The Far Arena

by Richard Ben Sapir

  'I did not know you had a PhD,' added the mother superior.

  'I don't. It was probably a student I knew who assumed I had accepted my doctorate and now is undoubtedly a professor near here. I am not sure who.'

  'One meets so many people when one travels so much,' said the mother superior. 'Do you think you should listen to the tape recordings ? I am sure we can get a player somewhere.'

  'I don't know.'

  ‘Why don't you know ?’

  'Because I am late for my class.'

  ‘Then do not let me detain you longer,' said the mother superior.

  Sister Olav rushed to the classroom. She had not mentioned why she was late. It would have embarrassed her. Today, and for the rest of the term, the class would read and translate the Aeneid. She especially loved the poet Virgil, and loved best the Aeneid, and when she had begun to read, preparing for today's class, she had not stopped reading until, while pondering one passage about time, she had realized she had forgotten the time and looked at her wristwatch. Other than the mother superior, she was the only sister with one.

  'Oh,' she had said. And was stopped on her way to class to answer questions about a package. When she arrived at the room, there was a substitute civil teacher, who was overly polite in assuring Sister Olav her tardiness was no great thing. Like other Scandinavian countries, Norway was overwhelmingly Protestant, and, the religious wars having ended centuries before, the residual contempt had been composted into an overripe courtesy, nourishing massive blossoms of delicate human concern. One could not walk through quickly without damaging, if one were in a rush. Like now. For this class. 'Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.' said Sister Olav, as quickly as she could and as respectfully as she could and as firmly as she could. She turned to the class.

  'My apologies for being late, especially today. I suspect some of you are wondering why we ran headlong into Virgil and into his Aeneid, instead of discussing the poet first. I had my reasons,' said Sister Olav and gave the substitute civil teacher a very thankful nod as that woman finally shut the door behind her.

  'When I first read this poet, it was like discovering sunlight. I find in Virgil the beauty of the discipline of Latin, the economy and genius of this language which gave a civilization and an organization to a world of warring tribes. In much of Europe, the Middle East, and the north of Africa, we see working remnants, like roads and aqueducts, of that civilization of almost two thousand years ago. Can any of you imagine a house built today lasting two thousand years, or a road? Virgil gives voice to their feelings of destiny and duty. How many of you felt this way about Virgil?'

  Sister Olav looked around the class at the twelve teenage students. This was a special class for advanced learners, the average student in this school not taking any Latin at all.

  There were no hands.

  'I am sorry,' she said. And she was, for them. She began the famous lines of the great poem about the founding of Rome, 'Arma virumque cano...'

  This poem she did not have to translate mentally into Norwegian. She knew the words and the metre and the meaning as one.

  As she orated, she did not look at the slim, red-bound volume but recited from something deeper than memory.

  She closed her eyes and drifted with the metre, almost like a child hearing a beloved aunt tell a familiar story, each word an old friend to be greeted again in proper order with other old familiar friends. But with this poem, like mature works, there always seemed to be a new dimension, a new reality from which to experience one's being.

  Sister Olav knew she could most happily, in fact deliriously, live a life as a Latin scholar. And this was the problem.

  The most threatening problem. It was the reason, too, why the metropolitan of Oslo allowed her, after so many thousands of pounds invested in her education, to abandon it as a danger to her soul. Her argument was quite simple.

  She found herself uncontrollably thinking poetry during the Mass and more and more considered her religious duties an interference.

  The metropolitan had asked her if she did not think that perhaps her calling was not the Dominican order but scholarship.

  'I would lose my soul, Father,' she had said. She did not call him by his more formal title. It was a powerful argument.

  To be sure it was not a whim, she was told she would teach for a year while living in the Dominican convent at Ringerike. If at the end of one year she still felt the same, she would forgo her scholarship and become a contemplative, taking final vows for the order. Granted, this was rare, but so was the situation.

  'A pity such a fine education cannot be used in this world without such a danger, Sister Olav,' the metropolitan had said.

  But it was a danger, as her tardiness this day had shown, and danger again as she realized she had taken the time of twelve students, sailing off into her own reverie on the magnificent winds for the Aeneid.

  'Per,' she said pointing to the first pair of eyes she met. 'Please. The translation beginning with the first book.'

  'My apologies, Sister Olav, I did not prepare my translation. My father was ill last night, and we had problems at home with the plumbing, and my mother was ill, too. I am sorry.'

  'He is sorry he watched the television movie,' said a girl viciously. The boy spun around briefly with a nasty look.

  There was an explanation, he said. He did watch a movie, he said.

  'But it was because it was about Rome, and I thought there might be something I would miss, whereas with the wonderful poem of the Aeneid, and my favourite Roman poet who was born in 70 BC and died in 19 BC after writing...'

  "The movie was about gladiators and killing and sex,' said the girl.

  'Whereas the Aeneid,’ said the boy, ‘will be with us, forever and eternal, because Virgil is the greatest poet, like sunlight. Which I feel also. And the movie was so bad I am sure we will never see it again.' He waited, wondering whether this surprisingly neat bit of dodging would work.

  'It was an American movie,' said the girl. 'I turned it off, to do .my studies. I am prepared, Sister Olav.'

  She had done him in again, thought the boy.

  'Thank you,' said Sister Olav. 'But there is something more important going on here.'

  She pressed her hands over the slim volume. The room was warm on this chill day in the early spring. She spoke directly to the young man, Per, and she spoke slowly.

  'You watched the movie because it was entertaining, and this unfortunately was not. Unfortunately for you, because I think this is better fare,' she said tapping the book. 'But since you watched a movie about gladiators, I think you should know most gladiators were slaves, and, more often than not, they were to the best of my knowledge often not the main attraction at the Roman games.'

  'This gladiator married the Christian and gave up killing,' said the young man in defence of his misspent evening.

  'Most of them did not have the right to give up anything. Most were slaves, and it was such a difficult life, free men would rarely stay in the arena when they had a choice. It was not like soccer or boxing.'

  'My father says the games were used as an opiate for the masses,' said the girl, 'to keep their minds off the class struggle.' 'That is a Marxist interpretation, and while it has some validity, the games to the Romans meant different things at different times. At first they were religious, in honour of the dead, and they evolved into politics. But that's for historians. We are learning a language.'

  'She is anti-Christian, Sister,' said Per, seeing a good way to retaliate against his tormenting classmate.

  Sister Olav slapped her right hand forcefully on the book. 'We have a choice here. Do we concentrate on the good things of Rome, or do we waste this good morning on one of the more shameful aspects of Roman life, which I am not altogether well equipped to deal with? In other words, do we deal with the philosophies and legends of what many believe may have been the greatest civilization man has known, or do we deal with its garbage? That is the question. Glory or garbage. What do you want?'<
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  Not a moment passed before the girl proclaimed she was not anti-Christian. 'The gladiators and the lions and the tortures were all part of an oppressive slave society,' she said.

  'Gladiators were the best fighters in the world. They were real men. That's what you hate,' said the boy.

  'There were prostitutes under the seats, too,' offered another boy.

  'And animals that were trained like you wouldn't believe,' said another young man, who had ponies on his father's farm.

  In the back of the room, one girl, who tended to stare out the window in a dreamy state quite often, jumped in with facts about which races went into the arenas and how, when her father had taken her to France, there was still an arena left, but she didn't know if it was a fighting arena or a theatre.

  The period ended and no one translated the first sentence of the classic poem.

  At the convent another package had arrived and the mother superior suggested that since Sister Olav did have the knowledge possibly to help the university, she should do it. Dr Petrovitch, said the mother superior, was almost certain the language had some form of Latin base.

  'There are many forms of Latin. It was the world's main language at one time,' said Sister Olav.

  'The university has also kindly sent us a machine to listen to the tape recording,' said the mother superior, in a manner indicating that if the university people were nice enough to do one thing, then the convent should respond.

  Sister Olav noticed that a tape was already in the recorder on the mother superior's desk. It was also a very cheap tape recorder, not like the ones linguists used.

  The first tape was a mumble with a possible Latin word which was similar enough to any Romance language - French, Spanish, and the like - to make the pronunciation uncertain even with a good machine. The speaker, a man, said he was cold.

  But on the second, a few words were clearer. Sister Olav's face reddened, and she cleared her throat. She inhaled the stale air deeply and felt a flush warm her from her toes to her forehead.

  'Yes ?' asked the mother superior, concerned.

  'Where did this come from ?' asked Sister Olav, her voice now demanding and not obedient.

  The university.'

  'May I see the postage mark?’

  'It was Oslo. Why do you ask ?'

  This time the mother superior was stern.

  'I have a class. And today we discussed the Roman games, and on this tape, as you may be aware, the Latin is first person, generally, and while the person is mumbling, it is clear the person considers himself a gladiator, or someone close to a gladiator, who is bargaining for his services. Moreover there is a reference to an emperor in the familiar.'

  'I didn't hear that. I am not totally ignorant of the language of the Church,' said the mother superior. 'Even though it is not classical Latin,'

  Sister Olav turned the plastic dial on the handle of the little tape recorder and replayed one word three times.

  'He is praying to God,' said the mother superior.

  Sister Olav shook her head. 'After the emperor Augustus, Roman emperors were considered divine, gods on earth. But do not look shocked. I think this is the work of one of my students and not a product of the university.'

  'How can you tell?'

  'In the more coherent tape, there are five grammatical mistakes. Those youngsters have left their sloppy little fingerprints.'

  Third Day - Petrovitch Report

  Condition improved. Now critical. No paroxysmal ventricular tachycardia in last twenty-four hours. Tests for motor-nerve conduction velocity today. Astounding. Basic reflexes abnormally good. SGP-T level down. Liver function improving. EEG of brain activity, still inordinately intense. Important questions remain to be answered by American.

  Some men are sentenced to the arenas, others are sold into it. Vergilius Flavius Publius talked his way in. Like a trireme adrift in a shifting sea, young Publius navigated his besotted way through a night that felled many an armoured and cautious man.

  Morning finding him alive and vocal, he attempted to share some master stroke for governing the empire with the senate of Rome. The senate, grappling with a city aflame, lacked its usual tolerance for wild schemes of drunken patricians and ejected him. Publius thereupon attempted to lecture slaves near the forum on the degeneracy of Roman virtue, this degeneracy being especially prevalent in the senate. He proclaimed the patrician class as being unworthy of the name Roman. He said the empire was being run by Greeklings. He said the greatest man in the empire was half-Greek and more Roman than all the senators set end to end. He praised my name. He cried. He cursed my name. The slaves, having duties, failed to pay Publius what he considered proper heed. He dismissed them as slaves. Slaves should act like slaves. It was when senators acted similarly that the empire was in trouble. Slaves and senators being unworthy of the beneficence of his genius, he stumbled his way through the smouldering city to the Circus Maximus where Domitian, who loves the races, was examining new horses. This was not a race day.

  The praetorians, sensing a gift of a solution to a troubled city, allowed Publius entrance. Standing before the emperor, awash in wine and untethered confidence, Publius cautioned the divine Domitian to show more respect for the patrician class, lest he make a Caligula of himself. He noted Domitian's virtues and faults from weaning to administration, then passed out in his own vomit.

  He recovered shortly, according to my informants, and was given more wine by a slave. A sober man would have taken good counsel of fear when he saw Domitian smile. Everyone of the arena knows he takes great pleasure in blood.

  Nor did Publius wonder why an emperor would pay such respect to his words, thinking it a proper response in the natural order of things. Domitian said he always had a great respect for the Flavians, of whom Publius was one and thus a distant relative of Domitian himself. And, therefore, the emperor would not hold Publius to his word, especially one given in wine.

  Publius answered that his word was the word of a Roman. A praetorian officer interrupted his divine emperor, and even this did not loosen some little stream of doubt in Publius' dam of confidence. The officer said the emperor should not hold a man so young to his word, a man who obviously had many years to go to reach his mature strength and skill.

  And if this were not enough, yet did Domitian play his game out further. He argued with the praetorian, and there stood unsuspecting Publius, witnessing an emperor justifying himself to a bodyguard.

  'Publius is a Roman,' said Domitian. 'A real Roman is born with sharpened steel in his blood and a taste for combat in his liver. This is a Roman you worry about. If we had but a thousand Publiuses, no border would ever suffer trespass, nor barbarian muse some thought of confronting the eagles of Rome.'

  Publius weaved and was held steady by slaves. He said he had one regret and that was that there were no barbarians within his grasp. He would like to see the entire arena filled with Germans, yellow-haired and horrifying.

  The emperor said this might be arranged after Publius fulfilled his promise, which the emperor would be willing to forget, since Publius was a patrician and perhaps did not wish to appear before multitudes in combat with only a Greek.

  To this Publius answered, 'Roman steel is Roman steel and cuts everywhere.' While this was distinctly unclear to logical minds, Domitian interpreted it as Publius' being unwilling to desecrate a promise.

  'You are matched individually with that Greek, Eugeni,' said Domitian and then turned loudly upon his praetorian. 'You see what a Roman promise is. It is greater than his life, greater even than Publius' friendship for that gladiator. This is a Roman you look upon. Look well, there are not too many surviving in the city today.'

  And Domitian called in many from outside to look upon a real Roman. He had senators witness this also as well as those of the equestrian class and, of course, the praetorians.

  My informants and retainers had this news to me even while Publius stood before the gathering crowd. As each new citizen of importance
heard this, an informant ran from the circus to my abode. This took some time because my city home was a well-fortified network. On the outer fringes were the tall buildings with living units stacked one upon another, a peculiarity of Rome, where space is so important that people would live vertically. Behind this square were what appeared to be wide avenues, but they all narrowed and turned into the one at the right of the square, so that, should a raging mob burst the outer perimeter, it would be fed like rivers into the wide avenues and then pressed rightward, which is the natural direction of people in hysteria. This would bring them into conflict with others of the mob also pressing rightward. One does not stop a strong force like a mob, one delays it and teases it elsewhere. The real entrances to my home were narrow passageways off these turning streets that led to the walls of my home which enclosed my gardens and sleeping cubicles and kitchens. From several cubicles there were also underground passageways that led outside the farthest tall buildings. When one depends on the mob for one's fame, one takes the proper precautions against its flittering affections.

  Since there had been a night of riot, my informants were deployed at each perimeter, lest a disguised madman seek to enter. When you are part of so many people's thoughts and fancies, as am I, you have many strangers thinking themselves passionate friends or enemies without your slightest real collaboration. In any case, I was too late to stop what had begun.

  My questions were brief. Who witnessed the promise? Which senator? Which equestrian? Which faction? Were there those who ridiculed the promise ? Where did the patricians stand ? Had this information become public knowledge yet? No matter, it would soon be so. When the sun was directly above us, I knew the fate of Publius was inevitable. I would have to kill him in the arena. I could not keep him out. I could not substitute some other combat or even provide games myself or help his family provide games.