Andivius Hedulio: Adventures of a Roman Nobleman in the Days of the Empire

by Edward Lucas White

  CHAPTER XXXVIII

  TORTURE

  I was promptly haled off to the same prison where Galen had visited methree days before. There I was again deprived of my garments and clad inothers, new, but of cheap material, coarse and uncomfortable. Alsoshackles, heavier shackles, were at once riveted on my ankles, and I wasagain consigned to the lower dungeon. I was, to be sure, given good andabundant food and wine not too unpalatable. Otherwise I had no indulgencesand there I spent the night.

  Next day, the last day of June, Galen again visited me.

  "My lad," he said, "the first rule of medicine is to cheer up the patient,but I must say that your case looks grave and I have little cheer for you.I shall do my best and so will Tanno, Vedia and Agathemer. But we are alldazed. We cannot understand what has happened, nor who has brought it topass, nor what influences are working against us.

  "But someone has gotten the ear of Juvenalis or of Severus himself. It hasbeen represented plausibly to the Prefect of the Praetorium, or perhapseven to the Emperor in person, that the courts here in Rome have falleninto a shocking state of disrepute on account of decisions in scandalouscontravention of the evidence, brought about by favoritism and bribery. Ithas also been plausibly represented that the slave-population has littlerespect for the lives or property of their masters, less loyalty towardsthem and very little dread of punishment. Your alleged murder of poorFalco is held up as a flagrant example of the latter condition, youracquittal as an even more flagrant instance of the degradation of thecourts.

  "Believing that a shocking miscarriage of justice has taken placeconcerning an atrocious crime, the Prefect or the Prince has ordered yourearrested and retried, tomorrow, this time before Cassius Ravillanus."

  I shuddered, not metaphorically, but actually. I felt cold all over, as ifplunged into an icy mountain stream. Ravillanus claimed as his ancestorCassius Ravilla and aimed at emulating him. Certainly, as a magistrate, hequite frankly talked and acted as if acquittal were a disgrace to thecourt, and the object of each trial not impartial justice but theconviction of the accused. He was perfectly sincere, upright in everyintention, incorruptible, fanatical, self-opinionated, austere, ascetic,stern and harsh. I shuddered again and again at the thought of him.

  "Ravillanus has the reputation of being unbribable," Galen went on, 'andit is a question whether an attempt at bribery might not prejudice yourcase more than letting matters be. Yet I have employed an agent far tooclever to bungle any approach, and something may be done for you. Vedia isdespondent, but resolute to keep her head and help you all she can, andshe has cash to spare and much influence. Tanno has even more of both.Agathemer is hopeful of running down the real murderers, as they areloaded with their booty. If they are caught we can clear you.

  "Keep up a brave heart."

  I tried to, but it was impossible. I ate little and slept hardly at all.

  The next day, the Kalends of July, saw me haled again to the BasilicaSempronia.

  There I beheld a scene almost a duplicate of my first trial; a similarthrong of spectators, very similar bevies of expectant witnesses,advocates and prosecutors; the same batch of my former fellow-slaves,surrounded by the same guards; the very same charcoal-brazier tended bythe same slave squatting on the same folded blanket; similar knots ofnotables in the apse, about and behind the magistrate's tribunal; the samecarved arm-chair; in it not Corbulo, but Cassius Ravillanus, lean, dry,tanned, leathery, smooth-shaven, bald and stern.

  He glared at me when my guards halted me four yards or so in front of him;then he beckoned to one of his apparitors and spoke to him in anundertone. The fellow went off as if on an errand.

  Ravillanus then gave, even more positively than Corbulo, a demonstrationof the great latitude permitted such a magistrate in procedure, of howcompletely it lies within his discretion what to do and how to do it.

  "Fellow!" he ranted, "you have plotted to rob and murder your master, youhave done both and you have, by favor and influence and perhaps even bybribery, arranged for your easy acquittal. I am charged by the Prince ofthe Republic to see to it, that the majesty of the law, the sacredness ofthe lives of Roman noblemen, and the security of their property bepublicly vindicated: I am here to undo all that Lollius Corbulo supinelyallowed to be done. You shall perceive that I am wholly unlike any suchtrifler. Of one feature only of his procedure do I approve. I highlyacclaim his notions as to the right kind of torture. Slaves like you,however pampered, are property, like horses or cattle. Their value lies intheir usefulness. Any slave, after torture, should be as useful to hisowners as before. If a slave is placed upon the horse and weights hung tohis feet, his legs are often made helpless, he cannot ever walk again, heis a cripple. Still oftener does the rack leave a slave utterly useless.Our courts have always desired some form of torture by which therecalcitrant could be made to suffer acute pain, but not in any wayinjured. Lollius has introduced a torture which never injures anyonesubjected to it, but which causes extreme agony while in use. Only stretcha hard-yarn Spanish blanket over a thigh, draw it tight and hold the thighat just the right distance from just the right size of brazier with itscoals properly tended, and the subject can be made to tell the truth; butnot broiled alive, for the blanket will singe before the flesh under itcooks. You had best tell the truth, not such an ingenious string of liesas you told before Lollius."

  Then he had all my fellow-slaves brought up and ranged before him.

  "Your master," he said, "has been foully done to death. If the guilt ofthis hideous crime can be indubitably fastened upon one of you or two orany few, the rest of you shall be held innocent and shall suffer nopenalties. If no facts can be ascertained limiting the guilt to some ofyou, all of you, according to the ancient law concerning such cases, shallbe put to death by crucifixion or exposure to the beasts in the arena, asour Prince may prefer. I have no desire to send to death any guiltlessman. I enjoin you all to tell the truth and to assist the law. The truth-tellers will suffer less of the torture."

  He then, beginning with the scullions, had every boy and man tortured overthe brazier, asking no question of any till he had felt the heat of thefire and had begun to yell for mercy. Then he would interrupt the torture,question the victim, bid the torturers again hold their subject close tothe fire; and again suspend the torture and ask questions. Naturally thevictims, frantic with pain and terror, said whatever they thought wouldget them off.

  Also, to my horror, I realized for the first time, what I had only vaguelysuspected before, how venomously they had envied me, how violentlyembittered most of them were against me, how they had hated their master'sfavorite. They were glad to slander me, they enjoyed assisting at my ruin,they relished the prospect of my being tortured and executed. Moreover itappeared that they had been carefully coached in what they were to say orhad agreed among themselves, without any outside hints, or after suchhints.

  The whole household made it appear that they had always suspected me ofdesiring Falco's death in order that I might gain my freedom and enjoy hispromised legacies; that I had enticed and wheedled him into leaving me inhis will an absurdly large share of his property.

  They were also unanimous in declaring that they had been unable to bringhome to me the devising of the robbery of the _triclinium_, but they hadall felt certain from the first that I had arranged to have confederatesof mine steal the table silver. They were equally consistent in assertingthat they all believed that I had murdered Falco, after arranging for thelooting of the gem-collection as a blind.

  Hour after hour I had to stand and watch wretch after wretch held to theglowing coals, had to listen to the shrieks of the victims, could not butrealize that Ravillanus was bent on my conviction, that nothing wouldswerve him from his purpose.

  Dromo, alone of all the household, alone of my obsequious, indulgedpersonal servants, held out against the torture and though he writhed,yelled, sobbed and even endured the pain until he fainted more than once,refused to say anything against me.

  After Dromo my turn c
ame. When I was stripped Ravillanus rubbed his handsand remarked:

  "You have your character written on your back! How could Falco trust afellow so branded and scarred! Easy-going masters like Falco not onlybring on their own deaths, but sap the foundations of safety for allslave-owners. Your back, in advance, advertises you guilty. Better ownup."

  I pass over the details. But I must confess that I was far from heroic.Perhaps it is true, and not an invention, that Marcus Scaevola voluntarilythrust his hand into the altar-fire and stood mute and smiling, andwatched it burn and char. If any man ever did that he had more self-control than I ever had. I could repress every indication of my agonies. Ifainted so many times that I lost count. The afternoon was drawing ontowards evening before Ravillanus began to lose patience.

  Tanno and Galen had been from the first among those about the tribunal.Now, in a pause, while I was being brought back to consciousness to beagain tortured, Galen succeeded in gaining the attention of Ravillanusenough to induce him, though grudgingly, to permit the celebratedadvocate, Memmius Tuditanus, whom they had brought with them, to speak inmy behalf. I had regained consciousness before he began to speak and heardmost of what he said. He spoke well.

  His chief point was that a gem-expert and art-amateur like me, knowingthat he was to inherit one of the finest and most carefully chosencollections of gems and art objects in all the world, would be the lastman on earth to allow it to be disturbed, let alone to plot itsransacking, the pillage of its cases and the dispersal of their preciouscontents. No man could better have exposed the absurdity of the wholeflimsy and preposterous fabrication that I had had two confederates, whohad, in my interest and at my suggestion, robbed first the _triclinium_and then the gem-collection, after which last I had myself murdered Falco.

  But his logic, his lucidity and his eloquence fell on deaf ears.Ravillanus was unmoved. He permitted Lustralis to make a rambling andincoherent harangue, setting forth his ridiculous contentions.

  Then he passed judgment:

  "I hold you all innocent save Phorbas alone. Dromo is manifestly devotedto Phorbas and has lied in his behalf. But Dromo, apparently, was noaccomplice in the plot or in the murder. I acquit him with the rest.Phorbas, who vilely plotted against his master, who foully murdered him, Iadjudge guilty of his death and I hereby condemn him to be kept chained inthe slaves' prison until the next day of beast-fighting in the Colosseum,then, in the arena, to be exposed to the ferocity of the famished wildbeasts of the desert, wilderness and forest, by them to be lacerated andtorn to pieces, as he richly deserves."

  Tanno and Galen could indicate their grief and sympathy only by looks andgestures, for they dared not attempt to approach me.

  Then Ravillanus called:

  "Where is that barber?"

  The apparitor who had gone off before the trial began produced a barber.

  "Trim his hair and beard!" Ravillanus ordered. And I had to submit tohaving my long locks shorn and my beard clipped close, leaving me far toolike my true former self for my comfort, since I still had hopes ofAgathemer catching the real murderers in time to save me from the doomimpending over me because of the fanaticism of Ravillanus, while Ianticipated nothing but inescapable death should I be recognized as notPhorbas, but as Andivius Hedulio.

  I was then, late in the afternoon of the Kalends of July, haled off to theColosseum and immured in one of the cells of the lowermost crypt, farbelow the street level. To my amazement I found myself sharing the cellwith Narcissus, who had been similarly condemned to exposure to thebeasts, as the murderer of Commodus.

  Together we spent five dreadful days in the darkness, dampness, chill andfoulness of that tiny cell. I found that influence such as Tanno and Vediapossessed and cash such as they had at their disposal, could do much evenfor the occupant of such a cell, destined to such a doom. I was visited byGalen, more than once, and he emphasized the still hopeful possibility,nay probability, that Agathemer might, in time, save me, run down andbring before a magistrate the real murderers. I was gloomy, I admit. Buthis presence in that horrible hole and his words cheered me, bybrightening the hope I had never wholly lost.

  Also I was tended, massaged, rubbed, chafed, washed each day in warm waterbrought in big pails and poured into a big, shallow pan; I was anointed;clothed in a comfortable tunic, strengthened with plenty of good food andstrong wine and provided with a cot and bedding and blankets. I was ableto have Narcissus indulged also, in order that he might be a lessunpleasant cell-mate.

  He talked to me freely of life in the Palace, of Commodus, of Marcia, ofDucconius Furfur, of his own fatal mistake, of the amazing likeness, evenapparent identity, between Furfur and Commodus, of the naturalness of hisinability to tell them apart.

  I drank and ate all the food and wine I could swallow, slept all I could,and tried to be hopeful.

  Thus passed five horrible days and six hideous nights.

  After no more than twelve days, as I learned later, Severus felt himselfsecurely established as Prince of the Republic. By spending almost everymoment of daylight on official business, denying himself more than themerest minimum of sleep and food, he had put every department of thegovernment sufficiently in order to feel assured of their smooth andeffective operation. His troops were now all outside the City, comfortablycamped, well supplied and content; the City was orderly and its life hadresumed its normal aspect and activities. He felt free to win the regardof the populace by magnificent exhibitions in the amphitheater, on theoccasion of the eight days of the Games of Apollo, beginning the daybefore the Nones of July.

  Early next day Narcissus and I were haled from our cell and led, bypassages only too well known to me since my service in the Choragium, tothe iron-gated doorway from which condemned criminals were thrust out intothe arena for the lions or other beasts to tear. From inside that doorwayI could look across the sand of the arena and could see not only theherald on his tiny platform, elevated above the leap of the most agilepanther, not only the arena-wall opposite me, but also the faces of thesenators in their private boxes on the _podium_, even a portion of thenobility behind them and of the populace higher up and further back.

  The day was hot, still and clear, and the July sunshine, still slant inthe early morning, struck under the awning and long shafts of the mellowradiance brightened the sand.

  From that doorway, craning over the heads of the wretches in front of me,I caught glimpses of the fury of several beasts as they vented theirferocity upon some ordinary criminals and assuaged their ravenous hungeron their blood and flesh.

  My time was not far off, yet I still hoped against hope that Agathemermight, even yet, have caught the thieving murderers and would intervenebefore it was too late. I did not at all fear the beasts; I knew that nobear, panther, leopard, tiger or lion would hurt me, but I felt certainthat, when the beasts left me unharmed, I should be recognized as Festusthe Beast-Wizard: and then, as the scrutiny of the whole audience would beriveted on me, identified as Andivius Hedulio.

  Narcissus was led out, stepping jauntily between his guards, treadingspringily, with no sign of panic or dejection, a pattern Hercules, nakedsave for a loin-cloth, his skin pink and fresh, in spite of his days in adungeon, his mighty muscles rippling all over his huge form. The heraldproclaimed to all that this was Narcissus, professional wrestler, for longthe crony of Commodus, who had strangled his master and was to be punishedfor his treachery and crime by being torn to pieces in sight of all Rome.

  They let out on him a full-grown, young Mauretanian lion, starved andravenous. Narcissus was naked and empty-handed, his close-clipped hair,standing like the bristles of a brush, yellow as gold wire, shining in thesun. He stood almost as immobile as had Palus and faced the lion, which,after a bound or two towards him, flattened down on the sand and began tocrawl nearer, preparing for a spring.

  When it sprang Narcissus performed one of the most miraculous feats everbeheld in the amphitheater. He did not dodge but ducked slightly, thewide-spread, taloned paws missing his head on e
ach side. His arms shot outas the lion sprang, and, though the brute came at him through the air likea log-arrow from a catapult, his hands gripped each side of the wide-openmouth and his thumbs pushed the inner corners of the lips between theparted upper and lower cheek-teeth. Therefore to close his jaws on hisvictim the lion had to crush a roll or fold of his own lips. Thisincredibly difficult feat prolonged his life a few breaths. The wholepopulace howled in ecstasy at the wretch's coolness, courage, strength,swiftness and adroitness.

  The lion's momentum and weight bore Narcissus to the ground, but histhumbs did not slip nor his hold loosen. On the sand lion and man rolledand wrestled, for a brief time. Then the lion, lashing out with his hindlegs, caught with the claws of one the wrestler's belly and halfdisemboweled him. Narcissus collapsed and the great fangs met in histhroat.

  The populace redoubled their yells.

  When silence fell, after the lion had been chased back into his cage andthe cage lowered down the lift-shaft, after the mangled corpse ofNarcissus had been dragged away and sand sprinkled to hide the red patcheswhere his blood had soaked it, I was haled forth and stood in the verycenter of the arena. From his perch the herald proclaimed that I wasPhorbas, the slave of Pompeianus Falco of Carthage and Rome, who hadplotted his master's death in order sooner to gain freedom from histestament, and had himself dealt Falco his deathblow. The populace jeeredand booed at me.

  I had, as Festus the Animal-Tender, often viewed the interior of theColosseum from the arena. But never when I was myself the cynosure of alleyes. There I stood, naked except for a loin-cloth, empty-handed, myshoulder-brand and scarred back visible to half the spectators, glared atand reviled. From my viewpoint the spectacle was singularly magnificent:the dark blue sky overhead, varied by some large, solid-looking, whiteclouds; the fluttering banners waving from the awning poles; theparticolored, sagging awning, shading half the audience; the beauty of theupper colonnade under the awning; the solidly packed throng of spectatorswhich crowded the colonnade, the aisles, the steps and every seat in thehollow of the amphitheater; the dignified ease of the nobility in theirspaced chairs, of the senators in their ample armchairs; the gorgeousnessof the Imperial Pavilion, filled with a retinue brilliant in blue andsilver, in green and gold, in white and crimson, about the hard, spare,soldierly figure on the throne.

  I was the only human being on the sand, eyed by all onlookers.

  From a door in the _podium_-wall a famished lion was loosed at me. Hebounded towards me, roaring; but, three or four lengths from me he paused,stood still regarding me, circled about me and then turned his back on meand loped off to the arena-wall, along which he rounded the arena,apparently searching for a way out. The populace, at first mute withastonishment, voiced their amazement in yells of a notably differentquality from those they had uttered while watching Narcissus.

  Another lion behaved similarly, except that he, after inspecting me,merely walked in circles far out in the arena, ignoring me as if I werenot there at all.

  They loosed on me five more lions, four tigers, four leopards, fourpanthers and four bears, of the fierce Alpine breed. Some of these animalsdelighted the populace by attacking each other and affording entertainmentby savage and ferocious fighting. But not one showed any disposition toattack me.

  As beast after beast approached me, conned me and spared me, the uppertiers began to call:

  "He is innocent."

  "He is guiltless."

  "The beasts know."

  "He is not guilty."

  "The gods declare him clean of guilt!" and other such cries.

  Also they began to show signs of being restless and bored. Some yelled foranother criminal.

  A seventh lion was loosed at me. He paused like the others and eyed me;then he strolled up to me, snuffed at me, and rubbed his mane against myhip, emitting a rambling purr. I laid my hand on his mane.

  Instantly, from all sides at once, rang out cries of,

  "Festus!"

  "Festus the Beast-Wizard!"

  "He's no Phorbas, he's Festus come back!"

  I was not far from the Imperial Pavilion and one of the retinue leanedover the _podium_-coping and called to me. I walked towards him. When Iwas within earshot he called in Greek:

  "The King commands that you lead the beasts back to their cages."

  Elated and hoping for a reprieve, for vindication, for life, forrehabilitation, for Imperial favor, I led beast after beast back to itscage on a shaft-lift, or to a door in the wall. When the last one wascaged an officer of the Imperial retinue, a frontiersman only lately cometo Rome, stepped out of one of the postern doors, two arena-slaves withhim. They led me to the center of the arena, trussed my hands behind me,bound my ankles and wrapped round my head an evil-smelling old quilt,probably taken from the cot of some arena-slave housed in some cell underthe hollow of the amphitheater. Half suffocated by it, unable to shake itoff, for they tied it fast, I stood there, blind, realizing that theEmperor still believed me guilty, was inexorable and meant me to be tornto pieces then and there; believing, as I did, that my immunity fromattack was due to the effect of my gaze on the beasts I made mild.

  Now you, who read, know that I was not devoured. But I had no shred ofhope left. I thought that my end had come. I anticipated only the agony ofgreat fangs rending my flesh.

  I felt only the hot breath of a beast snuffing at my legs. Perhaps Ifainted. Certainly my next sensation was of lying on the sand, withseveral unseen animals growling near me and one or more snuffing at myfeet and legs.

  The amphitheater was quiet, even hushed.

  Then, suddenly, a lion uttered a full-throated, coughing roar, jagged andrumbling. When it died away a universal yell arose from the populace. Iheard cries of:

  "He is innocent!"

  "Set him free!"

  "We behold the justice of the gods!"

  "This proves him guiltless!"

  "Festus or Phorbas, he is not guilty!"

  And other such exclamations.

  Ridiculously, what passed through my mind, besides disgust at the foulodor of the quilt about my head, was the thought that, if I had known thatferocious beasts would avoid me even when they could not see my gaze, Ishould, on that unforgettable moonlit evening in Sabinum, have gone offhome to my cottage, to Septima, and have missed my encounter with Vedia,and our night in her traveling coach.

  Then I heard the voices of the animal-tenders essaying, with their long-handled tridents, to chase back into their cages the beasts loose aboutme.

  Soon someone cut my ankle-thongs and the cords about the quilt, also myarm-thongs. The quilt was twitched from my face and I was assisted to myfeet. The amphitheater was full of the yells of the populace, affirming myinnocence and the manifest intervention of the gods in my behalf. I rolledmy gaze around the audience and sought to interpret the demeanor of theImperial retinue.

  Then, as I gazed at the Emperor, too far off for me to make out hisexpression, the yells altered their quality.

  I turned round.

  I saw, running towards me across the sand, Agathemer!

  Behind him was an official in the robes of a magistrate!

  Behind him six more human shapes, four lictors convoying two boundprisoners.

  Agathemer embraced me and I him.

  "Saved," he breathed, "we've got 'em and most of the loot. Enough toconvict 'em and clear you!"

  As we loosed our embrace I looked at the approaching magistrate.

  He was Flavius Clemens!

  Before the shock of recognizing him had passed I forgot him entirely.

  For I had recognized the two prisoners.

  Though I had seen them but once and that by moonlight, and that eightyears before, I recognized the two drunken robbers who had helped us toour couriers' equipment and sent us off galloping to Marseilles.

  Indubitably they were Carex and Junco!

  While still numb with amazement I felt upon me the cold gaze of FlaviusClemens. I looked him full in the face. He was no less astonished th
an Iand I could read in his expression both amazement and suspicion. I wasacutely aware that Ravillanus, by having my hair and beard clipped, hadmade me readily recognizable to anyone and everyone who had known me inthe days of my prosperity. I was even more acutely aware of the keenintuition which every lover feels toward any actual or potential rival. Idreaded that Clemens not only recognized me for myself, but had aglimmering inkling as to why his suit of Vedia had twice failed. But hesaid nothing except:

  "You are cleared of every imputation in connection with the murder ofPompeianus Falco. You are free to go where you please."

  Agathemer took off his robe, and threw it around me and led me to apostern. In the vaulted corridor we were met by Tanno, who embraced me andcongratulated me, and Galen, who also embraced me and felicitated me.Tanno said:

  "Vedia kept up till Agathemer nabbed the criminals, then she fainted; butshe declares the faint relieved her and that she is entirely herself."

  In one of the cells under the hollow of the amphitheater I was givenstrong wine, all I wanted, and then washed with warm water alreadyprepared for me, and afterwards thoroughly massaged. Then I was clad ingarments of my own.

  "I feel like myself," I remarked.

  Just then Flavius Clemens entered, his expression entirely toointelligible for me. Looking me full in the eyes he said:

  "You have been passing as an art-amateur of Greek ancestry, under the nameof Phorbas, with the status of a slave. Before that you were among thehelpers at the Choragium, held as a slave belonging to the _fiscus_, bythe name of Festus. It seems to me that you are no Greek, nor of Greekblood, even to the smallest degree, I take you for a full-blooded Roman. Ithink I recognize you. Are you not Andivius Hedulio?"

  "I am," I acknowledged.

  He saluted me courteously and bade me a polite farewell, without any otherword.

  Tanno and Galen made no comment, nor did Agathemer. They assisted me outto Tanno's waiting litter. In it I was borne off to the lodgings which Ihad occupied eight days before, between my two trials. There I found atempting meal ready for me and ate liberally. Then I was put to bed and atonce fell into the deep sleep of utter exhaustion and slept through tilllong after daylight next day.

  When I woke I found that Dromo himself was by my bedside, as well asAgathemer. They tended me, washed me, plied me with wine and fed me withdainties, asserting that Galen had given orders that I was on no accountto stir from my bed or sit up in it.

  I slept again and, when I woke early in the afternoon, insisted on gettingup and being dressed. I was no sooner clad than there entered theapartment a big, florid, youthful Pannonian sergeant and four legionaries.

  I was yet again rearrested!

  They led me away, forbidding Agathemer to exchange a word with me, or tofollow us. Through the brilliant July sunlight they led me, along itsnortheast flank, up the Steps of Groaning, and to the Mamertine Prison!

  There I was handed over to four of the assistants to the PublicExecutioner. They stripped me of my outer garments, leaving me nakedexcept for my tunic. Then they haled me to the trap-door, lifted the trap,passed ropes under my armpits and lowered me into the dreaded lowerdungeon, the horrible Tullianum!