No work was found for the lady Mamea. Perhaps this was a mistake. She had a separate establishment within the palace, which she made a meeting-place for all the conventional hide-bound gentry who would be sure to disapprove of the rule of Antoninus Elagabalus. The court in general expected that the lady Mamea would presently succumb to a fatal accident in her bath; that is the normal fate of a member of the imperial household who becomes a focus of opposition. Eutychianus hinted to me that he had suggested something of the kind; but the Emperor was determined that no harm should befall any member of his sacred kin. The strong clan-feeling of Syria had been bred into his bones, and he could not believe that a relative would ever plot against him.
Eutychianus was still the busiest and most trusted member of the government, under the general oversight of the Augusta. As Praetorian Praefect and Praefect of the City he controlled every branch of the administration. He was unmarried, and from time to time took his turn as one of the lovers of the Clarissima, which gave him a close tie with the imperial family. When it was announced that the Consuls chosen for next January were the Emperor himself and the Praefect Eutychianus everyone saw that the government was trying to do its conventional duty. The gentry are pleased if the Emperor occasionally undertakes a Consulship (though he must not do it too often and so block the road to promotion). That the Emperor and his chief minister would share the burden reflected glory on all other Consuls past and to come.
In the autumn of that year two old acquaintances looked me up at the palace. Demetrius and Hippias had come to Rome in partnership, bringing a string of horses for sale to the circus factions. I like to do a friend a good turn if it costs me nothing, and I was able to arrange that their best horses should be bought by the Emperor himself, at an appropriately imperial price. They were very good horses, imported Parthians, so I was not failing in my duty to the Emperor; though perhaps a purchaser of lesser rank would have got them cheaper. The partners asked me out to dinner, as soon as they understood that I did not want a share of their profit.
I enjoyed talking over the old days, less than three years past but already in memory a lifetime away. Then I had been a new-comer among the Praetorians, shy of my comrades and lonely in the foreign east. Now I was an important link between the army and the court. I was not exactly feared, for everyone knew the Emperor’s mercy; but ambitious soldiers valued my friendship, since a word from me might get them promotion even though an adverse report would not send them to the gallows.
It was best of all to learn that I had done good in the world. All three of us had worked in our different ways for the restoration of the true Antonine line, and our success had brought prosperity to the Empire.
‘You wouldn’t know Syria nowadays,’ said Demetrius complacently. ‘The taxes remain high, of course, but none of us will live to see them moderate. The point is that now they are collected with reasonable honesty, and that since the army marched west there have been no requisitions. My tenants have paid up their arrears, and there is talk of building a school if we have money to spare after the next harvest. Peasants with money to spare! Think of it!’
‘It’s the same in the cities,’ Hippias chimed in. ‘ The townsfolk have money to buy imported eastern luxuries. There’s no trouble now about muleteers going abroad and refusing to come back. On the contrary, orientals want to cross the river and settle within the Empire. Of course that’s partly because of the internal troubles in Parthia. Our Emperor had a bit of luck there. Things would be different if we had a Parthian army on the frontier.’
‘Parthia is breaking up, that’s true, and no one could have foreseen it,’ said Demetrius judicially. ‘ You can call that a bit of luck if you like. But our Emperor has accepted his luck with great good sense. The legate in Syria was mad to conquer Mesopotamia. They tell me the Emperor ordered him to keep the peace. The Divine Severus, even the Divine Caracalla, would have tried to extend the Roman border to the east. They might have succeeded, at that, and ruined Syria in the process. We should thank the gods that we are blessed with an Emperor who loves peace.’
‘War would interfere with his chariot-racing, I suppose,’ said Hippias. ‘All the same, he’s no coward. He proved that at Immae. We are lucky that he doesn’t want to prove it again. By the way, how is he getting on with his sky-stone? Do the Romans object to their new god?’
‘So far the cult has caused no trouble,’ I said cautiously. ‘By the way, in public it is more tactful to refer to the Sun-god Elagabalus, not the sky-stone. The god has a new temple in the City, but quite a small one, besides a temple in the suburbs for the hot weather, which does not bother the Romans because they never visit the suburbs to see it.’
‘It’s nice to know that a fellow-Syrian is making a good job of ruling the world,’ Demetrius said lazily. ‘I suppose Syrians are in favour here? Do you think I would better myself if I resigned from managing my imperial domain and tried for a job in the treasury?’
‘Not unless you can drive a racing chariot, or prove your kinship with the high priests of Emesa,’ I answered at once. ‘ Charioteers and cousins are the only people who can count on imperial favour.’
‘I shall go home as soon as my business is finished,’ said Hippias. ‘Rome is the centre of the world, and that’s just what I don’t like about it. I was born and bred a day’s march from the frontier, and I’m not happy without a frontier handy. How frightening to talk to a policeman, knowing that his authority stretches for a thousand miles in every direction!’
‘I think you are wise,’ I said with a look that I tried to make significant. ‘Imperial favour is all very well, but it does not last for ever.’
‘We were planning to leave in the spring,’ Hippias said quickly.
‘Stay a year or two, if you like. But don’t put down roots in Rome. One day I plan to retire to the northern provinces, the original home of my family.’
Perhaps it was disloyal even to hint that the Emperor was insecure. But these Syrians were my friends, and I wanted to warn them. Since they were Syrians, a hint was warning enough.
The Emperor seemed to me insecure because he was fretting at the prudent control of the Augusta. His marriage continually irked him; though Paula remained a virgin he had to see a good deal of her in the daytime, and that kept him away from his stable boys. He consoled himself by driving chariots, but there again the united efforts of all his advisers had stopped him from racing in public. Even the Divine Nero had never driven in a public race, and that he had sometimes put on a show before a large invited audience was one of the worst of the crimes still remembered against him.
In compensation the Emperor risked his neck by driving teams of strange animals. On the Vatican hill, across the river, a track was laid out where a runaway chariot would have plenty of room to pull up; it was not always private, but when the Emperor was to drive a cordon of Praetorians kept away the crowd. That is not to say the Emperor’s exploits lacked spectators; he invited all his friends, members of the circus factions and the expert charioteers he had brought from Nicomedia. To make the track big enough a number of private houses were pulled down; but the owners got handsome compensation, and this particular arbitrary interference with the property of his subjects caused no complaint.
I was usually among the invited spectators, and my admiration for the Emperor’s skill as a whip was genuine. He did things that no one would have believed could be done. In a special light chariot he drove a team of mastiffs, which was difficult but not dangerous. Then he drove a team of wild stags, such as are said to draw the bodies of German chieftains to burial. As a matter of fact that was easier than it looked. The stags only wanted to get away from the chariot, but they were so yoked that the harder they ran the faster the chariot pursued them. With any other driver there would have been the certainty of a spill, but the Emperor kept them all galloping in line until they stopped from sheer exhaustion.
A few days later he drove four riding-camels. In Syria I have seen camels draw the
plough, but these riding-camels had never before been harnessed to anything. They fought one another, when they were not galloping very fast. Three times the Emperor was upset, but he persevered until he had completed a circuit of the track without mishap.
Before the next of these exhibitions a detail of city firemen were sent to pull down more houses. The track was the usual straight furlong, with a turning post at each end; but immensely broad, so that we wondered why all the extra space was needed. When the performance began we understood, and I have never heard more whole-hearted cheering. The gallant young Emperor appeared at the starting post in a special wide chariot, drawn by a team of four bull elephants. The huge beasts took to it kindly enough, for they were accustomed to walking in processions and doing anything their trainers commanded them to do. But when their driver had urged them into a gallop the chariot bucketed about, and of course it was quite impossible to control them. A spill would have been fatal, for the elephants would kick the chariot to pieces and tread on the driver; but the Emperor got them round the circuit, and then slowed them to a walk, without any trouble at all. I have never seen anything like it, as an exhibition of cold-blooded courage and mastery over dumb brutes.
These demonstrations were nominally private, because it would be ignoble for an Emperor to drive a chariot in public; but so many people saw them, including the soldiers who lined the course, that they very soon became the talk of Rome. Nobody objected. A fifteen-year-old Emperor was entitled to his private pastime, and this particular pastime could not harm his subjects. It was comparatively cheap, so the treasury did not suffer; and nobody was killed in the course of it, which is an unusual feature in an imperial hobby. In fact it was already the talk of all the taverns that the Emperor was almost too merciful for his great position. Since the reign began nobody had been executed on suspicion, no plots had been uncovered by secret agents. Even eminent Senators felt safe under his rule, though they could never bring themselves to approve it.
Some of the Emperor’s private amusements had to be covered up a little more carefully. Unfortunately when he did these silly things he nearly always made me his accomplice. Once or twice he left the palace in disguise, perhaps to sell vegetables in the market, perhaps to get drunk in a low tavern by the river. He insisted that I should come along as his bodyguard, because ever since that unfortunate visit to the brothel in Nicomedia he thought I had a natural taste for low life.
Low life does not amuse me; and anyway the Emperor’s attempts to mix incognito with the poor of Rome were pathetically unsuccessful. His fair hair and violet eyes made him an unmistakable figure. He was always recognized within ten minutes of the beginning of the escapade; though sensible loafers, who knew they were on to a good thing, would pretend to be deceived. The Emperor would sit happily on a barrel of wine, dressed in rags and paying with heavy gold coins for drinks all round; until someone grew tired of the farce and hailed him with the imperial salute. It was even worse when some joker began to repeat all the rumours about scandalous goings-on at the palace, pretending to tell this ragged stranger the latest gossip.
On these occasions the Emperor kept his temper, which is greatly to his credit. But he would blame me for giving away his disguise, though it would not have deceived an observant German. He said that my stiffness betrayed the centurion in civilian clothes, while he himself had exactly caught the manner of a market porter on the spree. Perhaps, but porters do not have so much gold to spend.
There were other entertainments, held in remote pavilions hidden in corners of the rambling palace. The Emperor danced more gracefully than was becoming in a gentleman, thanks to his training in the ritual of the sky-stone. Sometimes, late at night, he would dance a mime before a carefully-selected audience; conduct which every Roman, whether soldier or civilian, rightly holds to be ignoble. One mime in particular he performed again and again: the well-known ballet of the Judgement of Paris.
The other performers were expert dancing-boys; I admit that the Emperor danced as well as his partners. Of course he took the part of Venus, and the climax of the ballet was his disrobing. Trumpets blared and cymbals banged as he dropped his gown; then he would strike an elegant attitude, ogling the audience long enough for us to see that he had been depilated from head to foot. On these occasions Gordius and Hierocles must appear to be overcome with admiration; though in fact both were a little sulky, because the Emperor had declared that they did not dance well enough to join him in the ballet.
Once you granted that the Emperor preferred boys to women, a fancy which nobody seriously condemns, it was all at bottom harmless enough. He was very beautiful, and he danced very well; why should he not display his charms to his friends? He hurt nobody, and frightened nobody, and did not throw away the taxpayers’ money. Few Emperors have been so little of a nuisance to their subjects. But his dancing and acting were undignified, and the spectators he invited proved that he had a liking for low company. In the eyes of the gentry lack of dignity and a liking for the wrong kind of friend are more serious crimes than the most bloody atrocities.
One imperial experiment gave me a nasty fright, though in the end no harm was done. When the annual festival of Cybele came round I was summoned to another of these secret evening parties. It was a most private entertainment, with no one present save the stable boys and myself, the only adult. After a fairly quiet and decorous supper the show provided turned out to be, as I had expected, the ritual dance of the priests of Cybele.
The full dance is performed only once a year, and then only if there is a suitable aspirant to the priesthood. The eunuch priests begin quietly, parading round an image of their goddess set up in the middle of the dancing floor. Then, as the music quickens, they throw off their sweeping robes. After a time they have worked themselves into a frenzy, capering stark naked with their ugly mutilations exposed. They gash their arms and legs with knives, shedding their blood in honour of the goddess; some of them fall to the ground, foaming at the mouth. The climax of the rite is the dance of the candidate, in which he reaches such a condition of divine frenzy that with his own knife he castrates himself, and so becomes a full member of the obscene brotherhood. Imagine my horror when, in addition to the two Asiatic candidates for whose reception the rite was held, the Emperor bounded on to the dancing floor.
He wore the dress of the candidates, the tall mitre hung with little bells and the wide-sleeved linen gown; he brandished a long curved knife. For a moment I wondered how I was to explain to the Augusta that I had allowed the Emperor to castrate himself before my eyes, and what she would do to me when she knew. Then reason reasserted itself. The attribute the Emperor valued above all others was his high priesthood of Elagabalus, and that could be held only by a whole man; on a lower level, though he had never loved a woman, he enjoyed toying with his pretty boys. Gordius and Hierocles were looking on, and they did not seem disturbed.
The Emperor was acting, as when he danced the part of Venus, and for half an hour seemed to be the veritable goddess of Love. But he acted with great conviction. I wondered how he would manage the climax.
The two genuine candidates were allowed their moment of glory while the Emperor still whirled in the dance. First one and then the other cut himself, and fainted from the pain of the irreparable mutilation. Then the Emperor cast off his breech-clout and his blade flashed between his thighs. The effect was most convincing. Like an actor who must pretend to be killed on the stage, he had pricked a bladder of blood concealed below his waist; to make matters worse, though I stared hard I could not see his genital organs. Yet Hierocles was still grinning in admiration. I saw the gleam of metal under the artificial blood. I had never expected the Emperor to endure such discomfort for the sake of an illusion; he had submitted to the metal ring which is fixed to male slaves who must mingle with women without breeding.
In general the Emperor was a good actor. This was the only one of his performances which failed of its effect, and of course he had set himself an impossible task. Tw
o vigorous young men had castrated themselves before our eyes, and we could not be moved by an acted imitation. Since he was the Emperor, we applauded with enthusiasm; but he was clever enough to sense that the mime, following the real thing, had left us unmoved. As usual, his disappointment did not make him lose his temper.
While the priests of Cybele were mopping up the mess he came over to sit on the end of my couch. ‘A good idea, but it didn’t work out,’ he said cheerfully. ‘ Cybele owes me nothing, and I can’t expect her to come down to me whenever I call. The Sun-god would never disappoint me, but then he is the hereditary patron of all my family. Oh well, one man can’t control all the gods.’
‘What were you trying to do, my lord? Surely you did not expect Cybele to inspire you to unman yourself?’
‘Good old Duratius. The respectable Gallic nobleman always peeps out from under the tough Praetorian. You can’t believe in any divine activity unless it leaves physical traces that you can see with your own eyes.… No, it was a bit more subtle and Syrian than that. The goddess enters into these priests when they dance for her; then she makes them do something very terrible. But I am the high priest of the Sun-god, and, for what it’s worth, Pontifex Maximus of Rome. I thought that perhaps such an exceptional person might be granted the ecstasy without its consequences. I danced. I emptied my soul for her to fill it. I fixed my mind on the idea that I was her servant and that she would command me. And nothing happened, nothing at all. At the height of my dance I saw Gordius, and thought how beautiful I must seem to him. That frivolous notion proved that the goddess was far away. So I cut the bladder, and here I am as complete as when I started. I wonder what would have happened if the goddess had truly possessed me?’
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