his first rebuff ensuing on Galen’s tip to me and mine to Vedia. He was so cautious about not thrusting himself on Vedia that their acquaintance, quite naturally, warmed again gradually into mutual interest and romantic affection and was ripening into love when the sight of you yesterday annihilated his excellent chances of marrying her. He was just about to buy for her a two-million-sesterce pearl necklace. If she had accepted the gift it would have been tantamount to a public pledge to marry him. Poor fellow!”
When he left he gave me a letter from Vedia, a letter as loving as a lover could wish for. She declared that she would not marry Flavius Clemens nor anybody except me and would wait for me as long as might be necessary or stay unmarried until the end of her days, if, by any misfortune, the end came to her before she and I were free to marry.
She said that we must avoid each other as much as possible and that I must not spoil my chances of safety either by relying too recklessly on my disguise or through risking arousing suspicion in Falco by any attempt at confining myself to my apartment, which would have been altogether incongruous with the character I had assumed.
The rest of that year and all the winter I passed living the normal life of an indulged and pampered favorite of an opulent bachelor dilettante noble. It was a life almost as enjoyable as the life of a wealthy nobleman to which I had been born and brought up.
I had but one anxiety and that was not small and it steadily increased. It was caused by a progressive alteration and deterioration in the character of my master. In all other respects he remained the man he had been when he first bought me, but as a gem-fancier his hobby became a passion which deepened into a mania and colored, or discolored, all he did. He had, as he always had had, a very large surplus of income over and above what was needful to maintain his huge estates in Africa, his many luxurious villas and town-palaces there, his yacht and his palaces in Italy at Baiae and at Rome. The normal accumulation of this surplus had taxed his sagacity as an investor, for it was always harder for him to find advantageous investments for his redundant cash than to find cash for tempting investments. Certainly his excess income more than sufficed for any reasonable indulgence in gem-collecting.
Yet his outlay for rare gems ran up to and outran and far outran his resources. The strange result was that he, who had huge revenues from estates and safe investments, desired a still greater income. He began to embark in risky ventures which promised large and quick returns. He went into partnership with two different nobles, who made a practice of bidding on the taxes of frontier provinces exposed to enemy raids. Bidders were shy of investing their cash in the problematical returns of such regions and those who had the hardihood to enter into contracts with the government made huge profits if lucky. Falco was lucky each time. He plunged again and again.
He also embarked similarly in bidding for unpromising contracts and in buying up estates thrown unexpectedly on the market. All his ventures turned out successfully, he gained great resources for indulging his fad for gems and rare curios, his collection grew and became one of the most famous private collections in Rome.
Also his mania for speculation grew as fast as his mania for collecting gems.
This led to my exposure to the oddest and most alarming peril which I had run since Agathemer and I crawled through the drain-pipe at Villa Andivia; greater I think, than the risk I ran when I nearly encountered Gratillus at Placentia. This happened about eleven months after I came to Rome with Falco, in the spring of the year when Pedo Apronianus and Valerius Bradua were consuls.
This occurrence and the circumstances which led up to it I cannot forbear narrating, but I shall not go into details, for it involves at least allusion to behavior not at all creditable to my owner and I am unwilling to disparage or seem to disparage one who was to me a dear friend and a generous benefactor. The truth is that his passion for gem-collecting had not only undermined his character but had, in a way, sapped the foundations of his native uprightness. If he had remained the man he was when he bought me he would not have been capable of entertaining, let alone of acting on, the considerations which actuated him.
He thought he saw a chance to make vast profits quickly with no risks. But to achieve this he needed the presence and the countenance of another wealthy nobleman of the African province, who, like him when he purchased me, had never been in Rome or, indeed, out of the colony. The name of this man, whom I had met while in Thysdrus, was Salsonius Salinator. His wealth, inherited by his father and grandfather from a long line of wealthy ancestors, came from many vast salt works along the coast, which, by the custom of the province, remained private property and merely paid the government a lease-tax or rent. The family had been, many generations before, named from these works and was very proud of its names.
Now Falco had so far progressed with his negotiations that the other parties to the proposed bargain were unwilling to close the deal and sign a contract with Falco and his associates unless Salsonius Salinator, in person, appeared to make some necessary statements, and were willing and eager to sign and seal, the projected agreement if he did appear in person and did make those required statements. I am averse to smirching Falco’s memory by going more minutely into detail.
Now Salinator had written Falco that he was coming to Rome and later, when he received a letter from Falco outlining the pending negotiations and their object, he had written promising to be in Rome by a specified date. He was most enthusiastic as to Falco’s project and thought as well of it as did Falco. Falco told his associates of Salinator’s letter and promise and they adjusted their outstanding investments so as to be able to close the contract as soon as Salinator appeared.
He did not appear on the date specified. Naturally Falco was perturbed, his associates vexed and the men with whom they were dealing increasingly restive. They threatened to break off the negotiations and close a contract with other bidders. Falco begged for an extension of the time and they grudgingly granted it. Still no signs of or word from Salinator. The negotiations appeared likely to fall through.
In his distress Falco conceived and set about putting into practice a scheme such as he would never have thought of or entertained if he had been the man he was when he bought me. When he was himself he had been the reverse of dishonorable. He came to me and said:
“We are at the end of our tether, Pullanius and his gang will break off negotiations tomorrow if I can’t get hold of Salinator. I have no hope of his arrival, he may have not yet sailed from Carthage; he may have changed his mind about coming at all. I am not willing to lose so brilliant a chance. I have thought of just what to do.
“You would look like a Roman if you had your beard trimmed and your hair cut and all that powder and paint and rouge washed off your face: I took you for a full-blooded Roman when I first set eyes on you. What is more you would look so utterly unlike what you look like in your fantastic fripperies that no one would even suspect you of being the same man. Anyhow, Pullanius and his crowd have never set eyes on you, not one of them.
“All you have to do is to have your beard cut to about the fashionable length and your hair trimmed to conform similarly with current fashions for Roman noblemen and get into full-dress shoes, a nobleman’s tunic and toga, and you’ll pass anywhere for a genuine, free-born, full-blooded Roman.
“I’ll take you to Pullanius tomorrow and introduce you as Salsonius Salinator. I’ll coach you carefully as to how to behave and what to say. You are clever enough to assume the natural Roman demeanor to a nicety: also to rise to any unexpected situations and act and talk precisely as would Salinator himself.
“It will be sharp practice, in a sense. But I know Salinator would say all I want him to say, all Pullanius requires him to say, and more, if he were actually here. He is as keen on closing this contract as I am. So I am not asking you to be a party to an actual fraud. You will only be bringing about what would come about without you if something unforeseen had not prevented Salinator from getting here in time.”
Now I had often differed with Falco, argued with him, opposed him, refused requests of his, and he had acquiesced and had acted as if I were not his property, but a free man and his complete social equal. But this was a situation wholly different from any I had encountered before. When it came to gem-collecting or to anything which gave him or would give him or was expected to yield him surplus cash for buying more gems for his collection, Falco was a monomaniac. I dared not refuse, or oppose him or argue or show any hesitation. A master can change in a twinkling from an indulgent friend to an infuriated despot. In spite of the laws passed by Hadrian and his successors limiting the authority of masters over their slaves and giving slaves certain rights before magistrates, in practice an angry master can go to any length to coerce a recalcitrant slave. I saw not only privations, discomforts, hunger, confinement and chains threatening me, but scourging and torture.
I acquiesced.
Now I am not going into any details as to what I did and said to induce Pullanius and his associates to execute the desired contract. I acted the part of Salinator to perfection and my imposture succeeded completely.
But the negotiations dragged, for all that, and I had to impersonate Salsonius Salinator not only before Pullanius and his partners but generally all over Rome: had to submit to being shown the sights in my character of a provincial magnate in Rome for the first time; had to allow myself to be dragged to morning receptions of senators and wealthy noblemen and introduced to them; had to accept invitations to dinners given by noblemen and senators; even had to attend a public morning reception in the Audience Hall of the Palace. That I escaped undetected was more than miraculous; I could not believe it myself. But I did escape.
I escaped unsuspected the ordeal of being haled to a morning reception of Vedius Vedianus and presented to him as Salsonius Salinator of Carthage, Nepte and Putea. I should have been lost had he had at his elbow to jog his memory if he forgot a visitor’s name the slave he had had in that capacity seven years before, since that alert _nomenclator_ would have recognized me at once. But he had died of the plague and his successor had never set eyes on me. Vedius himself would certainly have known me for my true self but for his inveterate selfishness, and self-absorption and his incapacity for being diverted from whatever thought or idea happened to be uppermost in his narrow mind. He was, for some reason, eager to be done with his reception and had no eyes for any visitors except those from whom he expected immediate and positive advantage to himself. I escaped, but I went out sweating and limp with excitement.
I was even more faint and weak after having to attend a Palace levee. Fortunately Commodus had wearied of his father’s methods of holding receptions and had reverted to the regulations in vogue under Trajan and Hadrian, according to which only such senators as were summoned approached the throne and were personally greeted by the Prince; the rest of the senators and all the lesser noblemen merely passed before the Emperor as he stood in front of the throne, passing four abreast along the main pavement at the foot of the steps of the dais and saluting him as they passed. Amid this crush of mediocrities I passed unnoticed, unremarked, unscathed.
But I marvelled at my luck, for I knew many eyes of secret-service experts scanned that slow-moving column of togaed noblemen and such adepts have a marvellous memory for the shape of an ear, a nose, a chin, or any such feature. After my hair and beard had been trimmed to suit Falco’s notions and my face was innocent of powder, rouge and paint and I was habited in a tunic and toga with stripes of the width belonging to Salinator’s rank and dress-boots of the cut and color proper for him I conned my reflection in the mirror in my dressing-room and was certain that anyone who had known me as myself must recognize me at first glance.
My two worst ordeals came when I went out with Falco to my second and fourth formal dinner in Rome in my character of provincial magnate. I went with him, altogether, to eight different dinners at the houses of capitalists associated with or supposed to have influence with Pullanius. Not once, in any of these eight perilous expeditions, did it occur to Falco to inform me beforehand where I was to dine. And I thought it best not to ask him, since I reflected that his complete ignorance of my past was an important factor in my chances of continued concealment and safety; and since I felt that some word, tone or look of mine might put him on the road to suspecting the truth about me. Therefore I set out to each of these eight dinners totally ignorant of our destination.
The first time I knew I was to dine with Appellasius Clavviger, a Syrian capitalist who had been in Rome not much longer than Falco himself. Judge of my feelings when, in the mellow light which bathes Rome just after the sun has set from a clear sky and before day has begun to fade, I perceived that my litter-bearers, following Falco’s, were turning into the street where I had lived before my ruin! Imagine my sensations when we halted before the palatial dwelling which had been my uncle’s abode and mine! I was even more perturbed and overwhelmed by my emotions when on entering behind Falco I found nothing changed, scarcely anything altered from what had been there on the fatal morning on which, without any premonition of disaster, I had set off to the Palace levee and had, on my way, been saved by Vedia’s intervention and letter. The appointments of the vestibule, of the porter’s lodge, were as I had known them in my uncle’s lifetime. So were the furnishings of the atrium and _tablinum_. Scarcely a statue had been added or so much as moved, most of the pictures being where my uncle had had them hung. Appellasius, a fat, jovial, jolly man, did not see my confusion. We were the last guests to arrive and he was hungry. We passed at once into the _triclinium_. There also the wall-decorations were precisely as I had last seen them; but the square table and three square sofas had vanished and, in their place, was a new C-shaped sofa and a circular table covered with a magnificent embroidered cloth. In the course of the dinner, the company, as was natural with vulgarians newly enriched, fell to talking of their residences, of their size, convenience, and cost. I took the opportunity to compliment Appellasius on his abode and, as he warmed to the subject, I inquired whether he had inherited it or bought it.
“Neither,” said he. “I have merely leased it, and leased it furnished. It belongs to the _fiscus_; it was confiscated some years ago when its owner was proscribed for joining in one of the conspiracies against, the Emperor. It is a pearl. I am told that the father of its last owner was an art connoisseur. Anyhow I could not improve on its decorations or furnishings. I have made few changes, chiefly installing this up-to-date dining-outfit. The fittings of this room were all of one hundred years old, very fine in material and ornamentation, but unbearably inconvenient.”
I had learned all I hoped for or dared attempt, and for the rest of the entertainment I kept to subjects as far as possible from anything likely to compromise me.
My second and far my severest ordeal was when a few evenings later I was dazed to realize that my litter, behind Falco’s, was halting before the well-known residence of that booby, Faltonius Bambilio. But I was not afraid of him. I rated him such a dolt, such an ass, that even if he exclaimed that I was the image of Andivius Hedulio I had no doubt I could convince him that I was what I pretended to be and could even expunge from his mind any recollections of his having noticed such a striking resemblance. In fact he did not make any remark on my appearance or seem to have any inkling that he had ever seen me before, but accepted me as an interesting stranger.
I dreaded what guests he might have and the actuality surpassed my capacities to forecast possibilities.
I found the middle sofa at his table, for he adhered to the old-fashioned furnishings for a _triclinium_, occupied by his wife, Nemestronia and Vedia! Vedia, after one tense moment of incredulous numb staring, regained her composure.
Evidently she had not confided in anyone the fact of my survival and existence. For, if she had, she would have taken dear old Nemestronia into her confidence, since she was as able to keep a secret as any woman who ever lived and had loved me as if I had been her own and only grandson. For Nemestronia manifestly had believed me dead. At sight of me she was as thunderstruck as if she had seen an indubitable specter. She was smitten dumb and rigid and her discomposure was remarked by all present. But she recovered herself in time, passed off her agitation as having been due to one of her sudden attacks of pain in the chest. After that she did as much as Vedia to dispel any tendency to suspicions which she might have aroused. She was plainly, to my eyes, overjoyed at the sight of me in the flesh.
I have branded on my memory for life the picture I saw as I entered the _triclinium_. Its wall decorations expressed old Bambilio’s enthusiasm for Alexandrian art and literature. The ceiling was adorned with a copy of Apellides’ Dance of the Loves; and the walls were decorated with copies of equally celebrated paintings by masters of similar fame. The wall niches were filled with statues of the Alexandrian poets, the two opposite the entrance door with those of Euphorion and Philetas, the brilliant hues of the paint on them depicting garments as gaudy as I myself had been wearing a few days before. From the pink faces of the bedizened poets their jeweled eyes sparkled as if they were chuckling at the situation. Under the mellow light shed by the numerous hanging lamps, against the intricate particolored patterns of the wall between the statue-niches, I saw the vacuous baby face of Asellia, Bambilio’s pretty doll of a wife, between Vedia’s countenance cleverly assuming a normal social expression after her brief glare at me, and Nemestronia’s mask of horror, accentuated by the agony of the gripping spasm which throttled her, for the pain in her chest was induced by anything which startled her, and was not assumed.
Once we were composed on the sofas the dinner passed off almost comfortably. For Nemestronia played her part in my behalf fully as well as did Vedia, who conversed with me easily, her demeanor precisely as if I had been Salsonius Salinator, a stranger whom she had just met, our talk mostly about Carthage, salt-works, the lagoons of the edge of the desert, date palms, local fruits, gazelles and such like topics, Nemestronia seconding her with questions about temple libraries, the cult of Isis in Hippo, and such matters. I became almost gay, I was enjoying myself.
The enjoyment, toward the close of the banquet, was marred by Bambilio, who, inevitably, had told Falco of his capture by brigands on the Flaminian Highway and, after his tale was told at great length, insisted on Vedia telling hers.
Worst of all, when she came to her night in her travelling carriage, alone (as of course all supposed) and surrounded by escaped beasts, hyenas, leopards, panthers, tigers and lions, Bambilio must needs remark:
“I’ll wager you wished that the ghost of your old lover, Hedulio, had come to your assistance. He could wrestle with leopards; perhaps even his ghost might be able to control wild beasts.”
“Perhaps,” Vedia rejoined, unruffled, “maybe he was there to help me and maybe that was why I never felt really afraid that any beast would burst into my coach and seize me, though several snuffed at its panels and I could see them plain in the clear moonlight. Perhaps, in spirit, he was close to me to keep off the ravenous beasts and to strengthen my heart.”
After she also had ended her story Bambilio eyed me:
“Did you ever hear a story excel hers and mine, Salsonius?” he queried.
“Never,” I admitted, my gaze full on his.
The booby showed not a gleam of suspicion!
Inwardly I could not but remark that whereas I despised and loathed Bambilio for his pomposity and self-esteem, he made and kept friends. Plainly both Nemestronia and Vedia liked him, esteemed him and respected him.
After we left, I felt positively exhilarated at having had an evening in Vedia’s company and having talked with her. Her escort, fortunately for me, had not been Flavius Clemens but young Duillius Silanus, son of the consul, who had never met me before.
CHAPTER XXXIV
PALUS THE INCOMPARABLE
Within a very few days after my encounter with Vedia at Bambilio’s dinner Falco and I had just ascended the stair of his residence after returning from a conference with Pullanius and his partners at which both sides had finally agreed on terms to the last detail and the contracts had been drawn up, executed, signed and sealed. He said:
“Phorbas, I am pleased with you. Such imposture as I have enticed you into cannot have been palatable to a man of your character. You have manifestly disrelished it, but you have valiantly stomached it for my sake. Actually you may be comforted, for it has not really been dishonest or dishonorable; you have only acted and spoken vicariously for Salinator: to a certainty he would have done and said just what you have, had he been present in person.
“You are a wonderful actor. No Greek or part Greek or half Greek or quarter Greek or thirty-second Greek I ever knew or heard of, clever as Greeks are at histrionics, could so perfectly act a Roman noble in every detail of demeanor, manner and word: down to the most trifling expression of every prejudice inherent in a Roman born. I admire you. Also I thank you.
“And I am as relieved as you will be to be able to tell you that your masquerade is at an end, successful and unsuspected.
“Now the important thing is for Salsonius Salinator to vanish from Rome at once.
“I suppose you have the wigs and false-beards you said you would buy or have made?”
“They are in my dressing-room,” I replied.
“Then,” he continued, “have yourself waked early, have your valet paint you and powder you and rouge you and fit you out with a wig like the head of hair you had before I made you impersonate Salinator, and with a false beard no one will suspect; have him rig you up in your favorite attire and load you with jewelry, then set off in my travelling-carriage for Baiae. Be out of Rome by sunrise. Travel straight to Baiae as rapidly as you find practicable without fatiguing yourself. At Baiae you will have the Villa and servants all to yourself. Stay there until you have grown your hair and beard as it was before your masquerade. Then return to Rome as Phorbas.”
He paused, gazed at me and added:
“And I mean to make a new will. Besides leaving you your freedom and the legacy specified in my last will I mean to leave you my gem-collection and a full fourth of all my other estate. You deserve a lavish reward and I believe I love you better than any living human being.”
I thanked him with my best imitation of the manner of a Greek, but with genuine feeling and from a full heart.
Actually I was glad to get out of Rome, glad to linger at Baiae. I made my time as long as I could and resisted several importunities from Falco before I finally returned to the city more than a year after I had left it. Thus I was out of Rome during the great fire, which destroyed, along with the Temple and Altar of Peace, the Temples of the Divine Julius and the Divine Augustus, the Temple of Vesta, the Atrium of Vesta and most of the other buildings about the great Forum, also the Porticus Margaritaria and the shop of Orontides. Strangely enough, when, at Baiae, I read letters from Falco, Tanno and Agathemer describing the devastation, my mind dwelt more on the annihilation of the shop where I had encountered Vedia than on the destruction of the Palace records and most of the public records, or of the many revered temples which had vanished in the flames.
When I returned to Rome the ruins were already largely cleared, and rebuilding, especially of the Temple of Vesta, was vigorously under way.
In Falco’s household and manner of life I found few changes, except that Falco, really in excellent health, had become concerned about his trifling ailments, and, after trying one and another physician, had enrolled himself among the patients of the most distinguished exponent of the healing arts. Galen therefore, was a frequent visitor at my home and I saw him not infrequently. When I had some minor discomfort, Falco, always pampering me, called Galen in and enrolled me also among his charges.
After my return to the City the chief topic of conversation among persons of all grades of society and the pivot, so to speak, on which the spectacles of the amphitheater revolved was Palus the Gladiator.
I may set down here that I, personally, am now, as I was when I saw him appear as a charioteer for the last time, certain that Palus was Commodus in person. And I set this down as a fact. It will be seen later that I had more opportunity than any man in Rome, outside of the Palace, to know the facts.
Many people then believed and not a few still maintain that Palus was merely a crony of Commodus. Some whispered that he was a half-brother of Commodus, a son of Faustina and a favorite gladiator, brought up by the connivance of her too-indulgent husband; which wild tale suits neither with Faustina’s actual deportment, as contrasted with the lies told of her by her detractors, nor with the character of Aurelius. Others even hinted that Palus was a half-brother of Commodus on the other side, off-spring of Aurelius and a concubine. This invention consorts still worse with the nature of Aurelius, who was one of the most uxorious of men and by nature monogamic and austere, almost ascetic. Some contented themselves with conjecturing that Palus accidentally resembled Commodus, which was not so far from the truth.
For I knew Ducconius Furfur from our boyhood and I solemnly assert that Palus was Commodus and that, whenever Palus appeared in the circus and, later, in the amphitheater, while the Imperial Pavilion was filled by the Imperial retinue, with the throne occupied apparently by the Emperor, the throne was occupied by a dummy emperor, Ducconius Furfur, in the Imperial attire, and Commodus was in the arena as Palus. Anyone who chooses may, from this pronouncement, set me down as a credulous ninny, if it suits his notions.
When Palus drove a chariot in the circus he never appeared with his face fully exposed, but invariably wore over its upper portion the half-mask of gauze, which is designed to protect a charioteer’s eyes from dust and flying grains of sand. Similarly, when Palus entered the arena as a gladiator he never fought in any of those equipments in which gladiators appear bareheaded or with faces exposed: as a _retiarius_, for instance. He always fought as a _secutor_ or _murmillo_, or in the armor proper to a Samnite, Thracian, or heavy-armed Greek or Gaul; all of which equipments include a heavy helmet with a vizor. Palus always fought with his vizor down.
It seems to me that the plain inference from these facts corroborates my opinions concerning Palus: certainly it strengthens my belief in my views. And these facts were and are known to be facts by all who, as spectators in the circus or in the amphitheater, beheld Palus as charioteer or as gladiator.
As a gladiator he was more than marvellous, he was miraculous. I was present at all his public appearances from the time of my return from Baiae. Also I had seen him closer, from the senatorial boxes in the amphitheater, three several times during my impersonation of Salsonius Salinator. Moreover I had seen him as a gladiator not a few times before that, since Falco, soon after we came to Rome from Africa, because of his affection for me and his tendency to indulge me in every imaginable way and to arrange for me every conceivable pleasure, had contrived to use the influence of some new-found friends to make possible my presence at shows in the Colosseum, and that in as good a seat as was accessible to any free-born Roman not a noble or senator.
The very first time I saw Palus in the arena I felt sure he was Commodus in person, for he had to a marvel every one of his characteristics of height, build, outline, agility, grace, quickness and deftness and all his tricks of attitude and movement. The two were too identical to be anything except the very same man.
It will occur to any reader of these memoirs that Palus was a left-handed fighter, and that Commodus not only fought left-handed, but wrote, by preference, with his left hand and with it more easily, rapidly and legibly than with his right. But I do not lay much stress on this for about one gladiator in fifty fights left-handed, so that the fact that Palus was left-handed, while it accords with my views, does not, in my opinion, help to prove them.
What, to my mind, much more tends to confirm my views, is the well-known fact that Palus was always equipped with armor and weapons more magnificent and more expensive than any ever seen on other gladiators. Everything he used or wore was of gold or heavily gilt; even his spear heads and sword blades were brilliantly gilded; so were his helmets, shields, bucklers, corselets, breastplates, the scales of his kilt-straps when he fought as a Greek, and his greaves, whether of Greek pattern or of some other fashion. If he appeared in an armament calling for arm-rings, leg-rings, or leg-wrappings, these were always also heavily gilt. So was his footgear, whether he wore thigh-boots, full-boots, half-boots, soldiers’ brogues, half-sandals or sandals. His shoulder-guards (called “wigs” in the slang of the prize-ring) were, apparently, of pure cloth of gold, which also appeared to be the material of his aprons when his accoutrements did not include a kilt.
Now it may be said that this merely indicates that his equipment was the most extravagant instance of the manner in which opulent enthusiasts lavished their cash on the outfitting of their favorites in the arena. To me it seems too prodigal for the profusion of any or all of such spendthrifts: it appears to me more like the self-indulgence of the vainglorious master of the world. Palus often wore a helmet so bejeweled that its cost would have overtaxed the wealth of Didius Julianus.
I consider that my opinions are corroborated by the well-known fact that whenever Palus appeared as a gladiator in the amphitheater, Galen was present in the arena as chief of the surgeons always at hand to dress the wounds of victors or of vanquished men who had won the approbation or favor of the spectators or of the Imperial party. True, Galen was often there when Palus was not in the arena, for he was always on the watch for anatomical knowledge to be had from observation of dying men badly wounded. But, on the other hand, while he was often in the arena when Palus was not there, he was never absent when Palus was fighting.
Similarly, after Aemilius Laetus was appointed Prefect of the Palace, he was always present in person in the arena whenever Palus appeared in it. This, too, makes for my contentions.
The first fight in which I saw Palus revealed to me, and brought home to me with great force, the reason for his nickname, its origin and its astonishing appropriateness. The word “_palus_” has a number of very different meanings: manifestly its fitness as a pet name for the most perfect swordsman ever seen in any arena came from its use to denote the paling of a palisade, or any stake or post. Palus, in a fight, always appeared to stand still: metaphorically he might be said to seem as immobile as the post upon which beginners in the gladiatorial art practice their first attempts at strokes, cuts, thrusts and lunges. So little did he impress beholders as mobile, so emphatically did he impress them as stationary, that he might almost as well have been an upright stake, planted permanently deep in the sand.
I first saw him fight as a _secutor_, matched against a _retiarius_. This kind of combat is, surely, the most popular of all the many varieties of gladiatorial fights; and justly, for such fights are by far the most exciting to watch and their incidents perpetually varied, novel and unpredictable. It is exciting because the _retiarius_, nude except for one small shoulder-guard and a scanty apron, appears to have no chance whatever against the _secutor_ with his big vizored helmet, his complete body-armor, his kilt of lapped leather straps plated with polished metal scales, his greaves or leg-rings or boots and his full-length, curved shield and Spanish sword. The _secutor_, always the bigger man and fully armed and armored, appears invincible against the little manikin of a _retiarius_ skipping about bareheaded and almost naked and armed only with his trident, a fisherman’s three-tined spear, with a light handle and short prongs, his little dagger and his cord net, which, when spread, is indeed large enough to entangle any man, but which he carries crumpled up to an inconspicuous bunch of rope no bigger than his head.
Yet the fact is the reverse of the appearance. No one not reckless or drunk ever bet even money on an ordinary _secutor_. The odds on the _retiarius_ are customarily between five to three and two to one. And most _secutors_ manifestly feel their disadvantage. As the two men face each other and the _lanista_ gives the signal anyone can see, usually, that the _retiarius_ is confident of victory and the _secutor_ wary and cautious or even afraid. Dreading the certain cast of the almost unescapable net, the _secutor_ keeps always on the move, and continually alters the direction and speed and manner of his movement, taking one short step and two long, then three short and one long, breaking into a dogtrot, slowing to a snail’s-pace, leaping, twisting, curving, zigzagging, ducking and in every way attempting to make it impossible for the _retiarius_ to foretell from the movement he watches what the next movement will be.
Palus behaved unlike any other _secutor_ ever seen in the arena. He availed himself of none of the usual devices, which _lanistae_ taught with such care, in the invention of which they gloried and in which they drilled their pupils unceasingly. He merely stood still and watched his adversary. The cunning cast of the deadly net he avoided by a very slight movement of his head or body or both. No _retiarius_ ever netted him, yet the net seldom missed him more than half a hand’s breadth. When the disappointed _retiarius_ skipped back to the length of his net-cord and retrieved his net by means of it, Palus let him gather it up, never dashed at him, but merely stepped sedately towards him. If the _retiarius_ ran away, Palus followed, but never in haste, always at a slow, even walk. No matter how often his adversary cast his net at him, Palus never altered his demeanor. The upshot was always the same. The spectators began to jeer at the baffled _retiarius_, he became flustered, he ventured a bit too near his immobile opponent, Palus made an almost imperceptible movement and the _retiarius_ fell, mortally wounded.
I was never close enough to Palus to see clearly the details of his lunges, thrusts and strokes. I saw him best when I was a spectator in the Colosseum while impersonating Salsonius Salinator, for in my guise as colonial magnate I sat well forward. Even then I was not close enough to him to descry the finer points of his incomparable swordsmanship. Yet what I saw makes me regard as fairly adequate the current praises of him emanating from those wealthy enthusiasts who were reckoned the best judges of such matters. By the reports I heard they said that Palus never cut a throat, he merely nicked it, but the tiny nick invariably and accurately severed the carotid artery, jugular vein or windpipe.
I can testify, from my own observation, to his having displayed comparable skill in an equally effective stab in a different part of his adversary’s body. As is well known, a deep slash of the midthigh, inside, causes death nearly as quickly as a cut throat; if the femoral artery is divided the blood pours out of the victim almost as from an inverted pail, a horrible cascade. Most of the acclaimed gladiators use often this deadly stroke against the inside midthigh, slashing it to the bone, leaving a long, deep, gaping wound. Palus never slashed an adversary’s thigh; in killing by a thigh wound he always delivered a lunge which left a small puncture, but invariably also left the femoral artery completely severed, so that the life-blood gushed out in a jet astonishingly violent, the victim collapsing and dying very quickly. Such a parade requires altogether transcendant powers of accuracy from eye and hand.
Besides fighting as a _secutor_ against a _retiarius_ Palus in the same accoutrements fought with men similarly equipped, or accoutred as Greeks, Gauls, Thracians, Samnites, or _murmillos;_ also he appeared in the equipment of each of these sorts of gladiators against antagonists equipped like himself or in any of the other fashions.
In all these countless fights he was never once wounded by any adversary nor did he ever deliver a second stroke, thrust or lunge against any: his defence was always impregnable, his attack always unerring; when he lunged his lunge never missed and was always fatal, unless he purposely spared a gallant foe.
Besides the exhibitions of bravado and self-confidence traditional with gladiators, all of which he displayed again and again, Palus devised more than one wholly original with himself.
For instance, he would take his stand in the arena equipped as a _secutor_, the _lanista_ would have in charge not one _retiarius_, but ten, or even a dozen. One would attack Palus and when, after a longer or shorter contest, he was killed, the _lanista_, would, without any respite, allow a second to rush at Palus; then a third; and so on till everyone had perished by the _secutor’s_ unerring sword. No other secutor ever killed more than one _retiarius_ without a good rest between the first fight and the second. Palus, as was and is well known, killed more than, a thousand adversaries, of whom more than three hundred wore the accoutrements of a _retiarius_.
Palus was even more spectacular as a _dimachaerus_, so called from having two sabers, for a _dimachaerus_ is a gladiator accoutred as a Thracian, but without any shield and carrying a naked saber in each hand. Such a fighter is customarily matched against an adversary in ordinary Thracian equipment. He has to essay the unnatural feat of guarding himself with one sword while attacking with the other. Such a feat is akin to those of jugglers and acrobats, for a sword is essentially an instrument of assault and cannot, by its very nature, take the place of a shield as a protection. Everybody, of course, knows that showy and startling ruse said to have been invented by the Divine Julius, which consists in surprising one’s antagonist by parrying a stroke with the sword instead of with the shield and simultaneously using the shield as a weapon, striking its upper rim against the adversary’s chin. But this can succeed only against an opponent dull-witted, unwary, clumsy and slow, and then as a surprise. A _dimachaerus_ has to depend on parrying and his antagonist knows what to expect.
Palus was the most perfect _dimachaerus_ ever seen in the Colosseum. Without a shield he fought and killed many Thracians, Greeks, Gauls, _murmillos_, Samnites and _secutors_. He even, many times, fought two Thracians at once, killing both and coming off unscathed. I saw two of these exhibitions of insane self-confidence and I must say that Palus made good his reliance on his incredible skill. He pivoted about between his adversaries, giving them, apparently, every chance to attack simultaneously, distract him and kill him. Yet he so managed that, even if their thrusts appeared simultaneous, there was between them an interval, brief as a heart-beat, but long enough for him to dispose of one and turn on the other, or escape one and pierce the other. I could not credit my own eyes. With my belief as to the identity of Palus I marvelled that a man whose life was dominated by the dread of assassination, who feared poison in his wine and food, who hedged himself about with guards and then feared the guards themselves, who distrusted everybody, who dreaded every outing, who was uneasy even inside his Palace, felt perfectly at ease and serenely safe in the arena with no defence but two sabers, and he between two hulking ruffians, as fond of life as any men, and knowing that they must kill him or be killed by him. In this deadly game he felt no qualms, only certitude of easy victory.
The controversies over the identity of Palus have produced a whole literature of pamphlets, some maintaining that he was Commodus, others professing to prove that he was not, of which some rehearse every possible theory of his relationship to Aurelius or Faustina. Among these the most amazing are those which set forth the view that Palus was Commodus, but no skillful swordsman, rather a brazen sham, killing ingloriously helpless adversaries who could oppose to his edged steel only swords of lath or lead.
This absurdity is in conflict with all the facts. Manifestly the antagonists of Palus were as well armed as he, both for defence and attack.
And, what is much more, the populace clamored for Palus, booed and cat- called if Palus did not appear in the arena; cheered him to the echo when he did appear; yelled with delight and appreciation at each exhibition of his prophetic intuition as to what his adversary was about to do, of his preternaturally perfect judgment as to what to do himself, of the instantaneous execution of whatever movement he purposed, of its complete success; and applauded him while he went off as no other gladiator ever was applauded. It was the popular demand for him which made possible and justified the unexampled fee paid Palus for each of his appearances in the arena. The managers of the games were obliged to include Palus in each exhibition or risk a riot of the indignant populace.
Now no sham fighter could fool the Roman populace. A make-believe swordsman, such as the pamphlets which I have cited allege Commodus to have been, might, if Emperor, have overawed the senators and nobles of equestrian rank and compelled their unwilling applause of sham feats. But no man, not even an Emperor, could coerce the Roman proletariat into applauding a fighter unworthy of applause. Our populace, once seated to view a show of any kind, cannot be controlled, cannot even be swayed. No fame of any charioteer, beast-fighter or gladiator can win from them tolerance of the smallest error of judgment, defect of action, attempt at foul play or hint of fear: they boo anything of which they disapprove and not Jupiter himself could elicit from them applause of anything except exhibitions of courage, skill, artistry and quickness fine enough to rouse their admiration. They admired Palus, they adored him.
This is well known to all men and proves Palus a consummate artist as a gladiator. Not only would the populace howl a bungler or coward off the sand, they know every shade of excellence; only a superlatively perfect swordsman could kindle their enthusiasm and keep it at white heat year after year as did Palus.
Palus, I may remark, was always a gallant fighter, and a combination of skill and gallantry in an adversary so won his goodwill that he never killed or seriously wounded such an opponent. If his antagonist had an unusually perfect guard and a notably dangerous attack, was handsome, moved gracefully, displayed courage and fought with impeccable fairness Palus felt a liking for him, showed it by the way in which he stood on the defensive and mitigated the deadliness of his attacks, played him longer than usual to demonstrate to all the spectators the qualities he discerned in him, and, when he was convinced that the onlookers felt as he felt, disabled his admired match with some effective but trifling wound.
Then, when his victim collapsed, Palus would leap back from him, sheath his sword, and saw the air with his empty left hand, fingers extended and pressed together, thumb flat against the crack between the roots of the index finger and big finger, twisting his hand about and varying the angle at which he sawed the air, so that all might see that he wished his fallen adversary spared and was suggesting that the spectators nearest him imitate his gesture and give the signal for mercy by extending their arms thumbs flat to fingers.
Except Murmex Lucro I never saw any other gladiator presume to suggest to the spectators which signal he would like them to display; and Murmex had the air of a man taking a liberty with his betters and not very sure whether they would condone his presumption or resent his insolence; whereas Palus waved his arm much as Commodus raised his from the Imperial throne when, as Editor of the games, he decided the fate of a fallen gladiator concerning whom the populace were so evenly divided between disfavorers and favorers that neither the victor nor his _lanista_ dared to interpret so doubtful a mandate.
The most amazing fact concerning Palus was that his audiences never wearied of watching him fence. It is notorious that the spectators in the Colosseum always have been and are, in general, impatient of any noticeable prolongation of a fight. Only a very small minority of the populace and a larger, but still small, minority of the gentry and nobility, take delight in the fine points of swordsmanship for themselves. Most spectators, while acclaiming skilled fence and expecting it, look upon it merely as a means for adding interest to the preliminaries of what they desire to behold. Even senators and nobles admit that the pleasure of viewing gladiatorial shows comes from seeing men killed. Contests are thrilling chiefly because of their suggestion of the approach of the moment which brings the supreme thrill.
The populace, quite frankly, rate the fighting as a bore; they do not come to watch skilled swordsmen fence; they want to see two men face each other and one kill the other at once. It is the killing which they enjoy. The upper tiers of spectators in the amphitheater seldom give the signal for mercy when a defeated man is down and helpless, even though he be handsome and graceful and has fought bravely, skillfully and gallantly. One seldom sees an outstretched arm, with the hand extended, fingers close together and thumb flat against them, raised anywhere from the back seats; their occupants habitually, in such cases, wave their upraised arms with the hands clenched and thumbs extended, waggling their thumbs by half rotating their wrists, to make the thumb more conspicuous, yelling the while, so that the amphitheater is full of their insistent roar and the upper tiers aflash with flickering thumbs. They weigh no fine points as to the worth of the vanquished man, they do not value a good fighter enough to want him saved to fight again, they come to see men die and they want the defeated man slaughtered at once.
They are habituated to acquiescing if the Emperor–or the Editor, if the Prince is not present–or the nobility contravene their wishes and give the signal for mercy when a gallant fighter is down by accident, misadventure or because he was outmatched. But there is often a burst of howls if the signal for mercy comes not from the Imperial Pavilion or the whole _podium_, but merely from some part of the nobility or senators. Generally, if the Emperor has not given or participated in the signal for mercy, scattered individuals among the proletariat proclaim their disappointment by booing, cat-calls, or strident whistlings.
Now Palus was so popular, so beloved by the slum-dwellers, that whenever he showed a disposition to spare an opponent, the whole mass of the populace were quick with the mercy-signal: the moment they saw Palus sheathe his blade their arms went up with his, almost before his, thumbs as flat as his, never a thumb out nor any fingers clenched.
More than this, no spectator, while Palus played an adversary, ever yelled for a prompt finish to the bout, as almost always happened at the first sign of delay in the case of any other fighter. So comprehensible, so unmistakable, so manifest, so fascinating were the fine points of the swordsmanship displayed by Palus that even the rearmost spectator, even the most brutish lout could and did relish them and enjoy them and crave the continuance of that pleasure.
Most of all the Colosseum audiences not only insisted on Palus appearing in each exhibition, not only longed for his entrance, not merely came to regard all the previous fights of the day as unwelcome postponements of the pleasure of watching Palus fence, but were manifestly impatient for the crowning delight of each day, the ecstacy of beholding a bout between Palus and Murmex Lucro, which contests were always bloodless.
CHAPTER XXXV
MURMEX
Customarily, while Palus flourished, each day began with beast-fights, the noon pause was filled in by exhibitions of athletes, acrobats, jugglers, trained animals and such like, and the surprise; then the gladiatorial shows lasted from early afternoon till an hour before sunset. Palus and Murmex appeared about mid-afternoon and were matched against the victors in the earlier fights. Each located himself at one focus of the ellipse of the arena, at which points two simultaneous fights were best seen by the entire audience. There they began each fight, not simultaneously, but alternately, till all their antagonists were disposed of, most killed and some spared. The spectators seldom hurried Murmex to end a fight; they never hurried Palus. His longest delay in finishing with an adversary, even his manifest intention to exhaust an opponent rather than to wound him, never elicited any protest from any onlooker. All, breathless, fascinated, craned to watch the perfection of his method, every movement of his body, all eyes intent on the point of his matchless blade.
Last of the day’s exhibitions, came the fencing match between Palus and Murmex, at the center of the arena, empty save for those two and their two _lanistae_. All others in the arena, including the surgeons, their helpers and the guards, drew off to positions close under the _podium_ wall.
Murmex and Palus fenced in all sorts of outfits, except that neither ever fought as a _retiarius_. Mostly both were equipped as _secutors_, but they fought also as _murmillos_, Greeks, Gauls, Thracians, Samnites and _dimachaeri_, or one in any of these equipments against the other in any other.
Sometimes they delighted the populace by donning padded suits liberally whitened with flour or white clay, their _murmillos’_ helmets similarly whitened, and then attacking each other with quarter-staffs of ash, cornel-wood or holly. A hit, of course, showed plainly on the whitened suits. As neither could injure the other in this sort of fight, and as they were willing to humor the populace, each was careless about his guard and reckless in his attack. Even so hits were infrequent, since each, even when most lax, had an instinctive guard superior to that of the most expert and cautious fencer among all other contemporary fighters. Even when, very occasionally, if Palus happened to be in a rollicking mood, each substituted a second quarter-staff for his shield and, as it were, travestied a _dimachaerus_, as what might be called a two-staff-man or a double-staff-man, hits were still not frequent. Each had a marvellously impregnable defence and they were very evenly matched in the use of the quarter-staff in place of a shield as they were in everything else. Palus fought better with his left hand attacking and his right defending, Murmex better the other way, but each was genuinely ambidextrous and used either hand at will, shifting at pleasure. When, amid the flash of their staffs, either scored, the hit brought a roar of delight from the upper tiers, even from the front rows, for the most dignified senators caught the infection of the general enthusiasm and so far forgot themselves as to yell like street urchins in their ecstasy.
Except in this farcical sort of burlesque fight neither ever scored a hit on the other, in all the years throughout which their combats finished each day of every gladiatorial exhibition. Yet the audience never tired of their bloodless bouts and, while the nobility and gentry never joined in, the populace invariably roared a protest if they saw the _lanistae_ make a move to separate them, and yelled for them to go on and fence longer.
The interest of the populace was caused by the fact, manifest and plain to all, that, while Murmex and Palus loved each other and had no intention of hurting each other, their matches had no appearance whatever of being sham fights. From the first parade until they separated every stroke, feint, lunge and thrust appeared to be in deadly, venomous earnest and each unhurt merely because, mortal as was his adversary’s attack, his guard was perfect.
It seemed, in fact, as if each man felt so completely safe, felt so certain that his guard would never fail him, and at the same time felt so sure that his crony’s guard was equally faultless, that there was no danger of his injuring his chum, that each attacked the other precisely as he attacked any other adversary. It was commonly declared among expert swordsmen and connoisseurs of sword-play, as among recent spectators, when, talking over the features of an exhibition after it was over, that practically every thrust, lunge or stroke of either in these bouts would have killed or disabled any other adversary; certainly it appeared so to me every time I saw them fence and especially while watching their bouts after I returned from my year at Baiae, for after that I never missed a gladiatorial exhibition in the Colosseum. To my mind Palus and Murmex were manifestly playing with each other, like fox-cubs or Molossian puppies or wolf-cubs; yet the sport so much resembled actual attack and defence, as with nearly grown wolf-cubs, that it gave less the impression of play between friends than that of deadly combat between envenomed foes. Many a time I have heard or overheard some expert or connoisseur or enthusiast or provincial visitor, prophesy somewhat in this fashion:
“Some day one of those two is going to kill the other unexpectedly and unintentionally and by mistake. Each thinks the other will never land on him; each thinks the other has a guard so impregnable that it will never be pierced; each uses on the other attacks so unexpected, so sudden, so subtle, so swift, so powerful, so sustained, so varied that no third man alive could escape any one of them. It is almost a certainty that that sort of thing cannot go on forever. One or the other of them may age sufficiently to retire from the arena, as did Murmex Frugi, safe and unscarred, as he was not. But it is far more likely, since both are full of vitality and vigor, that neither will notice the very gradual approach of age, so that they will go on fighting with eyes undimmed, muscles supple and minds quick, yet not so quick, supple and keen as now: but the preternatural powers of one will wane a bit sooner than those of the other. And sooner or later one will err in his guard and be wounded or killed.”
Most spectators agreed with such forecasts. What is more, most of the spectators admitted that, as they watched, each attack seemed certain to succeed; every time either man guarded it seemed as if he must fail to protect himself.
This, I think, explains the unflagging zest with which the entire audience, senators, nobles and commonality, watched their bouts, revelled in them, gloated over the memory of them and longed for more and more. Consciously or unconsciously, every onlooker felt that sometime, some bout would end in the wounding, disabling or death of one of the two. And so perfect was their sword-play, so unfeigned their unmitigated fury of attack, so genuine the impeccable dexterity of their defence that every spectator felt that the supreme thrill, even while so long postponed, was certain to arrive. More, each felt, against his judgment, that it was likely to arrive the next moment. It was this illogical but unescapable sensation which kept the interest of the whole audience, of the whole of every audience, at a white heat over the bouts of Murmex and Palus. I myself experienced this condition of mind and became infected with the common ardor. I found myself rehearsing to myself the incidents of their last-seen bout, anticipating the next, longing for it: though I never had rated myself as ardent over gladiatorial games, but rather as lukewarm towards them, and considered myself much more interested in paintings, statuary, reliefs, ornaments, bric-a-brac, furniture, fine fabrics and all artistries and artisanries. Yet I confessed to myself that, from the time I saw first a bout between them, anticipation of seeing them fence, or enjoyment of it, came very high among my interests and my pleasures.
To some extent, I think, the long and unequaled vogue of their popularity was due to the great variety of their methods and almost complete absence of monotony in their bouts.
Palus was left-handed, but for something like every third bout or a third of each bout he fought right-handed, merely for bravado, as if to advertise that he could do almost as well with the hand less convenient. Murmex was right-handed, but he too fought often left-handed, perhaps one- fifth of the time. So, in whatever equipment, one saw each of them fight both ways. Therefore as _murmillos_ they fought both right-handed, both left-handed, and each right-handed against the other fighting left-handed. This gave a perpetually shifting effect of novelty, surprise and interest to every bout between them. They similarly had four ways of appearing as Greeks, Gauls, Samnites, Thracians, _secutors_ or _dimachaeri_.
Their bouts as _dimachaeri_ were breathlessly exciting, for it was impossible, from moment to moment, to forecast with which saber either would attack, with which he would guard; and, not infrequently, one attacked and the other guarded with both. When they fought in this fashion Galen, it always appeared to me, looked uneasy, keyed up and apprehensive. Yet neither ever so much as nicked, flicked or scratched the other in their more than sixty bouts with two sabers apiece.
More than a dozen times they appeared as Achilles and Hector, with the old-fashioned, full-length, man-protecting shield, the short Argive sword and the heavy lance, half-pike, half-javelin, of Trojan tradition. Murmex threw a lance almost as far and true as Palus and the emotion of the audience was unmistakably akin to horror when both, simultaneously, hurled their deadly spears so swiftly and so true that it seemed as if neither could avoid the flying death. Palus, true to his nickname, never visibly dodged, though Murmex’s aim was as accurate as his own; he escaped the glittering, needle-pointed, razor-edged spear-head by half a hand’s-breath or less by an almost imperceptible inclination of his body, made at the last possible instant, when it seemed as if the lance had already pierced him. It was indescribably thrilling to behold this.
Besides fencing equipped as Gauls, Samnites, Thracians and _secutors_ they appeared in every combination of any of these and of Greeks and _murmillos_ with every other. Palus as a _dimachaerus_ against Murmex as a _murmillo_ made a particularly delectable kind of bout. Almost as much so Murmex as a Gaul against Palus as a Thracian. And so without end.
After my return from Baiae Falco pampered me more than ever and, in particular, arranged to take me with him to all amphitheater shows and have me sit beside him in the front row of the nobles immediately behind the boxes of the senators on the _podium_. This does not sound possible in our later days, when amphitheater regulations are strictly enforced, as they had been under the Divine Aurelius and his predecessors. But, while Commodus was Prince much laxity was rife in all branches of the government. After the orgies of bribe-taking, favoritism and such like in the heyday of Perennis and of Cleander, all classes of our society became habituated to ignoring contraventions of rules. Under Perennis and later under Cleander not a few senators took with them into their boxes favorites who were not only not of senatorial rank, nor even nobles, but not Romans at all: foreign visitors, alien residents of Rome, freedmen or even slaves, and the other senators, as a class exquisitely sensitive to any invasion of their privileges by outsiders, winked at the practice partly because some of them participated in it, much more because they feared to suffer out-and-out ruin, if, by word or look, they incurred the disfavor of Perennis while he was all-powerful or, later, of the more omnipotent Cleander. When a senator saw another so violate propriety, privilege and law, he assumed that the acting Prefect of the Palace had been bribed and so dared not protest or whisper disapprobation.
Much more than the senators the nobles obtained secret license to ignore the rules, or ignored them without license, since, when so many violated the regulations, no one was conspicuous or likely to be brought to book. Falco, being vastly wealthy, probably bribed somebody, but I never knew: when I hinted a query he merely smiled and vowed that we were perfectly safe.
So I sat beside him through that unforgettable December day, at the end of which came the culmination of what I have been describing.
The day was perfect, clear, crisp, mild and windless. It was not cold enough to be chilling, but was cold enough to make completely comfortable a pipe-clayed ceremonial toga over the full daily garments of a noble or senator, so that the entire audience enjoyed the temperature and basked in the brilliant sunrays; for, so late in the year, as the warmth of the sun was sure to be welcome, the awning had not been spread. I, in my bizarre oriental attire, wore my thickest garments and my fullest curled wig and felt neither too cold nor too warm.
I never saw the Colosseum so brilliant a spectacle. It was full to the upper colonnade under the awning-rope poles, not a seat vacant. Spectators were sitting on the steps all up and down every visible stair; two or even three rows on each side of each stair, leaving free only a narrow alley up the middle of each for the passage in or out of attendants or others. Spectators filled the openings of the entrance-stairs, all but jamming each. In each of the cross-aisles spectators stood or crouched against its back-wall, ducking their heads to avoid protests from the luckier spectators in the seats behind them. The upper colonnade was packed to its full capacity with standees.
The program was unusual, gladiatorial exhibitions from the beginning of the show; and nothing else. The morning was full of brisk fights between young men; provincials, foreigners and some Italians, volunteer enthusiasts. The noon pause was filled in by routine fights of old or aging gladiators nearly approaching the completion of their covenanted term of service. It ended with a novelty, the encounter of two tight-rope walkers on a taut rope stretched fully thirty feet in the air. It was proclaimed that they were rivals for the favor of a pretty freedwoman and that they had agreed on this contest as a settlement of their rivalry. Certainly the two, naked save for breech-clouts and each armed with a light lance in one hand and a thin-bladed Gallic sword in the other, neared each other with every sign of caution, enmity and courage. Their sparring for an opening lasted some time, but was breathlessly interesting. The victor kept his feet on the rope and pierced his rival, who fell and died from the spear-wound or the fall or both.
During the noon pause the Emperor had left his pavilion. When he returned I, from my nearby location, was certain that Commodus himself had presided all the morning, but that now Furfur was taking his place. Certainly Palus and Murmex entered the arena soon after the noon pause and gave an exhibition almost twice as long as usual, killing many adversaries. Before the sun was half way down the sky, as Palus finished an opponent with one of his all but invisible punctures of the thigh-artery, the upper tiers first and then all ranks acclaimed this as the death of the twelve- hundredth antagonist who had perished by his unerring steel.
The daylight had not begun to dim when Murmex and Palus faced each other for the fencing bout which was to end the day. Each was equipped as a _secutor_, Murmex in silvered armor, Palus all in gold or gilded arms. Their swords were not regulation army swords, such a _secutors_ normally carried, but long-bladed Gallic swords, the longest-bladed swords ever used by any gladiators.
They made a wonderful picture as the _lanistae_ placed them and stepped back: Murmex, burly, stocky, heavy of build, thick-set, massive, with vast girth of chest and bull-neck, his neatly-fitting plated gauntlet, huge on his big right hand, his big plated boots planted solidly on the sand, his polished helmet, the great expanse of his silvered shield, his silvered kilt-strap-scales and silvered greave-boots brilliant in the cool late light; opposite him Palus, tall, lithe, graceful, slim, agile, all in gleaming gold, helmet, corselet, shield, kilt, greave-boots and all. They shone like a composite jewel set in the arena as a cameo in the bezel of a ring. And the picture they made was framed in the hoop of spectators crowding the slopes of the amphitheater, all silent after the gusts of cheers which had acclaimed the two as they took their places.
If possible, their feints and assaults were more thrilling than ever, unexpected, sudden, swift, all but successful. As always neither capered or pranced, Murmex not built for such antics, Palus by nature steady on his feet. But, except that their feet moved cannily, every bit of the rest of either’s body was in constant motion and moved swiftly. The gleam and flicker of thrust and parry were inexpressibly rapid. Even the upper tiers craned, breathless and fascinated; and we, further forward, were numb and quivering with excitement.
I have heard a hundred eye-witnesses describe what occurred. There was close agreement with what I seemed to see as I watched.
Palus lunged just as Murmex made a brilliantly unpredictable shift of his position. The shift and lunge came so simultaneously that neither had, in his calculated, predetermined movement, time to alter his intention; Murmex, you might say, threw his throat at the spot at which Palus had aimed his lunge. The sword-point ripped his throat from beside the gullet to against the spine, all one side of it. He collapsed, the blood spouting.
Palus cast the dripping sword violently from him, the gleaming blade flying up into the air and falling far off on the sand. The big shield fell from his right arm. Both his hands caught his big helmet, lifted it and threw it behind him. On one knee he sank by Murmex and, with his left hand, strove to staunch the gushing blood.
Before Galen, before even the _lanistae_ could reach the two, Murmex died.
Palus staggered to his feet and put up his gory hand to his yellow curls, with a convincingly agonized gesture of grief and horror.
He uttered some words, I heard his voice, but not the words. Folk say he said:
“I have killed the only match I had on earth, the second-best fighter earth ever saw.”
The audience, I among them, stared, awe-struck and fascinated, at Commodus laying a bloody hand on his own head; we shuddered: I saw many look back and forth from Palus in the arena to the figure on the Imperial throne.
The guards ran, the surgeons’ helpers ran, even Galen ran, but Aemilius Laetus reached Palus first, and, between the dazed and stunned _lanistae_, picked up the big golden helmet and replaced it on his head, hiding his features. The distance from the _podium_ wall to the center of the arena is so great, the distance from any other part of the audience so much greater, that, while many of the spectators were astounded, suspicious or curious, not one could be certain that Palus was, beyond peradventure, the Prince of the Republic in person. Palus stood there, alternately staring at his dead crony and talking to Laetus and Galen.
The heralds had run up with the guards. Laetus, without any pretense of consultation with the dummy Emperor on the throne, spoke to the heralds and each stalked off to one focus of the ellipse of the arena. Thence each bellowed for silence, their deep-toned, resonant, loud, practiced voices carrying to the upper colonnade everywhere. Silence, deep already since Murmex received his death-wound and broken only by whispers, deepened. The amphitheater became almost still. Into the stillness the heralds proclaimed that next day the funeral games of Murmex Lucro would be celebrated in the Colosseum where he had died; that all persons entitled to seats in the Colosseum were thereby enjoined to attend, unless too ill to leave their homes: that all should come without togas, but, in sign of mourning for Murmex, wearing over their garments full-length, all- enveloping rain-cloaks of undyed black wool and similarly colored umbrella hats; that any person failing to attend so habited would be severely punished; that the show would be worth seeing, for, in honor of the Manes of Murmex, to placate his ghost, no defeated fighter would be spared and all the victors of the morning would fight each other in the afternoon.
Surely the tenth day before the Kalends of January, in December of the nine hundred and forty-fourth year of the City, [Footnote: 191 A.D.] the year in which Commodus was nominally consul for the seventh time, and Pertinax consul for the second time, saw the strangest audience ever assembled in the amphitheater of the Colosseum. I was there, seated, as on the day before, next my master, my gaudy Asiatic garments, like his garb of a noble of equestrian rank, hidden under a great raincoat and my face shaded by the broad brim of an umbrella hat.
The universal material conventional for mourners’ attire is certainly appropriate and proper for mourning garb. For the undyed wool of black sheep, when spun and woven, results in a cloth dingy in the extreme. The wearing of garments made of it suits admirably with grief and gloom of spirit, deepens sadness, accentuates woe, almost produces melancholy. And the sight of it, when one is surrounded by persons so habited, conduces to dejection and depression. This equally was felt by the whole audience. Instead of being a space glaring in the sunlight shining on an expanse of white togas, the hollow of the amphitheater was a dingy area of brownish black under a lowering canopy of sullen cloud, for the sky was heavily overcast and threatened rain all day, though not a drop fell. The windless air was damp and penetratingly chilly, so that we almost shivered under our swathings. The discomfort of not being warm enough and the dispiriting effect of the grim sky and gloomy interior of the amphitheater was manifest in a sort of general impression of melancholy and apprehension.
Apprehension, or, certainly, uneasiness, pervaded the audience and, as it were, seemed to diffuse itself from the Imperial Pavilion, crowded, not, as usual, with jaunty figures in gaudy apparel, all crimson, blue, and green, picked out and set off by edgings of silver and gold, but with a solemn retinue, all hidden under dingy umbrella hats and swathed in rain- cloaks. To see the throne occupied by a human shape so obscured by its habiliments gave all beholders an uncanny feeling in which foreboding deepened into alarm. The appearance of the whole audience, still more of the Imperial retinue, was one to cause all beholders to interpret the garb of the spectators as ill-omened, almost as inviting disaster.
In the center of the arena was built up the pyre which was to consume all that was left of Murmex. It was constructed of thirty-foot logs, each tier laid across the one below it, the lower tiers of linden, willow, elm and other quick-burning woods, their interstices filled with fat pine-knots; the upper tiers of oak and maple, at which last I heard not a few whispered protests, for old-fashioned folk felt it almost a sacrilege that holy wood should be used to burn a gladiator, a man of blood. The pyre was thus a square structure thirty feet on a side and fully twenty feet high; each side showing silvered log-butts or log-ends, with gilded pine-knots all between; its top covered with laurel boughs, over which was laid a crimson rug with golden fringe, setting off the corpse of Murmex, which lay in the silver armor he had worn in his last fight, high on the mound of laurel boughs.
At each focus of the arena was placed a round marble altar, one to Venus Libitina, one to Pluto. By these the heralds took their stands and proclaimed that no offerings would be made at the altars except one black lamb at each, that every man slain in the day’s fighting would be an offering to the Manes of Murmex, since the day would be occupied solely with the celebration of funeral games for the solace of his ghost.
The games began with a set-to of sixteen pairs of gladiators fighting simultaneously. After this was over the sixteen victors drew off towards one end of the arena and sixteen other pairs fought simultaneously. After them the victors of the first set paired off as the _lanistae_ arranged and the eight pairs fought. The eight victors again rested while the survivors of the second set simultaneously fought as eight pairs. So they alternated till only two men survived. A third batch of thirty-two gladiators then fought in sixteen pairs: then the two survivors of the first and second batches fought. The heralds proclaimed that the sole survivor of the first sixty-four would fight again in the afternoon. So with the sole survivor of the third and fourth batches. This grim butchery gave a savage tone to the whole day. All the morning many pairs fought, till one of each pair was killed. But, after the fourth batch, every victor in any fight was reserved to fight again in the afternoon.
To my eyesight the figure on the throne, even under that broad hat-brim and enveloped in that thick rain-cloak, was manifestly Commodus in person. Unmistakably his was every Imperial gesture as he presided as Editor of the games.
During the noon interval, as usual, the Emperor retired to his robing-room under the upper tiers of the amphitheater. When again, after the noon interval, the throne was reoccupied, I felt certain that its occupant was Ducconius Furfur.
At any rate Palus appeared at once after the noon interval and the first fight was between him and the survivor of the sixty-four wretches, who had begun the day’s butchery. Palus, of course, killed his man, but with more appearance of effort and less easily than any adversary he had ever faced under my observation. The people cheered his victory, but not so enthusiastically as usual. He did not appear again till the last event of the day, which was a series of duels between champions in two-horse chariots, driven by expert charioteers, they and the fighters equipped with arms and armor such as was used by both sides at the siege of Troy. Horses are seldom seen in the Colosseum and these pairs, frantic at the smell of blood, taxed to the utmost the skill and strength of their drivers, particularly as they were controlled by the old-fashioned reins of the Heroic period, the manipulation of which calls for methods different from those effective with our improved modern reins.
The charioteers were capable and their dexterous maneuvering for every advantage of approach and relative position won many cheers. Eight pairs fought, then the eight victors paired off, then the four victors, then the two. The sole survivor then retired and while he was out of the arena there entered a superb pair of bay horses, drawing a chariot of Greek pattern, in which, to the amazement of all beholders, was Narcissus, the wrestler, himself, habited as Automedon and acting as charioteer; while beside him, magnificent in a triple crested crimson-plumed helmet of the Thessalian type, in a gilded corselet of the style of the Heroic age, with gilded scales on its kilt-straps, with gilded greaves, with a big gilded Argive shield embossed with reliefs, and holding two spears, manifestly habited as Achilles, stood Palus.
When his refreshed antagonist reentered in a Trojan chariot and armored and armed as Hector of Troy, Palus handed his two spears to his Automedon, leapt from his chariot, walked over to Hector’s, and spoke to him. I heard it reported afterwards that he said:
“It would spoil the program for Hector to slay Achilles, but you have as much chance of killing me as I of killing you. I am so shaken by Murmex’s death that I am not the man I was yesterday morning and up till then. I never felt so nearly matched as by you, not even by Murmex. Attack and spare not. I have given orders that, if you kill me, you shall not suffer for it in any way. I don’t want to live, anyhow, now Murmex is dead.”
Whether he said this or something else, he spoke earnestly and walked back to his chariot nearby, without any elasticity in his tread.
Narcissus, the wrestler, to the astonishment of the spectators, proved himself a paragon horse jockey. Everyone knew him as a wrestler, as reported the strongest man alive, as claimed by his admirers to have a more powerful hand-grasp than any rival, as the favorite wrestling-mate of the Emperor; all the notabilities had seen him and Commodus wrestle in the Stadium of the Palace; all Rome knew him for a crony of the Prince; yet no one had ever heard him praised or even mentioned as a charioteer. Yet he showed himself a matchless horseman. Hector’s charioteer was a master, yet Narcissus outmaneuvered him, gained the advantage of angle of approach and, after many turns, gave Palus his chance. The two great lances flew almost simultaneously; but, as Achilles dodged, Hector fell dying of a mortal wound in the throat.
What followed was, apparently, according to the prearranged program and was indubitably in keeping with the equipment of the two champions and their charioteers; yet it horrified me, and I think all the senators and nobles as well as most of the audience. As Hector sprawled horridly on the sand Narcissus veered his pair and, as they passed the fallen man, Achilles leapt from his chariot. Drawing his Argive sword he slashed the dying man across his abdomen; then, sheathing his blade, he stood, one foot on his adversary’s neck and, raising his lance and shield, shouted: “Enalie! Enalie! Enalie!” the old Greek invocation to the war-god. Then he threw aside his lance and shield and stripped off the armor from the dead. Arena-slaves carried it to the pyre and placed it upon it, by Murmex.
Narcissus had wheeled the chariot in a short circle and halted it as near Palus as he could keep it and control the frantic horse. Palus took from one of the hand-holds at the back of the chariot-rail a long leathern thong. With his dirk he slit each foot of the corpse between the leg-bone and the heel-tendon; through the slit he passed the thong, knotting it to his liking. The doubled thong he tied securely to the rear rim of the chariot-bed. Retrieving his lance and shield he posed an instant, every inch Achilles, stepped over Hector’s naked corpse and mounted the chariot. From Automedon he took the reins and the whip, passing him his lance, yet retaining his great circular shield, nowise hampered by which he drove the chariot round and round the pyre, the picture, as all could see, he felt, of Achilles placating the ghost of Patroclus.
This exhibition shocked the whole audience, upper tiers and all. The ghost of a hiss breathed under the tense hush of the silent beholders. A shudder ran over the hollow of the amphitheater, as the dragged corpse, mauled by the sand and turning over, became a mere lump of pounded meat. The chill of the onlookers appeared to reach Palus. He halted his team near the pyre, arena-slaves dragged away Hector’s corpse, one brought a lighted torch and Palus himself kindled the pyre at each of its four corners, walking twice round it. When it was enveloped in crackling flames, he mounted the chariot and Narcissus drove him out; drove him out, to the horror of all beholders by the Gate of Ill-omen.
After he vanished through that gate no amphitheater ever again beheld Palus the Gladiator.
When he was gone all eyes were fixed on the kindling pyre. The flames blazed up all round it and above it, the smoke mounted skyward in a thick column, the crackle and roar of the flames was audible all over the amphitheater; so deep was the solemn stillness. I shall carry to my last living hour the vivid recollection of that picture: under the grim gray sky, framed in by the sable hangings which draped the upper colonnade, and by the clingy audience, against the yellow sand, that column of sooty smoke and below it the red glare of the blazing pyre.
CHAPTER XXXVI
ANXIETY
After my seclusion at Baiae, up to the terrible events which I am about to narrate, by far the most important of my experiences had been my personal observations of the fights of Palus the Gladiator and what I had heard and thought about him. Therefore I have narrated those at length and first. Now I approach the story of my most dreadful miseries.
From my return to Rome my life had gone on much as it had before my master had compelled me to impersonate Salsonius Salinator and, in so doing, to resume my natural appearance as I had looked while my genuine self, and thus, undisguised, to mingle with the associates of my normal early life. After my hair and beard had regained their previous luxuriance and I was again painted, rouged, frizzed, bejeweled, and bedizened, I felt safe and, was in fact, almost entirely safe. In this guise I enjoyed life. Falco was indulgent to me and I had every luxury at my command.
Falco’s mania for gem-collecting did not wane, but, if possible, grew on him. His ventures all prospered, his profits from risky speculations poured in, his normal income from his heritage increased; and, of all this opulence, every surplus denarius was paid out for gems and curios. Yet he never was so much a faddist as to lose a day from the games of the circus and the amphitheater. He viewed every show of gladiators, every day of racing, almost every combat and every race.
The day after the spectacular games for Murmex and his more spectacular cremation, the eighth day before the Kalends of January, was nominally the last racing day of the year. The weather was fair and mild. The Circus Maximus was crowded, the Imperial Pavilion blazed with the retinue about the Emperor, he and all of us enjoyed the thirty races of four four-horsed chariots to each. I mention this because it was his last public appearance.
The festivities of the Saturnalia, which I had prepared for according to Falco’s orders with lavish prodigality, left me more than a little weary. I spent some days mostly in resting and dozing, being drowsy all day, even with long nights of sound sleep.
On the fatal last day of the year I did not go out, but read or dozed and went early to bed. I slept heavily, knowing nothing from composing myself in bed until I wakened suddenly in the almost complete darkness of the first hint of light at the dawn of a cloudy, windless winter day, I woke with a sense of having been roused, of something unusual; and, vaguely descrying a human figure by my bed asked, sleepily:
“Is that you, Dromo?”
“No,” said Agathemer’s voice, “it is I.”
I raised myself on one elbow, shot through with foreboding. But my apprehensions were mastered by an idle curiosity. I knew he had some imperative reason for coming to me, yet I did not ask his errand, but queried:
“How on earth did you get in?”
“The house-door was open,” he said simply.
“But,” I marvelled, “I am surprised that the janitor was awake so early.”
“He was not,” said Agathemer with deliberate emphasis, “he was as fast asleep in his cell on the right of the vestibule as was the watch-dog in his on the left.”
“And you walked past both unnoticed?” I hazarded.
“I did,” said he, “and you had best warn Falco somehow or induce him to sell his janitor and buy one he can trust or to put in his place some trusty home-slave. That is no sort of a janitor for the house containing the second-largest private gem-collection in all Rome. Nor any sort of watch-dog.”
“How came the door unbarred?” I wondered, “who showed you up here?”
“I came up alone,” said Agathemer, significantly. “I have not seen a human being except the snoring janitor. This house is at the mercy of any sneak- thief. But you can return to that later. I have come to tell you good news. Commodus is dead!”
“Really?” I quavered.
Oddly enough I felt no sense of relief. Before my eyes arose the picture of Commodus as I had seen him facing the mutineers from Britain before he condemned Perennis: I recalled how often I had heard said of him that he was the noblest born of all our Emperors from the Divine Julius down; that he was the handsomest and the strongest man in any assembly about him, however large; that in his Imperial Regalia he looked more imperial than any man ever had: I contrasted his possession of these qualities with his pitiful squandering of his boundless opportunities, with his frittering away his life on horse-racing, sword-play and such like frivolities. I could not think of myself, only of what Commodus might have been and had not been. I mourned for him and Rome.
Agathemer sat down on the edge of my bed and told his story.
“You know,” he said, “that, as gem-expert and as salesman for Orontides, I have many friends in the Palace. I have carefully kept out of it myself and Orontides has acquiesced, for I told him I had good reason to avoid going in there, as you well know I have. If Marcia had seen me she would have recognized me and I should not have lived many hours, for she, believing you dead, would regard me as, of all men, the most likely to see through the utilization of Ducconius Furfur as a dummy Emperor to free Commodus for masquerading as Palus. She would want me out of the way as the only man in Rome who had known Furfur in Sabinum. Therefore I kept away from the Palace.
“But my good friends among the valets and chamberlains and secretaries, and even higher officials have not only kept me posted as to the most interesting happenings, intrigues and rumors, but one or two close to the Emperor have regularly communicated to me many details of Palace gossip.”
Daily, since the death of Murmex, Agathemer had been informed of long, heated and ever longer and more violent discussions between Commodus and Marcia, often, with Eclectus also present and participating, for he had been acting towards Commodus more as an equal toward a crony than as Head Chamberlain of the Palace towards his master. Laetus, too had also participated, sometimes in place of Eclectus, sometimes along with him, for he also had been comporting himself more as a chum of Commodus than as Prefect of the Praetorium towards his Emperor.
The substance of the discussions had been always the same. Commodus, at once after the death of Murmex, announced his intention of turning his Imperial duties and dignities over to Ducconius Furfur and of going to the Choragium, there and thenceforward to live and to die as Palus the Gladiator. He declared that as Emperor he never had an hour free from anxiety, always in dread of assassination by poison or otherwise, whereas, as a gladiator among gladiators, he felt perfectly safe and carefree, beloved and watched over by all his companions and certain to win all his fights.
“As Emperor,” he said, “I’ll not live a year; as Palus I’ll most likely die of old age, forty years or more from now. Furfur and I are so alike that no one can tell us apart, so no one will ever suspect that the man acting as Emperor is not the same man who has filled that place ever since Father died.”
Marcia had talked to him of his duty and he had rejoined that he had always known that he was unfit to be the Emperor, had feared his responsibilities, had undertaken them unwillingly, had mostly bungled them, and the world would be far better off with anybody else as Emperor, that everybody knew it and that he was despised by the whole Senate and nobility and for that reason more unhappy although he was unhappy enough so anyhow, without the covert jeers of the magistrates; whereas he was the best gladiator ever and all gladiators and experts acknowledged and acclaimed him peerless; as a gladiator he would be happy and enjoy life up to whatever end came to him, preferably an unexpected accidental sudden death such as had befallen Murmex. Ducconius Furfur had not only sat in his throne at shows, but had received embassies, read better than he the addresses composed for him by his Prefects of the Praetorium and Secretaries, knew all the tricks of the office and could and would be a better Emperor than ever he had been.
When Eclectus and Laetus argued with him the results were similar.
Then Marcia admonished him that while Furfur had escaped detection in mere routine matters he was certain to be detected within a few days if he essayed all the Imperial duties before all sorts of people. In that case some sort of revolt would abolish him and put a new Emperor in place of him and any such chosen autocrat would quickly order the death of Palus the Gladiator to assure himself the throne. To this line of argument Commodus had been as deaf as to all other lines.
“Why,” he had said, “if I change clothes with Furfur you wouldn’t know the difference yourself. If we both were garbed as Emperor, Laetus wouldn’t know which to obey. And if my wife and most loyal servant cannot tell which is which when we are side by side and habited alike, who will ever suspect that Furfur is not I when I am out of the way, far off, living as Palus the Swordsman, never alongside the Emperor or in sight at the same time? The plan cannot miscarry.”
He had announced that he meant on the Kalends of January to take up his abode in the Choragium and leave the Palace and its adjuncts and all his prerogatives to Ducconius Furfur. He had Furfur in and the five had a heated wrangle. Furfur, after the discussion, had another with Marcia, Eclectus and Laetus, declaring that he thought the scheme as insane as they thought it, but dared not show reluctance for fear of being put to death at once: as an impostor Emperor he would, at least, have a chance, if a faint chance, of success and survival.
Then they all had a long altercation on the last day of the year, during which Commodus cursed Marcia and Eclectus and Laetus and vowed he would have them all executed if they mentioned the subject again. He imperiously bade them acquiesce and so silenced them.
Then he made Furfur, who pretended to him that he was delighted, remain to drink with him. They drank till both were dead drunk and snoring.
Marcia, finding them so, held a consultation with Eclectus and Laetus and proposed to have Narcissus strangle Furfur, saying that with Furfur out of the way Commodus might come to his senses: she would risk his wrath and be resigned to death if she failed to placate him; for, with Furfur dead, he could not carry out his crazy intentions. She said she loved Commodus so much that she was willing to save him even at the cost of her own life.
Eclectus and Laetus acclaimed her plan and were overjoyed at their opportunity, for all three hated Furfur. Yet, all three shrank from going into the room with Narcissus. He, entering alone, mistook the two sleepers, who had changed clothes, and by mistake for Furfur, strangled Commodus. After his victim was indubitably dead and past any possibility of reviving he summoned his accomplices and, when Marcia shrieked and fainted, for the first time realized his blunder.
Then, frantic, he seized Furfur and strangled him to death long before Eclectus had revived Marcia from her swoon.
As Agathemer told it to me all this came out in a haphazard tangle of unfinished sentences, interruptions, fresh starts, questions, answers, repetitions and explanations.
Meanwhile the day had dawned gray and lowering. Of all my strange experiences none were more eery than that talk with Agathemer, beginning in the dark and, with his form and features and expressions effaced, gradually becoming more and more visible. And towards the end of his disclosures he checked himself in the middle of a word and, raising his hand, whispered:
“Hark!”
Silent and tense, we listened. Even in my bedroom, opening on the side gallery of the peristyle, we heard, from over the roofs, cries of:
“The tyrant is dead! The despot is dead! The prize-fighter is dead! The murderer is dead!”
“The news is out!” Agathemer ejaculated, and he breathed a prayer to Mercury, in which I joined. When finally he had told all he had to tell I marvelled:
“Can it be possible that the most intimate and secret conversations of the Prince of the Republic, of the most sedulously guarded man on earth, are thus overheard by underlings and so promptly communicated even to outsiders presumably to be reckoned among his enemies?”
“I conjecture,” Agathemer rejoined, “that I am not the only outsider in receipt of information of this kind.”
“If you have been, all along,” I asked, “in receipt of such information, why have you always talked of Furfur’s presence in the Palace and his utilization as a dummy Emperor while Commodus masqueraded as Palus, as a conjecture of yours which you believed, but of which you could not be certain? Why have you not frankly spoken of it as a fact, which many knew of and of which some in a position to know, repeatedly informed you?”
“Because no one ever did so inform me,” Agathemer answered, “they merely dropped hints, mostly hints, unnoticed by themselves, unintentionally dropped by them, and uncertainly pieced together by me. While Commodus was alive each of my informants, however fond of me, however under obligations to me, however anticipative of profit from me, however eager to curry favor with me, yet had vividly before him the dread of death, of death with torture, if any disloyalty of his, any dereliction in deed, word or thought, came to the notice of Commodus or Laetus or Eclectus, or if any one of them came to harbor any suspicion of him. All were vague, guarded, indefinite, cautious.
“Since midnight all that has changed. None fears any retribution for blabbing; all feel an overmastering urge towards confiding in some one. The three who, each unknown to the others, have resorted to me, told me unreckonably more than I previously conjectured. I comprehend the entire situation, now.”
“If so,” I said, “make me comprehend it. I do not. How could Furfur be coerced or persuaded to such an imposture? How could he be domiciled in the Palace along with Marcia and Commodus and the deception maintained? How could the three personally endure or even sustain the difficulties of the situation?”
“It all hinged,” Agathemer explained, “on the fact that Furfur was insanely in love with Marcia, that Marcia hated and loathed him and that Commodus realized how each felt to the other. He was so sure of Marcia’s detestation of Furfur that he was never jealous of him, so sure of Furfur’s complete subserviency to Marcia that he never feared betrayal by him. Actually, from what I hear, Furfur complied as he did partly from loyalty to Commodus, partly from fear of him, partly, perhaps, from a sort of relish for his risky impersonation, but chiefly because he was wax in Marcia’s hands; as, indeed, was every man who came within reach of her fascinations. Does that explain it?”
“Enough,” I agreed. “Perhaps as far as it can or could be explained.”
“The main thing,” said Agathemer, “is that Commodus is dead.”
“I should be pleased to hear that,” I said, “and I am and I thank you. But, somehow, I am unable to think of myself. Uppermost in my mind is the thought of the dead autocrat, of his unlimited power, of his inability to surround himself with trustworthy dependents, and of all you have had hinted to you and, even to-night, told you. In such a world, who can consider himself safe?”
Agathemer looked piqued.
“I reckoned,” he said, “that you would feel, if not safe, at least less unsafe upon hearing my announcement.”
“I do,” said I, “for, under any other Prince, I should be less in danger, and, when we learn who is chosen Emperor, it may turn out that I have some chance of rehabilitation.”
“Laetus and Eclectus,” said Agathemer, “have decided to make Pertinax Emperor. When my informer left the Palace they had already set off to find Pertinax, presumably at his home, and offer him the Principate.”
“That,” I gloried, “is truly good news. I knew him as a young noble knows many an older senator: he may remember me. He should have nothing against me. You raise my hopes high!”
“By all means be hopeful and cheerful,” said Agathemer, “but stick to your present disguise and continue your present way of life until we are sure. Do not be rash.”
We consulted further and he said:
“I’ll keep away from you except when it seems imperative to talk with you. I shall not send any more letters than I must. Do not write to me. If you must see me, it will be safe to come to Orontides’ shop, as Falco is continually sending you there about gems. You can nod to me without any uttered word and I’ll then come here as soon as may be.”
He left just as dawn brightened into full day.
Among the first proclamations of our new Emperor was one expressly abolishing the court for prosecuting accusations for infringement of the Imperial Majesty by incautious words or inadvertent acts and at the same time decreeing the recall of every living exile banished for such transgressions; also specifically rehabilitating the memory of all persons who had been under Commodus, put to death on the pretext of this sort of guilt. Before the end of the day on which this decree was promulgated I received a letter from Agathemer in which he wrote:
“Beware! Keep close. Already it is rumored that exceptions to this decree have been made. Marcia is still alive, is married to Eclectus, and Eclectus is confirmed as Palace Chamberlain. With Marcia close to the Emperor you are not safe, no matter who is Emperor. Keep close!”
I followed his advice, which was easy for me to do, as I was very comfortable and well habituated to my life. Moreover I was buoyed up with hope of early rehabilitation and of then marrying Vedia, who sent me one cautiously worded note, congratulating me on the disappearance of my most dangerous foeman, warning me that I still had formidable enemies alive and in high places, and begging me to be prudent. She reiterated her expressions of love, devotion and fidelity.
From Tanno also I received a letter warning me to be on guard and to efface myself as much as possible.
Falco, who had loathed Commodus, but had been careful to keep a still tongue on all matters except horse-racing, sword-play, social pleasures and gem-collecting, was much relieved at his death, and heartily delighted with his successor. He took pains to be present among the auditors of Pertinax whenever nobles were admitted along with the senators to listen to his addresses, which was almost always. He took to heart the new Emperor’s adjurations as to economy and his invectives against the evils of speculative enterprises of all kinds. Over our wine after dinner, when we two dined alone together, much as Agathemer and I had when I was my former self, he unbosomed himself to me.
“Pertinax is right,” he averred, “there is a real difference between enterprises which enrich only the participants and those which, while profiting their promoters, also add to the wealth of the Republic. I applaud his distinction between the two. I agree with him that wealthy men like me should invest their capital in nothing which does not benefit mankind as well as themselves. I have realized with a shock of shame that my greed for cash to spend on jewels has led me to embark in ventures which merely divert into my coffers the proceeds of other men’s efforts, without adding anything to the sum-total of usable wealth. I mean to withdraw from all such monetary acrobatics and utilize my surplus in extending my estates, in buying others, in cattle-breeding, sheep-raising, goat-herding, and in the cultivation of olives, vines, and other such remunerative growths, along with wheat-farming. Thus I will add to the resources of the Republic, while increasing my own cash income.
“Our conscientious Prince is equally correct in exhorting us to eschew all frivolities. I’ll buy no more gems. Nay, I’ll auction my collection, as soon as Rome recovers its calm and purchasers are as eager as last year. I’ll invest the proceeds in productive enterprise. Thus, as Pertinax says, I shall be a more useful citizen and an even happier man.”
Actually he at once initiated his arrangements for closing out the speculative ventures which he controlled and for withdrawing from those in which he participated. And he bought no more gems, though he talked gems as much as previously, or even more, and took great pride in showing visitors over his collection or in conning his treasures in company with me or even entirely alone by himself.
His enthusiasm for Pertinax grew warmer day by day and he talked of him, praising him, lauded him, prophesied for him great things and from him great benefits to the Republic and the Empire.
The alleged conspiracy against Pertinax of Consul Sosius Falco and his disgrace and relegation to his estates was a great shock to my master. That his cousin should plot against the Prince of our Republic, or lay himself open to accusation of such plotting, appeared to him hideous and shameful. He felt disgraced himself, as bearing the same family name. He gloomed and mourned over the matter.
The murder of Pertinax, by his own guards, on the fifth day before the Kalends of April, when he had been less than three months Emperor, was even a more violent shock to Falco, who was crushed with horror at such a crime. He was even more horrified at the arrogance of the guilty Praetorians and at their shameless effrontery in offering the Imperial Purple to the highest bidder and in, practically, selling the Principiate to so bestial a Midas as Didius Julianus, who, of all the senators, seemed most to misbecome the Imperial Dignity and who had nothing to recommend him except his opulence.
During the days of rioting which followed the murder of Pertinax we, naturally, kept indoors. When the disorders abated and the streets of Rome resumed their normal activities, Falco continued to remain at home. I expostulated with him, but he appeared, suddenly, a changed man, as if dazed and stunned by recent events. He, who had been continually on the go, living in a round of social pleasures, became averse to much of what he had before revelled in. My most ingenious pleadings were required to induce him to go to the Public Baths, which fashionable clubhouses he had frequented every afternoon from his first arrival at Rome. Until the death of Pertinax he had only very occasionally dined alone with me: nearly every day he went out to a formal dinner or entertained a large batch of guests at a lavish banquet. After Pertinax’s murder he began to refuse invitations to dine and he gave fewer dinners. He spent a great deal of his time with his lawyers and accountants and went over the affairs of his African estates, minutely, one by one and all of them. He made a new will and told me of it.
“Phorbas,” he said, “I am troubled with forebodings. I have never thought of death until recently, except as of something far off and to be considered much later: since the murder of our good Emperor I think of it continually. If I live long enough to see normal conditions restored I shall follow the suggestions given to me by the addresses of Pertinax and shall auction my gems. Meanwhile I dread that I may not live to do so. Therefore I have made a will leaving my entire collection to you. I hereby enjoin you, should you come into possession of them, to sell the gems at auction, as soon as you see fit, and to invest the proceeds in enterprises which shall add to the wealth of the Republic. This bequest is a trust. Besides I have, as in former wills, bequeathed to you your freedom, and a legacy sufficient to make you comfortable for life. Moreover I have made you the heir of one-fourth of my estate, what remains of it after the gem collections is yours and all specific legacies are paid. I do not love my nephews and cousins and have bequeathed to them more than they deserve; as to the toadies who have hung about me and fawned on me in the hope of legacies, I despise them all. You are my best friend and chief heir.”
I thanked him effusively and was so much affected that I myself began to have uncomfortable, vague forebodings. Agathemer happened to visit me and I confided to him the contents of my old leather amulet-bag. Of course I had not worn it since I began life with Falco, as a greasy old amulet-bag of the meanest material and pattern was wholly out of keeping with the character I had assumed. I wore instead a flat locket of pure gold, containing a talisman from the Pontic fastnesses. I had kept my share of our mountain trove of stolen jewels, not needing to part with any after Falco bought me and unconcerned for the gems, as I now needed no such store of savings. Now, suddenly, I felt uneasy about myself, my future and my possessions. These jewels I therefore placed in Agathemer’s keeping, sure that they would be safer with him than with me and certain that he could realize on them quickly and transmit to me promptly whatever sums I might need.
I did all I could to rouse Falco from his lethargy and succeeded to some extent. But, all through April and May, he went out little, accepted few invitations and gave few dinners. Much of his time he spent among his jewels, conning them, handling them, taking curios from their cases and, as it were, caressing them. The rooms which held them were on the left hand side of the peristyle on the upper floor, across the court from my apartment and not precisely opposite it. There were three rooms; the larger with a door on the gallery, and a smaller on either side of it, opening from it and lit by windows towards the gallery. Each room had a marble table in the middle, small and round in both side cabinets, rectangular and large in the main room. Each of the three rooms was walled with cases and shelves; on the shelves were displayed his larger curios, vases, cameos, intaglios, plaques, murrhine bowls and such like; in the cases were necklaces, bracelets, rings, seals and trays of unset gems of all sorts and sizes. Here Falco spent hours each day, gloating over his treasures.
“Phorbas,” he said, “I am resolute never to buy another gem, equally resolute to auction all I have whenever conditions make a profitable sale probable. Yet, although I feel that I shall never live to see them auctioned, the very thought of parting with them cuts me to the quick. I am almost in tears to think of it. I love every piece I own. I hate to think I must either live to see them sold or die and leave them. I cannot be with them enough of my time. I could spend all my waking hours enjoying their loveliness and my luck in owning them.”
I thought this condition of mind positively unhealthy and consulted Galen.
“You are right,” he said, “and you are wrong too. Your master is badly shaken by the horrors of this appalling year, but he is not deranged nor, at this present time, in any more danger of derangement than most of the senators and nobles with whom he associates. Yet you are correct in being uneasy. Don’t antagonize him, but do all you can, tactfully and unobtrusively, to keep him away from those jewels and to get him out to the Baths of Titus or to dinners. Do your utmost to induce him to entertain. A jolly dinner with a bevy of jovial guests will be the very medicine for him.”
Had I been a Greek I could not have been, more wily or more successful. He spent less time with his gems, went out to the Baths oftener, accepted some dinner invitations and gave a few dinners. He even took some interest in preparing for these and in giving orders about them. He had five complete sets of silverware for his _triclinium_ and had a fancy for using this or that set, according to the characters of his prospective guests.
Early in May he had invited a carefully selected company of concordant guests, three senators and the rest nobles like himself, and was anticipating a delightful evening. He had bidden me to see to the selection of the flowers for decorating the _triclinium_, for the garlands, and for sprinkling on the floor; to choose the wines I thought would be most appropriate and to have brought out and used his most prized set of silver, the work of Corinnos of Rhodes, embossed with scenes from Ovid’s Metamorphoses and acclaimed one of the finest services in Rome. Besides the two tall mixing-bowls for tempering the wine before serving it, the set had four smaller ones, about the size of well-buckets, and much like them, for each was provided with two hinged handles, just like a water-pail. I saw to the polishing of every piece in this magnificent service, to their proper disposal, to the decoration of the _triclinium_ with flowers, verified the wines I had chosen, inspected every detail of the preparations for the feast, and, just before the first guest might be expected to arrive, went out and back into the kitchen to make sure that every dish of each course was being properly prepared and that nothing would be lacking.
When I returned to the _triclinium_ I found it swept clean of silver, except the two big wine mixers. The four two-handled pails were gone and with them the salt-cellars, the wine strainers, every soup-spoon, every oyster-spoon, in fact every small piece, to the last. The thieves must have been deft, agile and keen, for nothing was overset or disturbed and I had heard no noise.
I rushed to the house-door, found it ajar and, each sleeping in his cell, on the one side the snoring janitor, on the other our fat, pursy, overfed watchdog.
I omit my hasty measures for pursuing the thieves and attempting their capture or at least the recovery of their booty; and my urgent and important efforts to arrange that our guests should be properly received and the dinner should not be spoiled. Towards this last I did what could be done and with fair success, Falco playing up to my suggestions and dissimulating his chagrin.
More important to record was his amazing indifference to his loss. Not that he did not feel it acutely, but that he seemed to feel no proper indignation against those at fault.
He questioned the janitor and all the slaves concerned, but instead of ordering scourged the two servitors whom I had left in the _triclinium_ when I went out of it to visit the kitchen and who should have remained there until my return, he merely reprimanded them mildly. He did not so much as have the undutiful janitor flogged, let alone sent away for sale. He even laughed at the luck, alertness, dexterity and swiftness of the thieves; picturing their glance into the unshut door, their glances up and down the street, their eyeings of the watchdog and janitor, their noiseless dash into the atrium, their invasion of the _triclinium_, their gathering of the smaller pieces into the four handled wine-mixers, and their escape, each with two silver pails stuffed with goblets, salt- cellars, and bowls and, brimming with strainers, spoons and other small pieces.
He commented on their luck in not encountering any of his approaching guests.
“Mercury,” he said, “to whom you chiefly pray, must have been good to them, as his votaries.”
I was horrified at the levity of his attitude of mind. When we were alone I remonstrated with him, saying that such leniency was certain to demoralize his household; would ruin any set of slaves. I told him that his retention of the janitor after Agathemer’s unnoticed entrance on the first day of the year was bad enough, far worse was it to condone a second lapse, and that having had consequences so serious. I expostulated that it was madness to entrust his housedoor to a watchman already twice caught asleep at his post. I reminded him of the cash value of his gem-collection and of its value in his eyes, not to be reckoned in cash. He listened indulgently and said:
“I thank you, Phorbas. All you say is true. And, any time last year, I should have sold that janitor without a thought, after your information against him last January. But, somehow, since the murder of Commodus, yet more since the murder of Pertinax, I seem less prone to severity and more inclined to mercy. The waiter-boys deserve flogging, but I cannot harden my heart and order it. The janitor merits being sold without a character, after a severe scourging; yet I feel for him, too. I’ll give him another chance.”
I could not move him.
I again consulted Galen:
“You are right!” he exclaimed. “A Roman nobleman who hesitates to have his slaves flogged or sold and merely reprimands them, is certainly deranged. Any natural Roman would insist on scourgings and even severer punishments, But his eccentricity is not dangerous to him or anybody as yet. Humor him, do not oppose his worship of his treasures, but entice him away from them all you can by devices he does not suspect.
“And let me add, keep away from me, for your own sake. Keep away from Vedia and Tanno and Agathemer. Do not write letters. True, Julianus has put Marcia to death and you are rid of a pertinacious and alert enemy. But he has recalled into favor most of the professional informers who flourished under Commodus and they are on the watch for victims to win them praise and rewards. Several of the exiles recalled by Pertinax have been rearrested and re-banished or even executed since Julianus came into power. Keep close and beware!”
CHAPTER XXXVII
ACCUSATION
The murder or assassination or execution of Julianus on the Kalends of June shocked Falco even more than the deaths of Commodus and Pertinax. As the June days passed I had to exercise my greatest adroitness to keep him from spending all his waking hours indoors, chiefly in moping about his collection of gems. I did pretty well with him, for I wheedled him into going to the Baths of Titus three afternoons out of four, into going out to dine one evening in three, and I even induced him to give several formal dinners, each of which was a great success.