by Talbot Mundy
“Never mind. He enforces the law. When a criminal has been condemned he dies in the arena. No more slaves or substitutes while Nepos is in charge and Cato shuffles off to the slums to talk with him half the night! I have old- fashioned notions. I rather admire Cato, although I admit, I would not like to entertain him in my house; he would probably arrive bare-footed, bring in the lictor with him, and discuss morality. Watch that team now!”
The Cappadocians at last were being sent around the course at full speed, he who drove them displaying none of the histrionics generally practiced by charioteers to excite the crowd. He did not shake the reins or shout; he did not fan the horses with his whip; he stood as rigidly erect as possible, allowing for knees bent to absorb motion as the chariot bumped behind the stretched out team; but any judge of speed — and there were scores of them looking on — knew instantly that this was faster than any chariot had moved that morning. There was magic in the driver’s hands, that loosed four horses in one spasm, as it were, of concentrated force.
“Who is he? Look at that! Jupiter omnipo—”
There were ten teams practicing. Most of the charioteers were taking short spurts at the turns to teach their horses how to cut in when another chariot was forced outward by its own momentum at the curve. As Orwic whirled at top speed around the far end of the spina two other charioteers deliberately swung into his path, pretending not to see him!
“Gemini!”
He dodged between them as a hare slips in between the hounds, made time to lash one charioteer across the face with the butt end of his whip and, striking the other’s wheel with his own hub, spilled him, hardly seeming to have lost speed, turning to laugh at the man sprawling among struggling horses.
“That’s the team I bet on! The man knows his business! Mark you — that was no accident. Those are slow teams turned out purposely to injure him. Some one with a big bet is afraid of him. He shall carry my money.”
“Aye — to Hades, if you’re such an idiot! If they think he stands a chance of winning — the better he is, the worse for him! If they can’t wreck him in the practice gallops he’ll be dead before the day comes, or else some one will poison his horses or saw through the chariot axle! When did a man ever win who wasn’t so well known that nobody dared to play foul? Probably Helene is in need of money, in which case the exhibition is simply an invitation to bribe her to withdraw the team or else to guarantee to lose the race!”
Meanwhile, Tros was wasting no time watching Orwic, who, well warned, was living with the horses day and night with two hired Gaulish gladiators to protect him. Though Helene had entered the team under Pompey’s name, that was in some ways a disadvantage’ because Pompey himself had returned to his villa to be with his ailing wife and had left all arrangements for the coming games in the hands of one of his lieutenants. There were fourteen races to be run before the third day of the games, when butchery of prisoners and combats between gladiators would begin, so Pompey’s worried manager was best not approached; if asked to protect Helene’s charioteer he would probably have done exactly the opposite, to avoid the risk of losing friendships among influential equites, who would object to losing money through an unknown charioteer’s surprise victory. There was as much corruption in the races as politics, and there was also jealousy from Pompey’s own great racing stable to consider.
But Tros had to depend not only on Orwic’s victory, but on the acclamations of the crowd. He had to make Orwic popular, while he himself kept out of sight for fear of being recognized by any one who might report him to the praetor. Nepos had refused to intervene with Cato, saying he could not afford to lose the praetor’s friendship; more, when Tros went to him with fruit and vegetables for his men, he said: “Are you a turn-coat after all that bold boast?”
“Get away from Rome then, now, before it’s too late. Your men must tread the sand unless orders come from Cato or the senate. You have three more days, so stir yourself! I have told Cato you are in the carceres — which is near enough to the truth; I hold your promise. Cato says you have been plotting against Rome, besides intriguing with the Vestals. If Cato catches you, he’ll only send you to me. There’s nothing I can do, unless you want yourself run through the thigh. You might appeal then to the Vestals. They might dare to protect you; but if they should look away I would have to order out the masks and hooks. I would prefer to fight it out if I were you.”
So Tros kept Zeuxis and Helene hard at work manipulating Rome’s news-avid underworld. They sent their slaves into the city to inform whoever had a ticket for the games that it was safe to bet on Helene’s Cappadocians and the charioteer Ignotus. rumor having spread that Caesar had already attacked Britain, advantage was taken of that to excite superstition. It was whispered, as a deadly secret — which naturally spread like wild-fire — that Ignotus was a Gaul and had been sent by Caesar to foreshadow his own success in Britain by winning a victor’s laurel in the Circus Maximus.
The mob loved Caesar and his everlasting triumphs over foreigners, whose property poured into Rome, so there were only enough doubters to keep the odds against Helene’s Cappadocians comparatively tempting. The Jews, Greeks and Armenians, who openly conducted lawless betting dens under the eyes of bribed officials, did a thriving business.
Three of Zeuxis’ slaves were sent to Ostia to try to find out what had become of Conops, failing which they were to watch for Tros’s ship and send word by runner. But the first message they sent back was to the effect that Conops had vanished as if earth had swallowed him and that there was no sign of the ship, although two triremes, with full crews on board, were anchored near the harbor-mouth and seemed to be expecting action.
Tros made one desperate effort to reach the Vestals and appeal for their protection. But Pompey had begun to pave the way for a public protest against the Vestals’ alleged intriguing in behalf of Caesar. Their palace was heavily guarded. Even when the Vestals went to change the watch over the undying flame they walked between two lines of armed men, who turned their backs toward them and faced the other way. Tros did not dare to draw attention to himself.
So he had to pin his whole faith to the wildest plan ever a desperate man invented! Orwic must be the victor in the last quadriga race on the third day, when the crowd would already be mad with excitement. Orwic must win money for the crowd as well as foretell Caesar’s coming triumph. That was something that the gods and Orwic must contrive between them. Then, the races over, Orwic must join Tros in the carceres and sally forth the next day into the arena, while the crowd still loved him, and so make Tros and his Northmen popular. Whether they should have to fight Numidians or beasts, Orwic must appear to be the leader; Tros himself would simply guard the young man’s back and rally the Northmen when they needed it. Then, when the foes were beaten — as they must be! — Tros, acting as interpreter for Orwic, would appeal to the spectators — to the Vestals — even to Pompey himself as the patron of the games! The odds were half a million to one against the plan’s success — and yet no other plan was possible.
There was nothing to count on but the mob’s emotion, absolutely unpredictable, although the Roman mob was sometimes generous toward prisoners who showed good sport. The Vestals, if the mob were not enthusiastic, might not dare to give the signal to let Tros and his companions go free. Possibly Pompey had conveyed a hint to them. But if they did dare, nobody would question the decision afterward — not even Pompey himself.
And meanwhile, not a sign from Conops — not a hint of where the ship might be. She might be wrecked. Or Sigurdsen might have flinched from the risk of putting into Ostia and, turning pirate, might have set forth on a mad cruise of his own. And Caesar already invading Britain. Probably Caesar was short of men because of the lack of shipping and the dire necessity to hold Gaul with numberless garrisons all ready for emergency. But even now Caswallon and his Britons might be fighting desperately for their Lunden Town. He could almost hear Fflur saying: “Tros will defeat Caesar. Never doubt him!”
&nb
sp; And last, not least, Helene added to the climax of perplexities. When he told her his plan and she understood he had nothing to depend on but the very doubtful generosity of the spectators, she recovered self-possession. The cobra-venom in her took a new lease of existence.
“Tros,” she said, “Lord Tros, you are no judge of women, but to judge men shrewdly is my one gift. I find you admirable. You can thrill me as no man ever did, and you can make me flinch without a blow, which is a rapturous sensation now I come to think of it. And I adore a man who is so faithful that the very Roman headsman trusts him! Nevertheless, I think you are the least wise man I ever saw!”
“Rot me your opinion!” Tros exploded. “Save your own skin by obedience.”
“Lord Tros,” she answered, smiling, “I believe I know a better way than all this trusting to your gods, and to the crowd. I don’t believe in any gods, not having seen them, but I know the Romans; I have seen them sobbing at the death of elephants and howling in the next breath for the death-blow to a brave man, simply for the lust to see a man die! A good gamble is exciting, and the game has most zest when the stakes are highest. But why give too long odds, when there is a better chance, and more to win, in an equally exciting game?”
“What treachery do you brew now?” Tros wondered, staring at her.
“None. Tros, I love you! I would rather die with you in the arena than betray you or see you lose.”
“Tros,” and there was anger in her eyes now, “do not doubt me. I will gamble with you to the end, and I will do my utmost to prepare the crowd to set you free by acclamation. But remember — if you go free, that will be in part my doing. I will have a claim on you.”
“True. I will remember it,” said Tros. “Pearls you shall have, and your freedom when I reach Caesar.”
“If you leave Rome, I come too!” she retorted. “Do you think my heart is anything to trifle with? And it is easier to shake off war’s scars than—”
She perceived she had not even penetrated through his thoughts of fifty other matters that obsessed him.
“Conops,” he said, looking absent-minded, “may have fallen foul of drink and women. He is a faithful little rascal, but the wine shops on the harbor- front of Ostia—”
Helene laughed — abruptly — bitterly. “Tros, do you think I am not worth more to you than any longshore sailor?”
“Deep-sea sailor,” he corrected.
She ignored the interruption.
“I have said, I love you. I have never loved until I saw you — never!”
“Tchutt! That reminds me,” said Tros, “I must take care of Zeuxis.”
“It is I not Zeuxis who will cause the crowd to free you,” she retorted. “I am spending all my money. I am even begging the favor of Lucius Petronius — that dog! — if he will use his influence among the equites. And do you think I will let you leave me to Petronius? You shall take me with you, or you shall never leave Italy!”
But Tros was thinking of Caswallon and the Trinobantes, probably retreating before Caesar’s doggedly advancing legions. He could almost see Caswallon’s kind face and the eyes of Fflur. Almost he could hear Fflur speak:
“The Lord Tros will never desert us. Somehow he will find a way to worry Caesar’s rear. Tros never would forget a friendship.”
Slowly the far-away look in his eyes relaxed, and the frown melted. As he threw off that mood, he laid his hand abruptly on Helene’s shoulder — not particularly gently, noticing the strength of her young muscles, smiling at the thought that she should waste affection on him.
“Woman,” he said, cheerfully, “if you prefer to ruin me, arrange for me to die in the arena! Now I go to give my men encouragement. If you love me, as you say, then watch for my man Conops. If he comes contrive to let him reach me. And one other thing — attend to it that Zeuxis sends into the carceres those weapons that my men left in bundles in his charge.”
“I am yours,” she answered. “I will serve you. But remember — I am yours as much as any of your men and you shall not desert me! Tros, I have warned you! Did you hear me? Did you understand?”
CHAPTER 93. Conops
In Alexandria there are slaves who teach philosophy, and they are good teachers. From a slave I learned the trick of calculus by which I built the ship I visioned, whereas all he saw was calculus. It is true, I have found my freedom is slavery to the daily need to enlarge it, lest it grow less and ensnare me into love of thinking but not doing. But I find my slavery is less humiliating than that other. Nevertheless, there are men whose virtue lacks direction. Such men need a master, to whom they yield obedience in exchange for stanch exaction of the best they can do. Not being God, I know not why this is, but I observe it. I myself would willingly obey a man who could exact from me more than I give to the men who obey my commands.
— from The Log of Tros of Samothrace
IN cellars, dens and storerooms under the tiers of wooden seats, in the dungeons, and in the big, stone-walled enclosures at either end of the Circus Maximus pandemonium reigned for many days before a public spectacle. In nothing had the Romans carried organization to such a pitch as in the management of public games, so discipline prevailed in spite of frantic haste and privileged interference. The actual control was in the hands of experts, many of whom were foreigners, and each of whom knew the last detail of his own particular responsibility.
The giver of the games — he who paid the bill — was only nominally in authority; he left all details to subordinates, of whom the greater number were, like Nepos, permanently employed by the city and responsible to elected officials. They resented the officious interference of the patron’s own men, whose ambition naturally was to produce a spectacle more magnificent and thrilling than any one that had preceded it, the whole purpose of the spectacle — originally a religious rite — being to increase the patron’s fame.
Pompey lacked — and his lieutenants knew he lacked — a true grip on the popular imagination. His tastes were literary and artistic. He loathed the brutal exhibitions that had become the crowd’s first test of a man’s fitness to hold public office. Although his agents scoured the earth for animals and gladiators, though his school of gladiators was the best in Rome, and though his racing-stable was superbly managed, beyond ordering his treasurer to pay the bills he gave scant personal attention to any of those interests, preferring his country estate and his library, both lavishly adorned with plunder that he brought home from his conquests in the East.
Pompey was a man whose natural ability was undermined by vanity and by contempt for details. It pleased him to believe that, in his own phrase, he could stamp his foot and raise an army — to accomplish any purpose. Temperamentally he was lazy, vain and opportunist; politically he was autocratic but averse to civil violence except in so far as it was necessary to enforce his own convenience; his own lieutenants were as arrogant and violent as any men in Rome, but he upheld them. Theoretically he was opposed to looting, but he had enriched himself by that means; in speech and writing he condemned corruption, but his own front garden at election time was set with tables, at which his corps of secretaries handed out the money for the votes. His magnanimity was frequently spectacular and very often genuine, particularly if it ministered to pride; but he could shut his eyes to things he did not want to know, with almost ox-like indifference — in which respect he was so far inferior to Caesar that there was no comparing the two, politically. Caesar ignored nothing. Pompey, equally an opportunist, blazed out of retirement, exercised his genius until he wearied of it, and withdrew again.
Naturally, his character had bred a corresponding attitude of mind in his lieutenants, who irritated Caesar at every opportunity and looked to Pompey to control the consequences. It was well known, even to outsiders, that the only bond of peace between the two men was the fact that Caesar’s daughter Julia was Pompey’s wife and that Pompey was extremely fond of her. Caesar depended on Julia to preserve at least the outward appearance of friendship, although it was a moot questi
on whether she deliberately fed Caesar’s ambition or was simply eager to contrive peace.
Now, although the doctors held out hopes of Julia’s recovery, they only deceived Pompey who, as usual, believed what it pleased him to believe and shut his eyes to an alternative. None who had seen her recently had any doubt that Julia was dying; and none doubted that when Julia was dead the open breach with Caesar must inevitably follow. Pompey’s closest friends, in fact, were eager for the issue; it was clear to them that Caesar’s influence was gaining and delay increased his chances of success. The time to split the breach wide open was while Caesar’s hands were full in Gaul and Britain.
So the men who took over the Circus Maximus in Pompey’s interest determined that the crowd should recognize him as the greatest entertainer who had ever squandered his munificence on Rome. They would make Caesar’s entertainments, recklessly extravagant though these were, fade from the public memory. They nearly drove the staff of regular attendants mad with their interference and Nepos, for instance, cursed the very name of Pompey. The dens and cages under the high tiers of seats, and the cellars below those, were so packed with roaring animals, and the stench from them was so atrocious, that it was even doubted whether horses would be manageable during the three days chariot-racing that were to precede the slaughter.
The dungeons were so thronged that no excuse was needed for confining Tros’s men in wooden cells above the level of the ground. Nepos even used the Northmen to help spread the loads of coarse sand brought in by countless carts from the sandpits near the Via Appia and many another prisoner toiled in fetters, hoping that goodwill might cause him to be spared some last indignity. The risk of fire was so great that the whole of Crassus’ fire-brigade and all the sailormen ashore in Ostia were summoned to stand watch, with the result that two whole crowded streets of Rome were gutted by the fires which raged with no one to extinguish them. All Rome talked of nothing but the coming games.
