The Far Arena

by Richard Ben Sapir

  The giant is gone, and I am warm again in soft and gentle places that beckon me for my final rest. Remembering the beginning of the disaster was only an interlude. What a great relief to go off without the pains of the mind. It is enough that I lived through it once.

  Poor Plutarch. He trusted me. And Demothenes. And my Miriamne and Petronius. No greater danger has anyone than a fool for a close ally. Better a ferocious and a cunning enemy than an unreliable friend.

  Plutarch himself went to my body as we waited for the games. He mentioned no scars on the back and said to all those in the cubicle that the reason I lived so long was that I had cunningly purchased him and then did not let him fight. He knew, of course, that he had been given an ample demonstration that even his good size would not help him survive long, but it was like one of those untested fancies that do no harm while they remain fancies and untested

  My problem that day was that I would discover what I did love and did not love at the worst possible time. It was a day of much blood and vengeance and started well.

  The former master of the games, who had taken the bribes not to insist on elephants at the Vatican games that led to the riot, was the first attraction. After the priests had examined the liver of a goat to determine if the day was suitable to the gods - they always were - the man was led out to the centre of the vast arena. His body, but for his right arm, was covered with easily inflammable pitch. He was chained in such a way that he could not move his body. Then, with ropes bound to his clean right hand, arena slaves drew it over burning wood. If he could keep his arm there and let it burn off, he would be free and save his life. To move the arm would make his pitch-covered body a torch.

  The other slaves asked Plutarch if they could watch from the slip above us. Plutarch selected one, who described everything in the arena. The master's arm was momentarily in the flames, and then he was a torch He had tried to take his arm away from the flames.

  The new master of the games had the next event moving into the arena before his predecessor stopped screaming. Domitian had uncovered another plot against his life the day before among three senators. They were blindfolded, tied together, and given swords. Domitian both fought the senate and yet simultaneously wanted its public approval for his laws.

  While one senator struggled free and the other two lay wounded the bears were sent in. Unlike lions, they were simply starved and did not have to be specially trained to eat human meat. They feasted and the crowd roared its approval. While they were feasting, a large platform like one used to assault a walled city was rolled into the centre of the arena with Domitian on top and horses moving it underneath. From there he hunted the bears with bow and arrow.

  I would be next, followed by the criminals, Germans, and Jews willing to fight for their freedom. There had not been enough of these last in the city, so Domitian decreed that Jews building another aqueduct were lazy; and to teach them the value of hard Roman work, he sentenced seven hundred of them to the games. Half would dress as Samnites and the other as hoplites; the most valorous of the survivors were to be given their freedom, with the cowards to be crucified and set aflame in the arena. It was not the best strategy - none is that depends solely on force. But Jews were all Domitian had in numbers for such hasty games. He would have preferred to match different people instead.

  The cheers were good. I became quiet, and the unctores worked oil into my body as I lay on my stomach, I watched my sword slave prepare my spatha, a longsword. He kept the pommel wrapped in cloth lest oil touch it, the oil with which he wiped the blade. It was of special steel made in Iberia and forged on one of my latifundia there. It was less hard than other steels but also less brittle, since I did not wish to find myself with a stub in my hands at a crucial moment. The spatha, unlike others, used the blade only for deception. The point was what 1 used for damaging work. My shield of soft wood wrapped in iron straps, the size of a feeding bowl was a punching and blocking tool with which I could wrest some small momentary advantage. That was all I ever needed, preferring to work a small, safe advantage into another advantage and so on, until only the illusion of conflict remained, with my opponent fighting with a shattered knee or ripped stomach tendon. I could also pound a skull into meat with the helmet still in place, so it would look as though a groggy man were still dangerous.

  Publius had arrived with family retainers, although most of his friends, as did most patricians, publicly dissociated themselves from him, saying it was a disgrace that he should appear in the arena.

  As each wrapping and each piece of armour went on, I was informed. Legionnaire sandals, metal and leather skirt, metal chest piece, and helmet. But it was not an officer's helmet. I had assumed Publius' fancy would endorse his patrician tastes, and he would parade out before Rome like some shiny general. He had come to fight. Good for him.

  Perhaps terror had finally made him vulnerable to wisdom. He had the scutum, the large rectangular shield of the legion, which could cover a man's body. Stretched side to side by a thousand legionnaires across a valley, it became a wall. In the arena, it would be little more than baggage. It was too heavy. I could move around it with as much ease as Publius. The short sword - the staple of the legion - was a good instrument, especially in a mass of bodies at the close. In the arena it lacked range, but could still do a craftsman's job.

  Publius also carried the pilum, a regulation spear of the legion. At twenty paces, the ranks of the legion hurled these simultaneously, like a descending flock of birds. Then the next rank would move in solid against the stunned opponents. In the arena it had not been used by combatants because one pilum with one man would be a one-throw match. My problem with the pilum was my small round shield. It was meant to deflect and push a thrusting object, not a flying one. The pilum might cause a wound.

  But the threat was not to my life. Even if Publius had my speed and strength and my perfect weapons and I but a club, still I would emerge alive. I had walked on arena sand, and Publius had not. There are too many things happening in the arena for a stranger to survive. Not only is the sand different, but brief moments become like long afternoons, and the unprepared mind loses the strength of the body too quickly. A person can watch the games for a lifetime, and yet, when he moves over the wall to the sand below, he enters a country he has never seen before.

  There was no question of losing my life in the arena to Publius. None. I feared only a wound, a hurled pilum. One that would either disable me in such a way as to give a bad performance, and thus create the necessity of negotiating another sort of final departure from the arena than the wooden sword, or give me some disfiguring wound to carry as a remembrance of Publius for life. Worried about his being too slow, I now worried about his being too fast at the beginning with that pilum.

  'Sweat him,' I said, and one slave was sent to Domitian's emissary and another to the new master of the games. He sent back a runner to say that he could not delay the event, even for the great Lucius Aurelius Eugenianus.

  Sweating Publius meant delaying our entrance. While he stood baking in the legionnaire armour inside the tunnel, I rested unclothed with the fresh air of my chamber as my slaves kept my muscles limber.

  Three times the master of the games called me. Three times Plutarch sent back word that I was on my way. The nervous grumble of the mob was heard. As I received word the master of the games was coming to my chamber, I stood up, my hands wrapped in soft cloth so no oil would touch them. My slaves fastened a pure white cloth around my waist and sandals to my feet. I met the master of the games in a tunnel and suddenly ran past him. Without his presence in the entrance, I was able to come upon Publius from behind. As I was told, Publius stood holding heavy scutum and pilum in full armour, waiting as though on the Campus Martius parade ground.

  I slammed Publius's steel helmet with my right forearm. One cannot do this with experienced gladiators or with the master of the games present. Publius tumbled like a sack of apples from the surprise blow. The arena crowd did not see this.
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  Immediately my wrappings were off my hands. My slaves had the small punching shield in my dry left hand and my spatha in my right, and I trotted out of my sandals into the bright, hot sun of the summer day and before Rome, which greeted me with a cheer of relief as much as joy. Their waiting was over. I signalled towards the entrance tunnel where Publius in darkness was regaining his feet, his shield, and his pilum. The short sword was strapped to his side in a sheath.

  I waved my spatha as though inviting him out. The crowd cheered. I shrugged and turned my back on the tunnel. The crowd booed as Publius entered, jogging to catch up. Publius must have looked very funny trying to run on sand in full armour because the crowd began laughing, and I joined too, careful to pump my body so the laughing gestures could be discerned. In this way, we moved towards Domitian, I, rested and warmed in the sun, Publius, in the heat of anger with metal about him baking.

  For the crowds, I stretched my muscles as I walked. Little groans and shrieks came from women, young girls, and even the elderly. They waved bits of cloth. It was really a silly display. Miriamne would have laughed me from my peristilium if I had attempted it at home. But in the arena, folly becomes grand spectacle, and grand spectacle was my worth to the people of Rome. Killing was only part of my performance.

  You can see faces more clearly from the sand than they can see you, yet there is a feeling of being very far away from them. Domitian showed the flush of his recent hunt. His wife, Domitia, was not there although I had expected her. She had not attended games since Domitian had uncovered a plot between her and her lover - an actor named Paris. Paris died in the arena. Domitia was sentenced to stay in the palace for a month. I thought she would come for my final performance since one time after a match she had arrived at my chambers herself, demanding to see me fully undressed. As though I were a slave, she removed my garments and touched me all over. I have never been so grateful for a failing erection in my life. Perhaps the terror of it helped me.

  Domitia left, saying I should visit her when it regained its youth, referring to my penis, which she had assaulted with hand and lip and tongue. I feared telling Domitian and feared not telling him. But after a week of racking, helpless worry and doing nothing, the incident passed - her vagina was more dangerous than any sword.

  We approached the emperor and, looking up, I saw Domitian was pleased. Before we gave the formal salute, he leaned down to us, and I could see that his carefully arranged hair hid great baldness. With a sidelong glance I noticed Publius' family - father, mother, relatives, and retainers - sitting to Domitian's left. I was not sure, but it appeared as though the mother were eating. The father seemed stunned.

  'Do you have enough armour ?' asked Domitian at full lung. He looked down at Publius.

  'Enough,' said young Publius sternly.

  'And you, Lucius Aurelius Eugenianus, do you not have too much armour?' asked the emperor. By pointing out the disparity in apparent protection, Domitian also won himself approval from the crowd, for they laughed. The arena carries voices very well.

  Only a very few understood that Publius had no protection at all.

  In years before, all gladiators dressed in heavy armour of Samnite style. But this iron hacking iron could go on for hours, and to create entertainment the masters of the games removed more and more armour until many private arenas featured men fighting nude. It was all entertainment for the seats, from the retiarii with nets and tridens especially invented for the arena to Thracians with sharp, curved daggers. They killed sloppily, these Thracians, and crowds loved it; for a man's insides quivering on the sand was entertainment, too

  'What about your armour, Eugeni?' asked the emperor, addressing me in the familiar term when the laughter had subsided. He knew the crowds and was a master of the dramatic. He had the face and body for it too - a tall, handsome man, made to seem taller because he always brought a small, misshapen boy with him to the games. His voice was that of an orator booming out so all could hear. His face was reddening, and I could see he was already well into wine for the day. I knew what he wished of me.

  'Perhaps I have too much, oh, great divine Domitian,' I said and unleashed my girdle to the sand. There I stood in the major arena of the world glistening nude. A roar came from the crowd. More entertainment, as though I were showing something everyone in the arena had not seen countless times before. Such is the madness of crowds.

  With a hand, Domitian signalled me to parade the edges of the arena as though in victory. I carefully deposited spatha and shield on the girdle, sure not to let the pommel or shield grip touch sand. Sometimes there is blood remaining in the sand.

  I stepped out of the girdle and strutted empty-handed along the wall. This, of course, as Domitian well knew, meant Publius stood even longer in hot, sweaty armour under the sun. He would fight in an oven.

  I looked at faces as I walked just beneath the seats and few eyes met mine. All the people saw was my body, but in their faces I could see their minds. Hungry women, envious men, the dissatisfied of the world thinking they were rulers of that world, when they were slaves to their basest passions and most absurd myths. Publius' father looked at my face. Publius' mother's eyes did not meet mine. They looked lower, and I knew I could have her if I wished, even after her son was slain by my hand. That worn face would probably even enjoy it more because of the killing. Roman motherhood.

  My face was a mask, a proud, smiling, happy mask to tell the crowd that I loved them and loved to fight for them. As I walked beneath the wall, I let the sun warm my body, and ever so slightly I exercised. Every once in a while I would glance at the bundle of iron standing erect before Domitian in legionnaire salute. The tip of the pilum quivered. The arm muscles were tiring and we had not yet exchanged a blow.

  As I passed the seats of the vestal virgins, I covered my loins with my hands, and everyone laughed. A laugh in the arena sounds like a growl. Upon my return to the emperor, I nodded slightly to Domitian. Thus did gladiator send order to emperor, a signal that now would be fine to begin. But young Publius chose to rob himself further of energy. He asked to speak. Domitian granted his wish.

  Publius gave a short talk about the honour of his family, the honour of Rome, and the honour of death that is honourably met. This touched the crowd somewhat and I could see Domitian's face anger. He would not allow this little patrician to die with sympathy.

  Domitian rose ceremoniously to speak in oration stance. He talked of honour, too. He talked of fair combat with both men armoured equally. He talked of prideful boasts not being honour but shame. He talked of the dishonour of wearing legionnaire uniform in the arena, thus robbing the memory of the true virtue of the arms of Rome, of men who often faced many times their number instead of one naked man.

  Domitian talked of the true honour of the Roman patrician who would never indulge in arena play. He talked of the honour of Roman motherhood, which he somewhat tenuously tied to the virtue of the legionnaire. He talked of the honour of the citizens of Rome, and by the time he was finished, this former soldier had praised everyone in the arena and showed Publius to be a thief of their honour. This he yelled, of course, since the arena demands things larger than truth.

  Before Publius could offer to take off his armour also, Domitian ordered combat to begin. Publius and I saluted, and I, having taken up sword and shield again, marched with him to the arena centre

  We separated by the proper paces.The arena was suddenly very quiet as it always is at the beginning of combat to death, like a massive silent gasp. Only in this arena can it be heard. I breathed very deeply; the stench filled my nostrils. I was at home. Publius quickly showed he had a plan of attack. Heavy scutum shielding his left side from assault, as though he were in a line of battle, he raised pilum to throw. It made a line at his ear, and his elbow was cocked for a short throw instead of a straight, open line for the more forceful but less accurate long throw. A long throw would have been nice. I had never seen one in the arena, only on parade grounds, but I half expecte
d Publius to attempt it. He didn't. His feet were not planted firmly either, another requisite of the long throw. I knew he did not intend to release until I came closer.

  At this distance and with Publius standing the way he did, it was a good time to provide the crowd with entertainment I danced around out of his range. I then stood facing him with arms outstetched as though offering a target. I turned my back on him with my head away, listening for his feet to grind in sand. At that distance it meant he was planting for the long throw which could reach me. The crowd yelled its approval, making it impossible to hear Publius' feet, so I turned my head as though scoffing him, but actually to see. His foot was still not set. He was not to be lured into casting the pilum at this distance.

  I tried bowing, looking only at his rear foot, the one I would be looking at even if I were standing. This appeared dangerous and the crowd loved it.

  I straightened and yawned. Laughter from the people of Rome. Publius still did not move. I would have to draw the throw at closer range. In semi-crouch, shield held forward just beneath my eyesight, I closed. To twenty-five paces I advanced. Twenty fifteen, and with each step Publius' prospects increased, not to advantage but to possibilities.

  I knew then in my heart, what I had always known in my head, why gladiators rarely made friends with gladiators. I was thinking as Publius held his throw: Good for you, Publius. Good for you. Smart boy. Good for you, Publius.

  Then the pilum came and I was under it and at him in one simple bound. Instead of trying to bounce me back with the scutum as I expected, or going for spatha and ignoring the use of the shield, or even one-handing the scutum to give him protection for his sword reach, he opened the scutum with one hand and reached for the spatha with the other, concentrating on neither. He was an open throat. Not even from a slave had I seen such a thing. He looked at me, stupidly, an open patch of flesh between breastplate and helmet.