by C C Taylor
“And in any case,” (time the pause nicely), “Rome’s that way.” (Shout and point in the other direction. Good, that all worked… Scipio gets up onto a table, now he has all the hundreds of them watching.) “Ha ha ha!” (You can laugh at your stories yourself but only after the audience has). “I heard a story off one of you, who was it?” (Scans the audience).
“He went up to JC the other day and finally got through to talk to him directly and there he was bowed down before the Great One and JC says, ‘I hear you have a request,’ and the soldier says, ‘yes,’ and JC says, ‘What is it? More pay?’ and the soldier says, ‘No, sir,’ and JC says, ‘Some land?’ and the soldier; ‘No, sir,’ and JC again, ‘retirement? Sixteen years’ back pay? What is it that you want, man?’ and…” (Nice pause again here), “the soldier says, ‘A thicker shield, your excellency…a thicker shield.’” (He always repeated the last line, though, he knew it would be drowned out with appreciative laughter from its first utterance. Now, he was funny and on their side. However, he was also your Great Uncle Scipio, remember, so he was bound to make an ass’s cock of it). “It’s perhaps as well old JC didn’t walk over the sea to attack the enemy, in any case. Look what happened at Alexandria! Remember? When he said, ‘Right ho, boys! Let’s torch our ships, so the Alexandrians can’t have them,’ and set fire to their own while we’re at it…and…oh this is going great! But! What’s this? The wind’s turning?” (I suppose in truth a lot of the soldiers hadn’t even heard about this incident or were even bothered about it). “Oh no…the library’s caught fire! The biggest collection of writing in the history of the entire world… Oops!” (Some comic stamping around the stage with some flute playing to represent the desperate librarians. But the tide is turning. What does a Roman soldier care about the destruction of a far-away warehouse full of scrolls? Better get them back onside once more. Nothing if not experienced) “Anyway, how’s er…how’s old Marc Antony getting along?” (Some laughs) “I hear things have developed since he met the King of Syria’s fourteen-year-old daughter some years ago (Lewd movements, gestures etc…hilarity. Dick jokes. Always a sure-fire hit.) Cleopatra, is it? I thought he was supposed to be the ‘lion of the country’ not her!” (This was very good for Scipio, certainly not known for his word play where cocks weren’t involved; ‘leo patria…cleo-patra’ very good. Now it’s time to kick in with the tried and trusted Octavian routine).
“And how’s our favourite little blue-eyed boy these days? He has to count for something, surely, after that speech he made…how old was he? Still in his fancy little sandals, not even old enough for a toga praetexta! Probably swaddled, was he? Did anybody see him? I didn’t. I was at the back (Laughter). I heard him though,” (here he imitates the twelve-year old’s wheedling voice), “and I’ll miss my dear departed granny…she was so lovely… (titters), and generous and kind, (more titters)…and…er…pure-hearted (laughter) and faithful (laughs) like her brother.” (This was the big laugh to finish on. It worked).
Now, you don’t do something for so many years without having at least some stagecraft and know-how, and one of the most important things is knowing when to get off. Get off, if you’ve been on for five minutes and it’s dying. Just get off. Get off, if you’re killing, even if you’ve got another ten minutes of high power material left. Surf on the applause…so Scipio sensing he’s on the up, even though he has a story or two left to tell, begins to sign off.
“Thank you very much… I know a lot of you haven’t got your pay yet, but anything…anything in the bucket here at the front is gratefully received, except for the last meal you ate. You can buy me a meal or a drink if you want… I’ve got more stories, I can play the flute as you’ve seen…you’ve been a marvellous audience… My name’s Scipio. Scipio DeLirio.”
At this, one of the phalanx came to the side of the stage and gestured him – by the traditional ‘cutting the throat’ signal – to finish up and get off stage. But your uncle knew he had the crowd at last and was safe in his actor’s sanctuary of the public eye. Perhaps thinking of the clown at Asculum, he rather foolhardily draws out his leave-taking
“Yes, related to the great Scipius Africanus by great-great-uncle-ness or something…not that I’m quite as fond as he was of Greek bathing and sitting down at the theatre. Well, I’ve been doing this since the first stone theatre was built in this Great City and don’t forget…”
Now the guards are up on the stage with Scipio.
“Let’s hope you all get paid in full soon and meanwhile, have a good debauchery and if you ever need a funeral brightening up, I’m you’re man, remember the name; Skip DeLirio.”
Upon which, one of the armed soldiers grabs Skip’s arm and hauls him off the stage and away with the help of the others. “You’re coming with us,” he says, and drags him away without ceremony. Some of the crowd boo. Some smile and even applaud. The vast majority were indifferent. In that respect, it was a normal gig for those times for your poor old Uncle Scipio.
They took him out into the streets, where he expected to receive a thrashing – it wouldn’t have been his first – but they dragged him along past that shop with the talking raven…yes, you don’t remember? Maybe you don’t…the shoemaker next door to the shop killed it a long time ago. You’d have remembered that, though. All the people in the street ran him out of town for doing that. They loved that old bird. And they even had a funeral…there was a procession, with flute players from Ethiopia…ha ha, I’d almost forgotten about that… Old Scipio would have joined in with the mob on that occasion. He loved animals…hated people, but loved animals.
So, yes…past the market place they dragged him, past the forum…and Scipio thinking, What’s going on here? They get as far as Caesar’s palace, where he begins to think, Surely not! But surely yes! They are let in by the guards, they march him along corridors, they pass many standards with eagles mounted on the walls, they are saluted, and finally Uncle Skip is thrust down onto a bench by a grim-faced centurion.
“Why am I…?”
“Shut your drunkard’s mouth! You stink of wine!”
Oh…it’s like that. So, as he sits there on the bench by the door, he sees how people constantly go in and out of the large room, beating their breasts and saying ‘Ave Caesar!’ before they cross the threshold. Then it dawns on him. This is not a generalised salute…The actual Caesar – the one who is being ‘ave-ed’ at – is behind the door!
And he begins to run through his routine again in his mind…The wading through the water bit, that was a bit…but surely not…and the shield joke. Oh Jupiter and Mars’s cocks together! That’s ‘criticising the national guard’ or ‘insurrection’ or something…they’ll cut my balls off…
Or the bit about Octavian doing the oration at Julius’s sister’s funeral. That’s my balls gone and probably my eyes put out as well just to be sure…
So he sits gawping into space for some time, then is roughly hauled to his feet and bundled through the door.
"AVE CAESAR!" Shout the guards and thump their breasts. Scipio makes a pale copy of the chest-thump, but utters nothing. He is staring straight at Gaius Julius Caesar, Dictator in Perpetuity, handsome, in ruddy good health for his fifty five summers. And not ordinary summers. Hard, campaigning summers. A survivor. A leader. A God, though not yet officially.
“So this is him, then?” Caesar asks.
“Ay, Your Excellency.”
From his seated position, he looks Scipio up and down.
“Not in good shape.”
“No sir,” replies one of the Guards. “He works the taverns.”
“Can you ride a horse, man?” Caesar asks him suddenly.
“Me, sir?”
“Yes, you. They tell me you’re a Scipio. You’d be the first Scipio I ever saw who couldn’t command one of the beasts. Do you ride a horse?”
“Never, sir.”
“Hmm…you’ll have to learn. You’re an actor, is that right?”
“Yes…sir excellent.”
“Good. Because you’ll be playing a part. Who’s your father, Scipio?”
“Scipius Publius Rurex, sir.”
“An actor?”
“No, sir, a lawyer…a more respectable man than me, your honesty. I have fallen low compared to my honourable father…perhaps you knew him?”
“A lawyer you say? Should I have known him?”
This was a joke, apparently, and a wry smile flickers over Caesar’s face, which is the cue for sycophantic chortles of appreciation from the gathered hangers-on, the usual targets of your Uncle’s barbs.
“Do you know why I so much want to wear the laurel wreaths on my head, actor?”
(By the balls of Jupiter, he knows the answer to this one…to hide the bald patch…it’s a current joke…not mine…panic sets in; I didn’t tell it just now, though, did I? There were Caesar diehards in the audience, I wouldn’t have…surely…)
“I…I don’t know, sir highest.”
“Because I, Gaius Julius Caesar, want the right to wear triumphal dress whenever I please.”
“Oh, thank Mercury!”
“What was that?”
“Yes, highness-ship…a triumph.”
(After a pause during which, Caesar looks Scipio up and down as if he was deranged) “Did you see Pompey’s Triumph?”
“Oh yes sir.” (But what to say? Pompey, once the Big Man, was now rotting in some shallow Egyptian grave, minus his head).
“Which part did you like the best?”
“Oh…er… (Of course, Skip hadn’t seen it! Any time there was a crowd out with money about them, he’d be there juggling in a square or doing his knockabout imitations on the steps of some temple) er… I liked the fact that it went on for two days.”
(Caesar erupts into laughter) “Very good, very good, actor. You might yet do. Yes…people remember that, don’t they? Pompey…two full days of triumph. Twice as long as normal. Well guess what I’m going to do, little man?”
“Double it again, sir?”
“Excellent! Excellent! I was planning to give one more day extra, but…yes…good, I like that. Four days of triumph. That will be remembered, eh? Once seen never ever, ever, ever, forgotten. Like me!” he turns to stare straight at Scipio, “I like it.”
“Yes, highly-ness.”
“But I have to earn it, Scipio. I have to go and finish off the little scum runt pig-fucker.” (There were various more mumbled insults. By the way Marcus, don’t tell your mother I’m using these words, but I can hardly summon up the ghosts of Caesar and Scipio without letting you know how they really were. Caesar wasn’t just a head on a coin, you know. He fucked anything that moved… Cleopatra…that King of Bythnia, he didn’t much care where he stuck it. But anyway…that’s how he talked about all his rivals, Pompey especially). Headless or not, he goes on, it’s as if he were still alive! They’re out there in Egypt still, you know, all the ex-Pompeians together; Baby Cato, Labienus…and your…what? Your grand great uncle, three times removed? Metellus. Metellus Scipio.
(Now he’s trembling. This is worse than he could imagine. He’s going to be done in, just for being called Scipio. After a lifetime of drawing attention to it, beating his breast, using it to get work and contracts, strutting around with it like a peacock…his NAME, the only thing of any worth he had left, was to be the cause of his death as a traitor. Although the anti-Caesar jokes wouldn’t have helped, obviously…)
“But your sir-liness,” he starts up, in skin-saving mode. “I am such a far distant relative, and, and… I’m sure, you see my joking around is only in fun.” (Think back to Asculum, how did that wretch escape his almost certain fate?) “I say these things with the greatest respect. I’m like a little bird flitting around, not from anywhere really, don’t take sides, I could not, I could never…”
“What in the name of Hercules are you babbling about? Shut up and listen.”
Skip does so. Caesar continues.
“The thing is this…Scipio!” (said with some disdain). “My men won’t fight. They won’t go. What am I to do?”
“Well you must go, sir…they may re-arm.”
“You see?” (He addresses one of his Guard). “Even an idiot can see we have to fight this last campaign. But WHY won’t they go?” (He shouts at Scipio).
“They’re tired, sir. They just want to stay here and settle down…”
“Hmmm…yes, of course. But this HAS to happen, man. It has to! And you’re right. They deserve their pensions. They deserve their farms, their wives…and they will have them. After this one last push. This elimination. This Carthaginian wiping out. Or they will breed like rats and attack again.”
“Your honourable Caesar, I would so much love to be able to help…”
“Good news, Scipio. Because that’s exactly what you’re going to do.”
“Your honour?”
“You see, what do we have here? What is the situation? I have an army ready to go. I have ships being stocked right now. I have experience, I have the people on my side, I have the arms and the siege machines to do it. And who are the enemy? A cowering ragbag of nobodies who happen to have thrown their lot in with each other because they’ve nowhere else to go. And yes, Juba is throwing in a few elephants. But so what? We’ve seen them before! I even took one with me to that stinking, grey, wet, soggy island, north of Gaul some years ago. They are still breeding them up there. Crossed with what, I don’t know, we only took one. They say some of the local tribes will bring elephants to the fight. Well excuse me if I don’t shit myself with fear. But…a Scipio??? Fighting in Africa??? That’s a different matter. Who would DARE to oppose such a talisman? In Africa – I don’t have to tell you – the name Scipio is equivalent to Victory. My men won’t go, actor! They’re afraid. They’re afraid of a name, by Jupiter’s Eyes! They are…the best soldiers in the world. But they are superstitious. Now do you understand, why I have summoned you?”
“Because I’m the only Scipio you could find?”
“I ought to be glad there’s the one of you. It took us nearly two days to track you down and get hold of you. But you’re here now. I don’t have to spell it out, do I? You know what you’re to do.”
“Of course, Caesar. Before you set sail, I am to go to the temple and perform a ceremony of blessing for your troops. Believe me, I am most highly…” (But he stopped there as he had been drowned out by the raucous laughter of the soldiers lining the room. Caesar himself remained stone-faced).
“Oh no, Scipio. You’re coming with us.”
“Oh…oh…that…yes…what an honour that would be without a doubt…but I can’t follow you to Egypt…my wife…”
“Oh, you won’t be following us,” Caesar cuts him off. Skip, frozen like a statue now, looks at the Dictator – “We’ll be following you.”
This is another joke, to judge by the raucous laughter from the guards that accompanies it. JC waits for the laughter to die down.
“You’ll be our general, leading the Fifth or the Twelfth, I haven’t decided. Whichever one leads.”
Skip is still frozen.
“I don’t understand.”
“I think I have said it plainly enough, actor. Now. We leave in five days. Take him to the cavalry quarters and find him a teacher. Get Taurus. He won’t like it, but what else is there to do?”
“But…”
The guards either side of Scipio move towards him at the sound of the word ‘but’ and everyone in the room freezes into a ready-for-action pose.
“But?” Asks Caesar.
But nothing. There are no ’but’s with the big C.
So the action men relax and he’s carried off down more corridors, into a cart, along the rutted streets of Rome…they were nothing like they are nowadays, young lad – heavens, this is paradise compared with back then! Talk about bumpy! And finally, to the stables where he’s told to get down, shown to a room, given a pot to piss in and told to be ready at hora prima, which Skip calculated to be before cock’s crow, but he wouldn’t
have known as he hadn’t risen from his bed before midday in decades.
Then, he hears a bolt being drawn across the outside of his wooden door.
So, on top of not knowing how he could get a message to his wife, or why he’d been captured or what awaited him, the only things he knew was that there was no escape, and that he had to rise some two hours after the time at which he would normally be laying down his head.
That was the first torture.
“Get yer ’ands off yer cock!” is the first thing he hears the following day to wake him from his dark slumber, then the unshuttering of his stable door and the light streaming in.
“Out!”
And out he was, bundled into a parade ground where he was given a bucket of water to wash in, then some to drink, then some clothes to wear (quite good ones), then some bread to eat (also warm and fresh, but…in a bucket). Then he had five days to learn how to ride a horse.
You see, what Caesar said happened. And Caesar needed just one Scipio. So Caesar would find and, if necessary, train up, a Scipio. For almost a week, he was up at dawn and prancing round the yard on a horse, under the eye of a gnarled and embittered ex-cavalry officer. And I say ‘under the eye’ justly as he only had the one. The other he kept hidden with a patch, which gave him all a more menacing air. Titus Statilius Taurus he was called, if you please. Skip was good with names and that’s one he never forgot in any case, as the name’s owner was keen on reminding him of it at every opportunity
“Titus Statilius Taurus!” he’d bellow in his ear, “and I’ve trained better men than you, shit-stain,” (thwack! with the crop on Skip’s ‘stained’ forehead), “now sit up straight! It’s a fucking insult me ’aving to do this,” (thwack! Again, on the back this time). “And all ’cause the fucking half-breeds we call soldiers in this shit-hole,” (thwack!) “think you’re some kind of lucky charm.” (Spit!) “Pan’s hairy arse, and cock and balls, look at you, you…”
Imagine the pair of them, Marcus. One-eyed Jack on the one side beating the living shit out of your poor old uncle with his face-stain. It must have been a sight.
