The Far Arena (18 page)

'You wish to see me ?' 'Yes.'

'Kill your friend Publius?' I do not know why I expected him to say no, but I hoped it.

'Yes, it will make it more interesting. Someone I know instead of some musclebound youth you import to butcher.'

'They say that, too ?' My anger burned, hidden.

'Some say it. I assumed it was true because you are so calculating in everything.'

'You want seats?'

'Your special seats from which one can see everything with the finest view. The ones in your network of chambers where the women are, and dancers are, and where the golden flute is played.'

'The "chambers" in the large arena is one cubicle. There is a slip at sand level from which a slave, standing on a small iron table, can see the emperor's seats. Through it we hear the mood of the crowd. There are no women, just body slaves and armoured slaves, the kind that escort you around the city. There is a heavy door and jugs of water in case of riots. There are no flutes.'

Then I will stay there.'

'You can barely see anything from there but what I have told you. The slit has often been blocked by an animal's body.'

'I want this more than anything, father. Please. Please. It tears at my liver to be the only one in the entire world who will be denied this.'

'You want the arena. Here is the arena.' And for the first time I used my hand to strike him. I slapped one side of his face and the other side. I slapped again, and his
fuzz
y
cheeks with the little beard welted and became red. And what was worse, I gave him that stone smile I use for small arenas where my face could well be seen. He begged me to stop, and I told him I was giving him the arena. He raised one finger begging mercy, as obviously his schoolmates had taught him was done in the arena. I stopped.

"There are the vestal virgins,' I said pointing to the god of the house, 'and there the emperor,' pointing to the atrium. 'Do you think you have put up a good enough fight for them to let you live?'

'This is unfair,' he said.

'Welcome to the arena,' I said, raising my hand in a gross gesture. He cringed, and no sword has ever cut like that sight.

I spent a life keeping the arena and even business out of my . peristilium, and I myself had brought it in with my own hands. How I longed for the pain of that burning rod against my belly when lessons were so easy.

On the day of his birthday, the tonsor cut Petronius' beard. I gave the tonsor a gold coin, which would bring his peculium almost to the point of his freedom. The welts were gone from Petronius' cheeks, for I had been careful not to break bone or skin but only sting. The tonsor gave me the beard in a silver bowl, and I gave the bowl to Lucius Aurelius Cotta, the silver-haired patriarch of the Aurelii who had honoured my house for this ceremony. Miriamne did not attend, which I had allowed as her right. She disapproved of Roman gods, belonging to Christians who constantly called upon her to interfere in our family life, especially with Petronius. Varro was there. Publius of course was not.

Galbas and Tullius had met my son in the atrium early that morning as I received retainers. With Petronius at my side, they offered gifts of gold and silver and prophesied great activities for Petronius' loins. He delivered well his spoken gratitude, each sentence as though he were born patrician and already in the senate place he would have from me.

In the atrium, the emperor's emissary said that the divine Domitian would have come himself but for the great burdens of state. He delivered three gold swords to Petronius, who swore, in an excellent memorized speech, his loyalty to his emperor who was Rome, indivisible one from another, each but a word for the other. The emissary smiled, amazed that so young a child could be so proficient in oratory. And I was truly proud, even though Petronius had no smiles for me. But I had many for him.

The emissary had other words, quiet and private for me. Domitian was worried. These were his personal games, and now the Vatican arena seemed too large for a single combat even with the other shows.

‘
I
told you to tell him that,
’ I
said.

Petronius had taken his gold swords back in the house to an accounts clerk who would store them for an occasion on which they might honour the emperor in return.

‘
I
spoke to him of what you told me. We have had a good riot and we need the big arena. But this is too big,' he said. His words were hushed, as were mine, but each word was shot like stones from ballistae.

'It was not I who lured Publius into that arena.'

'Domitian is worri
ed about what Publius will wear!
'

‘So am I
.'

'So you agree with Domitian ?'

'Absolutely. We are going to have real problems getting a good fight out of him in that heavy officer's armour.
’
'Canyou talk to him?' 'No. I thought Domitian would.'

‘
I
have. Publius insists upon dying his own way. He says he may not have lived well, but he's going to die well.'

'Oh, gods, and he's not even drinking,' I said, raising my hands in supplication to the ceiling.

'Can you help him die well ? If he dies well, it can work.'

'He won't stop being Publius to die.'

'You might disembowel him.'

Through a breastplate ? No one would see it
’

'Can you dismember him ?'

'Maybe, but my spatha is made for fighting, not butchering. It's a thrust, not a slash.' Take a short sword.' 'Why not a feather?' Take a short sword auxiliary.
’
it bangs, and it's clumsy. It ruins my style.' 'What are we going to do ?'
‘
I
will do something.
’
'What.'

'Whatever I can do, and whatever Publius will help me do.
’

'In passing
..
.
’
said the emissary. 'How much ?'
I asked

‘
Ten million sesterces.
’

‘
Never.'

'You're getting publicly freed from the arena. You are getting a senate seat, and not only were you not born an equestrian, you have been a slave. And, Eugeni, you have made an immense, immense fortune under the benign rule of our divine Domitian.'

'He's getting this show free from me.'

'He needs money to make sure this is a good show.'

Ten million would never reach the arena sands. Except with hundreds of pairs of gladiators and perhaps new animals, I rarely see more than five million.'

‘
Not enough.'

'I have not said five million. I am not as wealthy as the great imagination of Rome has me. You have seen my retainers, their great length, their big appetites, their loathing of a day's work. Yes, much money has come to me. I watch it go by. I am a conduit, not a container.'

'Seven million.'

'Five.'

'Six.'

'Done, and my love and loyalty to divine Domitian.
’
'He has the wooden sword.'

'Much more costly than three gold ones,' I said, and the emissary smiled and said he would relay what I had said, for Domitian had a good sense of humour besides a great sense of justice.

I personally gave the emissary gold worth fifteen thousand sesterces, but in the coin of aureus. This was to assure Domitian's laughing at my jokes for his benefit, the money being for the emissary's judicious thoughts and words.

Thus were the morning preparations before Petronius watched the first shavings of his face go up in flames before the bust of Mars.

We endured Lucius Aurelius Cotta's sonorous account of his great family, to which we belonged. His patrician stripe was so wide and so bright a purple I could not help eyeing it, until I caught Petronius' sullen stare. Cotta went through the names of the great Aurelii, mentioning the consul in the distant past, when the republic was more a republic and not as it was today. He knew no tongue was free with Domitian's spies so prevalent, but he implied he did not like the strength of the patrician class diminished by the growing, almost complete, rule of the emperor.

For me, of course, I felt the opposite. I never could have become an equestrian in the old days of the republic and even to dream of Petronius wearing a patrician stripe would then have been folly. It was a time before Rome was the empire of the world, before the great numbers of slaves and before even the games themselves, centuries and centuries before. And I wondered if my family would last centuries and what my descendants would feel to know they had the ages behind them.

Petronius stood like a patrician. Lucius Aurelius Cotta mentioned the two praetors who were Aurelii. I played a small part - in making one when Cotta freed me at the behest of the crowds at games he sponsored. I was seventeen at the time, had killed twelve, and heard the same speech about his family, But, where I had stood dumbly and answered only in gratitude, Petronius took the speech of the patriarch, turned it neatly around in return praise of the Aurelii, adding that no little virtue came to the family through his father, me, who showed Romans their worth by his worth in the most trying circumstances. In that manner said Petronius so proudly and evenly, were the Aurelii shown to be most Roman of them all.

I could have cried with joy, for he had told the patriarch that we gave more to the Aurelii than we received, but I could never do that without blunt crudeness. Petronius did it with nobility and oil. Showing complete respect, he demanded respect. Unfortunately, the patriarch was a bit drowsy in years and failed to realize his speech was turned back to him.

He even made the mistake of responding that Petronius was now freed by his own hand, not realizing it was a ceremony of early manhood not a manumission. To this, with full smile Petronius answered that the mountain thanked the pebble for lightening its load by rolling down it. Ordinarily this would be an insult, but Petronius said it with such sweetness and such a good smile that all, including the patriarch, laughed. And the patriarch apologized to Petronius for his mistake. Petronius accepted it.

In three years, I would give Petronius his toga and take
him
to the forum in it for the first time, and he would be a man. These were my plans.

After the supper of flamingo tongues, stuffed pigs, asparagus cooked in honey, peacock, and large slabs of wild ass, I spoke with Petronius alone, as I had on each birthday since I had first explained to him the danger his own tongue was to
him
and the family.

I reviewed the things I had told him, such as all things really serve themselves, and masters of people and crops only turn this self-interest to themselves. A plant grows not to give us food, but for itself. The pear is but the seed for a new pear tree, which we steal for our stomachs. These were things he would not learn in school.

I saw that he was cold to me, so I said that this truth I gave I had learned in the arena.

'Men are more alike than they are different. Despite what you see, men are virtually identical. Man makes the difference. Man says one is slave and one is master. Man trains to be different. But we are all alike. The slaves we own and the emperor we serve are no different but for the way they think of themselves and each thinks of the other. Syrians are not naturally sneaky, Greeks born sycophants, Jews nursed beggars, Germans wild in blood, or Aetheops stupid, anymore than Romans are weaned courageous. Armies wear different colours to tell themselves apart.'

Petronius interrupted me. 'Do you have the chamber pot ?'

'What for ? Are your needs that urgent ?'

'No. Yours are. You're spreading it in the room,' he said, and his eyes were cold as winter. They could not have been colder if they were barbaric blue.

'This is true what I tell you. What we pretend is true for others is not true.'

'We do not pretend, father. The only thing to be is Roman. You would have married Roman if you could have conceived Roman. Greek and Jew blood is stigma. But never mind, I will do what you should have done. I will put more Roman blood into my offspring than you did into yours.'

I tried explaining the weaknesses of the mobs, which were composed of lazy Romans on the corn dole, and how his mother was the best of women.

Even Publius, acknowledging her virtue above Roman women, said: 'Mother cannot read or write. You keep her in this house because you are ashamed of her. And look who you use to certify her worth. A Roman patrician, who has a mind pebbles could bang in, whose entire fortune would not pay a day of your retainers' expenses. A man of such little consequence that he would be an amusement in any other land.'