Beasts From the Dark
Page 29
Boy or not, the eyes, once olive, had gone to cinders that shrieked of chains and pain and blood. Drust did not envy the conspirators.
‘You have done well.’
* * *
There was that one eyeblink in time when we all thought we were making a difference, Drust thought, but we were just altering the pattern of things for the briefest of moments, leaving nothing truly changed. We have been involved in the destinies of five emperors for more than a decade, he remembered – we’d even thrown one in the Tiber – and all the time doing it we’d had one thought, one desire: leave us alone.
Drust sat at the scarred table in the Place, staring at nothing, talking mainly to himself. In a little while he and Kag, Dog and Quintus – all that was left of the original Brotherhood – would troop off with Kisa and the others to the funeral of Ugo.
The sky was slashed with pyre smoke from those who had rescued their own slaughtered comrades before the Hole got them. Under the smoke, the Games went on. Couriers had gone out north with the fate of Julius Yahya in their pouches. Senators unlucky enough to have been in the Imperial box had found themselves gripped by the shoulders and hustled away; others would be scurrying for safety.
The crowd around to hear Drust’s victory proclaimed in the Forum Romanum was big and loud and colourful – Murena was racing and some big thug from Britannia, the new favourite of the Emperor, was fighting.
‘Who won the big race?’ someone had asked on the day Drust had been littered out of the Flavian, surrounded by the Brothers and Curtius, with other gladiators as escort.
‘Who fucking cares?’ was the answer. Drust heard it through the litter curtains and the fog of pain and treatment.
Drust, Lion of the Flavian – in a week the graffiti would be overwritten by screeds to the darlings of the chariot, or the latest hero of the sands. The world would roll on over Julius Yahya and Drust both.
‘You will always be the Lion of the Flavian now,’ Kisa offered when Drust growled all this out. ‘Your gods who walk the fields of Elysium—’
‘Can fucking stay there,’ Kag interrupted savagely, and The Place fell silent. We had all been Brothers of the Sand, walking in the light, putting the Empire to rights, Drust thought. Had it all truly been just sand and dust? What would happen now? Would Julius Yahya make it to a trial in the senate? Would the Mother of Empire have enough strings to pull him out? Would she risk letting him get that far?
Would she leave us alone?
Drust sat and made patterns in the spilled wine, seeing the hilt of the gladius within touching distance of his little trembling finger. The hand only shook when it was empty of sword, he had realised, but the gladius was never far away and frequently he found it in his hand at the most innocuous times, and would stare at it, not knowing how it got there, scarce able to feel it in the same way you could not feel a wedding ring.
He asked the question, as he asked it every night since her death, sleepless and unsure.
Have I done enough? Can I lay it down now?
Historical Note
This follows on from The Red Serpent by about six months, taking place in AD 225.
Alexander was made Emperor when he was fourteen, taking over from his murdered cousin Elagabalus, who was eighteen. He was always referred to as ‘boy-emperor’, mainly because his mother had acted as regent until he came of age, and established herself so thoroughly that it was hard for Alexander to work his way out of her shadow – which he never fully did.
In AD 235 Alexander himself would be murdered, an act which plunged the Roman world into what historians like to call the Crisis of Empire, a fifty-year period during which there were at least twenty-six claimants to the title of Emperor, mostly prominent Roman generals who assumed Imperial power over all or part of the Empire.
The act which decided Alexander’s fate was a march up to the Dark to confront the German tribes, following an expedition against the Sassanids, inheritors of the broken Parthian kingdom. On both occasions, Alexander showed too willing to pay for peace rather than fight – it might have been sensible, but it turned the Roman Army against him.
The story of Drust, Kag and the others begins in the vast German forests which formed part of a primeval woodland system that once carpeted the entire north of Europe. In Scotland there are remnants that permit some idea of what it must have been like – Abernethy, Glen Affric, Inshriach Forest and others.
On an average overcast day these are dark, forbidding places, full of strange noises, and anyone wandering into them today will feel, for all their enlightened knowledge, exactly as did the Romans; this is an alien environment, quite possibly inhabited by strange beasts and stranger people.
The fact that the Romans refer to these Germanic forests as ‘the Dark’ is an indication of how they – and the legionaries especially – disliked such places; the legacy of the slaughter of Varus in the Teutoburg Forest ran bone-deep.
In comparison, the Brothers’ return to Rome takes them to haunts which, they discover, are every bit as dark, forbidding and full of beasts as the German forests. They also come to realise they don’t know Rome as well as they thought.
Which brings us to underground Rome. You can get tours nowadays of some of what archaeology has revealed, but a vast network of tunnels, aqueducts, sewers, drains, quarries and secret temples – like the Mithraic one below the Circus Maximus – remain to be uncovered. The massive white worms, the jumping spiders, the rats big as lapdogs are all true and current, incidentally.
The last vicious acts in the lives of the Brothers of the Sand take place in these hidden places – and in the great glare of the harena, the sands of the Flavian Amphitheatre. The perfidiae harenam is an invention of my own, but such grand multi-gladiator events did take place, a great and expensive slaughter paid for by Emperors, the only people rich enough to afford to buy so many deaths for the delight of the audience.
The names and fates of many of these fighters have come down to us through the centuries, but for each lauded gladiator a hundred or more lie unmarked and long forgotten. This is the group Drust, Kag, Dog and the others belong to. They deserve to have their brief glories observed, their story told.
Glossary
General terms
Ala Flavia
We know for sure that the Ala II Flavia pia fidelis milliaria was garrisoned in Heidenheim from some time around AD 90–110 and moved to Aalen around AD 155–60, where it stayed until the middle of the third century. But where the ala (regiment) actually comes from is more difficult to trace. The name ‘Flavia’ points at an assembling under Vespasian (AD 70–79) or his sons (Titus AD 79–81, Domitian AD 81–96). The earliest mention is on a military diploma from AD 86 where it already has its full name pia fidelis milliaria. It is possible that the unit was created in the aftermath of the Batavian rebellion in AD 70; that would make it the oldest ala milliaria known.
Auctoratio
Most gladiators were slaves but some were volunteers. The auctoratio was the swearing of a legal agreement by free men who joined a school through adventure or debt for a contracted period, by which they handed themselves over as slaves to their master and trainer, agreeing to submit to beating, burning, and death by the sword if they did not perform as required. Gladiators were expected to accept death.
Aurehahn
Wood grouse, better known to Scots everywhere as the capercaillie. And, yes, it had a weird call.
Caesar’s House
The one Roman everyone knows, Julius Caesar grew up in the worst area of the city, for all that his family was considered a cut above. The truth is that the Caesar residence was in Subura, which became the Roman slums, and his house was probably swamped by them rather than a residence deliberately chosen to be among the plebs. Long gone, its site and design is now speculation; best guess is that it was on the Argiletum – today’s Via Cavour – close to the Porta Esquilina.
Chariot racing
To the ancient Romans this was Formula One meets C
hampions League. Chariots drawn by two horses were called bigae and those drawn by four horses quadrigae. Trigae, sejuges and septemjuges (three, six and seven horses) were less usual but not unknown. In Nero’s time as many as ten horses might be used, and he himself is said to have driven one such decemjugis at the Olympic Games. Nero is also remembered for having introduced camels instead of horses to provide a little variety, while the young emperor Elagabalus tried elephants. There were, at this time, four factions defined by colours – Red and White were state-owned, Blue and Green privately owned. Support was fanatical and the Romans even had a name for the delirium – furor circensis. Fights between rival teams are well recorded, particularly one in Pompeii which caused several deaths and the teams to be disqualified for ten years, although the ban was later lifted thanks to the intercession of Nero’s wife. In later Byzantium, the races were even more intense, more political and more riotous.
Collegium
Collegia could function as guilds, social clubs or burial societies; in practice, in ancient Rome they sometimes became organised bodies of local businessmen and even criminals, who ran the mercantile/criminal activities in a given urban region. The organisation of a collegium, ironically, was often modelled on that epitome of law and order, the senate. There were collegia for all sorts – the Collegium Centonariorum was for junk collectors, the Collegium Communionis Minirum for actors, the Collegium Saliarium Baxiarum for cobblers. The Collegium Bacchus, for worshippers of the god of wine, was banned in 64 BC. Any profession or organisation could set up such a college – the Collegium Armariorum was the one formed by the gladiators.
Colossus Nero/Colossus Solis
A massive gilded bronze statue, originally of Nero and destined for the vestibule of his planned Golden House, this no longer exists but is estimated to have been between 98 and 121 feet (30–37 metres) tall. Vespasian renamed it in honour of the sun god and Hadrian ordered it moved closer to the Flavian Amphitheatre – twenty-four elephants accomplished this – where it stood for centuries (the last record of it was in AD 354). It eventually gave the name ‘Colosseum’ to the Flavian Amphitheatre and, together with the Meta Sudans fountain known colloquially as the Sweating Post (see below), was a tourist attraction even in Drust’s day.
Conditor
A rough translation is ‘builder’ and it was applied to those slaves responsible for maintaining the chariots, from wheels to yokes. The best of them could build one from scratch and were highly prized.
Conticinium
A particular time of Roman night/early morning defined as ‘when animals cease to make a noise’. The wee small hours.
Dis Manibus
A standard phrase of dedication to the Manes, the spirits of the dead. Effectively they are being warned that there’s another one on the way. In the gladiatorial amphitheatre it was an actual person, also known as Charun, the Roman form of Charon, the Greek demigod who ferried the dead across the Styx. Pluto, the Roman god of the underworld, was also used. Traditionally a man masked as someone from the underworld, accompanied by masked helpers, would use a hammer to ‘test for signs of life’ by smacking them out of the near-dead. Then the helpers would hook the body by the heels and drag it off through the Gate of Death to the spoliarium. Those who had survived left the way they had entered, through the Gate of Life.
Draco standard
The draco was first used by the Roman cavalry during the second century AD, possibly with the introduction of Sarmatian cavalry into the Roman army. Arrian, who was writing circa AD 137, described it as a Scythian invention which was adopted by Roman cavalry – he probably meant Sarmatian. The Romans began to use the draco in cavalry games, the so-called Hippica Gymnasia. These were described by Arrian as glamorised versions of training exercises, performed in decorated armour. It is possible that the draco was introduced simply because it was outlandishly foreign. Later, it was adopted by all military units – the Historia Augusta mentions that the mother of Severus (AD 193–211) dreamt of a purple snake before his birth (Freud may have made more of that). In the reign of Gallienus (AD 253–268), legionary troops are said to have paraded with a draco among the standards of the legions.
Fama
The personification of popular rumour – the Greeks knew her as Pheme and she was more a poetic personification than a deified abstraction, although there was an altar to her in Athens. The Greek poet Hesiod portrayed her as an evildoer, easily stirred up but impossible to quell. The Athenian orator Aeschines distinguished Popular Rumour (Pheme) from Slander (Sykophantia) and Malice (Diabole). Virgil described her (Aeneid, Book IV) as a swift, birdlike monster with as many eyes, lips, tongues and ears as feathers, travelling on the ground but with her head in the clouds. Romans became more familiar with her through the popularity of Ovid – in the Metamorphoses she inhabited a reverberating mountaintop palace of brass.
Flavian Amphitheatre
Now better known as the Colosseum (or Coliseum), it was originally known as the Flavian Amphitheatre since it was built by the Flavian dynasty. Commissioned in AD 72 by Emperor Vespasian, it was completed by his son Titus in AD 80, with later improvements by Domitian. Located just east of the Forum, it was built to a practical design, with its 80 arched entrances allowing easy access for 55,000 spectators, who were seated according to rank. The Colloseum is huge, an ellipse 188m long and 156m wide. Originally 240 masts were attached to stone corbels on the fourth level to support an awning, manned by sailors from the Misenum fleet, to provide shade on hot days. Its name came from the nearby massive bronze statue (see above).
Fortuna
A goddess who was the personification of luck in Roman times and, naturally, one much worshipped by gladiators. She was usually depicted with a rota fortunae (a Wheel of Fortune) and a Horn of Plenty, and could be represented as veiled and blind, as in modern depictions of Justice. The first temple dedicated to Fortuna was attributed to the Etruscan Servius Tullius, while the second is known to have been built in 293 BC as the fulfilment of a Roman promise made during later Etruscan wars – which is the same time that gladiatorial contests are thought to have been created.
Harena
Literally, ‘sand’. Possibly Etruscan, which was believed to be the origin of gladiatorial contests.
The Ludi
Games in general, and festivals involving games. Games could be private, public or extraordinary – since gladiators were so expensive to train and keep, they fought three or four times a year and, unless the giver of the games paid for it, there was no fight to the death. Contests were, in fact, one-on-one and regulated by a referee, usually a former gladiator. Criminals and prisoners could be damned to fight in the arena, with the hope of a reprieve if they survived a certain number of years. These men were trained in a specialised form of combat. Others, untrained, were expected to die within a short time. There were also volunteer gladiators, ones who either enlisted voluntarily as free or freed men, or who re-enlisted after winning their freedom. Even equites and, more rarely, senators sometimes enlisted. The word ‘gladiator’ simply means ‘swordsman’.
Ludus
The gladiator ‘school’. It’s estimated that there were more than a hundred gladiator schools throughout the Empire. New gladiators were formed into troupes called familia gladiatorium, which were under the overall control of a manager (lanista) who recruited, arranged for training and made the decisions of where and when the gladiators fought. There were gladiator schools near all the major cities around Rome, and one which has stayed in history is that of Batiatus in Capua, where Spartacus was trained. But the most famous gladiator schools of all were those in Rome: the Great Gladiatorial Training School (Ludus Magnus), which was connected to the Flavian Amphitheatre by a tunnel; the Bestiaries School (Ludus Matutinus), which specialised in training those who fought, handled and trained exotic wild beasts; the Gallic School (Ludus Gallicus), smallest of the schools, which specialised in training heavily armoured fighters; and the Dacian School (Ludus Dacicus), which t
rained lightly armoured fighters in the use of the specialised curved sword.
Mavro
A Greek word meaning ‘black’ or ‘dark’. When applied to people, it is simply a statement of fact – it is neither derogatory nor insensitive. However, in the third century, the Severan dynasty who hailed from North Africa were considered strange and exotic, not for their skin-tone, but for their cultural heritage, exacerbated by marriage into an even more exotic Syrian family of sun worshippers. Mavro gained a note of disdain as a result.
Missio
A gladiator who acknowledged defeat could request the munerarius to stop the fight and send him alive (missus) from the arena. If he had not fallen he could be ‘sent away standing’ (stans missus). The organiser of the games took the crowd’s response into consideration in deciding whether to let the loser live or order the victor to kill him. The referee, usually a summa rudis, or freed gladiator, made sure nothing happened until the decision was made.
Mithras
According to the Roman historian Plutarch (c. AD 46–120), Mithraism began to be absorbed by the Romans during Pompey’s military campaign against Cilician pirates around 70 BC. The soldiers carried the belief with them from Asia Minor into Rome and the far reaches of the Empire. Syrian merchants imported Mithraism to the major cities, such as Alexandria, Rome and Carthage, while captives took it into the countryside. By the third century, Mithraism and its mysteries permeated the Roman Empire from India to Scotland.
Munerarius (Editor)
The giver of the games. It could be a member of the nobler orders of Rome who put on the show privately (a rarity post-Republic) or in his official capacity as a magistrate or priest, but it was more likely the state organising games whose dates and functions were set in the Roman calendar. Outside Rome, munerarii were generally municipal and provincial priests of the Imperial cult, or local governors.