The man's eyes had stopped sliding around the court. Trembling, he stared at Ballista.
'Appian, son of Aristides, in the consulship of Tuscus and Bassus, six days before the kalends of September, you are sentenced to death. You will burn.'
The man's mouth opened and closed. Nothing audible emerged. Ballista signed for the soldiers to take him away.
The morning was devoted to the priests of the cult. Much to the disappointment of Flavius Damianus, no bishops had been caught in the round-up, but there were another five presbyters, no fewer than ten deacons, servants to the presbyters, and two slavewomen ministrae. Ballista never really ascertained the role of the latter in the cult. As slaves, they had been routinely tortured and, most probably, repeatedly raped. It seemed to have driven out what wits they may once have had. The only intelligible answers that were extracted from them were affirmations that they were Christians. Ballista's court condemned to them to the beasts.
In the course of the whole morning, only two of the accused denied their faith. One presbyter hotly denied that he was a Christian. He claimed he had been falsely denounced by his neighbour, who was having an adulterous affair with his wife. He was eager to offer sacrifice to the imperial images and, unprompted, cursed the name of Christ. Ballista ordered him to be set free and the neighbour arrested on suspicion of a malicious accusation. One deacon hesitantly admitted that he had been a Christian, but he said that it had been a long time ago — it was years since he had returned to the rites of his ancestors. He too made sacrifice and went free.
After lunch, a solemn affair in the dining room of the Prytaneion a few paces from the Chalcidium, the afternoon was given over to the lay members of the cult. There were twenty of them. Two were imperial freedmen. Following the guidelines of the latest edict of Valerian, the possessions of the ex-slaves were seized by the imperial fiscus and the condemned were sent in chains to hard labour on the estates of the emperors. It was generally thought that, after a few years of that, they would wish they had been killed. The rate of apostasy was higher than the morning. Eight of the accused offered sacrifice and were released.
About midway through the afternoon, Ballista was presented with the case of one who did not renounce the cult which he found particularly disturbing. She had been denounced by her husband. Young, with a small baby on her hip, she stood straight and answered clearly: name, race, status — yes, she was a Christian. A breeze had got up and was gently moving the heavy curtains behind her. She looked Ballista in the eye.
Her father asked permission to reason with her. On his knees, taking her hands in his and kissing them, he gazed up at her. For a time, he could not speak, and his voice, when it came, was little more than a croak. 'Daughter, give up your pride. You will be the death of all of us.' There were tears in his eyes. 'Perform the sacrifice — have pity on your baby, my grandson.'
She looked sternly at him. 'I cannot be called anything other than what I am, a Christian.'
Ballista leant forward. 'Have pity on your father's grey head, have pity on your infant son, offer the sacrifice for the welfare of the emperors.'
Unnaturally calm, she looked at Ballista. 'I will not.'
'Have pity on your child.'
'God will have pity on him.'
'You would make your child motherless?'
Still she betrayed no emotion. 'If he, too, sees the light, we will be reunited in the hereafter.' There was an inhuman confidence in her tone.
The consilium was divided. As expected, Flavius Damianus argued vehemently for the severest measures. Free women must not think that their status and sex protected them. This one should be thrown to the beasts with the slave ministrae. Indeed, a harsher punishment was fitting. Until execution, she should be confined to a brothel, naked, available to all, on a diet of bread and water. The eirenarch Corvus, in far fewer words, and those evidently carefully chosen, pointed out that the law demanded none of this.
As he listened to the members of the consilium, and it was clear that the majority inclined to Flavius Damianus, for whatever reasons, Ballista looked at the woman and child. She was immobile. The child wriggled. He was a fine-looking boy. How old? Less than a year. Maybe about ten months. A good head of hair, serious, light-brown eyes. His podgy fists reached up to grasp the woman's necklace. She ignored him.
Flavius Damianus was finishing another impassioned speech. The members of this deadly cult threatened the very existence of the imperium. War was coming with Persia. If the Christians were not destroyed, the gods would desert Rome; Shapur would triumph. The emperors demanded the sternest measures against the Christians. Those closest to the emperors urged the same.
Ballista thanked the members of the consilium. He turned back to the woman. Expressionless, she returned his gaze. There was an expectant hush in the courtroom.
'It is my understanding of the edict of the emperor Valerian that a free matron convicted of being a Christian should have her property confiscated and she herself should be sent into exile.' He paused. 'You will return to jail until such time as I have determined your place of exile and the fate of your child.' He looked sharply at her, wondering what reaction his last words would provoke. There was none.
The curtains were parted for her to be led away. For a moment, Ballista had a glimpse down the long colonnade of the Stoa Basilica, bands of afternoon sunlight shining across it from the left, the backs of the auxiliary archers keeping the crowd at a small distance. He very much wished he were somewhere else.
The last prisoner of the day had caused the biggest stir in the city. Aulus Valerius Festus was a member of the Boule of Ephesus and held the rank of a Roman equestrian. He entered court dressed in a Greek tunic and cloak. He stood quietly. He was newly shaved, his thinning hair carefully combed back, hands clasped in front of himself in the pose seen in statues of the great antique orator Demosthenes. He looked for all the world a model of Hellenic civic responsibility.
Aulus answered the standard questions and, without fuss, averred that he was a Christian. Ballista wondered why he should have chosen to enter a Roman court in a Greek tunic and himation rather than a Roman toga with the narrow purple stripe to which he was entitled. It might be an unspoken rejection of the imperium of the Romans but, there again, there might be any number of more prosaic reasons. It was important not to overinterpret a man's every action.
'Tell me, Aulus Valerius Festus, why a man of your rank, one of the honestiores, should choose to associate with a cult composed of the unwashed, of the humiliores?' Ballista pitched his voice at an amiable, conversational level.
'It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven.' Aulus intoned the poetic-sounding but mysterious words with assurance. Only a small fidgeting of the thumbs of his clasped hands betrayed any inner turmoil.
'The cult stands accused of cannibalism and incest.'
'It is a lie. We neither indulge in Oedipean marriages or Thyestes-like dinners. It would be sinful for us even to think of or speak about such things.' Aulus smiled. 'I doubt such things have ever happened among men at all.'
'You are an educated man. Most Christians are not.'
'It is written, "I shall destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the learning of the learned." '
Ballista decided to try a different approach. 'What is the name of your God?'
'God has no name as men have.'
'Who is the Christian god?' Ballista persevered.
'If you are worthy, you will know.' A low, angry muttering ran through the court. The vicarius might have barbarian origins, but in this courtroom Ballista was the embodiment of the majesty of the Roman people. The maiestas of Rome was not to be insulted.
Ballista silenced the courtroom with a gesture. He had had enough of this. 'The edict of the emperor is explicit concerning men of rank, concerning the honestiores — you will lose your status and property. The emperor's mercy, his clementia, allows you a chance to re
consider. You will remain in jail. If you persist in your evil, you will die.'
After Aulus had been led out, there was a shout from beyond the curtain.
'I am a Christian, and I want to die!'
'Who said that?' Ballista snapped. 'Bring him in.'
There was a scuffle, and two soldiers propelled a youth into the court. They pinioned his arms. He was already bleeding from a cut to the head.
'Name? Race? Slave or free?' Ballista could feel his grip on his temper slipping. This was degenerating into farce.
'I am a Christian, and I want to die!' The youth was wild-eyed, shouting.
'There are plenty of cliffs here, and I am sure ropes can be found down at the docks.' Ballista waited for the laughter to fade before repeating: 'Name? Race? Slave or free?'
The youth did not answer. Instead, he jerked forward and spat at the images of the emperors. 'The gods of the nations are daemons,' he yelled. 'It is better to die than worship stones!'
'Which?' Ballista said.
Confused, the youth glared defiance.
Ballista pointed to the imperial images. 'Which? Stones or daemons?'
The youth snorted his contempt. 'I wish to be with Christ!'
Ballista smiled a savage smile. 'I will send you to him directly.'
Laughter rang round the court. Ballista felt a strong wave of disgust; at the obstinate zealotry of the Christians, at the cruel, sycophantic laughter of the courtiers, at his own role in all this. 'Enough,' he shouted. 'Take him away!'
XVII
The palace of the Proconsul had the best site in Ephesus: facing west, high on the central mount, perched above the theatre. If the view did not inspire you, there was something wrong with your soul. To the left, the neighbouring mountain range curled round towards the sea, slanting down before rearing up in a last, solitary peak topped with a bastion. The red-tiled roofs of close-packed houses climbed the lower slopes; above, the hard, grey limestone poked through the brush. Ahead, your eye soared down dizzily over the steep bank of the theatre to the wide, column-lined road that ran ruler-straight to the curved harbour with its toy-sized ships and on to the glittering Aegean beyond. Off to the right meandered the mud-coloured Caystros, through the broad, flat plain the river's own silt had created, and, beyond, usually blue with distance, were more mountains.
The best site in the city but, Ballista thought, everything comes at a price. The path down was steep. A close-laid buttress wall to the left, a vertiginous drop to the right; to start, the path ran above the theatre. Gesturing at the tiered seating, the northerner said that, long ago, a Christian holy man and wonder worker had been tried there. Despite being both an ex-tax collector and a notorious troublemaker, somehow the man had got off. His name was Paul, Saul… or something like that.
Demetrius snorted with derision. For his own good, Ballista thought, I must give him his freedom soon, or rein him in.
'Christians to the lion,' said the Greek youth. 'A real holy man performed a genuine miracle there. No Christian trickery. There was plague in the town. The Ephesians begged Apollonius of Tyana to come to them and be the physician of their infirmity. He led them into the theatre. There was an old blind beggar sat there, squalid, clad in rags, a wallet with a scrap of bread by his side. Apollonius spoke to the men of Ephesus: "Pick up as many stones as you can and hurl them at this enemy of the gods." The Ephesians were shocked at the idea of murdering a stranger. The beggar was praying and pleading for mercy. But the man of Tyana urged them on. He was implacable. He cast the first stone himself. Soon, stones were flying. As the first ones hit, the beggar glared at them, his blindness gone. There was fire in his eyes. Then they recognized him for what he was — a daemon. He turned this way and that, but there was no escape. The stones flew thick and fast — so many they heaped a cairn over him. Apollonius told the Ephesians to remove the stones. With trembling hands, they did. And there lay a huge hound. It had the shape of a Molossian hunting mastiff, but it was the size of a lion. Pounded to a pulp, it was vomiting foam, as mad dogs do. The plague-bringer was no more.'
'Great stuff,' said Ballista. 'Although I do not remember the holy man casting the first stone in Philostratus' Life of Apollonius.'
'My rhetoric may have overcome me,' admitted Demetrius.
'I do not believe it,' said Maximus, 'a Greek getting carried away with his own words.'
'You know how it is.' Demetrius grinned.
'Me? Gods below, never in life,' the Hibernian answered.
As it neared the main thoroughfare, the path became so steep that it was cut into steps. The three men walked carefully, in single file. As they emerged on to the Embolos, the sacred way, Ballista looked to the left, towards the civic centre and the scene of his distasteful judicial duties of the day before. By one of those quirks that can happen even in the most populous of cities, there was not a soul in sight. Between its columns and honorific statues, the road ran away up the slope, broad and white, beneath a sky of intense blue.
Turning to the right to face downhill, Ballista now saw the people. Above their bobbing heads, just beyond where the Embolos appears to end but actually turns sharp right, was the library of Celsus. He and the others walked down to it and stopped in the square in front.
The library was not just a memorial to Tiberius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus, benefactor of Ephesus, magnate of nearby Sardis, consul of distant Rome, it was also his final resting place. His son, Aquila, had had it designed so that Celsus could be buried somewhere beneath it.
Ballista had never really studied it before. Now, between yesterday's unsettling task and the one he would soon have to undertake, he paused and studied the library-tomb. On either side of the steps were statues of Celsus on horseback. In one he was dressed as a Greek, in the other as a Roman. There were four standing statues on each level of the two-storey facade. Ballista moved closer and read the inscriptions on the lower ones. Sophia, Arete, Ennoia and Episteme — female personifications of wisdom, virtue, good sense and knowledge — all most suitable qualities for a member of the Greek elite. Craning his head back, Ballista looked at the upper storey. Up there were three more versions of Celsus, clad as a Roman general, a Roman magistrate and a Greek civic dignitary. The final statue was the dutiful son Aquila, also in the guise of a senior Roman military commander.
It was odd, thought Ballista, how these rich Greeks who prospered under Roman rule clung to their Greekness. Even those such as Celsus, who entered into the heart of the imperium, commanding Roman armies, holding the highest Roman offices, being counted a friend of emperors, wished to be remembered as much as a Greek as a Roman. Read in a certain way, the facade almost seemed to say that all the Roman worldly success of Celsus was underpinned by his possession of distinctively Greek attributes. Ballista smiled as he thought how all of them, Greeks and Romans alike, would have him forget his own northern roots — except, of course, when they wished to despise him for them.
At a right angle to the library was the southern gate of the agora, its stones light pink in the sunshine. Again, Ballista read the prominent inscriptions. They proudly boasted that the agora had been built by two freedmen of the imperial family of the first Roman emperor Augustus. They had been called Mazeus and Mithridates. Ballista wondered how the local Greek worthies would have reacted to its construction. Here was the new order in stone. Right in the heart of an ancient Greek city was a monument dedicated to the glory of the house of the Roman autocrat, paid for by two ex-slaves, whose very names revealed their eastern origins. Being Greek under Rome seemed always to involve many, necessary compromises.
A thought struck Ballista. He turned round. There, on the other side of the square, was a grandiose monument to a Roman victory over Parthia, the eastern power that had preceded the Sassanid Persians. The Parthians were sculpted to look suitably barbaric, the Roman warriors rather like Greeks. Perhaps if you were Greek, there were always ways to make yourself feel better about reality.
Ballista walked through the gate. Th
ey followed the course of the sun round the agora, walking in the cool of the shady porticos. Everything you could imagine appeared to be available for hard currency. Apart from the usual foods, oil and wine, both essential and luxurious, the Ephesian agora seemed to specialize in colourful clothing transported from Hierapolis and Laodikeia and locally produced perfumes and silverware.
As they passed a line of shops, each with a silversmith on a stool outside industriously tapping out souvenirs of Great Artemis of the Ephesians, Ballista thought he recognized another shopper. The man — his clothes proclaimed him a local notable — took one look at Ballista and hurried off diagonally across the agora. In moments he was lost from view behind the equestrian statue of the emperor Claudius which stood in the middle of the open space.
It was odd behaviour. Why had the man scurried away? It was most unlikely the man was a Christian. The zeal of the scribe to the Demos, Flavius Damianus, would not have left a prominent citizen who belonged to the cult free to stroll the agora. Flavius Damianus — there was a man with a fire for persecution. Then Ballista half-remembered something. What was it that Flavius Damianus had said in court? The emperors demanded the sternest measures; those around them urged the same. Those around them? Who could it mean except Macrianus, the Comes Sacrarum Largitionum et Praefectus Annonae? Macrianus must have communicated with Flavius Damianus. Why? Ballista had publicly insulted Macrianus. He had hit one of his sons. Then the sons had three times tried to kill him. Macrianus was a powerful man who, on any count, should be numbered an enemy. Why had he urged that Ballista be sent to Ephesus in the first place? And now it seemed that Macrianus was communicating with the most important magistrate in Ephesus. What deep and sinister game was Macrianus the Lame playing? Again, Ballista felt like an ordinarius in a game of latrunculi — picked up and dropped by an unseen hand.
In the north-east corner of the agora, beyond the temporary wooden livestock pens, were permanent stone cells for the instruments with voices. Ballista's enjoyment of the colour and bustle of markets was always tainted by this area, but something always forced him to go there, always forced him to do what he was about to do.
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