While this was going on, an old man saw us from the top of a hill, and the fact that had nanny-goats feeding all round him indicated rather clearly that he was a herdsman. One of our people asked him if he had any fresh milk or buttermilk to sell. He shook his head for a long time, and said, `can you really be thinking of eating or drinking, or any other refreshments just now? Surely you must know where it is that you are camping?' And having said that, he rounded up his flocks, turned round, and went. His words, and his precipitous exit aroused not a little terror in our people. Scared as they were, they tried to find out what kind of place this was, but there was no-one to tell them, until another old man came long the road, a large man, weighed down with years, bent right down over his stick, shuffling along and weeping as he did so. When he saw us, he prostrated himself, weeping copiously, before our young men and addressed them imploringly.
`By all the lucky fates and guardian angels that watch over you, may you reach my age healthy and happy, and help a poor old man snatch his little one from the jaws of hell and give him back to me, grey-haired as I am. You see, my grandson, my sweet travelling companion, was trying to catch a sparrow that happened to be singing in the hedge when he fell into a nearby pit behind the bushes. His life is now in extreme danger, and I know he is still alive by his weeping and his voice, calling over and over again for his grandfather. As you see, I cannot help him because I am old and weak. But, with the benefit of your youth and strength, you would find it easy to help a poor old man, and save the youngest boy of my line, indeed, my only heir, for me.'
Everyone was sorry for him as he told us all this, tearing at his grey hair. But then one of our men, braver, younger and stronger than the others, and the only one who had escaped unharmed from the earlier battle, leapt up and asked where the boy had fallen. He then set off energetically with the old man, who was pointing at some spiky bushes a little way away. When the people had seen to their wounds, and had fed us beasts, everyone picked up their packs to set off on our way. First of all they shouted out the young man's name several times, and then soon afterward - worried about the delay - they sent one of their men to look for the one who was missing, to tell him it was time to move on, and bring him back. But this man soon returned, ashen-faced and shaking, and reported a strange tale about his fellow. He had seen him lying down on his back, with a great snake on top of him which had almost eaten him up; there was no sign of that most unhappy old man. When this sank in, and was taken together with the words of the old goatherd (who had presumably been warning us against none other than the monstrous dweller in that grove), they fled even faster from that terrible region, hitting us hard with their sticks. Then, when we had done a long day's journey as fast as we could, we reached a village where we stayed a whole night. I should like to give an account of a most notable ghastly deed that had happened in that town.
There was a slave whose master had put the stewardship of the whole household into his hands, and who therefore had had control of the whole estate where we were staying; he was married to another slave owned by the same family, but was consumed with passion for a freedwoman who came from somewhere else. The wife, tormented and spurred on by her husband's faithlessness, burned all his records and everything he had kept in the storehouse. Nor was this damage enough to avenge the shame brought upon her marriage; she now turned against the fruit of her own womb, and tied a noose round her neck, and tied to the same rope the tiny baby that she had just borne her husband, and hurled herself into a deep well, dragging the baby with her on the rope. The master was very upset about these deaths, seized the slave whose licentious behaviour had been the cause of such a ghastly happening, and tied him firmly, naked and smeared all over with honey, to a fig-tree, in the rotten trunk of which were many seething ants'-nests, whose inhabitants bubbled out like a stream. As soon as the ants noticed the sweet smell of honey on his body, they attacked his skin with tiny but constant bites, and after a long time of torture, the man died. His flesh, and even his intestines were eaten away, so that only his bare bones, stripped of flesh and shining white, were still tied to that tree of doom.
We got out of this horrible stopping-place too, leaving the local people in the depths of sorrow, and walked across the flatlands all day until we reached, exhausted, a city that was fine and well-populated. Here our herdsmen decided to set up home, because it seemed like a safe refuge from anyone who might be sent out to look for them - it was a long way away - and because the plentiful supply of food was also attractive. And so, after three days rest, to get the bodies of the pack-animals back into shape, and make us look more saleable, we were taken to the market, where the auctioneer shouted out the price of each beast in a loud voice and where the horses and other asses were sold to rich buyers. But I was left over, and most people just passed over me with disdain. By now I was fed up with people trying to guess how old I was from my teeth, and when a man whose hand was filthy and smelly anyway kept running his grubby fingers over my gums I caught his hand and nearly bit it off. This acted as a deterrent to any buyer, since I was clearly particularly ferocious, so that the salesman, now suffering from a sore throat and with his voice going, started to make silly jokes about me. `How long do we keep this old gelding up here waiting? The poor old bugger's hooves are worn out, he's all twisted, and his idleness is positively vicious! He's not much more than a garbage-can. So why don't we just give him away to someone or other who doesn't mind wasting hay!'
The auctioneer got a laugh from the bystanders with remarks like this. However, my personal and sadistic Lady Luck - whom I had not so far been able to escape by fleeing through so many lands, and whom I had not been able to placate with my sufferings so far - once again failed to notice, let alone smile at me, and provided for me a purchaser who was just about what I needed for the dire state I was in. What about this, then: a sodomite, nay, an old sodomite, more or less bald, but with a few locks of hair still dangling on his head, a specimen of those vulgar and common types who wander around cities and country towns with cymbals and rattles, carrying the Syrian goddess Atargatis and degrading her by begging in her name. He was keen to buy me, and asked the auctioneer where I might be from; he told him that I was one of those strong fellows from Cappadocia, and swore I was a tough little chap. The next question was my age.
To this the auctioneer replied, with a twinkle in his eye, .an astrologer who cast his horoscope reckons he is in his fifth year, but he probably knows better himself from filling in his tax forms. However, even though I'm well aware that I shall be guilty of an offence under the act if I sell you a Roman citizen as a slave, why not buy this fine and useful fellow anyway, who will be of the greatest help to you at home and on the road?'
But the odious would-be-purchaser would not stop putting questions, and eventually asked anxiously about my general temperament.
'What you see before you,' said the salesman, 'is a wether, a sheep, not an ass; doesn't bite, doesn't kick, and you could easily believe that inside this ass's skin there lived a good-mannered, well-brought-up man. It shouldn't be difficult to convince yourself, however. Why don't you just stick you face up between his back legs - you'll soon find out the extent of his patience.'
The auctioneer had his laugh at the expense of the fat fool, but he joined in with the joke and pretended to be angry. `You complete dead-head,' he said, `you donkey-selling pillock! May the all-powerful, Syrian goddess, mother of all, the holy god Sabazius, and Bellona, and the Mother-Goddess of Mount Ida and Attis her eunuch companion, and Venus and Adonis too, may they all strike you blind for wasting my time with your stupid jokes! You asshole, do you think that I could let the goddess be carried by some wild beast who might tip the holy image off his back, so that I, poor little sweetie that I am, would have to run around with my hair all over the place and look fora doctor for my fallen goddess?'
Hearing that, I did wonder about leaping up suddenly like a mad thing, so that he wouldn't buy me when he saw how wild I was. But the over-eage
r buyer pre-empted this idea by putting down his cash on the table, which the auctioneer took at once, since he was fed up with me: seventeen denarii. He put a rope-bridle on me and gave me to Philebus, this being the name of my new master.
Philebus took possession of his newly acquired helper and dragged me off home. As soon as we reached the door he shouted out, `Girls, here's a pretty little slave boy I've brought home for you.' But the 'girls' were really a mob of perverts, who at once danced about with delight and shouted in their cracked, nasty and effeminate voices, presumably thinking that I really was some human slave-lad brought home for their use. But when they saw me, not a doe like the one they substituted for Iphigenia when she was going to be sacrificed, but an ass as a substitute for a man, they turned up their noses and started to cavil at their leader, saying that this was a husband he'd brought home for himself, not a slave. 'Come on,' they said, 'mind you don't gobble up your pretty little chickadee all by yourself - make sure you give your little lovie-dovies a bit every now and then!'
In the middle of all this joking, they took me and tied me near the manger. They also owned a rather solid young man (who was a good musician) that they had bought with money they had collected, and who walked ahead when they were carrying the goddess about, playing a horn. At home, however, he played the part of communal bedfellow. As soon as he saw me in the house he was delighted, and gave me a huge helping of fodder. 'At last,' he said, `someone to help me out in my terrible work. Make sure you live for a long time and please our owners, and give my weary loins a chance!' When I heard this, I began to wonder about what new problems I was going to have.
The following day they put on brightly coloured clothes and prettied themselves up horribly by putting caked make-up on their faces and exaggerating their eyes with eye-shadow, and set out, wearing pointed hats and saffron robes in linen or silk; some had white tunics with a design of purple lines all over them and with a tight belt, and they had yellow sandals on their feet. The goddess, wrapped in a silk cover, was put on my back so I could carry her, and they, with arms completely bare, and worked up by the playing of the music, whirled and chanted, waving monstrous swords and axes.
After going past a few small places, they reached the farmstead of a well-off land-owner, and as soon as they reached the entrance-hall they hurtled forward frantically, with their discordant yelling, and then for a long time they put their heads down and swung their necks round and round in circles, with their hair flying out around their heads. Some of them bit into their own flesh, and eventually they all started slashing their arms with the blades they were carrying. One of them got into more of a wild state than the others, breathing great gasps from deep down in his chest as if filled with some kind of divine inspiration, and generally simulating a crazed ecstasy. Of course, the immanence of the gods is supposed to make men improve, not make them weaker or demented. However, now just look at the reward he got from divine providence. Shouting out like a soothsayer he began in lying fashion to accuse and incriminate himself, saying he had somehow broken some very holy religious law, and he demanded proper punishment for his crime from his own hands. He grabbed hold of one of the scourges that is a trademark of this barely human cult - long, and made of strips of plaited sheepskin with pieces of bone knotted into it - and rained blows from the knotted parts onto himself, bearing the pain with amazing fortitude. You could see the ground becoming wet from this pansy's blood, as it spurted out from all the lashing and slashing. I was not a little afraid to see all these wounds and all that blood, and wondered whether this well-travelled Syrian goddess might have a taste for ass's blood, the way men sometimes have a fancy for ass's milk.
But when at last they were tired, or had had enough of flagellation, they stopped this mortification of the flesh and took a collection of small change, although many people gave them silver as well (which they collected in their robes), to say nothing of the jar of wine, the milk, the cheeses, grain and wheat-flour - some even gave barley for the beast carrying the goddess. They took it all greedily and stuffed it into the bags they had ready, and put it onto my back, so that now I had double the weight to carry; I was a storehouse and a temple at the same time.
In this manner they wandered around and milked the entire district. One day, however, when they were in a largish town and had had a bigger take than usual, they set a great banquet up for themselves. Using a concocted bit of soothsaying they conned out of one of the farmers his fattest ram, supposedly a sacrifice for the hungry Syrian goddess, and when they had arranged for their dinner, they went to the baths and came back bringing with them a guest, a hefty country chap, strong in limbs and loins. Having eaten only a little salad as a starter before the main meal, these most disgusting creatures were soon burning with wild desire for crimes of illicit lust, and surrounded the young man (who had been stripped and spreadeagled), with their filthy mouths all over him. My eyes could not watch such horrors for long, so I tried to shout out `Help! Horrors!' but only managed 'He ... Horr' and lost all the other syllables, but at least it was loud, clear and ass-like, although somewhat inopportune as to timing. For a group of young men from a nearby village were looking for an ass stolen that very night, and were looking into all the taverns, so that when they heard me braying in there they though that their stolen ass was hidden indoors. Wanting to get their property back they broke in on us, and caught the disgusting crew at it, performing their vile acts. They very quickly indeed roused the whole neighbourhood to come and see the abominable scene, mocking the priests for their pure chastity.
Greatly concerned by the scandal (of which word soon got around, and which made them look deservedly revolting to everyone), they got their things together and left the town furtively around midnight. A good part of their journey was done before daybreak, and by the time it was fully light they were in a remote district, where they held a discussion and then girded their loins - and that was my funeral! They took the goddess off my back and put her on the ground, stripped me of all my gear, tied me to an oak-tree and flogged me with their plaited whip (the one with the bones in it) until I was practically dead. One of them threatened to hamstring me with an axe because I had shouted out so vigorously about his supposedly snow-white virtue. But the rest decided that I should be kept alive, not for my own sake, but for that of the statue, which was currently lying on the ground. And so I was loaded up again and bullied with the flats of their swords until they got to a fine town. One of the town councillors there, a religious man with a special veneration for the Syrian goddess, was excited by the ring of the cymbals, the sounds of the drums and the exotic song with its captivating melodies, and ran out to meet us. He received the goddess with pious generosity, and gave us rooms in his extremely large house, trying to win divine favour with the greatest reverence and the best sacrifices.
I remember that it was here that I ran into especially great danger. One of the tenant farmers had been hunting, and had sent as a present for his master a fine and massive haunch of venison, which had been hung rather stupidly by the kitchen door not very high up, so that another hunter - a dog, this time - had rushed in and stolen it; delighted with his booty, he had made sure he got out of everyone's sight. The cook cursed his own carelessness when he saw the loss, and wept useless tears, but his master was already calling urgently for his dinner. The despairing and terrified cook said farewell to his small son and got a noose ready for his own neck. However, his faithful wife - aware of the seriousness of her husband's situation - grabbed the fatal rope with both hands and said, `Have you been scared completely out of your wits by this trouble? Surely you can see the lucky remedy that divine providence had found for you? If you want to see the silver lining in the dark cloud of fate, snap out of it and listen to me! Get that ass which has just turned up, take it round the corner somewhere, slit its throat and cut a haunch to look like the one that went missing. If you cook it well in a special spicy sauce, you can still serve it to the master in place of the venison.
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sp; The idea of saving his skin with my life appealed to the wretched man, and with much praise for the bright idea of his wife, he started to sharpen the knives ready for this butchery.
So there was this dreadful executioner arming his ungodly self against me! But spurred on by the extreme danger I was in, I didn't hang about thinking, but decided to escape from the imminent carve-up by running away. So I swiftly snapped the rope that was holding me and bolted at top speed to save myself, my hooves flying. I got across the forecourt, and burst precipitously (and not without knocking over quite a few tables, braziers and other bits of dining-room furniture) into the room where the master of the house was entertaining the priests of the goddess to a sacrificial feast. The head of the house was most put out at the mess, and called me an uncontrollable and wicked beast; he then told a servant to lock me up somewhere so that I didn't disturb their quiet dinner again with a repetition of this outburst. Saved from the butcher's hands by this jolly cunning little trick, I was very happy about this prison which would save me.
However, nothing can turn out right for any man alive if fate is against him, and neither good advice nor clever plans can possible change or modify divine providence. For me, you see, that which seemed to have given me instant salvation led to another great danger, which put me in peril of my life.
A lad suddenly burst suddenly into the dining-room, his face trembling and twitching, while the guests were chatting quietly, and told his master that a rabid bitch had just run in amazingly fast through the back gate from a nearby lane, and burning with wild rage had attacked the hunting-dogs, then gone on to the stables and attacked most of the pack-animals just as savagely. Not even the humans had been spared; Myrtilus the muleteer, Hephaestio the cook, Hypnophilus the chamberlain and Apollonius the doctor had all been bitten in more than one place, as had many others, while trying to get rid of the bitch. Many of the pack-animals that had been bitten and infected were apparently already showing signs of rabies. This news left everybody stunned, and they assumed that I, too, had been affected by the disease, so they grabbed whatever implements they could and came after me, encouraging each other to get rid of this common death-sentence, although they were the ones suffering from the disease of lunacy. Nor do I have any doubt that they would have cut me into little pieces with their lances, spears and double-headed axes (which the servants quickly provided for them), had I not seen this storm of danger coming and rushed rapidly into the bedroom of my masters. Then they locked and barred the doors on me, and besieged the place, to wait for me to develop and be consumed with this lethal rabies, without any danger of infection to themselves. So once again I was free, and grasped this gift of fate very firmly: I lay down on one of their beds and for the first time in ages had a good human sleep.
The Dedalus Book of Roman Decadence: Emperors of Debauchery Page 12