A Mixture of Madness, Book II of The Bow of Heaven

by Levkoff, Andrew

  “You must forgive my appearance,” said Aulus Gabinius, Roman statesman, general, tribune of the plebs, propraetor and proconsul.

  “Why must I?” asked Crassus.

  Gabinius tilted his head to the side. The gold in his ringlets made a pretty sound. “I should think professional courtesy.” Marcus Antonius hopped off the desk and offered his pelt to Gabinius. As this would have been useful only had he donned the garment backwards, the ex-governor declined.

  “Professional courtesy would be the last thing to raise between us, I should think,” dominus said pointedly. He looked around him. “What has been going on here?”

  “When I could not access my rooms, I took my exercise.” Crassus waited, uncomprehending. “I dance. To music.”

  “You are the same Aulus Gabinius who suppressed the recent revolt in Judea?”

  “Who welcomes you to Antioch.”

  “Our welcome, Gabinius, was notable only due to your absence. I trust you’re packed?”

  “With your permission,” he said, bowing deeply, “I shall leave for Rome directly after the games. You and I have much to discuss. About Syria. About Parthia?”

  “I will not deny the people their games, but you will be gone and on your way back to Rome before the last team has been unharnessed, bandaged and brushed.”

  •••

  People had been streaming across all five bridges onto the Regia’s island since sunrise. The racing track had been completed thirteen years earlier, built so that the governor and his guests could take a short stroll through his gardens, under guard of course, and enter the broad red and black arch of the Proconsul’s Gate into the arena. Every one of the 80,000 seats in the hippodrome was occupied, though defended might be a more appropriate word. The Circus Maximus may have taken twice as many Romans to its bosom, but these clumps of blue and green flag-waving Antiochenes expressed an even greater joy to be held there. The track itself was an oblong almost 1,500 feet long by 220 feet wide. Down its center ran an 850 foot long by 24 foot wide spina only a few feet tall around which the chariots ran. Bronze statues of rearing horses reared thirty feet in the air at both ends, and in the center a red granite obelisk, forty feet tall and just delivered from Alexandria lay on its side waiting to be erected. I cocked my head, but the gold-painted hieroglyphics engraved up and down its spine made as much sense to me either way. Feeling for a moment like a schoolboy, I half-wished that the Egyptians had covered their gift with execrations and scatological humor at the Romans’ expense.

  We had just taken our seats in the governor’s box; the noise became so loud at our arrival it precluded conversation. I took note that at our approach the volume of cheers increased in equal proportion to the number of boos. Somewhere high above us, Livia must be laboring mightily to restrain Hanno from leaping into the aisle to tumble twenty rows to the railing for a better view. After gaining dominus’ permission, the only way we had agreed we would allow the sixteen-year-old to attend was if we tethered the two of them together. What with the unbridled—I beg your pardon—enthusiasm of the crowd, I was relieved that Malchus and Betto had graciously agreed to be their escorts.

  For this special occasion, Crassus looked particularly resplendent, wearing a laurel wreath upon his brow and a gold-bordered purple cloak over a double tunic of black and gold. I was wearing my best tunic, which was simple and black with no ornamentation, but I was very fond of it. Marcus Antonius, Octavius, Petronius and Cassius joined dominus and Gabinius in the box, and Melyaket had been included at Crassus' insistence, but King Abgarus was curiously absent. Cassius was miserable, as usual, and dominus had thought it best to leave him out of his plans for the Parthian to keep his reactions natural. They were very ‘natural’ this morning. Mercurius and I sat behind our masters among the wine and food servers. Luckily for the generals we were outside the pomerium, for the heat of this climate and the strict tradition of the toga would have undone many a noble. Lucky for all, Gabinius, though ostentatious, was at least fully clothed.

  Gabinius stood to give the signal for start of the games, but as soon as the masses saw him, whether green or blue, a throat-swelling of disapproval rose all around us. Crassus shouted up at him, “It would seem you’ve stolen one denarius too many from this province, Aulus.”

  Unfazed, Gabinius made an exaggerated show of pointing to the new governor of Syria sitting next to him, motioning for him to stand. When Crassus rose, the cheering grew louder than the noise from any triumph. It was clear that dominus was deeply moved. There was no speech he could give that would be heard, but he greeted every corner of the stadium with broad smiles and raised arms. Every time he turned, that section of the hippodrome went wild. Was it this sound he had been waiting for all his life? I hoped it would never end.

  And then he ruined it.

  “They don’t know me,” he shouted, taking his seat. “They simply have had quite enough of you.”

  Gabinius flicked a hand and horns draped with the red and black of Antioch were raised on either side of us. Their fanfare announced the parade of charioteers. From the red granite arches of the starting gate at the south end of the track came five blue team chariots and five green. Four matched beauties pulled what could only be called an insane driver, for in any contest of speed, power, inertia or stress, the horses were likely to win out over the frailty of the two-wheeled platform on which he balanced.

  Gabinius stood. Mingled with the cheering for their favorite drivers, several dozen knights in the best seats above us started booing again. “Let’s take a walk through the shops in the colonnade,” he said, ignoring them. “We’ll be able to talk there. The chariots parade twice around. It will take the cleanup crew half an hour to rid the track of garlands and curse tablets, not to mention the odd fish head and sow’s nose.”

  “That’s why the teams are all drifting toward the center island,” Mercurius added helpfully.

  “After that there’s the procession of the gods. If we’re lucky, no one will miss us.”

  Everyone rose. Crassus said, “Melyaket, I’m afraid I must ask you to stay here with Cassius Longinus. I’ve given it some thought, and well, we mustn’t take chances, must we?”

  “I completely understand. It’s an honor to be invited here today. May the legate and I share a cup of wine while we wait?”

  “I insist,” dominus said, staring meaningfully at Cassius, who was wrestling with looking both disappointed and gratified simultaneously. “Get to know each other. We shan’t be long. The races cannot start without the dropping of an orarium, and I’ve already seen how this crowd reacts when they are angry.”

  We stood and I looked up behind me to scan the upper reaches of the stadium for a glimpse of my friends and wife. I could not find them, and decorum prevented me from waving madly. Besides, everyone else was already doing that.

  •••

  “Shall I buy a flag?” Crassus asked after we had made our way down beneath the stands. He reached for a pendant of green to the amazement of the stall’s owner, but froze at the shout of alarm from Mercurius, who almost leapt from his painted slippers.

  “Apologies, proconsul,” the little man said, “but that would be unwise, unless you were to buy equal amounts of both colors.”

  “Even if one or two of the good citizens of Antioch are color-blind, none of us are likely to leave the hippodrome alive,” said Gabinius. “Best leave the flags, and the betting, for the true fans.”

  “Green is favored by the local Aramean population,” Mercurius explained. “Blue by the more conservative Greeks and Romans. Should they ever grow too far out of balance, we shall have to introduce more colors.”

  “Let me give you some practical advice about your administration,” Gabinius said as we continued our stroll. Crassus, ever the politician, made certain to smile and notice everyone he passed. Now and again he would even stop to chat with a mother and child or a shopkeeper. Most of the signage everywhere we looked was trilingual: Aramean, Greek and Latin, yet do
minus quickly found that the language with which he was most successful was Greek.

  “Truly, Aulus,” he said, reverting to Latin, “anything you might teach me about governing a province would be a lesson in negatives—what not to do. There is only one subject upon which you may instruct me, and it does not lay within the confines of Syria.”

  “I can and will tell you much about my experience in Parthia,” said the departing governor. “Don’t underestimate them, my friend, and don’t ever let them catch you out in the open. But first, there are things you should know about what is available to you here in your new home.”

  “How can you treat your own troubles with such indifference? Do you not know that you are being tried for treason in absentia? Cicero practically foams at the mouth in expectation of your return.”

  “I am always being tried for something, aren’t I? That’s what bribes are for, Marcus. You practically invented the practice, did you not?” My master bridled at the inference, or perhaps at its being spoken aloud. “Between my money and your friends, I have every hope of acquittal from every vicious charge, whatever they may be.”

  “What do you mean, ‘my friends?’”

  “Pompeius has promised to speak up for me, even to bend Tully’s arm if need be. And Caesar, well, Caesar.” Gabinius laughed aloud, then suggested we turn about and return to our seats.

  “What about Julius?” Crassus said as evenly as he could. We began retracing our steps.

  “I’ve accepted a posting with him,” Marcus Antonius said. “I’ll travel with Aulus as far as Rome, then on to Gaul.”

  “Don’t forget your lion skin,” Crassus said.

  “I know!” Marcus Antonius said. “No more balmy Judean winters for me.”

  “What was this about Caesar?” Crassus pressed.

  “You know how he loves to wriggle beneath the peplos of any noble’s wife who’ll let him?”

  “What?!” Crassus shouted.

  “General,” Petronius whispered, putting a hand on his arm.

  “Calm down, man,” said Gabinius. “All Rome knows about his insatiable Cyclops.”

  “Haul yourself out of the gutter, sir.”

  “Please, Rome is the gutter. Or can’t you see it from the Palatine? Come now, Marcus. This is a marvelous story. I knew putting Ptolemy back on the throne without the senate’s blessing would put me in the deep end of the pool, but what can you do when Pompeius asks and Egypt loads so much silver in my ship it lists? Gabinius must answer.

  “As it happens, your friend Caesar proved my savior. You’ve never met my wife, Lollia. Strange that she and your wife have never socialized.” Not so strange. “She’s as stunning as the statue of Diana in her Aventine temple, and just as cold. She’s even more beautiful than I am.”

  Gabinius stopped and balanced gracefully on one leg, bringing his raised heel to rest across his other knee. Mercurius hurried over, lifted his master’s painted toe and removed a pebble caught between sandal and foot. Crassus asked, “Does this have a point?”

  We carried on. “Of course. Lollia and I share a mutual hatred of each other, so I was delighted to return from the senate early one afternoon to find her splayed across the dining room lectus with Julius between her thighs.”

  “Outrageous. What did you do?”

  “Just that—appear outraged. I sent Lollia to the baths. Then, after some fine tragedian acting and wringing of hands, promised to avoid a scandal if, in return, Caesar would swear that should my case ever be tried, he would write on my behalf. Which he has. Illicit sex, Marcus, drives at least half the decisions of the modern world, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “What a bankrupt and reprehensible philosophy.”

  “Yet Pompeius now awaits to appear in court on Caesar’s behalf with a letter stating that not only should I not be on trial, the senate should confer upon me a supplicatio, thanking me for bringing Egypt back into the fold, and for all my victories in Judea. I may have a statue in the forum before this is done. All thanks to Caesar and that magnificent shrew. A victory all around, don’t you think?”

  “If you hate your wife so much, why not just leave her?”

  “Why leave her, when I can leave her in misery?”

  “I think I’ve heard quite enough.” We had arrived at the steps which would take us back up to the governor’s box. “Octavius, walk with me back to the Regia. I’m feeling tired.”

  “Dominus, I’ll come with you.” Crassus' eyes were already somewhere else, more than likely Luca.

  “No, Alexander, you stay and watch the races. I’ll be fine.”

  “Marcus,” Gabinius said, “We need to discuss Parthian tactics and weaponry.”

  “Tell it to my legates. I’m done with you. Alexander, wait. Take this.” Crassus unbuckled his long purple cloak and fastened it about my shoulders. He laid the wreath on my head and stuffed the handkerchief in my hand and my slave plaque down my tunic. With little enthusiasm he said, “Something little Felix can tell his grandchildren about someday.”

  “You’re joking,” Gabinius said.

  “I never joke in front of people I despise.”

  “Despise me all you like, but hear me out if you seek to finish what I began across the Euphrates.” Gabinius saw with rising panic that this public arcade beneath the vaulted columns of his stadium was likely to be his final audience with Crassus. He took hold of the new governor’s arm. Crassus recoiled. “Listen to me!” As dominus was stepping away, I leaned in, straining to hear whatever it was this man who’d actually faced the enemy we planned to engage was trying to tell us. But the crowds were thickening, their holiday babble amplifying off the bottoms of the concrete seats rising above our heads, and I could not comprehend every word. Two phrases were all that came through clearly: “Armenia’s mountains” and “using the rivers.”

  Crassus may have understood more, for he answered, “Why would I take advice from Pompeius’ torch bearer, a man who dances naked and lets loose a viper like Julius Caesar beneath the bed sheets of his own wife? Why should I listen to anything a man like that has to say about anything?”

  “Because he’s right, you stubborn fool.” But Gabinius was already shouting at the back of his replacement.

  Aulus Gabinius left the following morning for Rome. His advice regarding the Parthians was never heeded or even heard. The senate tried him on three counts of treason. He was acquitted on two, but convicted for extortion, with special reference to the ten thousand talents of silver he had accepted from a province that was outside his governorship. His property was confiscated and, like Cicero before him, he was sentenced to the worst fate a Roman citizen could suffer and still live: exile. Five years later, however, Julius Caesar called him back to fight in the civil wars, but Gabinius would raise no hand against his old patron, Pompeius. He died of illness two years after returning from exile.

  Chapter XXX

  54 BCE - Spring, Antioch

  Year of the consulship of

  Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus and Appius Claudius Pulcher

  I was shaking badly as we made our way back up to our seats. Mercurius had to give me a little push from behind on the final step. The waiting crowd exploded into a roar when they saw the purple of my cloak. It was hard to say whose jaw dropped further, Cassius’ or Melyaket’s, but it was Marcus Antonius, following me up the steps who was first to laugh. “I know!” he said. “Can you believe it?”

  Gabinius cornered Cassius Longinus and Petronius, insisting that the two legates meet him in the gallery after the evening meal. There were things he needed to impart to someone of intelligence before he left for Rome, or the army would be ill-prepared to meet Parthia’s defenses.

  “What do I do now?” I asked, still standing. Apparently, I was doing it, for the horn blowers played another fanfare and two drivers came onto the field, this time riding in two-horse rigs. They pulled up to the starting line and waited for the signal.

  “Hold up that handkerchief, you idiot,” Gabinius hissed
. I did that.

  “Now drop it!”

  When I let it flutter out of my hand, four flag bearers on both sides of the track lowered their poles and the first race began. Each heat of this first contest was two laps, then another pair raced till their were five finalists. These five then raced against each other to discover the winner. By the start of the final race of this first contest, I was becoming quite proficient at raising and releasing my handkerchief with aplomb. Following this first event, there would be two more races, a three-horse contest, and the wild and most dangerous finale, where the drivers would ride chariots pulled by four horses.

  While we watched, Mercurius pointed out a charioteer with bright red hair. His name was Varro. He was eighteen, slave to the largest stable owner in the city, and if he won the grand prize today, he’d have enough to buy his freedom. He rode for the greens, but today he was everybody’s favorite. In Aramaic, they called him The One Who Sings.

  “Do you ride?” I asked Melyaket. The race was very close. Three greens and two blues were all within a chariot’s width of each with only one lap to go.

  “Oh yes. Every day, if I can. My people practically give birth on horseback. And you?”

  “The same. We build our schools, write treatises, prepare complex medications, all mounted.”