Colosseum

by Simone Sarasso

  Now they can really fight.

  Bareknuckle.

  This is it, the final showdown; a desperate game in perfect damned equilibrium.

  Verus goes for the flanks and Priscus takes the punches, bobbing in circles like a wounded boxer, his calf throbbing with pain—that might become a problem. The Briton favors blows to the face, channeling his energy into jabs and hooks.

  Priscus answers using his elbows: every time he throws a punch he takes advantage of his scaled manica, the skin on Verus’s chest gradually shredded by the razor-sharp edges of the ice-man’s armor.

  The sand seeps up dark droplets of sweat and life.

  The mob sweats and bleeds, too: the match has got their blood up and a fight between gamblers on the south terrace is spiraling out of control. It began with a bald thirty-five-year-old, a plump man with mustache typical of a brothel’s clientele. Blind drunk on ale, he managed to tip the contents of the last cup over a peevish fat man. It was unintentional, he certainly did not mean to do it, but the chubby guy was even drunker and did not take it well. He spun around and landed a prize-winning punch straight on his nose. The other responded with a well-aimed kick skywards, shattering the jaw of the fat man and forcing him to spit out a canine. The attack sent him tumbling onto a rather undesirable fellow who did not appreciate the intrusion into his already limited personal space and pulled a home-made dagger out of his pocket, made from a sharpened offcut left over from a blacksmith’s workshop tied onto a wooden handle with a few loops of hemp.

  Blood and punctured flesh, of course. The violence spreads with amazing speed, leaping from one skin to another, clawing at innocent necks, ripping out hair, dealing black eyes. In just a few turns of the sand timer, thirty men are going at it like Mars intended up on the terraces. The bravest display their skill with flying kicks, risking a lengthy fall. The flames of pain are flaring up left, right and center, the Amphitheater is on the verge of exploding.

  The city guard steps in to knock a bit of sense into the thick skulls of the mob, clubs in hand. The temperature rises, a cocksure baker throws a head butt at one of the Eagle’s men and the latter loses his balance. He staggers backwards and slips, bouncing down the terraces one after another. No one manages to stop him; no one even tries. Everyone is caught between two fires that do not cease to crackle: the fight up above and the war of the gods, down in the arena.

  The club rolls down and falls into the arena, just inches from the iron-clad warriors. Priscus glances at it, his back to the wall. He is drooling like a thirsty dog.

  Verus gives no quarter: rotten with sweat and streaked with red, he goes on punching with the fury of a raging bull. He goes for the head, driven by the desire to smash his opponent’s crystal face to smithereens.

  The Thracian breaks free, rolls onto his right side and feels his punctured calf give way beneath his weight. He finds himself with his face in the yellow sand: searing grains cake his forehead, slip treacherously into his mouth, grind between his teeth. Priscus has to get moving. He swallows down earth and sweat, rolls yet further and grabs the piece of wood that has fallen from the terraces.

  When the Briton tries to disarm him he is already too late. Priscus, now back on his feet, treats him to a two-handed broadside; the club lands cleanly on his cheek, cutting into the skin and fracturing his jaw. Verus is stunned. He drops to the ground and his snarling adversary is on top of him.

  Ice has transformed into storm, lashing down on the flaming son of the Island without hesitation. He wants to extinguish him, reduce him to oblivion.

  Up in the Emperor’s box, Domitian is baying for blood at the top of his lungs, while Titus, on his feet, watches attentively as the fight unfolds.

  Julia is broken by pain, overcome by the blind fury that has taken hold of the men she loves. Like everyone else, the girl knows there is no room for two lives in the arena.

  One will be extinguished by the hand of the other, unavoidably.

  The thought destroys her, strangles her. Salty tears streak her rouge-smeared face. Julia is ancient pain, pain that cannot be stifled.

  In the meantime, down there, in the temple of death, the boys are still hard at it.

  Verus takes another couple of blows, the brutal energy of Priscus’ assault shredding through his leather and fabric protection, leaving him virtually naked. All he has left is a useless shin guard protecting his left leg. Everything that remains of the Ludus Argentum’s prestigious armor.

  Priscus, on the other hand, is still properly attired: his hair a tangle and his gaze pure red, blood staining the thousand blues of the metal. He is an infernal demon, risen from the icy underworld to claim a fiery life.

  He limps forward, club raised high above his head. Verus is on the ground, dazed, desperate and filled with rage.

  Gropes frantically at his shin guard, he finally finds what he is looking for. He waits until Priscus draws near, then pulls out the knuckle-duster.

  It looks like a bear’s claw, an iron tube for the warrior’s fingers to grasp hold of, crowned by a metal arch with four sharpened obsidian blades embedded in it. Keener than razors, thin and deadly.

  Priscus is too busy bringing down a shuddering double-handed blow to notice the counterattack. And so the murmillo tears into his face without thinking.

  The black nails dig deep into the Gaul’s forehead, scraping the skin down to the bone, ripping and shredding.

  The Gaul loses his club but Verus does not go in for the kill.

  They stand, one in front of the other; horrible masks of death, breathing eternity and pledging endless pain.

  The crowd tears its clothes, makes love to both the champions. This is a real fight. No more ships or sideshows, no more trained beasts or two-bit monsters. Just man’s ancient fury, blessed by history. One on one, as it should be.

  To the last breath.

  The combined noise of the crowd is appalling, ravaging stomachs and bursting eardrums.

  Julia is crying, imploring her father to stop the circus of blood.

  “I beg you. I beg you…”

  Domitian, hungry for violence and revenge, looks down at her kneeling form and savors the moment.

  Titus is a statue.

  It continues.

  Priscus backs away, staggering towards the terraces where the senators and vestal virgins are making more noise than a herd of giraffes in heat. His leg is a serious problem, his forehead makes him cry out. He undoes his shin guard and the cavity between calf and thigh is thick with sticky rubies, lumps of half-dried life: without medical attention, he will not last long.

  They are playing for all or nothing, now. Priscus fumbles in his manica and digs out a stiletto. Attached to the leather straps, it is the perfect condiment for the main dish. The grand finale is but a step away.

  Love, rage, sex, blood, hatred and love again dance before his eyes.

  It is time, by the gods.

  It is time.

  Verus walks slowly towards his destiny: the man he considers a brother is waiting for him at the end of the road, ready to take him down. So it is written. From the very beginning.

  The Briton himself is not doing well: the gashes across his chest are rivulets of lava on the slopes of a ruined mountain, his jaw is still ringing from the impact with the wood and his head is throbbing like crazy.

  Priscus did not go easy on him. The son of the Island is hunched over as he advances, bent by the Gaul’s blows, made imperfect. But he continues regardless, one foot in front of the other, slowly, obsidian talons clasped in his right hand, a will of iron.

  It is all right here, the fate of a god of the arena: heart and blood at the mercy of the Eagle and its wretched mob.

  Confused and wounding thoughts, the ferocious pounding of hearts, sweat and skin in the sun.

  Love squeezed out, wasted.

  Brotherhood of bronze, sand and black blood.

  Death, ladies and gentlemen.

  Death, one way or another.

  Priscus
and Verus look each another in the eye one last time. Smiles haunt their lips and tears fail to take form.

  “I loved you,” thinks the Gaul. “I truly loved you.”

  The Briton, though, does not think at all. Too much fire in his head, in his belly, flowing through his veins.

  The shouting swells again, the thronging masses apparently determined to raze the Amphitheater to the ground with nothing but the power of their voices. Then there is no more room for anything. Just the silence of the soul, the final moments before the glittering end.

  Verus lunges open-mouthed, his shout inaudible, the dark razors finding their mark, cutting through the muscle of Priscus’s naked forearm. The Gaul stabs the Briton in the side: once, twice, three times.

  The same sick ardor, mirror image of blind, deaf rage.

  Red rains down onto the sand, blades meet once more, sparks and skin in pieces.

  Wounds, punches and blows, kicks and sweat.

  Salt sears skin, fever rises, the yellowish hue of eyes tinged with hate. Or the opposite.

  Body to body.

  Until the breaths of both are little more than whispers.

  Until their two broken hearts come together, as one.

  Their weapons drop to the ground and the warriors collapse: on their knees, locked in an embrace, a step away from their final task. Bare hands will suffice.

  Fingers tighten around throats, eyeballs bulging and jugulars squeezed shut beneath unspeakable pressure.

  Verus and Priscus hold each other’s gaze.

  Only one will remain.

  It is in that very instant, in that exact split second of silent perfection, frozen and burning, that the miracle occurs.

  Yet again, the Amphitheater is transformed into a theater of inexplicable magic, the sacred womb of infinite wonders.

  It begins with a tear and a weary plea. It is Julia, on her knees at Titus’s feet.

  “I beg you, my father. My light, my Emperor, glory of Rome. Stop them, I plead. Do something…”

  Domitian turns his head to the right to look at her. His throat is dry, left raw by the shout of “Death! Death! Death!” Vengeance pumps through him like a lethal poison that has reached its destination, impatient to do its worst.

  Domitian sees Julia, and it is like the first time. In her eyes, reddened by tears, he does not see the girl he desired and then enjoyed; there is no malice, no rumble of flesh. There is only compassion, infinite and crystal clear; there is wild and dangerous love, the same love he feels for her.

  Julia too turns her gaze on him and sees, after having spent all day avoiding it. As the colossal farce reached its final act and she realized that her own beloved uncle was behind the whole jeering, blood-soaked orgy, she forsook him with all of her soul. But now she understands that in the sad eyes of the Eagle’s golden-haired officer there is nothing but love. Desperate, malevolent, final, senseless. But still love, damn it. Love for her and hatred for the rest of the world. Domitian wants Julia’s heart all to himself; he will suffer no rivals, Verus and Priscus do not deserve her. He wants them dead and buried, far away, disappeared. So that she is his alone.

  The girl understands, then. She does not stop loathing him, but she forgives him.

  The person she cannot forgive is herself. For not being able to stop loving him, in spite of everything.

  Titus, left alone in the supreme moment, the eyes of the world on him, rises to his feet.

  And time stops once more.

  The referee in his white tunic springs instantly into action, running to pull Verus and Priscus apart, the two still locked in their lethal embrace, one step from the abyss.

  That is how it works in the arena: no one dies at the hands of their opponent, only at those of the Primus. It is the Emperor who decides, glory draining downwards like drool from the throne.

  Nothing happens, unless he wills it.

  At the climax of the fight, the designated victor stops and asks the monarch’s permission to carry out the sentence. Otherwise, it is the vanquished who pleads for mercy by raising two fingers.

  But mercy is not at home, today: the two men at the center of the bloody arena took the field to win or die.

  All or nothing.

  Verus and Priscus, battered and gasping for breath, lurch to their feet, sullen gazes on the Emperor’s box.

  It is up to Titus, now. Titus alone.

  If he raises his right arm, Priscus will survive. And it will be down to him to slit the throat of the only person he has ever loved.

  If he raises his left arm, Verus wins, and no salve will ever be able to ease the pain; the burden of his own brother’s death on his conscience.

  Silence. Nothing but surreal silence, barely broken by Julia’s sobs, the despairing daughter of the Emperor of light.

  Infinite, perfect silence.

  Not even a breath, before the storm.

  Titus Flavius Vespasianus, Augustus of Rome and lord of the entire world, raises both hands.

  For the crowd, up on the terraces, it takes a moment or two to register.

  Two victors.

  No vanquished.

  No damned death.

  Not today.

  And then, the stadium erupts with approval like a volcano. All Rome acclaims Titus the Magnificent, the Merciful, the Just.

  Verus and Priscus cannot believe their eyes; they blink stupidly, struck dumb. But the expression on the referee’s face, as he raises their arms in unison and allows the crowd to worship them like gods, leaves no room for doubt.

  Verus and Priscus cling to one another, stunned, on their shoulders the weight of the pain they have caused, of the life torn away.

  They stagger, but manage to keep one another standing. Hand-picked protagonists for an event without precedents.

  Alive, damn it.

  Alive.

  Emperor Titus seems to read their minds: with the same hands that have just transformed their lives into legend, he signals to the referee to continue.

  The surprises are not over.

  At a whistle from the man in white, four servants enter the arena. Two of them carry a sacred branch, the palm of victory. The others hold in their hands a gnarled stick, and with it the scent of the future.

  “The staff of freedom!” Martial shrieks from the terraces, tears in his eyes, wild with joy. The poet has followed every instant of the epic confrontation and has every intention of immortalizing it with an epigram.

  Verus and Priscus receive their gifts, and in that moment their destinies change forever. Not only have they won, but they have become free men.

  The staff of freedom liberates them of all obligations to their masters, transforming them into Roman citizens. Victors and citizens, free to live their lives as they see fit, without having to answer to anyone.

  Verus is overcome with emotion and hugs the man of ice to him with all the strength left in his body.

  And the ice-man melts, instantly.

  Free, at last.

  Free.

  Today is a unique day; its memory will live on, branded into the history of the Eternal City.

  Never before has anything like this happened.

  Never before has an Emperor shown such honor or such mercy.

  This is the apogee of the Augustus’s reign, the crowning moment of an entire life, the realization of a mad dream, conceived by his father Vespasian. Today, at the center of the Amphitheater, at the end of the first of the hundred days that the inaugural games will last, Titus is the fulcrum around which the entire universe revolves.

  Even Domitian’s plots and Julia’s cruel ingenuity, stains of egoism and pettiness on the spotless imperial cloak, fade away before the rays of glory that shine from the heart of the Emperor.

  The people of the Eagle, moved to tears of joy, launch into songs of jubilation for their magnificent master. Sanctifying the lives of the two warriors of iron, for all eternity.

  After today, Rome will not be the same.

  Power, in its laure
l crown, will still conserve its darker side, while the lowly, just like the well-to-do, will still pass from cradle to grave subject to all the uncertainties of life. But in a thousand years and a thousand more, people will still speak of this incredible feat, which grew brick-by-brick into a dream made flesh and blood. The legend of undying victory.

  Julia’s tears of gratitude, Domitian’s bitter smile, the light immersing Titus’s features.

  The heads and tails of the She-wolf’s coin: indelible portraits of the perfect day, soiled, just like the others, by the blood of the just.

  All eyes are on the Gaul and the Briton, now. They are the most famous men in Rome.

  Hailing from distant lands and survivors of a pitiless destiny, they have become gods, sweating real life into the yellow sands. Rome worships them, chanting their names as though they were immortal divinities.

  But by tomorrow, when the wounds have been sewn and the blood washed away, the two companions will already be on their way to disappearing. They will both agree not to drink from the chalice of eternal glory, deciding instead to taste of the delicious fruit that Caesar Augustus has been good enough to offer them: freedom.

  Not even Martial will manage to track them down, once back in the city. He will hunt high and low for them, but without success. In the end he will write unique verses in their memory, which will echo down the centuries.

  Nobody will ever know what became of Verus and Priscus after they left the Amphitheater, their final bow. There are those who say they left together on a journey north, others who say they went their separate ways after a long embrace.

  What is certain is that, wherever the gods of the arena went, their names lived on in Rome. Ingrained forever in letters of ice and fire on the heart of the Eternal City.

  Author’s Notes

  THE ATTENTIVE READER—in fact I am sure even the distracted reader—will have noted that, in a novel entitled Colosseum, the term “Colosseum” does not appear once. And, quite reasonably, they will have wondered why. The answer lies somewhere between historical fact on the one hand and the story I wanted to tell on the other. Sticking to the facts, as an author of historical fiction is expected to do, in the days of Verus, Priscus, Titus, Julia, and Domitian, the greatest arena in the world was simply called the “Amphitheater”, or, if the speaker wanted to sound particularly formal, “Flavian Amphitheater.” It was only in medieval times that people began to call it “Colosseum,” due to its vicinity to a colossal statue of Sol, the sun god, or rather a colossal statue of Nero converted by Vespasian into one of Sol after the damnatio memoriae of the last emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, designed to erase even memories of his reign. The statue disappeared as the centuries passed, but the name stuck. And even today, all over the world, the word “Colosseum” is enough to conjure up an image of the symbol of Rome.