Ave, Caesarion

by Deborah Davitt

  She turned towards him, her face mildly horrified. “No, I didn’t know that. We’re not descended from him, are we?” She turned back towards Cleopatra. “Please tell me that isn’t true, Mother.”

  “I’m fairly sure that it was a lie inspired by the need to find a god somewhere in his ancestry to look good to the Egyptians he was about to rule,” Cleopatra replied dryly. “Why, don’t you think it would be marvelous to be descended from the strongest hero in the world?”

  Eurydice grimaced. “If I’d been Ptolemy the first, I’d have claimed descent from someone else. Odysseus, maybe. Perseus.”

  “Someone with a mind?” Cleopatra asked archly.

  Caesarion laughed and reached across, taking Eurydice’s hand in his, companionably. Aware that the eyes of thousands of people were currently riveted, not to the sacrifices of wheat and wine on the field, but on them. “Ah, good. They’re done.” He released her hand and stood, waving for silence. After a moment, he got it. And in a voice used to reaching through the clamor of battle and across parade grounds, he called, “I promised ludi to Mars and Venus if they gave us victory in Hispania. They granted us an overwhelming one over the forces of the rebellious Tillii. And so, today, my sister and I offer these games both to the gods and to Rome. But as today is Divalia, it seems improper to spill blood or give men’s lives. So all weapons used today will be blunted and bated. A test of skill and courage for those on the sands. Though, in truth, even a blunt weapon can still break bones and kill men. I encourage our fighters today to do their best, and give us a good show, for the honor of the gods and the glory of Rome.”

  As he resumed his seat, the first gladiators emerged, and Matru leaned forward, his expression curious. “These fights are usually to the death?” he asked, sounding incredulously.

  “Not always,” Caesarion replied. “They’ve existed in one form or another for a very long time. They were staged before our war with Carthage, usually at funerals, but came to be associated with human sacrifice during the Punic Wars.” His expression turned grim. “Those wars were the last time Rome sacrificed lives directly to the gods,” he added, looking at Matru steadily. “It was a last, desperate effort to save our entire civilization, our way of life, from destruction. And it worked. But ever since, while we expect devotio from our soldiers—that every man on the field should be ready and willing to give up his life for Rome, for the men beside him—we have not killed men at the altars of the gods.”

  Matru shrugged a little, his face impassive. “But these men are a method of human sacrifice, then, that isn’t directly given to the gods?” A skeptical sort of gleam flickered in his eyes.

  Caesarion shrugged. “Sometimes they die. Most of the time, they don’t. They’re too expensive to train, really. Each man usually fights about three bouts a year. Often they’re wounded. A little blood pleases the gods.” He hesitated, then added, diffidently, “And occasionally, prisoners are executed here.”

  “Including prisoners of war?” Matru asked, his eyes now locked on the men below. Several of the gladiators were Gauls—tall, blondish, hairy. All looked to be in decent condition, however.

  “Sometimes, yes.” Caesarion edged around that dangerous topic carefully. “Convicted murderers and such are given a blade and allowed to defend themselves, but no armor. If they manage to survive, it’s an indication that the gods have pardoned them, or found them innocent.” He shrugged. “The crowd likes a fair fight better, though. As do the gladiators themselves. So the use of the arena for executions is somewhat rare.”

  “Ah. This is very different from our wooden cages and the fires,” Matru replied, nodding, his eyes still locked on the men below. “Or from drowning the evil-doer in a bog and leaving the grave unmarked, so that not even the gods will know where he was left.” He paused. “Of course, we generally like to be sure of a man’s guilt before executing him.”

  Caesarion felt that statement like a nettle under a horse’s blanket. “As do we,” he returned sharply. “We have excellent courts.” He frowned. “Of course, there are occasions on which justice may be expedited.” Like Octavian.

  Matru lifted his gaze from the men on the floor of the arena, and met Caesarion’s gaze unflinchingly. “I am aware that, but for the grace of your curiosity, I might be one of those men down there. Or decorating a cross somewhere in the mountains of Hispania.” He lowered his head slightly, as if in deference, but Caesarion understood that this was merely an acknowledgement of his current captive state, and little more.

  Caesarion returned his attention to the fight below, hearing the crowd start to cheer as the murmillo below, with the heavy, cage-like helmet that concealed his face and the scuta and gladius so similar to that carried by the legions themselves, held off an attack by a retiarius, who wore almost no armor, and carried a trident and a net. “Each of the types of gladiators you see,” Cleopatra called to Matru, bouncing her son on her lap lightly, “represents a type of warrior that Rome has fought in the past. That’s why some of your Gallic friends down there are dressed like Hellene hoplites. Since Rome now owns so much Gallic land, it’s considered impolite to depict your people as enemies.”

  The retiarius depended on speed for his attacks, and range. If he could catch the murmillo, a tall, heavily-muscled man, capable of carrying all that heavy armor, with his net, he could bind up the murmillo’s arms. Trip him with the net, and then close with the trident. The murmillo, however, proved to be lighter on his feet than he looked, and tried to swipe the thrown net aside with his shield—and the net hooked onto the shield’s boss. The retiarius tried to recover his weapon, but the murmillo, smelling blood, yanked on his shield, throwing his opponent off-balance, and closed, rapidly, raising his shield to fend off the trident.

  “You were right,” Eurydice told Caesarion. “Once you get in past the tip of the spear, it’s far less effective.”

  He turned, smiling at the reminder of her training in Hispania—something he’d tried to keep her current on here in Rome, to the shock of many of their Roman servants. “Oh, there are still things that retiarius can do, if he’s smart. Me, I’d use the butt of the spear to sweep the murmillo’s legs—come on, damn it,” he told the gladiator below. “Every part of the spear is a weapon, not just the pointy bit!”

  Eurydice laughed. “Part of you wants to go down there and show them how it’s done,” she teased lightly.

  “Part, yes. Would never do it, though,” Caesarion replied dryly.

  “Why not?” Matru put in, quietly.

  Caesarion frowned, turning back towards his hostage. “Drusus, would you be kind enough to answer our guest’s questions?”

  Drusus sat up straight, eyes wide. “Because gladiators are infames,” he replied immediately. “The lowest of the low. Like an actor or a slave. Becoming one, a man becomes a slave, giving a master the right to order him to die.”

  “So nobles never participate in these games. Just the slaves?”

  “Well, there have been a few nobles who’ve participated,” Drusus replied hesitantly. “But they give up their patrician status to do so. Allow themselves to be enslaved—willingly!—and give up any chance of ever holding political office again. They make themselves polluted, but . . . some people are fascinated by the gladiators.” Drusus shrugged his thin shoulders, just visible out of the corner of Caesarion’s eye. “Why, there are tales that a patrician once, ah . . . “ Drusus stumbled. “He, ah, married another man. As a . . . ah,” He hesitated. “As the bride. A horn-player, so another infamis—”

  “I can only assume that the musician’s skill at blowing his horn translated admirably in the bedchamber,” Cleopatra muttered, just loudly enough that Caesarion, who’d just taken a sip of watered wine, choked on his drink, occasioning more than a few stares from the seats around the Imperial box.

  Selene and Octavia looked confused, but Eurydice and Drusus both covered their faces to hide their laughter. And Matru’s eyebrows simply shot up and stayed there as Drusus finally man
aged to splutter on, “He, ah, appeared in the area. As a retiarius, like that one down there. Only wearing a tunic and, er, skipping around. His face exposed so everyone could see who he was. Rumor has it that the gladiator he fought asked to be permitted to take his own life to remove the shame of having been compelled to fight someone like that.”

  “Some people will do just about anything for attention,” Caesarion called over. “It’s sad, but I’m sure that people with that desperate need to be looked at exist in every society.” He lowered his voice to a mutter as he added to Eurydice, “A pity they all can’t just be actors. Some of them just don’t have the talent for it, though.”

  She chuckled into her own cup now.

  On the sands, the retiarius finally did sweep the murmillo’s legs with the butt of the trident, and the more heavily armed man hit the ground and rolled, getting his shield between himself and the covered tines of the spear. Back and forth he twisted, dodging the rapid attacks of the spear, and then, as the crowd gasped at one near-miss by his feet, he managed to twist around and stab with his gladius. Low. Very low, in fact. The groin-shot would have torn the femoral artery of the retiarius, had the gladius not been bound to its wooden sheath today.

  Wild cheers from the crowd, and the retiarius stepped back, lifting a finger to indicate that given this ‘wound,’ he could no longer fight. The referees, each of whom carried a long stick, used to separate fighters if they got into an unexciting clinch, or if one of them was badly wounded, and if the sponsor of the games wished his life to be preserved, rushed forwards, declaring the murmillo the winner—and immediately announced his next opponent, a thraex, who’d fight in the style of Thrace.

  “So, if they’re slaves—mostly—and anyone who chooses to become one, for whatever reasons, becomes a slave, or lower than one,” Matru said, slowly, in the wake of the action below, “and they may very well be ordered to die, why do they fight so hard?”

  Caesarion glanced over at Drusus, whose young face shone with enthusiasm as he explained to the foreigner, “So that they can be men. If someone’s been captured or enslaved in battle, they’re living a life they have no right to, anymore. They should have died rather than be taken. And in battle, even the lowest can show themselves to have the virtue and honor and valor of a man—the same as any legionnaire. And if they’re called upon to die, then it’s devotio—the same devotio that a soldier expresses if he dies saving his brothers in arms, or dies fighting for Rome.”

  Matru nodded slowly, as if putting the pieces together. “Ah. So then war, for you, is religion. It is how you please the gods.”

  “Well . . . more or less,” Drusus hedged. “I’m not sure I’d put it quite that way.”

  The murmillo fought no less than five consecutive opponents without a break. In the last bout, he actually faced a pair of foes, a fellow murmillo and an essedarius, the latter entering the arena in a chariot based on those used in Britannia. Caesarion stole a look at Matru’s face, seeing an expression of confusion there as the charioteer raced in circles around the arena floor, and behind the driver, the gladiator himself threw blunted javelins at the weary murmillo every time he and his opponent broke from each other. “Doesn’t look like yours?” Caesarion asked mildly.

  “Not particularly. It’s certainly maneuverable, but doesn’t offer much protection.” Matru shrugged. “I don’t build chariots. But it doesn’t look much like ours, no. Our charioteers ride on a rope platform between the horses and the vehicle, for one.”

  By now, Caesarion was cheering as much for the weary murmillo as anyone else in the crowd. The man managed to knock his current opponent to the ground, and stood over him just long enough to bring his shield down at the enemy’s throat—a gesture that Caesarion raised his hand to stop, and the referees immediately halted. Taking that opponent off the field gave the murmillo a breather, as the essedarius continued to circle the area. And then it was one exhausted man against a chariot.

  And the murmillo didn’t disappoint. He seized one of the javelins already hurled at him from the ground and ran forward, finding reserves of energy somewhere in his flagging frame. Held his shield up to fend off any more attacks, and drove the javelin through the spokes of the wheels of the chariot, sending the whole contraption spinning over, and throwing both driver and essedarius out of the vehicle, while the horses spooked and ran. The driver rolled away and ran, trying to cut off the horses, now dragging the chariot on its side, and get control of their reins before they trampled anyone on the floor. One of the referees moved to help, using his long pole to try to force the horses away from the two fighters. Once again, the crowd roared with one voice.

  The essedarius, however, didn’t get up. Couldn’t get up. He’d hit the ground badly and with a scream, and while he now drew his short sword, and hauled himself up to at least a sitting position, his left leg seemed badly twisted under him, in an unnatural position. Matru hissed at the sight, and Caesarion raised his hand to stop the fight again. “That leg’s broken in at least two places,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s over.”

  By the end, the crowd was cheering so wildly as the exhausted murmillo staggered to the center of the arena, waiting for a final opponent, that Caesarion easily reached a decision, and stood, holding aloft a wooden sword. The crowd roared even more loudly, and Caesarion found the steps that led down, offering the wooden sword to the gladiator with his own hands. And the murmillo accepted it, with a low inclination of his head. “Here is your freedom,” Caesarion told the man, barely audible over the voices of the crowd. “That was very well fought.”

  “Thank you, dominus.” The man removed his helmet, revealing sweat-soaked long hair, tied back from his face, and a hint of beard. A Gaul.

  Ascending once more to his box, as the essedarius was helped from the field, and noting the grim expression on Matru’s face, Caesarion took his seat and chided, “And now you see the other reason they fight. If they fight well—and the crowd is always the ultimate judge of that—they can be freed. Lifted up and made free Romans. Even a Gaul can win the heart of the crowd.” He gestured back at the man he’d just manumitted.

  “I’m glad that he’s free.” Terse words, still.

  “But you’d rather be dead than a Roman, eh?” Cleopatra called over.

  “There’s no question of the latter ever occurring, my lady,” Matru replied, with exquisite politeness. “No, I just don’t like seeing broken bones.”

  From near the doorway to the box, Malleolus snorted. “Broken bones bother you more than blood, druid? Than seeing men impaled on your stone spikes? Than seeing heads cut off and placed on spears outside a village, or hearing the screams of men being burned alive?”

  Matru’s shoulders moved under his Roman tunic. “When I was twelve,” he said shortly, looking straight at Malleolus, “the Venicones took me captive. And my younger sister. They didn’t quite know who they had—they knew we were nobles, but not that we were the children of the Pictish king. They killed all our retainers, and planned to ransom us, once they were more or less sure that they’d gotten information from us, and had determined which noble family we actually belonged to.” He paused. “One of the things they did to me—after dousing me in water and leaving me bound to a tree in the snow to see how long it would take me to freeze proved less entertaining than they thought—was to break both of my legs. And then they hung me from my arms, in much the way you did in Hispania.” His eyes never left Malleolus. “Your methods were somewhat more humane. For which I thank you.” He glanced briefly at Caesarion now. “I was the lucky one, though. They raped my younger sister repeatedly over the course of the ten days we were prisoner, until my father’s men found us. There is a reason I’ve never been sent to the Venicones to arbitrate disputes. My brothers among the druids know that there is no possible way in which I could be neutral towards those bastards.”

  “What happened to your sister?” Eurydice asked, her voice shaken.

  “She died.” Matru’s voice remain
ed curt. “She lasted long enough to be able to say goodbye to our father.”

  Caesarion, who’d been holding Eurydice’s hand, felt his fingers tighten. Just for a moment, he pictured himself in Matru’s position. “I’d have declared war the instant I found my children like that,” he said, simply. “And there’d be no Venicones left.”

  “My father did. Once my legs healed, I joined the war for a year. The Pairisi joined the Venicones. The druids intervened to stop the war because they saw a greater threat on our horizon, and they took me away to train to fight a worse enemy than the Venicones.” Matru shrugged. “Rome.”

  Is anything going to convince his people that I am not my father? Caesarion thought, wearily. Or am I doomed to fight them, just because now, they’re ready for the fight?

  As the sun sank towards the horizon, servants moved hastily over the arena floor, raking and cleaning, setting up torches all around the arena floor, and bringing forth a large, flat, circular container. The huge terra cotta basin looked much like a fountain, though without the white spray lofting into the air. And they filled it with water poured from heavy amphorae, with a few pitchers of oil too, discreetly mixed. Eurydice had been very specific about her needs.

  To keep the crowd occupied while these preparations went on, musicians played horns, and acrobats leaped into the arena, tumbling and juggling and making grotesque faces at people in the front rows to keep everyone interested and in their seats for the moment. Eurydice could hear the buzz of speculation around them—”The pool’s too small to stage a naval battle! Not unless the ships are very tiny indeed!”

  And while they waited, between acts like this, people could find the lavatories. Buy more wine. Or come visiting, as did a young Roman woman, no more than eighteen, accompanied by two of her family’s servants. No rings on her fingers, indicating that she was not currently married, elaborately curled red-gold hair—surely not her natural color—and heavy kohl around her eyes. And an Egyptian-style necklace that practically armored her upper chest in beads. “Please,” she entreated from the corridor. “I’m Servia Sulpicia, daughter of Servius Sulpicius Rufus. May I beg admittance?”