Colosseum (35 page)

The water is crowned with peace and wonder. Only then do the horses enter.

Splendid Iberian stallions, the blinding white of the snows of Mount Olympus, cut through the water with all the grace of the beasts of Neptune. In place of a saddle they bear wooden frames of lightest rosewood: sputtering Catherine wheels spread smoke and flame across the water, spinning furiously in the breeze.

The equilibrium is perfect: the horses deftly execute the moves to which they have dedicated months of hard work, carefully and to the letter, without once knocking into the other floating animals. They arrange themselves along the shortest route across the pool and swim towards one another. Having reached the center of the ellipse they stop, nose to nose, dip their manes into the water and re-emerge, drenched in droplets.

They shake themselves off in synchrony and extinguish the flames carried on their backs. The smoke is transformed into tranquil mist, teasing the surface of the water.

Verus and Priscus watch the spectacle from on high, their hearts finally floating after so much pain, their eyes filled with universal grace.

But the moving picture that pulses where once there was the arena is about to be enriched by still another touch of the artist's brush. The maddest and most daring, as beautiful as it is unthinkable: a herd of pitch black bulls crosses the watery threshold. They paddle and float as if born and suckled there among the waves, glossy and glinting with oils, red ribbons tied around their shiny, sharpened horns. They swim with amazing speed, completing circles around the horses, hippopotamuses and crocodiles.

None of them try to devour one other, the vaguest predatory instinct of each swept away by pure concentration. The animals have emptied their hearts of rage, their trainers having bent their will as though it were wood. Warmth and patience have allowed the toughest of fibers to adapt to the change.

The choreographed ballet is almost at its peak, the sound of a harp accompanying the carousel of circling animals until, at the height of the prodigious whirl, a flute launches the most piercing of notes into the Roman sky, followed by the concentrated roll of dozens of tambourines.

It is the climax.

A flock of peacocks fills the air over the great pond and sets off the greatest applause the She-wolf has ever known. The whirr of feathers and their winged vault through the crystal sky are nothing next to the landing. Every bird perches on the back of a bull, holds out its right foot and takes a bow, with the reverence of actor at the close of the perfect comedy. As one, their iridescent wheels are thrown open.

Their reflection on the artificial sea multiplies the splendor, adding tone to the shades and heightening the enchantment.

The roar from the crowd fills every last cubit of air.

The Amphitheater shudders. The name of Titus rings out from every direction.

Now that is real greatness, damn it.

The Emperor rises to embrace the entire world.

His daughter and even Domitian cannot feign indifference to what they have just witnessed. They stand up together, each slipping an arm around the other to face the crowd.

Rome has never been so beautiful.

Every misfortune is forgotten in an orgy of pure art; the plague and the fire seem like faint memories before the stupefying enchantment of such triumph.

The infinite applause goes on so long that it starts to feel as though it has always been there. Only when the last pair of hands has ceased to clap and the last eye has been properly dried can the show go on.

Titus smiles again, now back in his seat, and pronounces aloud the magic word: “Naumachia.”

And so begins the mother of all battles.

The atmosphere has been muted by the music and the wind. Today, nature is on the side of the Empire.

Everything in its place.

Servants with burning torches in their hands hurry onto the terraces. They wear dark tunics, an omen of the storm to come. A mystical change takes place; for every torch there is a drum, the incessant beating of toughened clubs quiets the last of the voices.

The silence, broken only by the rhythmic pounding, forms the tender womb of the forthcoming war, the greatest and most spectacular that has ever been fought inside an arena.

The waves ripple and gusts of warm air wash over the sweat-soaked crowd.

The ships make their entrance.

In no hurry, which is as it should be.

The first trireme emerges from the south entrance: it is simply immense.

A prodigious ship, carved at the river yards, masterfully polished and painted in the colors of Corinth. The bow bears the eyes of a sea monster and a Greek smile, tattooed onto the wood with paintbrushes and chisels just above the waterline. The mast has been lowered using an extraordinary mechanism in order to facilitate its entrance beneath the low-hanging gateway: an iron-hinged elbow joint permits such a movement. In war, a real war, it would be considered a liability, but today all is theater. In the end it does not matter who emerges victorious; all that matters is a copious flow of blood into the water below.

The curved prow rises, an impetuous curl facing the make-believe sea, protecting the small army that fills the deck. When the mast is raised through ninety degrees to its full height, and the square sail unfurls, revealing its full extent, the crowd can finally see the teeming mass of heads and bodies, ready for the fight.

Three banks of oarsmen, three hundred and sixty pairs of arms, to cover the trifling distance to the center of the pool.

The ships have lain hidden in the lower floors of the Amphitheater, ready to join the action and raised by the artificial current, allowed to rise a little at a time to ensure they floated without any problems. Greek-style triremes have an extremely shallow draft; despite their bulk they can sail or row just about anywhere, even in the colossal bathtub of his majesty Titus Augustus.

Corinth's adversary does not hesitate to show itself: the opposing vessel looks nothing like the one actually used by the valiant defenders of Epidaurus to defend their city from the attacking fleet, but nobody complains. After all, it is the will of the Emperor. Titus has organized things properly, and knows that clarity is everything. He decided the second ship would be white, with the intention of maximizing the visual impact. Looking down at the ivory splendor, it is hard to fault his choice. Master shipwrights caulked the seams with pitch before expert decorators went to the trouble of dolling the vessel up like a noblewoman at a court feast. But in this case too, it is when the ship's sail opens that the crowd is left truly breathless: the canvas square raised on the mast is as black as night, creating a spectacular contrast.

The oars match the sail, and the gently lapping waters of the pool are churned into foam beneath the slaves' forceful strokes.

The ships circle one another in an imitation of the maneuvers that preceded the historic encounter.

Almost nobody on the terraces would remember much about the mythical war that pitted Corcyra and Athens against Corinth, in the bloody defense of the colony of Epidaurus; Greek history from too many centuries ago. But Titus selected it more for practical than didactic reasons. The best known fact of this titanic encounter to have survived the passage of time is that both sides declared themselves the winners. Once battle was joined, twenty Corcyran ships chased the right wing of the Corinthian fleet as far as the shore, where they tore it to pieces, massacring even the hoplites deployed on dry land. In the meantime the left wing fell upon the remaining Corcyrans and the Athenians were forced to step in to help their struggling allies. In this slaughter too, no quarter was given.

The remains of the two fleets were preparing themselves for the final battle when the Corinthians retreated, believing the Athenian ships to be the vanguard of the Delian League and deciding that they really did not have the stomach to face an enemy of such strength.

Half a victory each way then, and no clash between the land forces. Each side returned home believing it had defeated its adversary.

In other words, the ideal scenario for what Titus has in mind: a reconstruction of the past, simplified due to the limited space available and so contested by only two ships. Enormous triremes in a meager pond, each overflowing with men ready to tear each other apart, but still
only two ships.

Who will get through it alive? History has given only an ambiguous answer to this question.

But surprise is the very essence of wonder.

May the spectacle commence.

The crowd holds its breath while the two warships move to the long sides of the basin.

Anchors are dropped to steady the craft, oars pulled back inside.

The crush of bodies on both ships is striking. A hundred and eighty luckless men on each, eighty of them decked out as hoplites and archers. The rest are semi-naked, bruised and dirty.

None of those taking part in the
naumachia
is a professional warrior. They are wretches, servants and slaves: the scum of the Empire ready for slaughter, Rome's rotten meat thrown to the hungry populace.

The drums fall silent.

The torches flicker.

It begins.

Bows are tensed on the Corcyran ship. Sixty shafts pointed at chest-height, strings strain to breaking point, archers kneeling with simple, bare-chested soldiers standing behind them.

Hundreds of pairs of gritted teeth wait on the Corinthian vessel. The lowly know that today is the perfect day to die. But they will sell their lives dearly, you can bet on that.

Corcyra looses, Corinth takes cover.

Blood is at the gates, spurting this way and that in no time at all.

The front row absorbs the impact somewhat, but from the second row back there are dozens of victims. Many die instantly—a shot from that range would kill even a Cyclops—but others are left wounded. Their fury mounts. Hatred pumps through the veins of the wounded throng of muscles, and the wretches' commander shouts ferociously for them to return fire.

Corinth too is prepared for its own long-range attack, which it unleashes without a second thought.

The distance between the two ships shrinks; it is hard to stay floating separately in a puddle when you are both as big as a whale. The attraction between two evils is too strong: the unlucky warriors have been summoned here to die. If it is not today it will be in a week's time, their flesh burnt by red-hot pokers or their necks broken by Rome's jailors.

Might as well have a bit of fun and go out in a blaze of glory. This is why every slave fights with merciless fervor: it is the last chance that they will be granted to be men.

Corinth's spears pierce Corcyra's flesh. The white deck is stained red and the hoplites are itching to get into the action, while the archers are forced to fall back and the rowers have already left their oars to break a few bones with their bare hands.

The brawl is lethal and the commander makes a snap decision: “Throw the bodies overboard!”

Corpses plunge into the water from over the gunwale, floating motionless like fallen nymphs, wooden darts pointing out of their hearts, straight up to the heavens.

The crowd, on their feet up on the terraces, is going wild.

Blood clouds the water, staining the wonder with horror. As it should be.

The time for measuring up the foe is over. Grappling ramps appear all over the decks, skillfully maneuvered by the oarsmen until the devastating impact between the two ships' hulls.

The hoplites on both sides, standing on the swaying wooden decks, are quick to get down to business. The wretches are dressed up like ancient warriors, with decorative helmets, pikes and brass shields, but they boast neither the grace nor the determination of the heroes they are called upon to imitate. Here, today, at the center of this imperial washtub, suspended between two toys weighing in at sixty thousand pounds, the fight is for survival and the rules are non-existent.

A wild cry goes up, metal clashes against metal: spears and shields, serrated swords stabbing into flaccid flesh.

Many end up in the water, and before long the arena has turned into a pond brimming with squirming tadpoles. The boldest manage to gain the prow with a few powerful strokes of their arms and climb back up, hunting for blood. But many do not know how to swim and they make a pitiful sight as they drown in a few feet of water. One at a time, the bodies of the reject sons of the Empire add themselves to the constellation of death reflected back at the crowd, a mirror in which to read their destiny.

In the meantime, back up on the decks of the triremes, the battle rages furiously. “Hold him still!” shouts a slick, blond-haired brute to his companion, who has just grabbed a Corcyran oarsman on the point of fleeing, before slicing his head off with a double saber blow. The blond man's company gain the upper hand: there are five of them, all scars and undamaged muscle, thieves or slave merchants who must have been doing alright until a few days ago because they show none of the usual signs of emaciation. The one they call Filth is bigger than the rest, slashing this way and that with a two-handed ax, smashing skulls as he goes. He must have brought it from home—there is no way it forms part of the arena's equipment. At a sign from his captain, he begins chopping into the mainmast. A pair of his companions comes to lend a hand and the great pole that supports the jet-black sail begins to sway.

From a tactical point of view, the move is irrelevant: there is not much point in depriving a hundred-oared ship of its sail, much less one floating in an artificial pool. But this is the realm of chaos: causing pain and destruction is what counts, not winning.

Filth and his boys deliver the final blow, and bellow as if they had just defeated Jupiter himself.

The pole falls inexorably, breaking the backs of those unlucky enough to be standing in its way. But it is the sail that really tips the balance of the match: the black cloak covers everything, endless and undiscriminating as only death can be. The Corcyran warriors find themselves imprisoned in a colossal shroud and attempt to escape, but the descending sheet sharpens the combat, spreading panic and unleashing their enemies' full fury.