The Far Arena

by Richard Ben Sapir

  'How soon after I left Rome did they get Domitian?' I asked.

  ‘Quite shortly,' said Olava. ‘I see you know about Roman conspiracies. They murdered him with a sword kept under his pillow. Nerva succeeded him.'

  'He must have outfoxed the real conspirators who had me not slay Publius. They were supposed to slay Domitian in the ensuing commotion. They failed but said if I disclosed their plots, I would die. They were my guards while the senate debated maies-tas. I tried to get word to Domitian, but his very emissary was one of them. There were so many against him, and they had so much power. So much power. Yet if Domitian had known them in time, poor man, he could have moved. They had so many weak links. That is why they did not succeed on the day I let Publius live.'

  'So in the arena, in that fight that led to the charge of maiestas against you, your real motives were political. You failed to slay Publius as part of a plot'

  'Correct'

  ‘I see.'

  I pushed the light lever. I always believed the mind could create paradise, just as it did the fearful places. I had seen too many disembowelled men calmly watch their life leave, contented as men after a woman and a good meal.

  ‘I suppose there were many conspiracies,' said Olava.

  'Rome is gone for centuries. Let us not talk of the dirt of conspiracies. They are vile things. There was even the woman close to Domitian who was going to cut off his penis with a knife and display the penis in the arena,' I said, with enough, but not too much, horror in my voice. If that didn't get the old purple suet, I did not know my emperor.

  I let Olava know of three small hidden treasures, saying I wondered what had happened to them over the centuries. Then I was tired, I said, and needed my rest. My head felt funny. I could not remember names or places or specifics. Yes, I remembered the drug now. At the German Sea. The officer gave me something. As I had figured, the physician Semyonus arrived quickly and I gave him every detail through Olava of what I ate. And what the liquid tasted like. And all other things.

  'He says you were poisoned, Eugeni. The thermal reduction -the sudden lowering of your body temperature - stopped the action of the poison. You have been kept at near death, in a suspended state. You were, in effect, in a solution. Medically, he saved you from poisoning. He pumped out your stomach. I don't think you know how lucky you are, Eugeni.'

  Good fate, of course. One year ago I was one of the wealthiest men in the world, and today I was struggling to be free of an emperor's net.

  'If you had been discovered at any other time more than fifty years ago, you simply would have died of the poisoning,' said Olava.

  'You mean your miracles are only recent? They have not been built carefully, like Rome?'

  And at this, the man who called himself Semyonus the physician became excited. Olava had to talk quickly and sometimes to interrupt Semyonus to keep up with him.

  'There is no such thing as magic,' she translated. 'There are scientific principles, which scientists discover and write down, and these principles are followed by engineers who invent such things as what you call the flying monster or the electric lights. Scientists discover principles, engineers act on them. Yes?'

  'Hail the priests of Science and their temple slaves the engineers,' I said. 'Truly the god Science is a great god. You worship a great god.'

  'It is not worship. It is science.' Semyonus angry, Olava smiling.

  'I am sorry to have given offence to the god Science but you must understand this is a strange land to me. Will your god understand?

  Semyonus was very angry. Olava translated for him. 'Science, Eugeni, is immutable. It understands nothing and forgives nothing. It is what it is.'

  4A mysterious god, great for the Pantheon.'

  'Science is not a god. It would not like you calling it a god. If you think of it as a god, it will never let you know its mysteries. You must approach it in the scientific manner, with an open mind. Men devote years of their lives to it, their entire lives. It has given us everything we have today.' Thus said Olava for Semyonus.

  'Hail Science, giver of things,' I said. 'Let us sacrifice to it.'

  Lewus joined us and there was much talk. There was gloom on his face. They brought me to what was Semyonus's laboratory. And they expected me to believe this was not a creation of a Roman mind. Oh, Domitian, too much. Too much Domitian. Who but a Roman would keep frogs frozen solid? These barbarians?

  Another disclosure of their methods was the smell of the special incense. It was bitter. This, Olava admitted, was the smell of a drug that made people numb: ether.

  'I don't think you fully comprehend where you are or what has happened,' said Olava. She held her hands clasped in front of her, as though bound by an inner chain.

  Semyonus stood at some sort of martial attention in front of tall boxes made of solid steel, polished it was and apparently harder than the eating implements. There were square basins coated with a strange material like resilient wood, a new product called plastic. There were the lights above. Another thing, these lights gave off no smell. The physician Semyonus showed me a small orange fish swimming in a clear glass bowl. It was called a goldfish. Lewus looked at a metal disk on his wrist. By this he could tell the divisions of the day, like a sundial without the sun.

  'Wondrous,' I said. They put the fish and the water into a solid vessel because they said glass would crack in the cold. They put the vessel and the fish into one of the boxes and after a while removed it. The water was ice, like the German country.

  'Wondrous,' I said.

  The ice melted.

  'Now you will see the fish swim,' said Olava. 'This is important because you will understand what happened to you.'

  'Wondrous,' I said. The fish swam upside down, the white of its belly showing.

  ‘It didn't work,' said Olava. 'But these fish freeze during the winter and thaw out during the summer and swim. They do it all the time. If it had lived, this would have represented you.'

  They showed me worms. The worms became hard, then soft and wriggled.

  That's the general principle,' said Olava. The physician Semyonus looked disturbed.

  'Wondrous,' I said. 'Tell me, when Domitian was murdered, did that woman cut him where she said she would?'

  'We have no record,' said Olava.

  'He was not a bad emperor. He deserved better,' I said.

  'Do you miss Domitian?'

  ‘I miss Domitian, I miss the arena, I miss Rome and my position.'

  'Do you miss your family?'

  'Women and children are plentiful. Gold is not,' I said most disdainfully. 'You do not miss them?' asked Olava. 'Not much.'

  'Was that common in Rome, for people to feel like that?' she asked. 'Not uncommon.' 'Did the Christians feel that way?' 'I did not follow the cults.' 'The Jewish sect.' 'There were many Jewish sects.'

  'The one that believed in the resurrection of the body. The fish. Fishers of men?'

  'Yes. Yes. Publius was one of those.'

  The patrician you did not slay?' asked Olava. Her pale face flushed with excitement. Her stone hands fluttered briefly.

  'Oh, yes. One week he worshipped the bull, the next the god of the water, the next the unseen god of the second life.'

  'An early Christian,' she said.

  'Wondrous,' I said.

  'You have been given a rare opportunity. We have been given a rare opportunity.'

  'And science, also,' I added. Domitian would make himself known when he was ready. The ceilings here appeared very high.

  But the magician's drug could have made them thousands of miles high, if they wished.

  Lewus, the giant, said I seemed to be rather calm, Olava translated.

  "The arena teaches us control,' I said.

  She translated back to him, and he gave me a short nod, looking down on me as though I were some sort of a lying child. I poked the belly of the fish. It was still. Lewus left. Semyonus placed a large hand on my shoulder. He smiled. I smiled. Olava smiled. Why did they seem
so casual about the plots against Domitian? Undoubtedly, we were many miles from Rome and it might take a long time for word to go both ways. They might even be part of a real plot, although barbarians are usually too crude for this. Then why was I sure they were really the giant barbarians? They could be Roman and only barbarian in my drugged mind. I reached up and touched Olava's right breast. She gasped. Semyonus lunged at me. I moved around his slow-moving body with ease. Olava screamed at Semyonus. Apparently she tried to stop him from assaulting me.

  Another flaw in their armour. Touching could somehow break the spell, obviously. For everyone here avoided touching. It was apparent now because of the commotion. That was why I could not even touch myself without alarming Olava. She might not even be a woman, although the breast felt real.

  She explained that in her civilization they did not touch. That night, as she probed further into my daily life at Rome, how I lived, what I ate, what I believed, she cleverly cirumvented the plots, but returned to my casualness about Miriamne and Petronius.

  'Why is it, Lucius Aurelius Eugenianus, I cannot believe you?'

  'I am not proprietor of your thoughts, woman. Why do you ask me?'

  'Why do I believe you do not believe what you say?’

  'Am I to explain this to you, woman?'

  'I don't think you believe you are where you are.'

  'I have noticed some peculiarities, yes.'

  'What?'

  'You are a virgin, yet you associate with me. This is somewhat illogical.' 'I am trusted to keep my vows.'

  'Wondrous,' I said.

  In the morning she showed me artists' pictures of such exactitude one would swear they were real objects. There was the Flavian arena already in decay. There were the few stones of the Forum, as though demolished by a thousand barbarians. There was Hadrian's column chipped away here and there.

  Time did this, Eugeni.'

  'Time is invincible,' I said.

  'I am sure you do not believe me.'

  'Yesterday I was supposed to sort out your thoughts. Today you judge mine. I propose guardianship of ray thoughts and you of yours.'

  'You seem so sure of yourself in such a strange place.'

  'All places are strange and dangerous, woman, it is the fancy of the human mind to confuse familiarity with safety. A man can be a stranger to his own time and to himself.'

  'You seem quite thoughtful for a gladiator.'

  'My mother was Greek. I told you.'

  'Yes, you did. And nothing else about your childhood.'

  'I was a slave.'

  'What was it like?'

  'Wine, dancing, leisure.'

  'Seriously.'

  'We were latifundium slaves. Does an ox enjoy life? He lives. We were oxen with hands. It seems to give you some pleasure to dote on my slavery.'

  'Was your father a slave?'

  I was quiet.

  'Was your father a slave, Eugeni?'

  I looked out of the clear glass at the trees and grass and people going in their tight tunics and all the miracles I was supposed to believe.

  'Was your father a slave, Eugeni? You've gone into details about everything but your mother and father. Was your father a slave, Eugeni?'

  'No.'

  'But you and your mother were slaves, correct?' 'Yes.'

  ‘Why was that?'

  'Because it was.'

  'And what happened to your father?' 'He died before I could kill him with my hands. He cheated me of his life.'

  'I'm sorry. I'm sorry for you, Eugeni, not that you did not kill him.'

  'He is dead; like Domitian, like Publius, like the legions, like the senate, like all the slaves, and all kings of foreign lands,dead, Olava. For they all lived two thousand years ago but I, because of the god Science, live today. So dead is dead, and no more talk of the dead. Let us talk of you and Semyonus and Lewus and all the big people who dare not touch each other. Why?'

  She offered a hand and said 1 should touch it. I did. There were no calluses on the pads of the palm and fingers. She turned on the magic light, she turned off the magic light. She asked if Domitian would not have these things, if Domitian could. I said yes. She asked if Domitian would not have the machines that flew, if Domitian could. I said yes. She asked if Domitian would not have a plenitude of iron, such as was in the bed, if Domitian could. I said yes.

  Would not Domitian have machines that lowered him, if Domitian could ? I said yes, even as we rode in one. She asked me to repeat every detail of the march to the German Sea when it became cold. She asked me of all the cold times I remembered, and how it felt. She asked me how the cold felt at the German Sea-Then, she led me into the room Semyonus the physician was so proud of, where the goldfish died and the worms lived. Semyonus was there. She spoke with him. He chose the box in which the fish became ice. They opened a small door. Mist came from it. Its sides had icy snow like the German winter. She took my hand, and placed it on the cold. It stung, but the pain was good. It burned, as I had once burned. My hand became numb, as I had become numb, becoming even warm before the nothing I so well remembered now. My flesh adhered to the cold.

  'It is real, Eugeni,' said Olava. 'Take out your hand now. Take out your hand now. Let me help.'

  'Miriamne. Petronius. I love you,' I wailed. Semyonus the physician helped Olava the cult woman ease my flesh from the ice. They could have left it. I did not care.

  Twenty

  Sister Olav's Report

  Subject shows a deep monogamous attachment to his wife and son, typical not of imperial Rome 79 CE but of the early Roman citizen farmer, this despite the fact of mixed parentage: father Roman, mother a provincial Greek. Subject is highly familiar with political intrigue - who was in whose pay and who was on whose side - which was of crucial importance at that time, but meaningless today.

  His earlier statements before realization - if he has fully realized where he is - must be viewed with extreme caution. Tales of conspiracies and names of minor officials support a brilliant lie designed for Domitian's ear, not historical accuracy.

  Today we know Domitian was the father of the secret police. Yet the subject apparently used Domitian as much as he was used. As a gladiator, subject was a showman, and the show was political. They served each other's interests quite well until what the subject calls the second riot, most likely what we call today the fires of 80 CE.

  Subject reluctant to discuss motives for his causing the second riot. Motives are most intriguing because subject had to have understood the meaning of his actions in the one place he was most in command, the arena.

  Yet he turned the arena against himself, and Domitian, at a time when he could have left as its most successful participant n the long history of the games. Nor was this an emotional man like Publius (see earlier references), who might have been seized by some fancy. The subject, Lucius Aurelius Eugenianus, was a cunning, practical man, whose emotional involvement was directed almost exclusively to his immediate family, except for feelings of guilt towards two loyal slaves (see earner references).

  There is a garden here, like gardens that had been centuries ago, with grass like that grass, trees like those trees, new leaves like those new leaves, and the hot sun that has seen it all in a yawn. The sun does not share time with us in our meagre portions, our brief dollop that seems so big when first served and so little when done that we wonder where it has gone. Was it so big to begin with? Did I miss something?

  Mine was interrupted to end at a later time. Olava talks of purpose and of journeys. She will not accept my stupidity or hubris as a cause, when it is most apparent that I did a stupid thing, Rome did a vengeful thing, and nature performed according to its laws.

  There are grander purposes, intriguing ironies, accidents that are beyond accidents.

  I have already re-answered her questions about Domitian, now that I know he is truly gone. Ceasing to be a threat to my life, he loses his glory, but strangely enough he does not become especially evil, rather a bit cunning and a bit silly a
nd, most of all, overwhelmingly unimportant. Not to Olava, however. This barbarian never tires. I dig my hands in earth. Petronius' great-grandchildren, if he had them, are not even bones. It is a hard thing to think about and cuts the belly like a dull sword. If I had lived the whole time of their passing. I could accept this more easily, but in my feelings he is but a little boy and Miriamne my warm woman. I hate. I hate the fool Eugeni.

  Olava, soaring into her private pleasures, tells me she is going to tell me of a most exciting thing. I ask if it is about her own cult, but she says she has taken a vow not to discuss it at this time but first to serve science, which is not a god. This large, pale woman has more binding vows than a tribune. What excites her most is a great irony concerning what she has studied for her major recognition rank at a great academy in Britannia. People now study in Britannia.

  'Be prepared for a great irony,' she promises me. 'I studied the comparison between Aeneas and Ulysses. Is that not amazing?'

  'I am not aware of modern things,' I said.

  'Not modern. Homer was ancient Greek even in your time and told of Ulysses and the Trojan War. Virgil wrote the Aeneid, about Aeneas, the traveller who founded Rome and came from Troy. You knew the story of Troy, didn't you?'