by Mika Waltari
So Barbus and he put on the leather protectors and taking several men from the village, we rode off toward the mountain. They showed us the lion’s path and drinking place, large paw marks and a fresh heap of droppings. We could even smell the lion and our horses shied. As we slowly approached the lion’s lair, the scent became sharper and our horses trembled, rolled their eyes and refused to take another step forward, and we were forced to dismount and send the horses back. We continued on foot toward the cave until we heard the lion’s grumbling snores. It was snoring so loudly that the sound shook the ground beneath our feet. It is of course possible that the trembling was in our own legs, as we now approached a lion’s lair for the first time in our lives.
The villagers were not the least afraid of their own lion but assured us that it would sleep right on into the evening. They knew its habits well and swore that they had fed it up into such a sluggish and plump creature that our greatest difficulty would be in waking it and chasing it out into the open.
The lion had worn a broad path between the bushes outside the cave, and the steep rocky slopes on each side of it were so high that Barbus and the animal trainer could safely climb up and assist us with their good advice. They indicated how far we should stretch the heavy rope net in front of the cave and how three of us should hold on to each end of it. The seventh was to call and jump about behind the net so that the dazed lion, blinded by the sun, would rush out at him and thus plunge straight into the net. Then we were to wrap the net around the lion as many times as possible, making sure that we did not get within reach of its teeth and claws. When we considered the matter, we noticed that it was not quite so simple as they had made it out to be.
We sat down on the ground to decide which of us would wake the lion up from its sleep. Barbus suggested that it would be best to poke the animal with a spear shaft, just enough to irritate but not injure it. The animal trainer assured us that he would have liked to perform this little service for us but his knees were stiff with rheumatism and then too he did not want to deprive us of the honor.
My friends began to glance at me and assured me that as far as they were concerned, from sheer good nature they would relinquish the honor to me. I was the one who had thought up the plan, just as I had inveigled them into the capture of the Sabine women which had been the beginning of this adventure. With the acrid smell of lion in my nostrils, I reminded my friends with some force that I was my father’s only son. When we considered this matter further, five of us proved to be the only sons of their fathers. This fact may possibly explain our behavior. One of us had nothing but sisters and the youngest, Charisius, hastily explained that his only brother stammered and also suffered from other defects.
When Barbus saw that my friends were putting pressure on me and I should be forced to go whether I wanted to or not, he took a great gulp of wine from the jar, with a trembling voice called upon Hercules, and assured me that he loved me more than his own son, although he in fact had never had a son. The task was not suited to him, he said, but he, an old legionary veteran, was prepared to step down into the cleft in the rocks and awaken the lion. Should he lose his life because of his poor sight and weakened legs, he wished only that I should see to it that he had a fine funeral barge and that I should make a speech about him so that his many famous exploits would be known to all. By his death he would show that at least a part of all he had told me about his exploits over the years was true.
When he began to crawl down the slope with a spear in his hand even I weakened, and we embraced each other tenderly and wept together. I could not let an old man sacrifice his life for me and my mistakes. Instead, I bade him tell my father that at least I had met death like a man and this would perhaps atone for everything, for I had brought only misfortune to him from the time when my mother had died giving birth to me until now when, although with no evil intent, I had shamed his good name throughout Antioch.
Barbus demantled that I should at least take a few gulps of wine since, he assured me, nothing really hurts if one has enough wine in one’s stomach. I drank and made my friends swear that they would hold the net firmly and not let it go at any price. Then I gripped my spear with both hands, clenched my teeth and crept along the lion’s path through the cleft in the rocks. With the thunder of the lion’s snores in my ears, I made out its recumbent form in the cave. I waved the spear, heard the lion let out a roar, myself gave a yell and ran, more swiftly than I had ever done at an athletic competition, straight into the net, which my friends had hastily raised without waiting for me to jump over it.
As I struggled for my life in the meshes of the net, the lion came hesitantly and groaning out of its cave and stopped in surprise to look at me. It was such a huge and fearsome beast that my friends, unable to bear the sight of it, dropped the net and fled. The animal trainer bawled out his good advice and shouted that we must at once cast the net over the lion before it became used to the daylight, for otherwise it might turn dangerous.
Barbus also shouted and urged me to show presence of mind and remember I was a Roman and a Manilian. If I found myself in need, he would immediately come down and kill the lion with his sword, but first I should try to capture it alive. I do not know which part of this advice seemed the soundest, but once my friends had dropped the net, it was easier for me to get out of it. Despite everything, their cowardice had made me so angry that I turned with a firm grip on the net and looked the lion straight in the eye. It stared back at me with a majestic mien and a deeply offended and hurt expression, whining gently as it lilted a bleeding hind paw. I raised the net with both hands, hoisted it tip willi all my strength, for it was heavy for a single man, and threw it. The lion simultaneously took a leap forward, became entangled in the net and fell to one side. Roaring terribly, it began to roll about on the ground, winding the net around itself so that only once did it manage to strike me with its paw. I felt its strength, for I flew head-over-heels for quite a distance, a fact which undoubtedly saved my life.
Barbus and the animal trainer loudly urged each other on, the latter taking his wooden pitchfork and pinning the lion to the ground, and Barbus successfully threading a noose around its hind legs. Now the Syrian peasants tried to come to our rescue, but I shouted and swore and forbade them to since I wanted my cowardly friends to be in on the capture of the lion. Otherwise the whole of our plan would have been to no avail. Finally they did this, although they received several scratches from the lion’s claws in the process. The animal trainer secured our ropes and knots until the lion was so firmly bound that it could scarcely move. While this was going on, I sat on the ground, trembling with rage and so upset that I vomited between my knees.
The Syrian peasants threaded a long wooden pole between the lion’s paws and began to carry the creature toward the village. As it hung there on the pole, it seemed less large and majestic than when it had stepped out from its cave into the sunlight. In fact, it was a weak and flea-bitten old lion with several bald patches in its mane, and badly worn teeth. What worried me most was that it might be strangled by its bonds during the journey to the village.
My voice betrayed me several times, but I managed to make perfecdy clear to my friends what I thought of them and their behavior. If I had learned anything, it was that one could rely on no one when it came to one’s life. My friends were ashamed of their behavior and accepted my criticism, but they also reminded me of our joint oath and that we had captured the lion together. They willingly allowed me the greater part of the honor, but also demonstrated their wounds. I, in turn, showed my arm, which was still bleeding so profusely that my knees felt weak. Finally we agreed that we were all scarred for life by our venture. In the village we celebrated with a feast and respectfully made sacrifices to the lion after we had successfully barricaded it inside the sturdy cage. Barbus and the animal trainer got drunk while the girls in the village danced in our honor and garlanded us. The following day we hired an ox-wagon to take the cage and we ourselves rode behind in proc
ession with wreaths on our foreheads, while carefully ensuring that our bandages bore clearly visible bloodstains on them.
At the city gates in Antioch the police were about to arrest us and take away our horses, but the officer in command was wiser and decided to come with us when we told him that we were voluntarily on our way to the City Hall to give ourselves up. Two policemen made a way for us with their batons, for as always in Antioch, all the loafers began to crowd around as soon as word spread that something unusual had happened. At first the crowd shouted abuse and threw lumps of manure and rotten fruit at us, for an exaggerated rumor had circulated that we had violated all the girls and gods in the city. Irritated by the noise and cries of the crowd, our lion began to roar dully, and it continued to roar, encouraged by the sound of its own voice, until our horses once again began to rear and shy away.
It is possible that the animal trainer had played a part in the roaring. Anyhow, the crowd fell back willingly before us and when they saw our bloodstained bandages, several of the women gave cries of sympathy and wept.
Anyone who has ever viewed the broad mile-long main street of Antioch, with its endless columns, will understand that our procession gradually began to look like a procession of triumph rather than of shame. It was not long before the easily influenced crowd began to throw flowers in our path. Our self-confidence grew, and when we reached the City Hall we already felt ourselves heroes rather than criminals.
The city fathers allowed us first to present our lion to the city and dedicate it to the protector Jupiter, who in Antioch is usually called Baal. After this we were brought before the criminal magistrates. But at that time there was a famous lawyer, with whom my father had spoken, working with them, and our voluntary appearance made a deep impression on the magistrates. They took our horses from us of course, which was inevitable, and we had to listen to gloomy words on the depravity of youth and about what one could expect in the future when the sons of the city’s best families set such an appalling example to the people, and about how different it had all been in the days when our parents and forefathers had been young.
But when I returned home with Barbus, a death wreath hung on our door, and at first no one would speak to us, not even Sophronia. Finally she burst into tears and told me that my tutor, Timaius, had the previous evening asked for a pan of warm water in his room and then had opened his veins. His lifeless body had not been found until morning. My father had shut himself in his room and had not even received his freedmen, who had sought admission to console him.
Actually no one had really liked the morose and discontented Timaius, but a death is always a death and I could not escape from my sense of guilt. I had struck my tutor and by my behavior had brought shame on him. Now I was seized with terror. I forgot that I had looked a real lion straight in the eye, and my first thought was to run away forever, go to sea, become a gladiator or enlist in one of the most distant Roman legions in the countries of ice and snow, or on the hot borders of Parthia. But I could not flee from the city without landing in prison, and so I thought defiantly of following Timaius’ example and in that way ridding my father of my troublesome presence.
My father received me quite differently from the way I had thought he would, although I ought to have imagined something like it, as he rarely behaved as other people do. Weary from his vigil and weeping, he fell on me, took me in his arms, pressed me to his breast, kissed my cheeks and my hair and rocked me gently to and fro. He had never before held me in his arms in this way and with such gentleness, for when I was small and longed for his caresses he had never wished to touch me nor even look at me.
“My son Minutus,” he whispered. “I thought I had lost you forever and that you’d fled to the end of the world with that drunken veteran, because you had taken money with you. And you must not mind about Timaius, for he wished for nothing but to avenge his destiny as a slave and harness his vague philosophy on you and me, and nothing can happen in this world that is so evil that there is no way of reconciliation and forgiveness.
“Oh, Minutus,” he went on, “I am not fit to raise anyone, for I have not even been able to manage my own life. But you have your mother’s forehead and your mother’s eyes and your mother’s short straight nose and your mother’s lovely mouth too. Can you ever forgive me for the hardness of my heart and my neglect of you?”
My father’s incomprehensible gentleness melted my heart and I began to weep loudly, although I was already fifteen years of age. I threw myself down before him, clasped my arms around his knees and begged forgiveness for the shame I had caused him and promised to improve if he once again showed leniency. But my father too had fallen to his knees and embraced me and kissed me, so that we knelt there and begged each other’s forgiveness in turn. My relief was so great and so sweet that my father wished to take upon himself both the death of Timaius and my own guilt, that I wept even louder.
But when Barbus heard my wails, he could no longer contain himself. Banging and clattering, he burst into the room with drawn sword and shield, in the belief that my father was beating me. Hard on his heels came Sophronia, weeping loudly. She tore me away from my father and clasped me to her own ample bosom. Both Barbus and she bade my cruel father beat them instead, since they, rather than I, should take the blame. I was still a child and had certainly meant no harm with my innocent pranks.
My father rose in confusion and defended himself hotly against the accusation of cruelty by assuring them that he had not struck me.
When Barbus realized his state of mind, he noisily called on all the godx of Rome and swore that he would fall on his own sword to make good his guilt, as Timaius had done. He became so excited that he probably would have done himself harm had not we all three, my father, Sophronia and I, succeeded in wresting his sword and shield from him. What he had in fact thought of doing with the shield, I did not know. Afterwards he explained that he had been afraid my father would strike him on the head and his old head could no longer bear the blows it had once borne in Armenia.
My father asked Sophronia to send out for the best meat and have a feast prepared, since we must all be hungry after our escapade, and he himself had not been able to eat a thing after he discovered I had left home and that he had been so unsuccessful in bringing up his own son. He also had invitations sent to his freedmen in the city, for they had all been concerned about me.
My father washed my wounds with his own hands, smeared them with healing ointment and bandaged them with clean linen, although I myself would have preferred to retain the bloodstained bandages a little longer. Barbus was given the opportunity of relating the story of the lion. My father became even more morose and accused himself even more that his son had felt himself bound to face death in a lion’s mouth rather than turn to his own father to atone for a boy’s youthful prank.
Finally Barbus became thirsty from all his talk and I was left alone together with my father. He said that he realized he must talk to me about the future, for I should soon be receiving the man-toga, but he found it difficult to find words to begin. He had never before spoken to me as father to son. He looked at me with troubled eyes and sought vainly for the words which might help him to find me.
I looked at him too, and I saw that his hair had grown thin and his face furrowed. My father was already nearer fifty than forty and in my eyes was elderly lonely man who could enjoy neither his life nor the fortunes of his freedmen. I looked at his scrolls and for the first time realized that there was not a single idol of a god in his room, nor even an image of a genius. I remembered Timaius’ malevolent accusations.
“Marcus, my father,” I said. “Before his death my tutor, Timaius, told me several evil things about my mother and you. That was why I struck him on the mouth. I do not want to excuse what I did in any way, but all the same, tell me if there is anything evil. Otherwise as an adult how shall I be able to watch over my actions?”
My father looked troubled, rubbed his hands together and avoided my eyes. Then
he said slowly, “Your mother died giving birth to you, and that I could not forgive either you or myself until today, when I noticed that you are the image of your mother. I first feared I had lost you, then my sight returned and I realized that I have little to live for except you, my son Minutus.”
“Was mother a dancing woman, a loose woman and a slave, as Timaius maintained?” I asked directly.
My father was visibly upset.
“You shouldn’t even speak such words, Minutus,” he cried. “Your mother was a more noble woman than any I have known, and of course she was no slave although she had, because of a promise, dedicated herself to serve Apollo for a time. I once journeyed in Galilee and Jerusalem with her, looking for the king of the Jews and his kingdom.”
His words gave me courage. My voice trembled as I said, “Timaius told me that you were so involved in the secret conspiracies of the Jews that the magistrate was forced to expel you from Judaea, and this was why you did not regain your knighthood and not just because of a whim of Emperor Gaius.”
My father’s voice also shook as he said, “I have waited before telling you all this until you had learned to think for yourself, and I did not have to force you to think about things which not even I fully understood. But now you stand at the crossroads and must yourself choose the direction you take. I can only hope that you choose the right one. I cannot force you, for I can only offer you invisible things which I myself do not understand.”