by Mika Waltari
I said that he had sufficient insignia of honor on his tongue, but Barbus insisted on going in and buying a triumph badge of copper on which the inscription was so worn that one could not discern who it was had once given them out to his veterans. But when Barbus fastened it at his shoulder, he said he felt more secure among all the cavalrymen.
On the great field there were about a hundred young knights practicing for the centenary equestrian games. The stablemaster was a big churlish man who laughed loudly when he read the certificate I had received from the quaestor at the Noble Order of Knights.
“We’ll soon find a suitable horse for you, young man,” he shouted. “Do you want a big one or a small one, a wild one or a quiet one, a white one or a black one?”
He led us to the stable of available horses. I pointed to one and saw another which I liked, but he looked in his papers and said coldly that they were already taken.
“It’d be safest if you had a quiet horse which is used to the exercises and the noise of the circus and which knows the horn signals, if you’re thinking of taking part in the centenary parade,” he said. “Have you done any riding before?”
I admitted modestly that I had practiced a bit in Antioch, for Barbus had told me not to boast, and I added that I thought all cavalry horses were used to horn signals.
“But I’d be glad to take an unbroken horse and break it in myself,” I dared to suggest. “However, I realize that I’d not have time to do that before the festival.”
“Excellent, excellent!” cried the stablemaster, almost choking with laughter. “There aren’t many youngsters who know how to break in a horse. So help me, Hercules, to keep me from bursting. Professionals do the breaking in here.”
One of the professionals came up at that moment and looked me over from head to foot.
“We’ve got Arminia,” he suggested. “She’s used to the circus racket and stands still even if you drop a sack of stones in her saddle.”
He showed me a large black mare who turned in her stall and gave me a look of distrust.
“No, no, not Arminia,” said the stablemaster in horror. “She’s much too sedate for such a young man. She’s so handsome and yet as gentle as a lamb. We must keep her for some old senator who wants to ride in the parade.”
“Naturally, I had not thought to receive a horse for nothing,” I said, “just with a certificate. If you’ll allow me, I’d like to try this horse.”
“He wants to try it and pay for it as well,” said die breaker-in delightedly.
After a few protests, the stablemaster finally agreed.
“It’s much too quiet a horse for a boy like you,” he said, “but get your boots on and your riding kit. Meanwhile I’ll have the horse saddled.”
I told him that I had nothing with me to wear, but the stablemaster looked at me as if I were mentally deficient.
“You weren’t going to ride in parade costume, were you?” he said. “The State pays for your practice clothes.”
He took me to the equipment room and helpful slaves laced the chest harness so tightly that I found it hard to breathe. I was given a battered helmet and an old pair of short boots. They did not give me a shield, sword or spear, but told me to be content with testing my ability to ride the first time.
The mare trotted cheerfully out of the stable and neighed grandly, but at a command from the stablemaster stood absolutely still. I mounted with the reins in my hand, and asked to have the stirrup straps adjusted to the right length.
“I can see you’ve ridden before,” said the stablemaster approvingly.
Then he bawled out in a thunderous voice: “The knight Minutus Lausus Manilianus has chosen Arminia and is thinking of riding her!”
The riders out on the exercise field scattered to the edges, a trumpet blew the signal to attack, and immediately a game began which more by good luck than skill I managed to survive unscathed. I barely had time to hear a warning from the stablemaster to spare the mare’s tender mouth and not pull too hard on the reins-but Arminia seemed to have a mouth of iron. Reins and bit were completely unknown to her. To begin with, she jerked backward in order to throw me over her head. When this did not succeed, she began bucking and rearing and then set off at a wild gallop, employing all the tricks an experienced circus horse can find to throw an inexperienced rider. I realized only too well why the others had scattered and fled to the edges of the field when Arminia was let loose.
I could do nothing but hang on with all my strength and keep her head at least turned slightly to the left, for she rushed straight at the fence around the field and then stopped suddenly, trying to crush my head against the posts. When despite her efforts I remained on her back, she went quite mad and took great leaps over the obstacles on the field. She was in truth an overwhelmingly powerful and cunning horse, so that when I had recovered from my first fright, I began to enjoy the ride. I let out one or two wild yells and kicked her flanks with my heels to let her work off her rage and tire herself out.
Astonished, Arminia tried to look back at me and obeyed the reins just sufficiently for me to guide her straight at the stablemaster and the breaker in. They hurriedly stopped laughing and scuttled behind the stable door. The stablemaster shouted an order, his face scarlet with fury. A trumpet blared, a troop formed into line and began to trot toward me.
Hut Arminia did not swerve away, however much I pulled at the reins. Spluttering lather and swinging her head, she carried me at full gallop straight at the closed ranks of riders. I was sure I would be thrown, but either the leading riders lost courage or they must have deliberately opened the line at the last moment to let me through. But each one who could reach tried to sweep me out of the saddle with his wooden spear or hit me over the back as the furious Arminia took me, biting, leaping and kicking, right through the group of riders without my receiving more than a few bruises.
This vicious and deliberate attempt to frighten me made me so angry that I mustered all my strength and managed to turn Arminia in order to try to unseat some of the riders myself. But at the last moment I remembered Barbus’ advice, controlled myself and instead rode past them shouting, laughing and waving a greeting.
When Arminia had worked off her rage, she at last calmed down and became irreproachably obedient. When I dismounted in front of the stable, she did try to bite my neck, but I think it was mostly in fun and I contented myself in return by butting her with my elbow under her muzzle.
The stablemaster and the breaker-in looked at me as if I were a monster, but the stablemaster pretended to be angry.
“You’ve ridden her into a lather and torn the mouth of a valuable horse so that it bled,” he said reproachfully. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
“It’s my own horse and my own business how I ride it,” I answered.
“You’re quite wrong,” he said angrily. “You can’t ride her at practices because she won’t stay in line and doesn’t obey orders. She’s used to being ahead of the others.”
Several of the riders had left their horses and had gathered in a circle around us. They encouraged me and cried out that I was a good rider and they all agreed that the stablemaster had allotted me the horse by shouting it out for all to hear.
“Don’t you see it was a joke?” the stablemaster finally had to admit. “Every recruit has to try Arminia the first time, if he’s not too feeble. Arminia is a real warhorse and no miserable parade nag. She’s even fought with wild animals in the amphitheater. Who do you think you are, you insolent boy?”
“Joke or not,” I protested, “I stayed in the saddle and you fell into your own trap. It’s a shame to keep a fine horse like that shut up for days on end just to use for frightening recruits. Let’s meet each other halfway. I want to ride her every day, but for practices I’ll take another horse if she can’t keep in line.”
The stablemaster called on all the gods of Rome to bear witness that I had demantled two horses instead of one, but the others were on my side and cried out that he
had played his joke with Arminia long enough. Every one of them had a bump or a scar or a broken bone to remind them of their attempts to ride Arminia as recruits, although they had all been riding since infancy. If I were mad enough to want to break my neck then I had a right to have Arminia. She was in any case the property of the Order of Knights.
But I did not want to quarrel with the stablemaster, so I promised him a thousand sesterces as a tip and said I should like to stand everyone some wine to wet my riding boots. In this way I was taken into the Roman cavalry and made friends among my contemporaries and also among the older youths. After a while I was chosen to join the elite riders in place of a youngster who had broken his leg, and we started practicing seriously for the competitive games at the centenary festivities. They were sufficiently dangerous that no one was allowed to take part simply because of noble birth or wealth, but only according to his own skill and ability. So I was proud of being chosen.
It is unnecessary to continue boasting about my success in the equestrian games. We were divided into two sections which performed a regular cavalry battle at the great circus at the centenary feast. It was a rough game, although it was prescribed that neither side either won or lost. I managed to stay on Arminia’s back right to the end but after that I had to be carried home and I saw little of the displays in the amphitheater or the performances at the circus which were supposed to be the most brilliant and best organized that had ever been seen in Rome. In the middle of the festivities, many of my friends found the time to come and see me on my sickbed and assured me that without me they would have won much less honor and glory. I contented myself with having ridden my black mare and with having heard a couple of hundred thousand people roaring with excitement and shouting my praises before I broke several ribs and my left thigh. But I had stayed in the saddle on Arminia until the very end.
The most significant political outcome of the centenary festival was that people paid great tribute to Emperor Gaius’ nephew, that ten-year old Lucius Domitius, who beautifully and fearlessly led the more innocent displays of the boy riders. Claudius’ own son, Britannicus, was put completely in the shade. The Emperor did call him up to his box and tried his best to show him to the people, but the crowd only shouted for Lucius Domitius and he received the acclaim with such modesty and good manners that everyone was even more delighted.
As far as I was concerned, I should have been lame for life if the cavalry doctor from the temple of Castor and Pollux had not been so skillful. He handled me cruelly and I suffered fearful pain. I had to lie in splints for two whole months. After that I had to practice walking on crutches and could not leave our house for long.
The pain, the fear of being a cripple and the discovery of how fleeting are all success and fame were certainly good for me. At least I did not become involved in the many fights which the wildest of my friends joined in at night in the streets of Rome during the general excitement of the festival. At first I thought that my enforced confinement in bed and the intolerable pain were part of fate’s efforts to determine my character. I was lonely, once more abandoned by my father because of his marriage. I had to decide for myself what I wished from my life.
As I lay in bed right into that hot summer, I was seized with such melancholy that everything that had hitherto happened seemed to be quite meaningless. Aunt Laelia’s good and nourishing food tasted of nothing. At night I could not sleep. I thought of Timaius, who had committed suicide because of me. For the first time I realized that a good horse was perhaps not after all the best in life. I had to find out for myself what was best for me, duty and virtue or comfort and enjoyment. The writings of philosophers which had formerly bored me suddenly became meaningful. And I did not have to think very hard for long before I realized that discipline and self-control gave me more satisfaction than childish lack of restraint.
The most faithful among my friends turned out to be Lucius Pollio, the son of a senator. He was a slender, frail youth only a few years older than I, and he had only just managed to get through the riding exercises. He had been attracted to me because my disposition was the exact opposite to his, rough, self-confident and irresponsible, and yet I had never spoken a harsh word against him. That much I had probably learned from my father, so I was more friendly to those who were weaker than to those who were like me. I was reluctant, for instance, to strike a slave, even if he were insolent.
In the Pollio family there had always been bookish and scientific interests. Lucius himself was also much more of a bookworm than a rider. The riding exercises were for him nothing but a tedious duty which he had to endure for the sake of his career and he did not enjoy hardening his body. He came to me with books from his father’s library which he thought would be good for me to read. He envied me my perfect Greek. His secret dream was to be a writer, although his father, Senator Mummius Pollio, took it for granted that he would be an administrator.
“What’s the use of my wasting several years on riding and listening to cases?” said Lucius rebelliously. “In time I’ll be given command of a maniple with an experienced centurion under me and after that I’ll be in command of a cavalry division somewhere in the provinces. In the end I’ll become a tribune on the staff of some legion building roads at the other end of the world. Not until I’m thirty can I apply for the office of quaestor, if one can get dispensation on the grounds of age because of one’s own or one’s family’s merits. I know perfectly well that I’ll be a bad officer and a wretched official because I’ve no real interest in such activities.”
“While I’ve been lying here, I’ve been thinking that perhaps it’s not all that clever to get one’s limbs broken for a moment of glory,” I admitted. “But what would you really like to do?”
“Rome already rules over the whole of the world,” said Lucius, “and is not seeking new conquests. The god Augustus sensibly limited the number of legions to twenty-five. Now the most important thing to do is to convert Rome’s crude habits to those of Greek civilization. Books, poetry, drama, music and dance are more important than the blood-drenched performances at the amphitheater.”
“Don’t take away the races,” I said. “At least one can see fine horses there.”
“Gambling, promiscuity and shameless orgies,” said Lucius gloomily. “If I try to get a symposium going to talk in Greek in the way the old philosophers did, it always ends up with dirty stories and a drunken orgy. In Rome it’s impossible to find a society interested in good music and song or which would appreciate classical drama more than adventure stories and dirty jokes. Most of all I’d like to go and study in Athens or Rhodes, but my father won’t let me. According to him Greek culture has only an effeminate effect on the manly virtues of
Roman youth. Just as if there were nothing left of the earlier Roman virtues except hollow pretense and pomp and ceremony.”
But I gained much from Lucius too, for he willingly told me about the administration and key offices of Rome. According to his innocent conception, the Senate could reverse a bill of the Emperor, while again the Emperor as a people’s tribune for life, could block a bill by the Senate with his right of veto. Most of the Roman provinces were ruled by the Senate through the Proconsuls, but some were more or less the Emperor’s private property, the administration of which was his own responsibility. The Emperor’s most important province was Egypt; also countries tied to Rome and several kingdoms, the regents of which had been brought up since childhood in the Palatine school and had learned Roman customs. I had not really realized before how basically clear and sensible this apparently involved form of government was.
I explained to Lucius that I myself wanted to be a cavalry officer more than anything else. Together we went through the possibilities available to me. I had no chance of gaining entry into Rome’s Praetorian Guard for the sons of senators took up all the vacancies for tribunes there. In the border country of Mauretania one could hunt lions. In Britain there was endless border fighting. The Germans were disputing with Rom
e over grazing lands.
“But you can hardly win battle honors even if you do take part in a bit of fighting here and there,” said Lucius. “Border scuffles are not even reported, for the legion’s most important task is to keep the peace along the borders. A legion commantler who is too enterprising and anxious for war loses his post before he can turn around. In fact an ambitious man has the best chance of promotion in the navy. An officer in the navy needn’t even be a knight by birth. There isn’t even a temple of Poseidon in Rome. You’d have a good income and a comfortable life. You could count on the command of a ship from the start. A good helmsman would of course look after the navigation side. Usually no one of noble birth ever goes into the navy.”
I was sufficiently Roman, I replied, that it did not seem much of a life for a man to be rowed from one place to another, especially now that one had heard no mention of pirates within living memory. I could do the most good in the East, for I could speak Aramaic like everyone else who had grown up in Antioch. But I was not attracted to building roads and living in garrison towns where the legionaries had permission to marry and settle and the centurions could become successful merchants. I did not want to go to the East.
“Why should you bury yourself at the other end of the world anyhow?” asked Lucius. “It would be incomparably better to stay here in Rome where sooner or later one is noticed. With the help of your riding skill, your fine figure and beautiful eyes, you could go further in a year here than in twenty years as a commantler of a cohort among the barbarians.”
Irritable from my long stay in bed and from sheer contrariness, I said, “Rome in the heat of the summer is a sweating stinking city full of filthy flies. Even in Antioch the air was fresher.”