On a level terrace of grass was a barrier, like the spine that divides the track in the circus; but instead of a furlong it was barely a hundred yards in length. The turning posts at the two ends were slaves standing on pedestals, not an uncommon conceit on private race tracks. But I noted with surprise, for I had never before seen a female in these gardens, that the Emperor had chosen for the task his famous Alexandrian concubine, balanced at the other end by a hideous negress. Both were naked, but so many lamps flared at their feet that they did not feel the cold.
‘Yoke up, yoke up,’ called the Emperor, twirling a wooden clapper as though he were a starter at the circus. ‘ First Green driven by Gordius, second Green by Protogenes. First Blue driven by Hierocles, second Blue by Elagabalus. Place your bets.’
‘The Blues pull the lighter weights. Has the race been fixed?’ called a cheeky stable boy. Protogenes was another beefy and famous charioteer, like Gordius many pounds heavier than the young Emperor or the frail little Hierocles.
‘The chariots have been fairly weighted,’ answered the Emperor. ‘See them on the weigh-bridge if you doubt me. Place your bets for an honest race.’
I laid a small bet on Green, taking advantage of the odds. The contest would be honest, if the Emperor said so; but the young noblemen, new to these parties, could not believe it.
Then someone opened the doors of a shed built under the terrace, and the four chariots emerged. Each was pulled by a single gardener, for they were in fact little handcarts fitted with a yoke in front. Solemnly the drivers mounted, and as they were pulled over the weighbridge we could see they were fairly matched.
So far there had been no hint of the teams, though on such a short track they could not be horses. Then there were cheers and catcalls and hoots of laughter, as sixteen naked women were brought out and yoked, four to each cart.
They were generously built women, in accordance with the Syrian taste of the Augusta. With their necks in the yoke they must bend nearly double, and their labouring buttocks looked enormous. They were frightened and cold, which made them move the more clumsily. Certainly on that evening they would not have tempted the most ardent rake.
‘There you are, gentlemen,’ called the Emperor. ‘Four teams of unbroken fillies, a present to our private club from my generous grandmother. I’m not sure she intended them for racing. But she said they were given me as playthings, and I can’t think of a better way to play with them.’
As a matter of fact the race was quite amusing. All the drivers were first-class charioteers; the three professionals, intimate friends of the Emperor since the beginning of his reign, were too vain of their skill to permit their lord to win without genuine competition. That was one of the reasons why he liked them. He expected flattery in words, since that is conventional court etiquette; but he could not enjoy a sport unless his opponents tried to beat him.
The charioteers followed the conventional tactics of the circus, the first team making the pace and trying to shut in the opposition, the second trying to come from behind in the last lap and snatch a close finish. There were desperate mix-ups at the turning posts, and a good deal of crossing in the straight; but the fillies were clumsy at answering to the bit, and they never got up enough speed to overturn a chariot when they collided. Long whips cracked and flickered over their sweating backs; but I had noticed before the start that the thongs were plaited from paper, so that though they may have stung they could do no real damage. That was typical of Elagabalus. Ridicule was his weapon against anyone who bothered him, but he was too kindly to inflict physical harm even on unwanted she-slaves.
The presents of the Augusta were always lavish. There were enough of these fillies to furnish another four teams, and each team turned out three times. Six races made an amusing evening, and my betting showed a slight profit; though the young nobles soon spotted that the Emperor was taking a fair chance, and no longer laid odds on Blue.
Then we all had a very good supper, reclining in the wintry garden with braziers all round us. While we ate we watched grooms rub down the teams; then they were given their evening feed, barley soaked in wine, served in a marble manger. Since they must eat standing, with their hands tied behind their backs, their antics were very comical.
The Emperor soon got tired of these chariot-races, for he found it boring to drive such slow-moving teams. But the light garden-carts seemed to him a more comfortable means of getting about than a litter. A number of them were adapted to be drawn by a pair of fillies, running upright with traces attached to the waist. Constant exercise made the girls fit and athletic, and exposure weathered them to a glossy chestnut. The carts never appeared on the public streets, for the Emperor did not wish to be stared at when he was not taking part in a public ceremony; but in his private garden they became the normal way of getting about. Barefoot girls could run over a lawn, where litter-bearers must walk slowly and horses would have cut up the turf. With practice the girls learned to obey the bit; or you could tell them where to take you and then sit back and look at the flowers. Soon everyone who had the entree to the private garden grew accustomed to being conveyed in this manner. The sleek brown trotting girls became a part of the landscape; no one thought of them as desirable women, and it would have seemed as odd to put clothes on them as to dress up a horse.
Those concubines who could not run without waddling were housed in a distant pavilion, where they lived in comfort and embroidered vestments for the Sun-god. The Emperor would not ungraciously get rid of a present from his grandmother, but he could find no other use for them. When I suggested that they might be employed in the palace laundry I learned, with some surprise, that no such institution existed. The Emperor, and the ladies of the imperial household, never had their clothes washed; as soon as a garment was dirty it was thrown away and replaced.
Now that the Emperor had abandoned the struggle to live as a respectable member of Roman society, Roman society received him to its bosom. It is impossible for a gentleman to make a career in the army, since an officer with family influence is considered a danger to the state; a career in the civil service is too much like hard work to attract a pampered noble. There are the curule magistracies, of course, and the priestly colleges; but these honours are not serious occupations. Thus Rome is full of young men, sons and grandsons of tough military governors who retired rich. They have nothing to do but amuse themselves; some of their amusements were very like the Emperor’s.
The Emperor took to dining out, and found that a dinner party was an excellent way of filling an empty day. It filled the whole day, because he was careful not to beggar his subjects by asking one man to furnish the whole lavish entertainment. The usual arrangement was that a single course was served in one house, and then the company drove in chariots to eat the next course under another roof. The gallop through the crowded streets was another attraction, though the Emperor made it clear that there must be no fatal accidents. He liked to frighten pedestrians, but he never ran over one. His hosts always provided dancing-girls, since they are the conventional accompaniment of a good party. The Emperor, who liked good dancing, would watch the performance with close attention and afterwards criticize it. But none of the girls ever took his fancy.
Once or twice I attended these parties, by imperial command. To move in cultured, wealthy, smart society had been the dream of my youth; the hope that one day I might enjoy the opportunity had driven me to mind my manners and keep up my reading during long years of service on the frontier. But the fulfilment of the dream came too late; I found that I was bored by the chatter of frivolous young men, who had never done anything useful and were ignorant of the world beyond the walls of Rome. I got out of the irksome duty by persuading the Emperor that it would be more polite to his hosts if he brought a full ceremonial escort rather than a single battered and elderly centurion as bodyguard. It was fun sometimes to see the chariots whirl by, dashing through the market at full gallop on their way from the fish to the roast; but it was better fun to
watch this for a minute than to keep up my society manners for seven or eight hours at a stretch.
When he was not dining, or racing chariots, the Emperor occupied himself with the service of his sky-stone. It occurred to him one day to ask whether sky-stones were worshipped in other parts of his Empire. When he learned that there were quantities of them he commanded that they should be assembled in Rome, as courtiers and servants of the Sun-god. In the provinces some local authorities did not grasp what he was at, though they were anxious to please him; they sent him their most venerable statues, not understanding that human handiwork, no matter how sacred and miraculous, was of no value in his eyes in comparison with a shapeless lump of stone that had actually fallen from heaven.
In Rome the Vestals keep among the secret things in their ancient, round, thatched hut a sky-stone. The Emperor demanded that it be sent to the temple of Elagabalus the Sun-god. But Vestals are not in the habit of taking orders from anybody, even from an Emperor; they sent a very old and dusty jar, whose stopper was alleged to bear the seal of King Numa. No one was allowed to open this jar; but when shaken it did not rattle.
But from Laodicea they sent their famous Diana, an object so ancient that it had been worshipped by Orestes. The Emperor was a little put out that a goddess should intrude into his male sanctuary; he was comforted when the priests pointed out that Diana is an armed virgin, with no desire for masculine embraces. She was given an honourable post, on a pedestal by the inner door of the sanctuary; her duty was to threaten venturesome demons with her arrows.
The Flavian amphitheatre had been repaired, the Baths of the Divine Caracalla completed, and a new Bath constructed to honour the Antonine Emperors in general; all paid for out of the imperial privy purse. The Emperor was immensely popular with the mob, and well liked by the soldiers; while these supported him the enmity of the outraged Senate could do him no harm. But the treasury was beginning to worry about money. The Emperor himself cost less than any ruler since the Divine Augustus; for his stable boys were of such mean birth that they were content with free board and lodging, his jewellery had come to him by inheritance, and he was temperate in eating and drinking. But the service of the sky-stone was another matter.
Already the income of the temple at Emesa had been mortgaged for the next twenty years; though its land, dedicated to a god, could not be sold outright. The privy purse had been fortified by the estates of the pretenders who had tried their luck during the war against Macrinus; so that for the first year and a half of his reign the Emperor lived on his private revenue. But now, with expensive birds from foreign parts to be sacrificed daily in hecatombs, the Emperor had little of his own money left. The treasurer protested, in a stiff official letter, at the leniency shown to Carus and his accomplices; they had been very wealthy, and their estates should not have wastefully descended to their heirs.
The public revenue of the Empire goes straight to the military chest. In bad years even this is not enough for the soldiers’ pay, and the Emperor is expected to make up the difference from his private fortune. I don’t know why the government is always short of money; it was not so in the days of our grandparents. Perhaps the Divine Severus increased the pay of the soldiers to more than his dominions can produce. But if that is the case nothing can be done about it. Any Emperor who tries to reduce military pay is at once killed by his guards.
It was suggested that the Emperor should marry a rich wife. No one could say who had first thought of it, but suddenly everyone spoke of it as the obvious solution to our troubles. The Augusta, of course, had never relaxed her efforts to make the Emperor a husband and father. Now her persuasion was reinforced by every responsible adviser.
In the end even Eutychianus took up the project. One morning he summoned me to the Camp, where I found a group of senior officers assembled in his quarters. He came straight to the point.
‘Duratius, you are an intermediary between the army and the palace. The Emperor believes what you tell him about the sentiments of the soldiers. I want you to come with us when we advise the Emperor to take a wife. You will back us up by saying that the soldiers want him to marry.’
‘If that’s an order, my lord, of course I will. It won’t be the literal truth, you understand. I talk to the soldiers a great deal, that’s my job. None of them care whether the Emperor has a wife, or six wives, or none at all as at present.’
‘That is of no consequence. The treasury wants him to marry, and the high command has decided to back the civil service. But that won’t convince him. He must think the demand comes from the soldiers.’
As a trained soldier, I obeyed orders; but as an old soldier I used in addition my own judgement. When the deputation waited on the Emperor I supported the Praetorian Praefect. The Emperor thanked us for our advice, and promised to give his answer next day. That evening I hinted to one of the stable boys that I had said what I had been ordered to say not what I myself believed to be true.
The Emperor was dining out in the City (a remarkable dinner in which all the food was blue, in compliment to a Blue victory in the circus; the cooks had great difficulty in devising a blue sauce for the venison, and next day the town talked of nothing else). He did not get back until very late, but then he sent for me.
Lately he had taken to sleeping in the Pincian gardens, ostensibly so that his love for Hierocles should not shock the Senators, in fact to avoid visits from the Augusta in the middle of the night. I was taken there in a litter; but once I had arrived the Emperor put me in one of his famous two-girl carriages, and drove beside me in another. It was very private and peaceful in the dark, scented avenues; the sleepy girls jogged in silence, and our wheels made no sound on the grass.
‘I got your message,’ he said at once. ‘I know the soldiers don’t care whether I am married or single. But the Augusta gives me no peace, and now that the officers have joined in the cry I can’t ignore it. So I have devised a wonderful plan, which will end this nonsense once and for all. Tomorrow I shall announce my betrothal. I wonder whether Eutychianus will approve of the bride I have chosen.’
After a moment’s silence he shot a question at me. ‘Who is the wife of the Sun?’
I could not think of an answer. ‘ Would it be the Moon?’ I suggested timidly. ‘In Gaul she is sometimes worshipped with the Sun.’
‘A queer sort of wife,’ said the Emperor in scorn, ‘always gadding about when her husband is in bed. It’s no wonder they have no children.’
‘Then I don’t know who is, my lord. All the other gods have wives, and most of them have children. Perhaps the Sun is an exception, the only great god who lives single.’
‘You have hit it. The Sun is a bachelor, though once long ago he cohabited with the bare earth to produce mankind and the animals and every green living thing; for the Sun is the sole source of life. My sky-stone, for all that it is the phallus with which the world was made, is still the phallus of a bachelor. Now we shall change all that. Elagabalus the Sun-god has become the special protector of the Roman People, as Elagabalus the high priest has become their Emperor. So the Sun will marry the tutelary goddess of Rome, and the high priest will marry her priestess.’
‘Can the sky-stone beget children?’ I asked with a smile. But the Emperor was not in a mood for flippancy.
‘It is not a thing to joke about,’ he snapped. ‘You are a veteran who has seen the wonders of the world, not a silly little city sniggerer whose universe is bounded by the Tiber. There was a time before man existed, every philosopher will tell you that. The first man must have had a father, and why shouldn’t that father have been the Sun? I shall introduce a mighty goddess into the bed of Elagabalus the Sun-god; and if a god results I shall not be particularly surprised. Furthermore, that the sacred line of the priest-kings of Emesa may continue, I shall myself mate with a most sacred priestess. Most Emperors partake of divinity only after they are dead, but my successors will be something more than human while they are still on earth and reigning over the Republic.
’
‘I’m very sorry, my lord,’ I said anxiously. He was kindly, but an angry Emperor is a very fearsome thing. ‘I understood you were planning this marriage only to score off Eutychianus and the Augusta.’
‘You are forgiven, my faithful Duratius. You are quite right. The plan was devised as a joke. But suddenly my god has inspired me, and now I am in deadly earnest. That’s how inspiration comes, you know; while you drive about in a pleasant garden, not thinking of divine affairs. If you sit in a temple, fasting, the god sees you are trying to coerce him and won’t answer. Come up, fillies,’ he added with a tug at the reins and a flourish of his whip. ‘I must get at my tablets while I still remember the details of this scheme the god has put into my head.’
Obediently the teams wheeled, and we glided back to the lights of the pavilion. It was a very pleasant way of getting about.
‘It’s a wonderful scheme, my lord, and the whole world will be glad to know you have consented to marry and continue the sacred line of the priest-kings,’ I said as we bounced down a slope. ‘But you haven’t yet told me whom you have chosen to be the bride of the Sun-god, or which priestess you will honour by making her your consort.’
‘You ought to know without being told. But then you are a barbarous Gaul, for all that your ancestors have been citizens for centuries. I said the tutelary goddess of Rome. That’s Vesta, of course. And I shall wed a Vestal.’
In a moment we were dismounting in the lighted porch, and I had to compose my features. I longed for kindly darkness to hide my dismay. Of course Vesta is the tutelary goddess of Rome; everyone knows that. But the idea of the virgin goddess as a bride was shocking, and the idea of her priestess as the Emperor’s consort seemed as terrible as if he had proposed to give a public demonstration of cannibalism.
In the pavilion the Emperor called for lights and wine, while his boy-friends gathered round to help him draft the decrees. The stable boys were Asiatics, who did not understand how a genuine Roman feels about Vesta; but even they were awed by the desperate proposal. The Emperor, on the other hand, was exalted. He was convinced that his god had spoken to him while he drove in the garden; only divine inspiration could have put such a plan into his mind. He roughed out a speech to the Senate, but he took more trouble over drafting the order of the marriage procession and the nuptial ceremony.
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