Roma

by Steven Saylor

  When he reached the ox, Cacus did not hesitate. He clamped his fists together, raised them in the air, and landed a hammer-like blow upon the ox’s forehead.

  The ox snorted once, shuddered, and fell dead. It struck the earth with a heavy thud. The other oxen stirred and began to mill about. The dog’s ears twitched, but he remained asleep.

  Potitia, who had just nodded off, gave a start. She opened her eyes and saw that the monster was no more than ten paces away. She sucked in a breath and would have screamed, but her throat was suddenly so tight that no sound would come out.

  She jumped to her feet. Her first thought was to wake to the ox-driver, but to do that, she would have to run past the monster. She turned and ran in the other direction, away from the settlement, toward the cave.

  Cacus’s eye was drawn by the movement. He caught a glimpse of her amid the high grass, and recognized her at once. He ran after her.

  His legs were mismatched, but very long and powerful. When it suited him, he could run with incredible speed. The flies that had been buzzing about the oxen followed after him in a swarm, drawn by the odors of blood and rotting flesh that clung to him.

  Potitia’s foot struck an exposed root and she went flying. Perhaps it was as the elder Pinarius said: All the numina of the ruma had turned against them, and even the roots of the trees were conspiring with the monster. What a fool she had been to think that the arrival of the ox-driver was a sign of a better times to come! As she tumbled against the hard, sun-baked earth, she reached up to touch Fascinus at her neck, and whispered a prayer that the monster might kill her swiftly.

  But Cacus had no intention of killing her.

  The ox-driver slept, dreaming of the faraway land of his childhood. It was a dream of sunshine and warm meadows, lowing oxen and singing cicadas.

  Then, in an instant, he was awake.

  One of the oxen stood over him, urgently pressing its cold, wet snout against his cheek. The stranger grunted with disgust, wiped his face with the back of his hand, and looked about.

  At once he saw the cause of the ox’s distress. One of its companions was lying in the grass nearby, utterly still and in a most unnatural position. Where was the dog? He saw it curled up on the grass not far away. The dog yawned, briefly opened its eyes, then shut them again and resettled itself more comfortably.

  The ox-driver cursed and jumped to his feet.

  He heard a muffled sound that might have been a woman’s scream and ran toward it.

  What he saw first was a swarm of flies above a depression in the high grass. Then he caught a glimpse of bare, hairy flesh—the hunched back of Cacus, moving up and down and this way and that. The ox-driver moved forward more cautiously, not sure what sort of man or beast he was approaching. Punctuating the gasps and groans and slavering noises was a curious, guttural sound: Cacus…cacus…cacus!

  Then he heard a sound that chilled his blood—the scream he had heard before, from a woman in great distress.

  The ox-driver gave a shout. The hunched back suddenly ceased moving. A face, shockingly hideous, rose above the high grass and peered at him. The creature snarled, gave a cry of indignation—“Cacus!”—then rose to its full height. That the creature was male became evident by the virile member displayed between its legs. Beneath the creature, still hidden by the grass, the woman let out a plaintive sob.

  The ox-driver was not used to encountering anything that walked on two legs that was as big as himself; this creature was bigger. Nor had he ever encountered a creature as loathsome to look at as Cacus. Revulsion rose in his throat, and an unaccustomed emotion washed over him—the cold prickle of fear. The lion whose skin he wore he had killed with his bare hands, but a lion seemed a minor menace compared to Cacus.

  The ox-driver braced himself and gave another shout, challenging the creature to fight. A moment later, with a deafening roar, Cacus hurtled toward him.

  The sheer mass of the creature struck the ox-driver with bruising force, knocking him to the ground. The stench of the creature’s breath filled his nostrils. The taste of the creature’s foul sweat mingled on his tongue with the bitter flavor of dirt as they tumbled on the ground. The flies that swarmed around the creature buzzed in the ox-driver’s ears and flew into his nostrils and eyes, tormenting and distracting him.

  With the creature atop him, crushing him, the ox-driver frantically reached for anything that might serve as a weapon. His hand closed on a fallen branch. He swung it with all his might. A shuddering impact ran through his arm as the branch broke against the creature’s skull. The piece that remained in his fist was jagged and sharp; he stabbed it against the creature’s flank. A scream pierced his ears. Hot blood ran over his hand, causing him to lose his grip on the weapon. The creature bolted up and away from him.

  The ox-driver staggered to his feet. He watched the creature pull the shard of wood from his bleeding flesh and cast it aside. For a moment he thought the creature might flee. Instead, Cacus hurtled toward him and knocked him to the ground. The ox-driver managed to wriggle free and scamper back to his feet. A short distance away, amid the high grass, he saw a stone the size of newborn ox, and ran toward it. He surprised even himself when he lifted the stone over his head. He hurled it toward the pursuing Cacus.

  Cacus managed to dodge the stone, but only barely; it grazed his shoulder and sent him reeling. Enraged, he picked up an even larger stone and hurled it. The ox-driver dove to one side. The stone struck a towering oak tree and shattered the trunk. The whole tree came crashing to the ground.

  Amid a din of creaking and cracking, a host of shrieking birds took flight, and then all was still. The ox-driver struggled to catch his breath. The creature was nowhere to be seen. Had he fled? Was he pinned beneath the branches of the tree? For an instant the ox-driver let down his guard—then he caught a whiff of the creature’s stench, and heard the buzzing of flies. He whirled about, and in the next instant felt two hands grip his throat.

  Spots swam before his eyes. The meadow grew dim, as if night had suddenly fallen. His head seemed to swell like a bloated wineskin, until he felt sure it would burst.

  His struggled to pry Cacus’s hands from his throat. The creature’s grip was unshakable. The ox-driver sought desperately to gain a purchase with his fingertips, and at last managed to grasp one of Cacus’s fingers and slowly bend it backward. He heard the finger snap, and was sickened by the noise, but Cacus held fast. He broke another finger, on the creature’s other hand, and another. As a fourth finger snapped, Cacus gave an unearthly scream and relented. His grip was broken.

  Before Cacus could escape, the ox-driver deftly slipped behind him and caught the creature’s neck in the vise of his elbow. With his other hand he gripped his wrist, tightening the vise. Cacus struggled to draw a breath, but could not. Nor could he wrench the arm away from his throat, for his fingers were broken, his hands useless.

  Mustering all his remaining strength, the ox-driver wrenched the creature’s head to one side and gave it a hard twist. Cacus’s neck was broken. He thrashed and convulsed. The huge weight of his body slipped from the ox-driver’s grasp. He tumbled to the ground with his head cocked at an impossible angle and his limbs akimbo.

  Utterly exhausted, the ox-driver dropped to his knees, fighting back nausea and gasping for breath. His vision was blurred. Flies buzzed in his ears.

  The dog, wide awake now, suddenly arrived at a gallop, barking ferociously and baring his fangs at the sight of the corpse. He pounced atop the limp body of Cacus, stood stiffly upright, perked his ears, and alerted the people of the ruma with a long howl of triumph.

  In feverish glimpses, Potitia had witnessed the entire struggle.

  When the stranger’s challenge drew Cacus’s attention, she had managed to scramble to her feet and to flee. Stumbling and staggering, she repeatedly looked back. It seemed to her that she saw not two men but two entities greater than human engaged in a fight to the death. She felt the earth shake beneath their stamping feet. She saw them
lift stones that no mortal could lift. She saw a great tree fall to the ground, destroyed by their combat. She saw Cacus fall dead, and the ox-driver drop to his knees.

  In a daze, she made her way to river. No matter how vigorously she scrubbed her flesh, rubbing until it was red and raw, the stench of the monster clung to her.

  When she staggered back to the settlement, no one remarked on the smell. Indeed, they took no notice of her. Learning of the monster’s demise, the ecstatic settlers had circled the ox-driver and were loudly praising him, shyly touching him, trying to lift him onto their shoulders and laughing when he proved to be too big and heavy.

  No one realized what had happened to Potitia except the ox-driver, who shot her a look of mingled relief and remorse. She herself said nothing about it, not even to her father.

  The body of Cacus was dragged a great distance from the settlement. Repeatedly, vultures tried to land upon it. The people drove them off, until the ox-driver made it clear that they should desist and allow the vultures to snatch whatever delicacies they could. When the vultures flew off with Cacus’s eyes and tongue, the ox-driver applauded them.

  “It seems the fellow has a high regard for vultures,” noted Potitius. “And why not? Whenever he sees a vulture, it’s probably because another of his enemies is dead!”

  Satisfied that the vultures had been propitiated, the people pelted the corpse of Cacus with stones, then set it aflame. A wind from the southwest carried the foul smoke high into the air and away from the ruma. The numina of fire and air were seen to be in accord with the people, who could only hope, with the monster’s baleful influence removed, that the other numina of the region would again show kindness and favor to them.

  That night, there was rejoicing in the settlement. The ox that had been killed by Cacus was butchered. The flesh was roasted for a great feast in honor of the stranger who had delivered them. His hunger was voracious; he ate everything they set before him.

  Potitius felt moved to make a speech. “Nothing so terrible as the coming of the monster has ever occurred in living memory. Nothing so wonderful has ever occurred as the monster’s destruction. We were on the verge of abandoning this place in despair.” Here he looked sidelong at his cousin Pinarius. “Then we were saved by an occurrence which none of us possibly could have foreseen—the arrival of a stranger who was every bit a match for the monster. This is a sign that we were meant to reside always in the land of the ruma. Whatever happens, we must have faith that ours is a special destiny. Even in our darkest moments, we must remember that we are guarded by friendly numina of great power.”

  Wine had always been a rare and precious commodity in the settlement; it had become even more so after the traders stopped coming. Still, the store that remained, mixed with water, was enough to provide a serving to everyone at the feast, with extra portions—unwatered and as much as he could drink, which proved to be a great quantity—for the ox-driver. Encouraged by raucous laughter and shouting, he repeatedly mimed his battle with Cacus, laughing and stumbling around the roasting pit until at last he lay down exhausted and fell into a deep sleep.

  The settlers were drunk and stuffed with food. Many had not enjoyed a proper sleep since the coming of Cacus, and they happily followed the stranger into the land of dreams.

  All slept—except Potitia, who feared that sleep would bring only nightmares.

  She found a spot to herself, away from the others, and lay on a woolen mat beneath the stars. The night was warm and lit by a bright moon. On such a night, when she was girl, she might have climbed up to her cave and slept there, safe and secluded. That could never happen again. The monster had ruined the cave and her memories of it forever.

  Potitia hugged herself and wept—then gave a start when she sensed the presence of another. She smelled his breath, heavy with wine. His massive silhouette blocked the moon. She shuddered, but when he knelt and touched her gently, she stopped sobbing. He stroked her brow. He kissed the tears that ran down her cheeks.

  He loomed over her, as Cacus had loomed, yet was different in every way. The smell of his body was strong but pleasing to her. Cacus had been brutal and demanding, but the ox-driver’s touch was gentle and soothing. Cacus had caused her pain, but the stranger’s touch brought only pleasure. When he drew back, fearful that his sheer bulk might overwhelm her, she gripped him like a child might grip a parent and pulled him closer to her.

  When the paroxysm of their first coupling passed, for a time she lay quiet and felt utterly relaxed, as if she floated on air. Then she suddenly began to tremble. She shuddered and began to weep again. He held her tightly. He knew she had suffered an ordeal beyond his understanding, and he strove, awkwardly but with exquisite gentleness, to comfort her.

  But the cause of her weeping was beyond even Potitia’s understanding. She was remembering something she had been trying to forget. At the moment of her utmost loathing and despair—while Cacus was inside her, squeezing and crushing her from all sides—she had looked into his eyes. They were not the eyes of a beast, but of a human like herself. In that instant, she had seen that Cacus was full of more suffering and fear than she could imagine. Amid her loathing and disgust, she felt something else: pity. It stabbed her like a knife. Now, with all her defenses down, she found herself weeping, not because of what Cacus had done to her, but for Cacus himself and the awfulness of his existence.

  The next day, when the hung-over settlers awoke, the stranger was gone. So were his oxen and his dog.

  Pinarius said that someone should be sent after him, to ask him to return. Potitius argued against this; as the coming of the stranger had been unforeseen, so it had been with his leaving, and the people of the settlement should do nothing to interfere with the comings or goings of their deliverer.

  Word of Cacus’s demise spread. One by one, the traders began to come back to the settlement. When they heard the tale of the ox-driver, they put forward many notions about who he might have been and where he might have come from.

  It was the Phoenician seafarers, the most widely traveled of all the traders, who made the most compelling case. They declared that the ox-driver was the strongman of their own legends, the demigod named Melkart. A demigod, they explained, was the offspring of a god and a human. The settlers were inclined to agree that the stranger had exhibited a strength beyond the merely mortal.

  “Oh, yes, the hero who saved you was most certainly Melkart,” the Phoenician captain declared. “Every Phoenician knows of him; a few have met him. The fact that he wore a lion’s skin proves his identity. The killing of a lion was one of Melkart’s most famous exploits; he wears the skin as a trophy. Yes, it was Melkart who killed this monster of yours, most assuredly. You should set up an altar to him, as you set up an altar to the numina who inhabit the hot springs. Surely Melkart did more for you than ever those hot springs did! You should make sacrifices to him. You should pray for his continued protection.”

  “But how did this…demigod…come to be here, so far from the lands where he’s known?” asked Potitius.

  “Melkart is a great traveler. He’s known in many lands, by many names. The Greeks call him Heracles. They say his father was the sky god they call Zeus.”

  The settlers had only a vague notion of who the Greeks might be, but the name Heracles was more pleasing to their ears than Melkart, though the captain’s pronunciation of the Greek was a bit garbled. They decided to call the ox-driver Hercules.

  As the Phoenician captain had suggested, an altar was erected to Hercules, very near the spot where Potitia had first seen him sleeping. Since the Phoenicians knew more about god-worship than the settlers, they were consulted about the best ways to show honor to Hercules. It was decided that dogs and flies must be kept away from his altar, since, during the battle, his ally the dog had failed him and the flies had fought against him. Vultures he had favored, so it was decided that the vulture would be sacred to his memory. It was also decided that when an offering was made, every part of the sacrificed an
imal should be eaten, in the way that Hercules himself had exhibited such a hearty and unbridled appetite.

  Thus, although Fascinus was the first native god and the first god to receive the prayers of a settler, it was a deity already worshiped in other lands who received the first altar dedicated to a divinity in the land of the ruma.

  Potitia grew big with child. Her father had suspected that something beyond flirtation might have transpired between his daughter and the stranger, and her pregnancy seemed to confirm his suspicion. Potitius was pleased. According to family legend, long ago an ancestress had experienced intercourse with a numen; Potitia was partly descended from Fascinus, whose amulet she wore. Had the demigod Hercules seen this spark of the otherworldly in Potitia? Was that why he had found her worthy to bear his child? And would that child not be something new and special upon the earth, containing the mingled essence of numen, demigod, and human in his veins? Potitius mused on such ideas, and was pleased.

  Potitia fell prey to darker thoughts, for she knew there was an equal chance that the child might have a different father: Cacus. If the thing that came from her womb was a hideous monster, everyone would know her shame. Would they kill the child at once and her as well? Was the thing stirring inside her a god or a monster? She was torn by many emotions. Her father was puzzled and dismayed by her misery.

  It was decided to celebrate the very first sacrifice to Hercules not on the anniversary of his arrival, as would later become the custom, but on the day that Cacus had first been seen, in the springtime; thus the first Feast of Hercules could expunge the bitter memory of Cacus’s arrival. Potitius and Pinarius squabbled over who should assume the duty of slaying an ox, roasting the meat, and placing the offerings upon the stone altar before consuming them. Finally they decided to share the duty and perform the rites together. The feast would be shared equally by their families.