The Far Arena

by Richard Ben Sapir

  Unfortunately, this senator did not have much of a following. A full third of the senators who came to interrogate me trusted no Greekling. To them I was stone. Yet they told me which streets they could not travel, and how long it took them, and how many armoured slaves they brought with them. All this told me Domitian's problems with the city remained ominous, day after seething day.

  Lucius Aurelius Cotta came, with several relatives and a small following of other senators. He told me how I disgraced the family, bringing shame to a name borne by two praetors and, in the ancient days, a consul. He turned to his following, his white hair so immaculately placed in small lines over his forehead, his toga white as the finest bread.

  'I will take this offence we see before us from our family rolls. No longer will he bear our name. No longer will he share in the treasury of virtue which is the Aurelii. No longer will he enjoy our protection and influence.'

  Several spoke approval. The old patriarch said he must disown me alone, however. Face to face. One man to one man, to show me how Romans did things, not with cunning helpers and spies, but alone.

  When they were gone, fully gone, for one tarried and impatiently the patriarch motioned him from this room in Domitian's palace, Lucius Aurelius Cotta, who had once so publicly freed me, now privately told me I was no longer an Aurelius.

  'And we lose the best blood we ever had, Eugeni. No. Do not embrace me. Things might be seen even though we do not see the seers. Thank you for not mentioning me to Domitian.'

  "There was nothing to mention,' I said, still surprised that he thought me the best of the Aurelii. Petronius had only told me what I had felt before, which was why I had been sad that night. And now I discovered I was wrong.

  'Many men in fear give Domitian what they think he wants. You could have sent me to the arena with a word.'

  'I had other problems at the time, dominus,' I said.

  'Your adoption by us was political. And you had few friends, but you were the first Aurelius who did not buy his honours. Today was the first day you did not look enviously at my patrician piping on the toga. Good for you. In my heart you will always be an Aurelius, the best of us.'

  This shocked me, as though seeing a stone statue move. Did he mean it ? And if he meant it, why did he mean it ?

  ‘They say you went first to your money and abandoned your wife and child. They laugh at you for your Greek mother. But I tell you, they would leave their wives and children and me, this I know, for their fortunes. You are cunning and brave and good. Thank you for being part of us for a while. We are the better for it. Not you.'

  A sudden weeping seized me that I had not known since I was a child. So deep, the sobbing had a life of its own. I cried, and the tears were full upon my face, and I was not all that sure why I cried, only that it was as deep and true as anything I had ever felt.

  'Good-bye,' he said, and then loudly, 'you may never use the name again.'

  Domitian may have had as many problems as I had. I tried to concentrate on his situation to give me respite from thinking of Miriamne and Petronius. With good fortune and cunning, it now became apparent I might even be able to get back to them.

  With me and my money the focus of Domitian, barring some chance misfortune, they would make their way to Jerusalem. There, she might be happier than in Rome. Although she loved me.

  She would find another. I had given her all I could.

  These thoughts again became tears. When another senator wanted to see me, I was relieved. This one grinningly told me he was himself going to vote for maiestas, for indeed the very gods roiled at my desecration.

  'The gods, senator, are only offended by what the senate knows,' I said. When he left, I refused to allow any thoughts of Miriamne and Petronius to cut further. Rome had me. It would not look further.

  Maiestas was a good charge. Domitian's problem was not the charge or the conviction, it was the punishment. I doubted that he feared me loose in the arena winning again. As his captive I could be sent in drugged. These things happened. No. Our divinity was unable to stage the games now, and probably for weeks. He could not get the animals through the city without dispatching armed men he kept around the palace. And even if he should be able to organize, games on such notice, which was impossible considering the tumultuous state of the city, the mob might riot immediately, just by seeing so many of themselves together.

  Nor could he keep me here safely much longer. Those armed cohorts were not on the parade grounds of Campus Martius. He was not going to keep something that required that sort of protection much longer. He couldn't kill me safely, and he couldn't keep me safely. He might just publicly get rid of me. But how?

  A princeps of the praetorians, one of the two commanders of that guard, interrupted my thoughts. His handsome face was well oiled, and his muscled cuirass must have cost a small estate.

  'Lucius Aurelius Eugenianus, we have a fine showing of slaves for you,' he said. 'Come.'

  If I had wanted to attract more attention to myself, I could have owned a palace like this with as many rooms as this, and, marching through this gigantic structure, I was glad I didn't. One does not own a home this big, but occupies a small piece of it, and hears only partial reports about the rest. I was lost by the time we reached the entrance to a vast peristilium with the natural opening to the sky almost as big as an arena. But this royal peristilium was a shock. Instead of the flowers and little trees and graceful statues and seats, there, inside Domitian's palace, was a scrounge of a slave market. I would have been less surprised to have seen oxen grazing here.

  There was the wheel on which a slave was shown, and small stalls in which they were stored. There were poor wooden bowls for their meals and a few chains for the recalcitrant. Women, some with their legs chalked white to show they were fresh from the provinces, stood in the places of slaves.

  But they were not slaves. They, wore coarse slave tunics, some with breasts bare, yet they were not slaves on sale. One only had to see the well-cared-for faces, the brightness of the stance to know these were not property. For a slave on sale has the expression and droop of a person telling himself he is not where he is. He is there as little as possible. And these women were all active in the sharp movements of their heads. Some even giggled.

  'This is the great Lucius Aurelius Eugenianus, premier gladiator of all Rome,' announced the princeps to these women. He has come to loose his will on you. If you are lucky, he will ravish you. If you are unlucky, he will feed you to the lions he keeps in his house.'

  Lions in the house ? Ravish ?

  In a whisper, the praetorian told me to make my selection, starting on the right. Touch all the parts as though you are buying,' he said. ‘I never touched parts,' I said.

  'You owned slaves. You married one. Touch parts,' he said. 'I looked at slaves. I bought slaves. I didn't play with them. They are not toys.' 'Do it.’

  ‘You do it.'

  The princeps of the praetorians, the most prestigious officer in Rome, equalled only by the other princeps in military affairs, went to a matronly woman with hair only recently dishevelled, because it was still crusted with expensive lacquer, and he ripped off the rough tunic. The woman's breasts sagged like cheap wineskins. He played with them, squeezing here, poking there. The nipples rose hard. She liked it.

  'Examine her vagina,' he told me.

  'I'm not your vilicus,' I said.

  So he did it, roughly poking his finger into the triangle of dark hair flecked with grey. 'Too old,' he said. 'You do the next.'

  He took my hand in his oiled fingers, and I felt his calluses on his palm. He worked with a sword. He was still a praetorian. He placed my hand on the rump of a young woman. This supposed slave wore delicate cosmetics and jewelled rings.

  'Squeeze,' he said.

  I removed the hand and turned in disgust. These were wealthy women who for some reason were playing slave in Domitian's palace - a state they would have worked their whole lives to forget if they ever had tasted the true
dregs of the wine of it.

  'Eugeni,' called the slave on the wheel. 'Don't run. Enjoy yourself.'

  One of the praetorians had stripped a young woman in chains, and she writhed on the floor of a stall, moving her naked body as though a man had mounted her. He teased her with a finger. Another supposed slave helped.

  'Harder,' moaned the woman on the floor, and then for spite they both stopped.

  Touch me. Harder. Please,' she begged.

  If they wanted to fondle themselves, they could do it in goatskins, for all I cared. Chains or goatskins were both confessions of lack. A ripe plum did not need gilt embroidery, nor did fresh bread need a heavy sauce. Neither did the clear, good water of the north country need wine to make it drinkable.

  I had other business, even as a prisoner.

  ‘Eugeni,' called out the slave on the wheel. Her feet were chalked with white gypsum, and her wrists were fastened with heavy chains, too heavy for a recalcitrant slave. If one were to believe all the chains and shackles abounding in this peristilium, this was the most rebellious lot of slaves since Spartacus. And not a whip mark or iron burn on a one of them.

  'You used to do these things for money, Eugeni. Now that you are a traitor, are you too proud ?'

  Most of the supposed slaves laughed.

  I looked more closely at the slave on the wheel. Yellow German hair had been woven into her own - a fashion among the wealthy to imitate what they thought were their inferiors. The face was hard with a strong, proud nose, dark eyes, and contented flesh of forty years or more. The hands were smooth and delicate, the nails unchipped by labour. She had noble, thin lips. It was Domitia, Domitian's wife herself, which explained why a princeps of the praetorians was her servant.

  'Empress,' I said. 'My respects to your divine husband.'

  'You're such a bore,' squeaked Domitia. 'I told everyone you were really a bore, but no one believed me. They remember the games and that body of yours. They didn't believe your manhood lagged like a tired stew.'

  'Now they know their empress never lies,' I said.

  'I'm not your empress. I'm a dirty German slave girl. You can take me like the slave you married. I'm dirty. Our empress is a beautiful and fitting wife of our divine Domitian. I bed even with gladiators.'

  Then buy some. I am but a traitor awaiting his end.'

  'I'm a slave. I can't afford gladiators.'

  'My respects to our divine Domitian,' I said.

  Of course, Domitia was not about to let her plaything escape. She had me brought to another room with pillows on inlaid marble floors and a small cool bath in the centre of it. Into this room she entered as empress, clothed in a delicate stola, her hair woven high and regal, her fingers jewelled, her neck hung with large diamonds set on small chains of gold. She came with the wind of Egyptian musk, and we were alone. The gypsum had been cleaned from her legs, and she wore sandals of cloth and silver.

  She ordered me to pour her wine. I did, although I didn't know the proper portions of wine to water and took only water myself.

  'I would like to thank you for the other day,' she said, sitting in a cathedra - a chair with a back which women favour. 'It was the most exciting thing in years. Years. The praetorians ran back from the arena, Domitian himself running with them. You should have seen him screaming himself into the palace. Eugeni, it was the greatest show ever.'

  'What do you want ?'

  'That,' she said, pointing to my loins.

  'It seems to have an unwilling mind of its own,' I said.

  'You could make it willing. You used to do it for a few coins.'

  'But then I had a future. I have little need of money now.'

  'I am so lonely, Eugeni. He keeps me here, and I cannot leave.'

  'You seem to have adequate amusements.'

  The same faces and same walls. Eugeni, I have such a hard life. I am a loving woman, but I have no place to give my love.' She placed a smooth palm on my wrist.

  'There are three full praetorian cohorts,' I said.

  'I must choose carefully. I am empress, I have just a few selected praetorians. Domitian would not allow wantonness to be known, for I am empress. Let me have your body. You are not using it anyhow. I will pay you gold. Domitian will not mind.'

  'He is my emperor.'

  'But he will not mind. He knows he has forfeited his rights to me.' 'I cannot believe that.'

  'It is true. We are modern. He has accepted that he owes me what I owe him.'

  'You have met another Domitian. All you see in the arena is not real.'

  'No. He has a different problem. He is afraid. He keeps a sword under his couch for fear of assassination. Then he is afraid that while he sleeps I will take the sword and cut off his manhood, so he has not let me sleep with him for years.'

  'Why is he afraid of that?’ 'All men are afraid of that, no ?’

  'It is a fatal wound, but so is the heart or head or upper belly.' 'What I want to know is why you would do it for a few coins when you were a slave, and not now ?' ‘I was building my peculium for my freedom.' ‘You will still need money for the soldiers.' ‘I am given everything here.' ·But you won't be on your march.’ ‘I am going to be banished ?'

  'Why should I give you anything? You give me nothing. You are selfish with your body.'

  'Not so,' I said and placed a hand on her thigh.

  She smiled like a little girl surprised by attention from a man. She claimed I only wanted her for the information she would give but did not really want her body. I protested. Of course I wanted her body, I said. I had always hungered for her, I said. I had dreamed of her. I had thought of her face when I slept with others. I had wanted only her since I had first seen her but was afraid to ask, I said. She also demanded that I mean what I said, and I begged the gods to drop fire on me if every word I said did not come from my heart. This accepted, she allowed herself to be serviced, and I found out that banishment was forced on Domitian by the praetorians as the only sensible solution to a bad. problem. They had all told him that he could not keep the praetorians and the urban cohorts and the vigiles fully armoured around the palace indefinitely, for then the people would realize the palace felt besieged and make the attack that was still only in Domitian's mind.

  Domitian had suggested calling in a legion from Gaul, one from Iberia, and one from Africa. Both praetorian princeps said he would not be inviting his safety but three possible new emperors, reminding him how, when he had combined two legions several years before, they found they had a treasury sufficient for a rebellion. Since then no two legions could be combined. He was now suggesting that they bring in three. This was too dangerous.

  So it was agreed I would be marched through the city and out of the empire, and the entire city would receive donatives, as though they were legionnaires, the bread dole would be increased and there would be games in a month. They had already been selling off my lands and slaves and could pay for this now.

  'Under what law does he seize my property ?' I asked.

  'Ah, your love of money. What passion!' said Domitia. She lay beneath, her wants met, her smooth, stocky body the polished product of years of care. Her bellybutton, however, was no different from Miriamne's, except Miriamne's was in the centre of a stomach behind which was Miriamne, and from which had come Petronius, and in which I had spent myself many good times, easily and with all the natural glory of a bud opening to a spring sun.

  I had begun to think of life.

  'I said your money is your real love, Eugeni,’ said Domitia. 'Where is your mind ?'

  'I did not fight because I liked to feel my sword in someone's throat.'

  'Money is excrement,' said Domitia. She pouted. I stroked her cheeks.

  'It is not easy being the wife of Domitian. It is not easy living plots, and plots against plots, and being accused as regularly as a harvest of conspiring against his divinity.'

  'And I thought slaves had hard lives.'

  'Not as hard as mine, Eugeni. Not as hard as mine. A slave c
onsiders a piece of fresh fruit a victory and celebrates. What is my victory? To become empress? I am empress. To find a lover? I have so many lovers I have to buy new ones like you. You don't love me, Eugeni.'

  'Of course I do, Domitia.'

  'No. The game is over,' she said and pulled up her stola, pushing me away with her shoulder 'You know Christians believe all life is a game, and the real life comes after this one, and it is always beautiful.'

  'I am not that familiar with the Jews.'

  'Your wife was a Jew.'

  'Yes. I think so. Yes. Correct.'

  'You never loved any woman, did you ?'

  'You, Domitia.'

  'Did your father really die trying to retrieve the lost eagles of Rome in Germany ?'

  ‘No. That was what the mobs liked to believe.' 'He was Roman, wasn't he ?'

  'Most Roman of them all, Domitia. Sold me and my mother into slavery to pay a gambling debt.'

  'Dice or bones?' she said referring to games which required luck in the way square cubes or animal bones were thrown.'

  'I do not know. I was the bet, not the bettor.'

  'Were you old?'

  'Eight.'

  "They say you killed a man before you were ten ?' 'I was eight.'

  'How did it happen ? You must have been very ferocious.' 'I was eight. It was a lucky stroke.' 'It must have been exciting. Tell me about it. Tell me.' I caressed her breast and kissed her neck, but she pushed me away.

  'No, Eugeni. You want to make love to me to stop talking.'

  'Yes. Slightly, but only slightly less odious.'

  'Hah. Hah,' she said gleefully. 'I've hurt the great Eugeni. I've got through to you and I've hurt you.'