CHAPTER XXI
MISADVENTURES
As we left the Circus I heard in the crowd near us, along with fiercedenunciations of the Crimsons and Golds, execrated by all the commonalityas merely rich men's companies, the most enthusiastic laudations of Palusand expressions of hopes that the Blues, Greens, Reds or Whites, accordingto the preference of the speaker, might yet win him over and benefit byhis prowess.
Colgius, although the Reds had won but five races, was in a high goodhumor and insisted on the whole party coming in to a family dinner. Thethree wives occupied the middle sofa, while Agathemer and I had the upperall to ourselves. The fare was abundant and good, with plenty of thecheaper relishes to begin with; roast sucking-pig, cold sliced roast pork,baked ham, and veal stew for the principal dishes, with cabbage, beans andlentils; the wine was passable, and there was plenty of olives, figs,apples, honey and quince marmalade.
The women talked among themselves and the men, with us putting in a wordnow and then, of Palus. They argued a long time as to just what he did inthe fourteenth race and how he had saved himself at the critical moment.As to his victory in the last race, all three of them were loud in theirpraises. Colgius said:
"Nothing like that has ever happened before. The chariot which Palus drovehad the shortest axle I ever saw or anybody else. No other chariot butthat could have passed between the two wrecked chariots; any other wouldhave crashed its two wheels against the wrecked chariot-bodies and wouldhave smashed to bits. His chariot was so narrow that its wheels passedbetween the two chariot-bodies, clear.
"Even so any other chariot would have stopped dead when its wheels hit theaxles of the stalled chariots, for it was plain that his wheelsinterlocked with the wheels of the stalled chariots and hit the axles. Buthis chariot had the longest spokes ever seen in Rome, or, I believe,anywhere else, and so had the tallest wheels ever seen and had its axlehigher above the sand than any other chariot; so its wheels engaged thestalled axles well below their hub-level and so the team pulled them rightover the axles and on."
"Yes," said Uttius, "but that never would have happened but for Palus'instantaneous grasp of the situation and lightning decision. Any othercharioteer would have reined in or tried to swing round to the right; helashed his team and guided them so perfectly that, with not a hand's-breadth to spare anywhere, the two wheels passed precisely where there wasthe only chance of their passing, and he guided his horses so perfectlythat the yoke-mates shot between the stalled wheels without jostling themor each other. No man has ever displayed such skill as Palus."
"Nor had such luck," Ramnius cut in. "No man could have guided the yoke-mates as he did and, at the same time, exerted any influence whatever onthe trace-mates. They showed their breed. Each saw the stalled wheel infront of him, neither tried to dodge. Each went straight at that wheel,reared at it, and leapt it clean. As they leapt they were not helping topull the chariot, the yoke-mates pulled it over the stalled axles. But themomentary check as the chariot hit the axles and leapt up gave the leapingtrace-mates just the instant of time they needed to find their feet andregain their stride. The whole thing was a miracle; of training, of skilland of luck."
"But don't forget," said Colgius, "that the skill and judgment Palusdisplayed counted for more than the breed of his team and his luck. Do notforget the perfect form he showed: not an awkward pose, not a sign ofeffort, not a hint of anxiety; self-possession, courage, self-confidenceall through and the most perfect grace of movement, ease, and suggestionof reserve strength. He is a prodigy."
After Agathemer and I were alone in the dark on our cots we whispered toeach other a long time.
"Do you really believe," I said, "that Commodus is so insane about horse-racing as to be willing to put Furfur on his throne in his robes so thathe can degrade himself under the name of Palus?"
"I do," said Agathemer. "No other conjecture fits what we saw. The man onthe throne was certainly the image of Commodus, but had not his eleganceof port and grace of movement. Palus has all the inimitable gracefulnesswhich Commodus displayed when driving teams in the Palace Stadium."
"He is incredibly stupid in undervaluing and failing to prize hisprivileges as Emperor," I said, "and amazingly reckless in allowing anyoneelse to occupy his throne, wearing his robes."
"He is yet more reckless to race as he does," Agathemer commented, "and Ishould not be astonished if we have seen his last public appearance as acharioteer."
"Why?" I queried startled.
"Because," said Agathemer, "he must be incredibly stupid not to perceive,now, what opportunities the Circus offers for getting rid of an Emperorposing as a charioteer.
"A stupider man than Commodus can possibly be should be able to comprehendthat there must have been a very carefully planned plot in the BlueCompany, a plot which must have cost a mountain of gold to carry so fartowards success, a plot which never would have been laid for a merejockey, however much his rivalry threatened the Company's winnings andprestige. Only a coterie of very wealthy men could have devised and pushedit. It cost money to induce charioteers to come so close to almost certaindeath in order to compass the destruction of another charioteer. It costmoney to sacrifice a company's teams in that fashion. Such a plot wasnever laid to get rid of Palus the jockey; it was aimed at ridding thenobility of an Emperor they fear and hate, however popular he may be withthe commonality.
"I miss my guess if there is not a violent upheaval in the Blue Company,and if there is not an investigation scrutinizing the behavior and loyaltyof every man affiliated with them, from their board of managers down tothe stall-cleaners. I prophesy that the informers, spies and secret-service men will have fat pickings off the Blues for many a day to come.I'll bet the guilty men are putting their affairs in order now and huntingsafe hiding-places. Commodus may be insane about horse-racing and foolenough to put a dummy Emperor in his place, so he can be free to enjoyjockeying, but he is no fool when it comes to attempts at assassination.He'll run down the guilty or exterminate them among a shoal of innocents."
I agreed.
But I added:
"What is the world coming to when the Prince of the Republic prizes hisprivileges so little that he neglects state business for horse-jockeying,when he is so crazy over charioteering that he lets another man wear hisrobes and occupy his throne? It is a mad world."
Next morning we were early on Orontides' ship and once more Agathemercharmed a crew with his flageolet.
At Ostia Orontides found he must lay over for some valuable packagesconsigned to a jeweler at Antioch for the conveyance of which he washighly paid. He suggested that, as the day was hot for so late in theyear, we go ashore and see the sights which, indeed, we found well worthseeing, for Ostia has some buildings outmatching anything to be foundoutside of Rome. We took his hint, but he warned us:
"I have some sailors I don't trust. Don't leave anything aboard. Take yourwallets with you."
We passed a pleasant, idle day, lunching and taking our siesta at an innoutside the Rome Gate. We had planned to dine at an inn near the harbor-front, on the west side of the town, not far from the Sea Gate: there wehad barely sat down and begun tasting the relishes, when in came Clitellusand Summanus. They seemed surprised and pleased to recognize us, greetedus as if we had been old friends and close intimates, appeared to assumethat we were as glad to see them as they were to see us, and, as a matterof course, joined us at dinner, telling the waiter-boy to bring themwhatever we had ordered, only doubling the quantity of every order.
They talked of the races we had seen, of Palus, of his driving; of thesmash-ups, of Posilla, of Colgius and of everything and anything. Theyannounced that they would accompany us to our ship and see us safe aboard.Both Agathemer and I more than suspected that they had associates inwaiting to follow them and, at a signal, fall on us and seize us. I feltall that and Agathemer whispered to me a word or two in Greek whichadvised me of his suspicions.
We prolonged our meal all we could, but there was no shaking them off.Agatheme
r ordered more wine, Falernian, and had it mixed with only onemeasure of water. Watching his opportunity he threw at me, in a whisper,two Greek words which advised me, since they were the first in a well-known quotation from Menander, that our only hope was to drink ourtormentors dead drunk.
It turned out to be a question whether we would drink them drunk or theyus. Certainly they showed no hesitation about pouring down the wine asfast as it was mixed and served, nor did either of them appear to noticethat we drank less than they; they seemed able to hold any amount and staysober and keep on drinking. As dusk deepened and the waiter-boys lit theinn lamps, I found myself perilously near sliding off my chair to thefloor and very doubtful whether, if I did, I should be able to get upagain or to resist my tendency to go to sleep then and there.
I was, in fact, just about to give up any attempt to resist my impulse tocollapse when Summanus collapsed, slid to the floor, rolled over, spreadout and snored.
Clitellus thickly objurgated his comrade and all weak-heads, worthlessfellows who could not drink a few goblets without getting drunk. To provehis vast superiority and his prowess, he poured more wine down his throat,spilling some down into his tunic.
Agathemer winked at me and fingered the strap of his wallet. I groped formine and fumbled at it.
Clitellus, with a hiccough, slid to the floor beside Summanus.
I was for trying to rise.
"Let us be sure," said Agathemer in Greek, "perhaps they are pretending tobe drunk, just to catch us."
But, after a brief contemplation of the precious pair, we concluded thatno acting could be as perfect as this reality. They were drunk at last andsafely asleep.
Agathemer paid the whole amount, for all four of us, adjured the waiter-boy to be good to Clitellus and Summanus, gave him an extra coin, andsignalled me to rise. I lurched to my feet, swaying, almost as drunk asour victims and beholding Agathemer swaying before me, not only because ofmy blurred eyesight, but also because of his unsteadiness on his feet.
We almost fell, but not quite. Somehow we staggered to the door, where,once outside, the cool night air made us feel almost sobered, though stilltoo nearly drunk to be sure of our location or direction.
More by luck than anything else we took the right turn and found theharbor front before the night was entirely black. In the half gloom wetried to find the pier from which we had come that morning. As we exploredwe heard a cheerful hail.
"Is that you, Orontides?"
Agathemer called.
"Aye, Aye!" came back the cheery answer. "Come aboard!"
And we were met and assisted up the gang-plank and down over the bulwarks.
"I was afraid you boys were lost," the shipmaster said, "and I am to sailat dawn, after all; everything is aboard. I'm glad to see you. You'vedined pretty liberally. Come over here and get to sleep."
And he led us to where we found something soft to sleep on.
I was asleep almost as soon as I lay down.
I awoke with a terrific headache and an annoying buzzing in my ears, awokeonly partially, not knowing where I was or why and without any distinctrecollections of recent events. My first sensation was discomfort, notonly from the pain of my headache, but also from the heat of the sunraysbeating on me, and that despite the fact that I could feel a strong coolbreeze ruffling my hair and beard.
I sat up and looked about me. Agathemer was snoring. The sun was not low;in fact, at that time of the year, it was near its highest. I had slepttill noon!
Then, all of a sudden I realized that the ship was wholly strange to meand that it was headed not southeast, but northwest. That realizationshocked me broad awake. At the same instant I saw the shipmasterapproaching. He was not Orontides, nor was he at all like him. He hadsmall feet, was knock-kneed, tall, lean, had a hatchet-face and red hair.
"Awake at last!" he commented. "You lads must have dined gloriously lastnight. You don't look half yourselves, yet."
He stared at me, and at Agathemer, who had waked, into much the same sortof daze in which I had been at first.
"Neptune's trident!" the shipmaster exclaimed. "You two aren't the twolads I was to convoy! Who are you and how did you get here?"
"We were hunting for our ship after dark," Agathemer said, "and somebodyhailed us. We asked whether it was Orontides and the answer that came backwas: 'Aye, Aye!' We were pretty thoroughly drunk and were glad to behelped aboard and shown our beds. That's all I know."
"Kingdom of Pluto!" the shipmaster cried, "my name's Gerontides, notOrontides. I heard your question, but you were so drunk I never knew thedifference: probably I shouldn't have known the difference if you had beensober. I was on the lookout for two lads much like you two who had partpaid me to carry them to Genoa. They'll be in a fix."
"'Bout ship," said Agathemer, "and put back to Ostia. You can't be far onyour way yet. We'll pay you what you ask to set us ashore at Ostia."
"I wouldn't 'bout ship," said Gerontides, "for twenty gold pieces."
"We'll pay you thirty," said Agathemer.
"Don't bid any higher, son," Gerontides laughed. "If you were made ofgold, to Genoa you go. I've a bigger stake in a quick landing at Genoathan any sum you could name would overbalance. Best be content!"
And content we had to be, no arguments, no entreaties, nothing would movehim.
"I'll be fair with you," he said. "The lads I took you for had paid me allI had asked them except one gold piece each on landing at Genoa. That'sall you'll have to pay me."
Nothing would budge him from his resolution. Agathemer in despair drownedhis misery in flageolet playing. It seemed to comfort him and certainlycomforted me. The crew were delighted. After a voyage as easy and pleasantas our cruise with Maganno, we landed on the eighth day before the Ides ofSeptember, at Genoa, paid our two gold pieces and set about getting out ofthat city as quickly as might be. We avoided, of course, the posting-station where we had changed horses while in couriers' trappings. Butthere was a posting-station at each gate of Genoa and we, having talkedover all possibilities in the intervals of flageolet playing, were forDertona. We had little trouble in buying a used travelling-carriage.Horses we did not have to wait long for, as hiring teams were luckilyplentiful that day and Imperial agents scarce. Off we set for Milan.
We were in haste but there was no hurrying postillions on those mountainroads. We nooned at some nameless change-house and were glad to make thethirty-six miles to Libarium by dusk. The next day was consumed incovering the thirty-five miles to Dertona. From there on we travelled, ingeneral down hill, and so quicker, but not much quicker, so that a thirdday entire was needed for making the fifty-one miles to Placentia.
Placentia, a second time, was unlucky for us. It might have been worse,for we did not again encounter Gratillus, or anyone else who might haverecognized me. But I made a fool of myself. I am not going to tell whathappened; Agathemer never reproached me for my folly, not even in ourbitterest misery; but I reproached myself daily for nearly three years; Iam still ashamed of myself and I do not want to set down my idioticbehavior.
Let it suffice, that, through no fault of Agathemer's, but wholly throughmy fault, we were suspected, interrogated, arrested, stripped, our brand-marks and scourge-scars observed and ourselves haled before a magistrate.To him Agathemer told the same tale he had told to Tarrutenus Spinellus.It might have served had we been dealing with a man of like temper, fortravellers from Aneona for Aquileia regularly passed through Placentiaturning there from northwest along the road from Aneona to northeast alongthe road to Aquileia.
But Stabilius Norbanus was a very different kind of man.
"Your story may be true," he said, "but it impresses me as an ingeniouslie. If I believed it I'd not send men like you, with their recordswritten in welts on their backs, with any convoy, no matter how strict, onthe long journey to Aquileia, on which you'd have countless opportunitiesof escape. I do not believe your tale. Yet I'll pay this much attention toit: I'll write to Vedius Aquileiensis and ask him if he owned two slav
esanswering your descriptions and lost them through unexplaineddisappearance or known crimping by Dalmatian pirates at about the time youindicate.
"Meantime I'll commit you to an _ergastulum_ [Footnote: See Note H.] whereyou'll be herded with your kind, all safely chained, so that no escape ispossible, and all doing some good to the state by some sort of productivelabor. A winter at the flour-mills will do you two good."
Our winter at the mills may have benefited us, but it was certainly, withits successor at similar mills, one of the two most wretched winters of mylife. And Agathemer, I think, suffered every bit as acutely as I. We werenot chained, except for a few days and about twice as many more nights; assoon as the manager of the _ergastulum_ felt that he knew us he let us gounchained like the rest of his charges.
This was because of the structure of the _ergastulum_. It was located inthe cellars of one of the six or more granaries of Placentia, which has,near each city gate, an extensive public store-house. The granary underwhich we were immured was that near the Cremona gate. Above ground it wasa series of rectangles about courtyards each just big enough toaccommodate four carts, all unloading or loading at once. It waseverywhere of four stories of bin-rooms, all built of coarse hard-facedrubble concrete. The cellars were very extensive, and not all on onelevel, being cunningly planned to be everywhere about the same depthunderground. Where their floor-levels altered the two were joined by shortflights of three, four or five stone steps, under a vaulted doorway, inthe thick partition walls.
Each cellar-floor was about four yards below the ground level so that atall man, standing on a tall man's shoulders, could barely reach with hisoutstretched fingers the tip of the sill of one of the low windows. Thesewindows, each about a yard high and two yards broad, were heavily barredwith gratings of round iron bars as thick as a man's wrist, set too closetogether for a boy's head to pass between them, and each two bars hot-welded at each intersection, so that each grating was practically onepiece of wrought iron, made before the granary was built and with the endsof each bar set deep in the flinty old rubble concrete. The inmates neednot be chained, as no escape was possible through the windows, though rawnight air, rain, snow at times and the icy winter blasts came in on usthrough them.
Similarly no escape was possible up the one entrance to the cellars, whichwas through an inner courtyard, from which led down a stone stair withfour sets of heavy doors; one at the bottom, one at each end of a landinglighted by a heavily barred window, and one at the top. Between the innerand outer courtyard were two sets of heavier doors and two equally heavywere at the street entrance of the outer courtyard. On the stair-landingwas the chained-up porter-accountant seated under the window on a backlessstool by a small, heavy accountant's table on which stood a tall_clepsydra_ by his big account-book. Checking the hours by the_clepsydra_, he entered the name of every human being passing, up or downthat stair, even the name of the manager every time he came in or wentout. By him always stood a wild Scythian, armed with a spear, girt with asabre, and with a short bow and a quiver of short arrows hanging over hisback. Similar Scythians guarded the doorways, a pair of them to each door.The slide by which the grain was lowered into the _ergastulum_, the otherslide by which the flour, coarse siftings and bran were hauled up, weresimilarly guarded. Escape was made so difficult by these precautions that,while I was there, no one escaped out of the three hundred wretchesconfined in the _ergastulum_.
There we suffered sleepless nights in our hard bunks, under worn andtattered quilts, tormented by every sort of vermin. Swarming with verminwe toiled through the days, from the first hint of light to its lastglimmer, shivering in our ragged tunics, our bare feet numb on the chillypavements. We were cold, hungry, underfed on horribly revolting food,reviled, abused, beaten and always smarting from old welts or new weals ofthe whip-lashes.
It was all a nightmare: the toil, the lashings, if our monotonous walkaround our mill, eight men to a mill, two to each bar, did not suit thenotions of the room-overseer; the dampness, the cold, the vermin, the painof our unhealed bruises, the scanty food and its disgusting uneatableness.
The food seemed the worst feature of our misery. So, in fact, it appearsto have seemed to our despicable companions. Certainly, of the food theycomplained more than of the toil, the cold, the vermin, the malignity ofthe overseers or even of the barbarity of the Scythian guards. Anyhowtheir fury at the quality of their food brought to me and Agathemer analleviation of our misery. For some hotheaded wretches, goaded beyondendurance, jerked the bars of their mill from their sockets and with themfelled, beat to death and even brained the cook and his two assistants.
After their corpses had been removed, the floor swabbed up and themurderers turned over to the gloating Scythians to be done to death byimpalement, Scythian fashion, with all the tortures Scythian ferocitycould devise, the manager went from cellar to cellar, all through the_ergastulum_, enquiring if any prisoner could cook. No one volunteered,and, when he questioned more than a few, everyone denied any knowledge ofcookery.
A second time he made the tour of his domain, promising any cook a warmtunic, a bunk with a thick mattress and two heavy quilts, all the food hecould eat and two helpers; the helpers to have similar indulgences. Onthis second round, in our cellar, a Lydian, nearer to being fat than anyprisoner in the _ergastulum_, admitted that he could make and bake bread,but vowed that he could not do anything else connected with cooking.Spurred on by his confession and tempted by the offers of better clothingand bedding and more food, also by the memories of Agathemer's cookery thewinter before, I blurted out that Agathemer could not make bread, butcould do everything else needed in cookery. Agathemer, after onereproachful glance at me, admitted that he was a cook of a sort, butdeclared that he was almost as bad a cook as the wretch just murdered. Theoverseer bade him go to the kitchen and told him he might select a helper;the baker would have been the other helper. As helper Agathemer,naturally, selected me.
After that we suffered less. The slaves acclaimed Agathemer's cooking;for, if their rations were still scanty by order of the watchful manager,at least their food was edible. Far from being ultimately killed, like ourpredecessors, and continually threatened and reviled, we were blessed byour fellow-slaves. We slept better, in spite of the vermin, on our grass-stuffed mattresses, under our foul quilts, we shivered less in our thickertunics. We were not too tired to discuss, at times, the oddities of ourvicissitudes, to congratulate each other on being, at least, alive, on mynot being suspected of being what I actually was, and, above all, on thesafety of our old, blackened, greasy, worthless-looking, amulet-bags, withtheir precious contents. To be reduced to carrying food to three hundredof the vilest rascals alive was a horrible fate for a man who had, twoyears before, been a wealthy nobleman, but it was far better than death asa suspected conspirator. And Agathemer was hopeful of our future, ofsurvival, of escape, of comfort somewhere after he had sold anotheremerald, ruby, or opal. Nothing could, for any length of time, dim orcloud the light of Agathemer's buoyancy of disposition.
BOOK III
DIVERSITIES
Andivius Hedulio: Adventures of a Roman Nobleman in the Days of the Empire Page 22