heavenward in a chariot pulled by four charging lions. The self-castrated yet resurrected Attis held a pan-pipe and shepherd’s crook as he gazed at Cybele, seated alongside him. The couple was attended by three armed and helmeted Beings who were posed in the gyrations of a wild dance. These were protective Daemons, who, through Attis’s sacrifice, channeled creative forces into the world below. In the path of the chariot, another figure also holding a scepter of authority, represented the New Age that was to follow the present one of Atlantis.
Attis’s creative powers, and his periodic withdrawa
l of them through voluntary castration, symbolized the recurring creation and destruction of civilizations. Now, just as Cybele had resurrected Attis to live with her until the cycle of fertility began again, the goddess would initiate a New Age for her followers.
Looking at the scene again, Diotar became excited, realizing how soon that might be. As he reckoned it, four hundred and forty years had passed since the birth of the Resurrected Galilean whom Christians venerated, yet the Roman worship of Cybele predated that event by two hundred and fifty-four years. The goddess had waited patiently in the interval, but in six years, seven centuries would have passed. Nature ordained balance, symmetry. The mystical number seven hundred obviously signified the end of the Male Age of Rome and the beginning of a new cycle in which Cybele would inaugurate a Female Age. Just as Christians presently controlled power in the twin Roman Empires, so the castrated priests of Cybele, symbols of the Female Principle, would supplant them as stewards of Gaia, the Earth Mother.
Diotar knew it would take money to set up this rule of androgynous Cybelene priests, but his home city of Pessinus was on the Via Regalis, the trade route to the country of Sina, lying at the far eastern edge of maps he had seen. Glossy silk thread, rumored to be spun from the cocoons of worms, was not the only precious commodity the orient had to offer. Other fantastic goods could be brought across the Adriatic to Ravenna and sold at enormous profit. Diotar smoothed his tunic and half-smiled. If Virilo’s daughter constituted only the means to an immediate end, the master and his galley would be of more long-range usefulness.
The front door opened and sunlight flooded across the tile floor. Diotar turned to see a group of his initiates filing in. There were also faces he did not recognize. Good…new recruits curious to know about the cult. Kastor was there, half bent over in pain and supported by a companion. In a niche underneath the floor, at the statue’s base, Adonis was at his post as Keeper of the Flame.
When Claudia entered, dressed in her white Vestal robes, and moved slowly toward a chair set on the right side of Cybele’s statue, Diotar masked his irritation with a stiff smile. Foolish girl, her pregnancy can’t be allowed to come to term. Burying her alive is out of the question, of course, but aborting the fetus before anyone finds out is not. If the surgeon won’t agree, there are midwives who will supervise the procedure for a silver coin. He glanced around for Calliste, the midwife who was a Cybelene follower, but she was not at the service.
Diotar faced the circle of worshipers. “The Great Mother welcomes guests who have come to learn about her rites,” he said in a high-pitched, accented voice, trying to sound kindly. “To those proud of their Roman ancestry, I say that Cybele’s cult was celebrated at Troy, whose son Aeneas founded Rome itself. Can those who worship the Galilean make such an ancient claim to Roman tradition?
“Does the Galilean offer immortality? So does our Great Mother. Is there a ritual meal and redemption for Cybele’s followers? Yes, and more, for those of us who have shed our blood in imitation of her consort Attis, resurrection into the New Age will soon be upon us.
“Why do we priests glory in what outsiders call ‘our mutilation’? By imitating Attis, we gain immortality and acquire a place alongside Cybele in her New Age.”
Diotar saw several newcomers glance down and shuffle their feet. Others coughed nervously. As usually happened, some in the group were becoming restless at an explanation they either did not understand, or found offensive. His recruiters had gotten them there by promising a meal and some wondrous display of the goddess’s power. It was time to distract them. Diotar turned to face the statue and raised his hands in supplication.
“Cybele, Mother of the gods, we ask your blessing. You who control the winds, grant that they may be favorable tomorrow for our voyage to your temple at Olcinium. Protect us, as you did long ago, but now from the fury of the Vandals, who seek to imitate the Carthaginian Hannibal and attempt to destroy Rome. Great Mother, give us a sign.”
As Diotar finished his invocation, the ritual flame at the base of Cybele’s statue suddenly spurted up in a flash of multicolored hues. A dove materialized from the fire. Amid the gasps of onlookers, the white bird circled to the ceiling, then flew toward light coming from the high window. It fluttered against the glass pane, struggling to get outside, before finally settling on the narrow ledge.
“The Great Mother looks with favor on my prayer,” Diotar called out in an excited voice. “I—”
Claudia’s scream interrupted him. She clutched her stomach and slumped in the chair, then slid to the tile floor. Her body twitched and stiffened in an epileptic seizure. Diotar strode to her side, but, rather than helping the fallen girl, he raised his hands over her.
“The girl is blessed with the Sacred Disease,” he intoned. “A sign of Cybele’s pleasure.”
The onlookers stood immobile, stunned by the spurt of colored flames, the materialization of a dove from fire, and now the girl’s supernatural possession. Two women broke away and ran toward the entrance, to escape this frightening combination of sorcery and daemonic power.
“Cybele has given me her signs,” Diotar announced to the remaining onlookers. “I must prepare for the voyage to the goddess’s temple. Your meal is in the dining hall.”
He clapped his hands and motioned the group out of the shrine. After the last person had passed through the door, Adonis stepped out from behind the statue. He saw Claudia lying on the floor and ran to her.
“The girl is well,” Diotar remarked. “An ecstasy induced by the goddess is short.”
Claudia whimpered as she regained consciousness. Adonis helped her sit up and lean against the chair.
Diotar glanced at the girl, then up at the dove. The bird was still on the window ledge, calm now. “Adonis, you did well with the flame and bird,” he praised, with a womanish giggle. “Had I not known about the small opening behind the votive flame, I, too, would have been convinced that the dove rose out of the fire.”
Adonis brushed strands of damp hair away from Claudia’s face. “Is she well enough to go with us to Olcinium for the Megalensia?”
Diotar hesitated a moment. “It will not be the processional rite, Adonis. We will celebrate Sanguis, the spring equinox ‘Day of Blood.’” He reached down to touch the youth’s head. “Now, instead of Atlos, you will be privileged to shed the blood of your manhood for the Great Mother. To become ‘Adonis-Attis,’ a priest of Cybele.”
“ArchGallus, am…am I worthy?” Adonis stammered, standing up.
Diotar stroked his cheek. “Atlos succumbed to the flesh, but you will be free of such temptation after the Day of Blood.”
“What will happen, ArchGallus?”
“The sea run to Olcinium takes four days,” Diotar replied softly, noticing the fear in Adonis’s eyes. “During that time, I will instruct you about the ritual. Now, help Claudia back to her room, and then pack clothes for the journey. You and Kastor must be aboard Cybele by dawn.”
“Kastor is coming with us?”
“He must. Go now.”
Diotar watched Adonis help Claudia to her feet and support her as she slowly shuffled to the front door. Then he turned back to the statue of Cybele and took up the dish of moretum, reflecting on the forthcoming ritual. The Day of Blood, normally held on March twenty-fourth, was the culmination of nine days of ritual penance. The prolonged fasting and devotions of the worshippers induced an ecstasy that was expressed by self-flagellation with knucklebone whips, slashing of arms and legs during unrestrained dancing to the sounds of panpipes and cymbals, and finally, the frenzied mutilation by some men of their testicles with a flint blade.
Diotar winced, feeling a sharp pain in his groin. The sensation had become as physical as it was emotional each time he recalled his own castration at the hands of his uncle. That could not be undone, Diotar thought, half-limping toward the door to his quarters. Neither could the suicide of Atlos. His initiation as a priest of Cybele would have been important for the cult. There was Adonis now, but h
is twin brother had been the more outspoken of the two, and might have brought in other rebellious young slaves desperate for any kind of asylum.
As he opened the door to his quarters, Diotar recalled a matter that could prove to be more fortunate than the sad fact of Atlos’s suicide. He had learned from his contact at Olcinium that the goods he and Senator Maximin were expecting from distant Sina had finally arrived at the port.
Chapter six
As the morning sun slowly warmed the port quarter, Arcadia stood in the shade of an arched warehouse portico and searched among the confusion of brightly painted boats anchored in the harbor for a glimpse of the merchant galley Cybele.
With the end of the ice storms that had come out of Gothiscandza, and the return of the sun from its winter sojourn in the land of the Ethiopians, Ravenna’s inner waterway had once again become an aroused anthill of shipping activity. Docks swarmed with freemen and slave stevedores, unloading cargoes for masters who had risked March storms to be the first in port with the Egyptian winter harvest of wheat, barley, cotton and figs. Other galleys, equally fortunate, had safely brought in Dalmatian timber, or wine and oil from the Greek mainland. More luxurious cargoes of amber, ivory, incense, spices, and fabrics from the Orient had been transshipped from ports on the island of Rhodes.
Because of a threat from the Vandal fleet at Carthage, Emperor Valentinian had ordered the repair of the rusted hoisting mechanism and iron chain that barred access to Ravenna’s harbor from the Adriatic Sea. Beyond that barrier, currently lowered, to the right of the breakwater lighthouse, Arcadia saw an immense galley of the grain fleet lying at anchor, waiting for the harbormaster’s pennant signal to enter and unload. She made out the name HORVS on the bow, above the painted all-seeing eye of the falcon god who had guided the vessel from the Nile delta. It was an encouraging sign, now that wheat from the African provinces was in Vandal hands. Emperor Theodosius at Constantinople seemed willing to divert part of the Egyptian harvest to the West, but she guessed that brokers in the Eastern capital had bought up most of the grain to monopolize the supply. The price of bread was sure to increase, and fewer tokens for free loaves would be issued to citizens. Food riots could result.
