The Far Arena

by Richard Ben Sapir

  'You are angry with me.'

  'I cannot be angry with time. You will have to do,' I said, and I smiled, to let her know that in my anger was also a bit of jest.

  On a street where there had once been so many temples it was called the 'sacred street', we found only a few bitter pieces of marble that were supposed to have once been the temple of Romulus, according to Olava.

  'I don't remember there being a temple to Romulus,' I said. 'No. That has gone from my memory. There was a temple here. But I don't think it was Romulus.'

  Now Olava was reading from a little book - the marvel of this age being machines producing things like that in perfect uniformity. Any nation in this day could put an army into the field with the same helmets, helmets still being used although not as necessary as once.

  'Romulus, the temple of Romulus,' she said.

  Now I knew by legend that Romulus was a founder of Rome. Olava read from her little book.

  'Ah, yes. Of course,' she said. "This Romulus was the son of Maxentius, and it was built in the year 300, our time. Christian era. That's after you.' She turned the pages in her little book.

  'On the Tiber, Eugeni, is a small circular temple, and a rectangular one in excellent condition.'

  Then do you have statues to your executed god in them ?'

  ‘No. They are preserved, according to this book, close to what they were at the Forum Boarius.'

  A fenced-in park marked where the temples were, the round, Mars, and the rectangular, Portunus.

  'I made public sacrifices to Mars there,' I said, and Olava, who had not written since the night in the cabin, now furiously wrote a short note into the book. The word I could read. It was 'Mars'.

  'They do not say that in the book?’

  'No. They didn't know. It's a very old temple, old even in imperial times, what we call your age now.' 'No it wasn't' 'No?'

  'I donated it. To honour my manumission and love of Rome, I believe. It was an Aurelian temple.'

  Then how would they not know this temple ?'

  ‘Maiestas, Olava, I offended the gods. I pay this price now.'

  'Eugeni, you did not believe in the gods then, why now? Do you believe that the senate could vote you two thousand years of time and this return ? What do you believe?'

  'I believe what I believe,' I said. Automobiles on black-topped streets moved where chariots and fine horses had once pranced a graceful gait. Where there had been marble, there was now brick, glass and all manner of tedious building. There was no triumph in this city any more, and the worst of it was that I did not see a Roman face. Not one Roman face. There were Germans, and Gauls, and Jews, and Egyptians, and mostly everyone mixed together with Greek. It was not that I thought less of the people, it was that I remembered what to me was last year. One year, and even my fondest enemies were no more. I even missed the arena.

  Given a match, I would gladly die on the sand if given guarantees that it would be a single death I died. But what I missed most was what I had once considered a chore. Those morning dealings with retainers and emissaries in my atrium, judging and gauging men, buying and selling, deceiving and being deceived, passing a comment for the moment, sharing a good thought, learning one. The daily business of my atrium.

  One year. Two thousand years. Ten thousand years. Where was my merciful end ?

  'Do you wish to make an offering to Mars, Eugeni? He was your household god. Here I would not object.'

  'No. Not in front of you, any of you. Those children over there. The automobiles. No. Not there. Not there at all. In no way do I wish it. No.'

  The sun set late, it being summer, and another thing I remembered, that was so long gone, was the smell. We had human waste smells and there was none, nothing but the burned fuel of the cars. It was perhaps cleaner, but it was not Rome.

  At the Flavian amphitheatre, not only had they taken the marble skin and cut out a gigantic wedge, like some monster half the size of the city taking a bite of stone, but someone had taken it upon himself to build another structure inside with little bricks like a tenement. This, Olava explained, was from a later age. They built the structure inside where the tunnels underneath the sand had once been. Even that paltry desecration was tumbling.

  In every arch - and there had been beautiful arched portals around the circumference of the entire Flavian - there had been statues. All had been removed without a trace.

  There was a plaque from the pontifex in bronze on one of the old stones. Olava said it was the pontifex who was the dean of all the priests of Rome, not the one who often acted as the chief augur for the games, but their descendant of Peter - the name pontifex having been taken from us.

  'Is there nothing you have not taken?' I asked. 'What does Peter's heir say about my arena ? You take things, you add things, without thought or proportion,'

  'It is a plaque to commemorate Christians who were martyred here,'she said.

  'Ridiculous,' I said. And then I found myself yelling. 'Look around. This was an arena. Up there was an awning. They could fill the base with water and have sea battles. This was a gladiator's arena. If I had been matched with the secutor here instead of the Vatican, I would not have had to witness this lie. This filth. These little runts running around where real men built real buildings.

  I would have grown old with Miriamne. Publius would still be my friend. This was the largest suitable gladiator arena. Look at the seats.'

  They were shorn, but anyone could see how everything could focus towards the centre where a fight could be concentrated on.

  'Look. Look. This was not a place for Christians. This was for gladiators. Christians were executed at the great circle where they raced horses. They were executed in numbers at the Vatican arena. The Flavian was never for Christians. It was too nice for that sort of thing. It was too nice an arena just for executions. It was for animals and gladiators.'

  'Eugeni,' she said sharply. 'The plaque acknowledges that. It acknowledges that Christians were killed elsewhere, but it commemorates all those who died.'

  I read the sounds of the plaque, recognizing a word here or there, the letters being familiar. 'I do not see secutor. I do not see tridens. I do not see Samnite. Or bestiarius who fought animals. I do not see even the great animals listed. Elephant or tiger or the African hippopotamus. Show me these things where true merit reigns. Show me.'

  'They are not commemorated, Eugeni.'

  Those who died commemorating others are not themselves commemorated?’

  'Yes,' she said, and she was firm in this.

  'That is life. But I tell you, when so many fine secutors died here, it is an abomination only to commemorate the criminals, Jews, Germans, Britons, and Gauls, those who did not compete here. Abomination. Yes, you called it murder. But you do not understand.'

  'Likewise, you do not understand, Eugeni.'

  'This is my arena, woman.'

  'Mine, now, by time.’

  We were in a passage that had been public and was public again. A man my size, who looked very much like Plutarch but without the flesh, and of course dressed in modern leggings and speaking a modern debasement of what was spoken here so long ago, a year ago, forever ago, when this was beautiful, this man talked to me and Olava.

  The supports for the seats could be seen bare now. If I had lived the normal span, I never would have seen them bare as they were while being built.

  Quiet it was, but for the noise of the machines circling outside. The man was insistent and Olava shook her head.

  'What does he want?'

  'He wants to show you around.'

  'Me?' I said, and then yelling. 'Me? Me? Show me? The Greekling would show me, Lucius Aurelius Eugenianus? Me? He would show me? I'll show him his liver in his hands.'

  'Please,' begged Olava throwing herself in the way.

  'Show me ? Me ? Show me ?'

  'He doesn't know, Eugeni. He couldn't know, Eugeni. Please, Eugeni.' 'Show me?' ‘Eugeni.'

  'Me, he would show me.' ‘Please.'r />
  'He would show me an automobile with fishermen in it, he would show me. Show me.' 'He doesn't know.' 'My arena.'

  'Yours,' she said quietly, both of us knowing I was wrong. No longer mine it was but, as she had said, hers.

  It was not a battle I was equipped for, seeing this again, so far away, this far arena, so far from home. So long ago. A week ago. A year ago. Two thousand years ago.

  'Generations after yours, a follower of Peter who followed Jesus ordered this preserved in honour of the martyred Christians. So it is here because of our pontifex, whom we call pontiff, not yours,' said Olava, and there was no triumph in her voice. She shared a small part of my great loss.

  'Well, this was the smaller arena. There must be more of the larger one at the Vatican.

  'No, Eugeni. We will go later.'

  'I want to go now.'

  'Eugeni, the big arena is not there. Something has been built on it.' 'All of it?' 'All of it,’ she said.

  'Completely,' she said. 'What I said.

  Tomorrow. We will see tomorrow.'

  'No,' I said, in rage so helpless I felt like a child. My hand was on the blade but I would not use it, not really, here, not on that thin Plutarch-looking stranger. Enough had been disgraced without adding the blade of Lucius Aurelius Eugenianus to murder.

  Already I had used the word 'Greekling' for the first time, so helpless I was. It was not an insult to him, nor a relief for me. It was as though I swam now in an open sewer and, to be a part of it, I would add the defecation of my spirit. Perhaps it was that there were no Romans to hate anymore. Perhaps it was all these people who went mindlessly about their business not realizing they walked on the graves of the people and structures I knew but last year. One year to me.

  I had seen one of Olava's pictures of the remains of the Flavian, but the picture did not capture the emptiness of it, the silence of it. It did not capture who was not there.

  Of course the great statue with Vespasian's head on it was gone. But the people still called it 'Colosseum', Olava said.

  There were automobiles with drivers who charged a fee to take you anywhere. We got to one nearby, and Olava told the driver: 'Vatican. Vatican.'

  He obviously didn't understand we wanted to go to the Vatican, because he left us off at a great new palace of refreshingly Roman grandeur. The first really Roman feeling I had in this place called Rome.

  The columns were clean and massed in a great circle around an open space. Atop the enclosure was a profusion of statues, one after the other so that, while they stood atop the columns, they still had that old feeling of my Flavian.

  Stretching backwards were banks of marble steps leading to another great edifice atop which was a dome. Adjoining at an angle was another palace. Somehow, Rome had lived through the onslaught of the ages.

  'Whose castle is this ? Magnificent.'

  The fisherman, Eugeni. We are at the Vatican. The big arena near here is no more. That is Peter's tomb and his church. Look you at the little fisherman's monument. Behold.'

  ‘Peter's?'

  'Yes,' she said, and there was triumph in her voice. The great arena was gone. I looked around for the other hills to be certain that indeed this was the Vatican. Olava said it was, her chalk-face shining pride, her hair wildly yellow, standing here on the Vatican hill, free and uncomplicated.

  I looked again at the vast courtyard with magnificent columns surrounding it, and great statues in profusion upon the circle of columns. They were not gods but saints, which, Olava said, should not be confused with gods, even though they had special powers and were now immortal. I asked if people believed these non-gods could provide various kinds of good fortune, and she said yes. I asked if there were saints for one thing and saints for other things. She said yes, but I should not confuse this with the pantheon of gods, since these saints were real people.

  'Yours are real and ours weren't,' I said. 'Are you sure this is Peter's?'

  'Again, yes. Saint Peter's.'

  He couldn't afford this, Olava. I might, at the peak of my wealth, be able to, if I cared to suffer some. But I don't think Domitian could. The Flavians couldn't. The Julians I don't think could. No. They squandered and they never had really that much. I am trying to think. The Aurelians, never. Quintus Fabius Cornelius might have, but wouldn't.'

  'Where does Domitian rest? Or Augustus? Mark me, Eugeni, the monument for the Julian, called Caesar, gone they are. Behold poor Peter, crucified upside down with real nails in his body and real blood and real pain, and behold. Who lies and who dies? Look at what the heart of man says, and the hand of God inspires. Even while he died, this was coming. Love,Eugeni, is the most powerful thing. It is the great thing, Eugeni. The one great thing. God.'

  She presented her contention almost in an oratorical stance.

  The summer sun, setting red around us so the sky was aflame, her yellow hair peaked like a bristled helmet, strength in her now. A formidable woman and possibly even beautiful. We rushed in, for I wanted to see where the fisherman was buried. Inside was the true, spacious magnificence of Rome, the public building of Rome.

  In the centre were modern twisting pillars, of black stone, which, Olava said, surrounded an altar, altars today not being covered with blood, but the sacrifice of her God being so preeminent, blood sacrifices of animals became useless, a desecration of sorts.

  So overwhelmed by the beauty and perfection, finer even than the mosaics of my peristilium, I hardly paid attention to Olava's explanation of sacrifice. Beneath this magnificent altar was another altar. And the one beneath was of pure gold, with gold doors, and giant, hanging gold lamps and two small columns of pink marble. It was splendid.

  'I like it, Olava. You are to be commended. My compliments to all of you. This is truly rich.'

  'Richer still is the Word,' she said, which I did not understand. What I had not understood until now was how such a fine and disciplined person could be part of Miriamne's Jewish sect, a follower of a cult that had fishermen as priests. But here in the familiar magnificence, finally it came, as a fog lifting over a strange noise and revealing that it was a waterfall all along.

  'I see, Olava. I could not understand before.'

  Happiness came to her so suddenly she almost cried.

  'Eugeni, what? What do you understand ?' she asked.

  'I did not understand before about you and your discipline and your education and your cleanliness, for you wash as much as any Roman. I did not connect you and the poor little fisherman. I did not know where Rome had gone either. And now I see. I see it all.'

  'Yes? Yes?' she said, her hands clasping in front of her, her body tense with joy, expectant of the giant revelation I would now share.

  'You are not some little Jewish sect following someone executed in a shameful manner. You are Rome living. Here is Rome. Peter would never have been allowed in such a fine building.'

  The joy left like a hammer smashing a stone smile.

  'No. You're totally wrong.'

  'Look about you. To the backward Jew a beautiful statue is blasphemy. They prohibit graven images. I remember Peter. I remember him. He spoke of no graven images. And Miriamne hated my bust of Mars, where Petronius burned his first hair. I like this place, Olava.'

  'The form may be Roman. It is the Word that is different. You don't understand.'

  ‘I feel at home.'

  The Word is everything.'

  'Hail Rome. Hail Rome,' and I cried out the words, and people who had hushed smiled politely, for they too had caught my enthusiasm.

  And like Rome, there were all manner of foreign people visiting here, black Aetheops, blond, brown hair, black hair, tall, short. 'Most Roman of them all,' I said.

  'Peter is buried here, not Julius Caesar. Peter who believed in eternal life through love and its sacrifice, who believed the poor were blessed, not the legions. Peter, not Caesar, Eugeni. Christian, not Roman.'

  ‘I know only by the fruits that are born, and it is a tasty Roman blossom I feel now.
No one else could have built this but the Roman. Not the Christian. Christians don't care for big buildings. Christians worry about how they do things, not how they build things. I knew many Christians. They weren't all Jews, you know. They had Romans and Germans. I knew Christians as well as any one. And better than you. And this has not the slightest taint of Christian.'

  ‘I am a Christian.'

  'Not at all,' I assured Olava.

  And we left that place and went to a hotel called the Atlas, which was small like a tenement. But I liked the narrow street. And we ate at a place like a tavern of which there were many.

  We were in Rome that night, and not a drop of garum or alum to be had. The food, Italian, which meant many cities, all up and down the Italian peninsula, Sicily and Sardinia being included, was a strange thing, which, Olava said, had come in later years.

  'This is spaghetti. The design comes from China and was so well adopted by later Italians that people today think of spaghetti as Italian.'

  It was not bad, nor was it good, rather a base for a sauce made from tomatoes, which were not eaten regularly and commonly. They made a red sauce, also a later thing. There were meats stuffed into casings called sausages, and Olava did not know if they had been frozen.