by Ken Parejko
I continued a leisurely stroll. At Lupernare I had a decision to make. Stone phalluses pointed off to the left to Pompeii's biggest brothel district. I had time. But then I remembered the last time in a brothel, in Puteoli several years ago, when drunken soldiers came busting in on my whore and me and made lewd fun of us. I could have had them arrested and beaten for harassing a public servant. But I didn’t, and when they left the heart was out of me, so I just paid the girl and was gone.
No, not a brothel. Instead I turned down the via dei Teatri, which led toward the theater and the waiting Drusilla. It was not a conscious decision. There just didn't seem to be anywhere else.
Pompeii has three theaters. The big amphitheater, where the gladiators fight, is at the far end of town. Twenty years ago an argument started there between locals and some spectators from Nuceria. The argument became a fight, which became a riot. Dozens were killed. The Senate declared the amphitheater off-limits for ten years. But then Nero’s wife Poppaea, a native of Pompeii, interceded and the Senate, fearing Nero’s retribution, lifted the ban. Now Pompeiians, happy to have their game back, pour in huge crowds to watch the contests. As I walked I caught a glimpse of the gladiators’ barracks, swarming with disreputable men and women like flies around a corpse.
Performances of poetry, oratory and music take place in Pompeii's small odeum.. But I was headed for the larger theater near the temple of Isis, where plays were held, scheduled to finally re-open during the Augustali from damage done during the earthquake.
I entered onto the top rows of seats falling away in concentric circles to the stage below. Players on stage were practicing one of the Campanian farces, full of bawdy puns and allusions, which began here but has since spread to edges of the empire. The sun promised another hot summer day. I saw Drusilla in one of the top seats under the shade of an awning. At the moment she was the audience. As I made my way around to her the sun's glare off the white marble seats nearly blinded me.
On stage the play continued, four actors all wearing colorful rustic costumes, faces hidden by grotesque masks through which they bellowed out their parts in an uncouth, Oscanized Latin. Each was a stereotype: a clown, a glutton, a decrepit old man and a hunchback. They seemed to be improvising off one of the stock situations in farce, in this case, the old man having let slip to the glutton that he’d buried his life's savings out back. The clown had just convinced the glutton to dig under the outhouse and they were improvising on the suite of foul odors he'd uncovered.
Just as I sat down beside Drusilla the director interrupted the actors, appealing to them to speak more clearly.
"I’m glad you came," Drusilla said, resting her hand on mine.
“My grain merchant hasn't showed up.”
“Good. I was getting lonely.” She glanced into my eyes, then back to the stage. “It's a lovely theater, isn't it?”
“Yes. Wonderful. And finally ready to use again. Is one of them your son?”
“Oh no, no. He's a pantomimist. He’ll be next.”
“Ah.” This was a bit of a surprise. Pantomime was as ancient and popular as the local farces. Acting is an edgy kind of career and pantomime, mostly practiced by ex-slaves, is among the edgiest, not the kind of thing for a young man of the upper classes. Three professions -- acting, male prostitution and becoming a gladiator -- undercut all civil rights, took away the right to marry or inherit family wealth, and moved their practitioners into a class of pariahs called infamia. Drusilla's son, it seems, was as much a risk-taker as his mother.
But infamia can also have its rewards. Popular actors have their own fan clubs, with local chapters in every city. There's a chance, however small, of making big money by finding a wealthy patron. Some years ago Pylades became one of the rich and famous through pantomiming. But then, trying to slow the steady subsidence of the country’s morals, Augustus had the actor Mnester executed on a morals charge. After all, anything can happen on the stage. That's its magic. But isn’t the amorality of a world in which social classes can be thrown topsy-turvy a threat to a civil society? The farce drifted to a pause. The actors slipped off stage. A dozen or so pigeons rose behind them, from off the gladiator's barracks, slipped across the sky then wheeled down behind the city’s wall to the huddled huts of the poor. If I’d been superstitious I’d have called their leftwards flight inauspicious; instead, I found them merely beautiful.
“How long have you been here in Pompeii?” I asked.
“A week.”
“And Berenice?” Drusilla wouldn’t know that Titus had told me about sacking her sister.
“In Rome, I think,” she answered. “Look!” An eager acrobat unable to help himself cart-wheeled across the stage. “I was sorry to hear about your friend.”
“My friend?”
“The emperor.”
“Ah. Yes. Well, it’s the fate we all face...”
“Perhaps. Do you think so? Oh, here he is! Antonius.”
Antonius Agrippa made his way onto the stage. Her son was a tall, well-built man, barefoot, a large wooden scabellum fastened to one leg which clapped loudly at each step. He was wrapped in a cow-hide robe, his face hidden behind a leather mask painted with a cow's face. His movements were graceful and fluent. Now from behind the stage came the quiet melody of a flute. Antonius stopped at the stage’s center and held his lithe body taut but motionless. Along with the sound of the flute his breathing could be heard from inside the mask.
“It's something about Ariadne,” Drusilla whispered. “I hope you like it. But be a hard critic. He needs that.”
Antonius dropped slowly to all fours, his right leg with the clapper beating a rhythm for the flute. He raised his rear upward, and swayed it back and forth, suggestively. The rhythm of the clapper came faster and faster, the flute more shrill and intense. Suddenly he collapsed on the floor.
I watched disinterestedly. So far it all seemed amateurish, trite. I couldn’t place the story; but then it came to me. He was Pasiphae. So she could make love to a bull she'd fallen in love with she wrapped herself into a cow’s hide. Antonius rolled onto his back, his stomach rising and falling. He spread his legs wide, writhed in birth-pangs, then with a shriek, Pasiphae gave birth to the Minotaur. The flute was silent.
I wasn’t impressed. The lust of a human for an animal was one of nature’s monsters, once again the breaking of natural law. That's what the story of Theseus and the Minotaur was about. Her son's obscene twistings and jerkings added little to the story.
He'd slipped off-stage but in a moment reappeared now as Theseus, naked and with a high-ridged Greek helmet. In his left arm he cradled a ceramic statue of the Minotaur, the monster offspring of Pasiphae's lust for the bull. In his right hand he held a club. He set the Minotaur at the back edge of the stage, moved to the stage’s center, and the flute began again. At first walking slowly and deliberately, then with more confidence, he followed an imaginary line around the stage, as though walking a labyrinth. He held the club over one shoulder, with the other trailed an imaginary thread. He stopped now and then as he came to a dead-end, backed up, retraced his steps and began again.
Now it seemed Antonius’ gestures and movements nicely communicated Theseus' emotions, swinging from timid fear to angry outrage. Now hard as I tried to remain an objective critic, I found myself drawn into the drama being pantomimed, felt myself moving beside Theseus through the final galleries of the maze. I was so involved I forgot how it would all end, as though I were taking part in the myth at its inception.
Having solved the maze Antonius stood at last in front of the Minotaur. Gathering his courage he lifted the club from his shoulder and swung it with all his strength, just missing the statue, as though it had ducked. A choreographed battle ensued as Theseus dodged and feinted, the Minotaur threatening while Theseus used his club to defend himself. As he alternately squatted, ducked, jumped, did somersaults, I was impressed. The crowd would be pleased.
Finally with a fierce swing Theseus' club collided with the Mi
notaur's head. Pieces of ceramic flew in every direction.
Drusilla touched my arm. “He must have gotten carried away. I hope they've got another Minotaur.”
Theseus stood for a moment, exhausted, surveyed the broken monster, then turning to face the audience raised his club in a gesture of victory. Again, it was easy to imagine the roar of the crowd. Here was the heroic victory of mankind over bestiality, of natural law victorious over the monstrous. Theseus, Hercules, Augustus, Vespasian: all fought to keep the flood of chaos aside, if only for a time.
Antonius followed his thread back out the maze and off the stage. A stage-hand entered and swept up pieces of ceramic.
“Well?” Drusilla asked.
“He's quite good, really.”
“Do you think so? I do.”
“It's a risky career.”
“Aren't they all?”
“Yes, I suppose,” I agreed. “Only, some more than others.”
“Sshh!” Drusilla said. “He’s come back.”
Antonius had returned to the stage. He was costumed this time in a fine orange gossamer full-length skirt, and on his shoulders a pretty blue scarf. He wore a woman's mask which expressed a sensual, naive wonder. He moved gracefully, as a woman might move, his sensitive hands taking on a gentle femininity. With his hands he wove a garment of love, a pantomime of Theseus standing intimately beside Ariadne, cooing and petting each other. Holding Theseus' imaginary hand, and leaning on his shoulder, Ariadne walked slowly to one side of the stage where, through gestures composed of resolve and sadness, she convinced her parents that she was leaving with Theseus. Then she turned and proudly marched off the stage. The flute played a brief, happy melody. Everything seemed perfect. Theseus had killed the Minotaur. He and Ariadne would be married. But there was more to come.
The stage was empty. From behind it the flute began again, a quiet sentimental song reminiscent of a gentle bird singing up the dawn. Antonius returned onto the stage, still dressed as Ariadne. Quietly, tenderly, he lay down. An unseen tambourine sounded the regular splash of sea-waves on the shore. She was sleeping on a beach. Except for the singing bird and sea, all was quiet. At last she stirred and slowly woke. She reached out to touch Theseus; but he was not there. She explored the space beside her, but it was empty. She sat bolt upright, looked around. He was nowhere to be seen. She jumped up, ran across the beach, the flute and tambourine and clapper on her leg echoing the loud beating of her heart. He was gone! Theseus had deserted her!
She fell in despair at the front edge of the stage while the flute again took up a melody, a nightingale crying forth the evening. The flute stopped; the tambourine began a solo, incessant rhythmic hissing. Antonius slipped off the stage.
Like a thunderclap from a blue sky, a Phrygian pipe suddenly squealed from offstage, a goat in noisy rut. Antonius rushed onstage, naked but for a goat's head and tall hooves which clacked on the stage as he came. Tied to his waist was a long, erect wooden phallus.
Dionysus, the god of passion, strutted across the stage on his clacking goat-hooves, leaned over and touched where Ariadne had been sleeping. He smelled his fingers, put them to his lips. The music stopped. He petted her imaginary body, his hand lingering on her breasts and thighs. As he petted her, it was as though he were shaping a clay figure to his own design. He leered out at the audience. She was in his power. Falling onto all fours he began his mating dance.
The mating, which had begun tenderly, grew more and more insistent. The thrust of the huge phallus, accentuated by the clapper on his leg and the goat's hooves on the stage, was counter-pointed with the flute, which sang the song of a woman whose lust rose higher and higher to a final peak of excitement. The phallus made a long sustained jab, the tambourine shook spastically, the flute held a long high trill, then died off, and all was quiet.
Dionysus, with a leering sort of smile, picked up an invisible crown and placed it on Ariadne's head. She was his now, and forever more. His, not Theseus’, whose fatal mistake was to desert her. Now Dionysus had won her, not through heroic battle, but through the other side, the dark side, the dream-life, through the deceit of a hidden lover. He rose and with one hand helped her stand. Arm around her he slinked off the stage, sated, happy, the final victor.
Drusilla rested her hand on my arm. We were both in a bit of an emotional state. Antonius had played the story exquisitely and as far from the stage as we were, we were aroused and exhausted at the same time.
“Come,” Drusilla said, standing. “I want you to meet him.”
I followed her down the theater's many steps, hot in the bright noon sun. We crossed the stage then went backstage. Antonius had slipped into a toga and was enjoying a cool drink of wine.
His mother kissed him on the cheek. “Wonderful,” she said, squeezing his hand. “I'd like you to meet a friend. This is Gaius Plinius, a friend of Titus’. We first met years ago, during the Jewish Wars.” Antonius nodded. The boy was not yet twenty. He had a strikingly handsome face, with dark eyes and hair. He gave off a kind of self-confidence that came from his noble ancestry and what could be read as a touch of self-conceit. His body was finely molded. His gestures, like those of so many men who’d taken up dancing or acting, had a certain refined femininity.
“So, Mr. Pliny,” the boy said, setting his empty glass aside. “What did you think?”
“You're very good,” I answered, honestly.
“I know. But is it too much?” Antonius bent to pick up the phallus which had been lying on the floor. His hands caressed it mischievously.
“Well, I suppose some might be shocked.”
“You mean, dear friend,” Drusilla broke in, “there are still some who can be shocked?”
“Well, yes. Though, not likely in a pantomime’s audience.”
“Will it be a hit?” her son asked.
“Who knows?” I conjectured. After all, because Pompeii was promiscuous with languages: Latin and Greek, Oscan and other local dialects, Egyptian, Syrian and Thracian, and many others, pantomime was popular. “Pantomime speaks in all languages."
“And in Rome?”
“To succeed in Rome you must speak the language of the powerful.”
“That's a language I can learn,” Antonius added.
“Yes. Well, I wish you well.”
“Look mother,” Antonius said. “I've got a party to get to. Everyone’s getting together at the sponsor's house. Will you come?”
Drusilla turned to me. “Will you?” She asked.
“No, but thank you. I have business.”
“Not quite yet,” she said to her son.
“Soon, then?”
“I'll meet you there,” his mother replied, stretching to plant a kiss on his cheek. She took my arm. “Let's walk.”
I nodded goodbye to Antonius. Drusilla and I climbed one by one the many steps upward to the amphitheater's top row, pausing now and again so I could catch my breath. We exited the theater toward the little forum dedicated to Claudio Marcello. This was one of the calmest, most intimate spots in the city, a long narrow triangle filled with flowers and trees, busts, sculptures and colonnades, at its center an old Doric temple once dedicated to Hercules and later to Minerva, whose columned roof first rose into view as one sailed across the Bay towards Pompeii.
We strolled down a pleasant promenade flanked by dozens of columns draped with laurel and ivy for the upcoming Augustalia. This was a favorite place for theater-goers to relax during intermission or after a performance. Though abandoned at the moment to the heat of the late-morning sun, in the shade provided by the columns and trees and with the fresh breeze from off the bay, it was really quite bearable.
We walked without speaking. Drusilla slipped her hand in mine. At last we arrived at the far end of the forum. Here was a nice little nymphaeum, a niche with mosaics of dolphins and sea-creatures, where a fountain splattered quietly into a low basin. Around the basin was a semicircular marble seat, and columns not much taller than us decked with climbing ivy. Dru
silla sat and I sat beside her. Looking west we took in a breathtaking panorama of the Bay, on which a dozen ships were quietly coming in, making good use of the breeze which cooled us as we sat enjoying the tinkling fountain. Though towards the horizon the afternoon haze was thickening, the bulk of Capri was still visible rising out of the sea. But though I knew where it should be, I couldn't make out the Cape of Misenum and my home.
Behind us, from the gladiators' barracks beside the theater came sudden rough shouts, and the answering bark of a dog.
We sat quietly alone, together, enjoying the view, the shade, the tinkling fountain. I found myself somewhat uncomfortably beside a woman of just the type I could never bear, and never understood. In most men’s minds a woman who wasn’t passive was probably up to no good. But I’d long ago recognized the brutal chauvinism of our society. No, what I resented most in ambitious people, men or women, was their easy way of dealing with the truth.
I couldn't understand or explain to myself why I basked in her presence. Though I hardly knew her, I found myself attracted to her, lodestone to iron.
At last she broke the silence, speaking to the waters in the basin as much as to me. “There’s something magical about the theater, isn’t there?"
"Yes, I suppose.” I agreed. “But of a different kind than the magic used to cure someone, or bring rain.”
“You mean like love charms,” Drusilla said sarcastically. “Oh Venus, bind his heart to mine as I bind these stalks of grain. That's silly magic, isn’t it, magic for the rabble."
“Isn’t all magic for the rabble?”
“No. True magic, at its highest,” she said, now looking out across the harbor, on which small white-capped waves sparkled in the sun, “is calling down God to rest in our souls.”