Pantomime in Roman times was nothing like modern pantomime. The pantomime dancer of Roman times wore a mask and danced the actions of a story, which was sung by a singer and accompanied by music.
Narcissus the pantomime dancer is a made-up character, but there really was a famous pantomime dancer in Rome named Paris.
The man who claimed to be Nero was also a real person. We have several accounts of him appearing during the reign of Titus. According to these accounts, the real Nero did not die – but rather a look-alike – and the real Nero went into hiding and waited for the right time to reappear!
To Nan Rachel Peel
The Scribe from Long Island
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This story takes place in ancient Roman times, so a few of the words may look strange.
If you don’t know them, ‘Aristo’s Scroll’ at the back of the book will tell you what they mean and how to pronounce them.
You will also find a map of Turkey, which the Romans called Asia. Over two thousand years, some of the coastline has changed, so don’t use this map to find your way around Turkey today! There is also a map of Ephesus as it was in the late first century AD, before some of its more famous monuments were built.
* * *
In the black storm-tossed waters of the Libyan Sea, a dark-skinned girl was treading water and fighting for breath.
For three days the sailors had struggled to keep the Roman merchant ship Tyche afloat. On the first day they had passed ropes under the ship to hold it together. On the second day they had thrown all the cargo overboard: the priceless elephant tooth, terebinth resin and exotic spices. On the third day the crew had jettisoned the ship’s tackle and anything else not nailed down.
At dusk on the third day, a point of light appeared briefly on the southern horizon. It was too low to be a star, so they made for it. Presently it was veiled by a squall. Some time during the night the Tyche came to a violent, juddering standstill, and gave a resounding groan. There were a few moments of confusion, punctuated by shouts and screams on deck, where the girl had been huddling with her friends. Torches moved in the darkness but were extinguished as the ship began to break apart and sink.
The girl was tumbled along the deck into the cold black water. The sea heaved and plunged around her. For a moment the clouds parted, and moonlight showed the head of a person in the dark trough of a wave. When she tried to call out, bitter salt water filled her mouth. She clutched a floating spar as it passed, but it was not buoyant enough to support her.
The girl choked as salt water filled her mouth and nose again. She looked around desperately for something to hold on to. After a few moments she saw a large wooden box sliding down a glassy slope of water. From within she heard the roar of a lion, so she let it pass by. She watched it rise up, then plunge out of sight over the crest of a wave. A moment later the fast-moving clouds blotted out the moon and she could barely see in the cold, stinging wetness.
The girl was a strong swimmer, but weakened by three days of seasickness and cold, she knew she could not keep afloat much longer.
‘Neptune!’ she cried out. ‘Help me, Neptune! If you save me . . .’ she paused to cough out seawater. ‘If you save me, I will give you my most precious possession.’
But even as Nubia uttered the words, she knew it was hopeless.
The next morning dawned misty and mild. The only signs of the previous night’s storm were the stunted angry waves hissing up onto the shore.
One of these waves touched the bare foot of a fair-skinned girl lying on the beach. She had lost both sandals, her sky-blue tunic was damp, and her light brown hair unpinned and tangled.
Another wave foamed up around her feet. The girl opened her eyes and saw that she was still clinging to a huge wooden swan’s neck ornament, the kind found on the sterns of many Roman merchant ships.
Flavia Gemina released the swan’s neck, then pushed herself up onto one elbow and looked around. The world was colourless, featureless, empty. Nothing but waves and sand and tatters of drifting fog. But at least she was alive. She had held on to the polished wooden swan’s neck, and it had kept her afloat.
Flavia offered up a silent thanksgiving. Thank you, Neptune. Thank you, Venus, she prayed. Thank you, Castor and Pollux. And thank you, too, Jupiter, who once took the form of a swan.
Shakily, Flavia rose to her feet. Keeping the waves on her right, she moved unsteadily towards a vague shape further along the beach. As she came nearer, the object grew darker, more solid, and finally she saw that it was a wooden barrel, embedded at an angle in the sand. She gripped its rim and looked into it. Half a foot of seawater at its bottom, and a tiny fish swimming in it. She raised her eyes and saw another shape further along the shore. This proved to be a broken spar, still attached to a tangle of rope. She left it to investigate a large square object that resolved itself into a wooden box with small slits near the top: a beast-cage. The Tyche had been carrying goods from Africa to Rome, including two lions for the arena.
Heart thumping, Flavia moved cautiously towards the cage. It was broken and empty. Had the lion escaped? She examined the sand around the box, but there were no paw prints. Nor were there any further up the beach, beyond the smoothing effect of the waves. Poor lion, thought Flavia, staring out to sea. You never made it to land.
A noise made her turn her head. Above the hiss of the waves warbled the faint but unmistakable notes of a flute.
‘Nubia!’ she whispered through parched lips. And then louder: ‘Nubia? Is that you?’
The flute ceased abruptly and there was the sound of laughter, muffled by the fog.
‘Nubia!’ cried Flavia. ‘Jonathan! Lupus! Uncle Gaius! Where are you?’
Now she heard a woman’s excited voice and she stumbled towards it.
Out of the mist emerged two figures, moving unsteadily towards Flavia.
When the couple saw her, they smiled and waved.
Flavia stopped, and stared in disbelief. The woman wore a golden shift and gilded sandals, and held a silver flute in her hand. She had straight black hair – cut Egyptian-style – and a golden snakehead diadem. Her eyes were lined with black kohl to make them look dramatically exotic, and despite her large nose and strong chin, she was captivating. The man was a Roman officer, but his leather cuirass was of the old-fashioned Republican kind. His curly dark hair was greying at the temples, and it was partly obscured by a garland of ivy leaves, like that worn by the god Dionysus.
They were not survivors from the shipwreck. She had never seen them before. And so it was impossible that Flavia should recognise the couple standing before her.
But she did.
‘Cleopatra?’ breathed Flavia. ‘And Marcus Antonius?’
The woman laughed with delight and clapped her hands. Turning to her handsome companion, she said in Greek: ‘What a clever girl! She recognised us.’
‘But it can’t be,’ whispered Flavia. ‘You died more than a hundred years ago.’
Suddenly, with a thrill of horror, Flavia noticed the snake coiled around Cleopatra’s arm and the two spots of blood on her neck. And she saw that Antonius’s leather cuirass was split and that the tunic beneath it was soaked with blood where he had stabbed himself in the stomach.
The horrible realisation dawned on Flavia. She was not alive. She had not survived the shipwreck. She had drowned.
And now she was in the land of the dead.
The smiling faces of Anthony and Cleopatra began to shrink and speed away from her. She tried to reach out to them, but now they were gone, and everything was black.
The scent of honeyed wine filled Flavia’s head and the sweet, strong taste of it on her tongue made her cough. But it was good, so when the leather nozzle was pressed against her teeth again, she drank greedily.
She heard the woman’s bubbling laugh and the man’s slurred rebuke in Greek: ‘Don’t laugh. The poor girl’s obviously survived a shipwreck. By the gods, I think I need a drink, too.’
Flavia opened her ey
es to see Marcus Antonius sucking at the wineskin. A dribble of amber wine trickled from the corner of his mouth. Cleopatra leant forward to lick it. Antonius responded with a passionate kiss.
Flavia’s head thumped back onto the sand.
‘Silly man!’ giggled Cleopatra. ‘You’ve dropped her.’
Antonius cursed.
Flavia pushed herself up on her elbows and looked at them. ‘Am I dead?’ she asked in halting Greek. ‘Is this the Underworld?’
Cleopatra giggled and Antonius said. ‘No, dear girl. It’s Canopus.’ He took another swig from the wineskin.
‘Oh!’ cried Cleopatra. ‘She thinks she’s in Hades, because we’re dressed up as dead people.’ She turned to Flavia and pulled off her black wig, revealing frizzy brown hair pinned tightly in a bun. ‘I’m not really Cleopatra,’ she said. ‘My name’s Myrrhina. Thonis and I have just been to a party. We all had to dress up as famous dead people. They do love the dead here.’
Flavia blinked. ‘Here? Where is here?’
‘I told you: Canopus!’ Myrrhina gave her bubbling laugh. ‘Look!’ She gestured behind her. The sun was burning off the mist and Flavia could see the red-tiled roofs of seaside villas, fringed by lofty palm trees.
‘See that light?’ Thonis was pointing towards a yellow star on the horizon.
Flavia nodded.
‘That’s the great Pharos,’ he said. ‘The lighthouse.’
Flavia rose unsteadily to her feet and stared at the couple. ‘The great Pharos of Alexandria?’ she said, and when they both nodded she gasped. ‘Great Juno’s peacock! I’m in Egypt!’
Thonis was wrapping his red cloak around Flavia when Myrrhina uttered a cry: the early morning mist was clearing and she had spotted something further up the beach.
Flavia followed her gaze and saw a small dark form lying on the sand. It was the naked body of a boy, curled up on his side, facing away from her.
‘Lupus!’ she cried. She let the cloak fall and stumbled towards him. ‘Oh no! It’s Lupus!’
‘A wolf?’ Thonis called after her, his voice still slurred with wine. ‘Is it a wolf?’
‘No!’ cried Flavia over her shoulder. ‘It’s one of my friends. He was on the ship.’
When she reached the body she fell to her knees and reached out a trembling hand.
‘Oh, praise Juno!’ she sobbed. The boy’s body was warm.
Lupus groaned and opened his eyes.
For a moment he blinked up at them, frowning.
‘Cover him with your cloak!’ cried Flavia, speaking Latin in her excitement. ‘And give him some mulsum!’ Thonis obviously understood Latin, for he knelt down and wrapped his scarlet cloak around the boy. Then he squirted a few drops of wine into his mouth. Lupus coughed and began to choke. ‘No, let him do it himself!’ said Flavia. ‘He has no tongue and it might go down the wrong way.’
Thonis helped Lupus sit up and let him suck at the skin. After a few moments the boy grunted, put the wineskin on the sand, and pulled the cloak tightly around his body. He was shivering.
‘Oh, Lupus!’ cried Flavia, giving him a hug. ‘Praise the gods you’re alive! I think our ship must have hit a sand bar. It broke up so quickly. I was looking for you but it was dark and everyone was shouting and crying and suddenly the mast was falling straight towards me. So I jumped overboard. I found the wooden swan’s head and held onto that.’
Lupus nodded and blinked groggily.
‘Where was your ship bound for?’ asked Thonis.
‘Ostia,’ said Flavia. ‘The port of Rome. We were returning home from Mauretania Tingitana and had just passed through the Pillars of Hercules when a storm caught us and drove us here.’
‘Ostia is a long way from Alexandria,’ said Myrrhina.
‘I know,’ said Flavia, and turned to her friend. ‘Lupus! We’re in Egypt!’
Lupus stared up at her in wide-eyed amazement, then frowned and wrote in the sand: WHERE ARE OTHERS? He raised his eyebrows questioningly at Flavia.
She shook her head. ‘We haven’t seen Jonathan or Nubia. Or Uncle Gaius. But if we survived there’s a good chance they did, too.’
Lupus grunted, took another squirt of wine, then handed the skin up to Thonis with a nod of thanks.
Flavia stood up so that she could help Lupus to his feet, but the world suddenly tipped on its side.
‘Ohe!’ cried Thonis, catching her and setting her upright. ‘Festina lente! You’ve just survived a shipwreck.’
Myrrhina slipped a warm arm around Flavia’s shoulders as Thonis helped Lupus to his feet.
‘Lupus,’ said Flavia. ‘Meet Thonis and Myrrhina. They were at a fancy dress party at one of those big villas beyond the palm trees. They’re going to help us.’ She turned to the woman. ‘You’ll help us, won’t you?’ she said in Greek.
‘Of course we will,’ said Myrrhina.
Thonis added, ‘We’ll help you find your other friends and then I can take you into Alexandria. I live there. From there you can get a ship to Rome.’
‘Oh thank you!’ cried Flavia. ‘My father’s a sea captain and he might even be in Alexandria. He was due to sail there at the beginning of March. What day is it today?’
‘The Nones of May,’ said Thonis.
Lupus grunted and pointed further down the beach.
‘Oh! Look!’ cried Flavia. ‘There’s someone else! Is it Uncle Gaius?’
The four of them ran towards a man lying on the beach.
‘Great Juno!’ cried Flavia. ‘It’s the captain! His eyes are still open but . . .’
Lupus nodded and drew the side of his hand across his neck.
‘Oh!’ whispered Flavia.
Myrrhina uttered a cry of dismay and buried her face in Thonis’s shoulder. ‘There’s a little crab crawling in his beard!’ came her muffled voice.
Flavia averted her eyes from the corpse, and as she did so, she saw another couple coming towards them from the direction of the villas.
The man wore only a stiff linen kilt and a jackal mask which completely covered his head and shoulders. The woman wore a curious outfit made of strips of white cloth, like a dead person’s shroud, leaving only her dark eyes visible.
Lupus stared in disbelief and Flavia made the sign against evil.
‘Don’t be alarmed,’ said Thonis, taking a suck from his wineskin. ‘It’s only Diomedes and Obelliana. They came to the party dressed as Anubis and a mummy.’
Like Thonis and Myrrhina, the couple had obviously been up all night drinking, for they staggered and giggled as they came to meet their friends.
‘Oooh!’ slurred the woman in swaddling clothes. ‘Who are these?’ She looked from Flavia to Lupus to the captain’s body. Then her kohl-lined eyes widened in horror at the sight of the dead man, and she began to scream.
An hour later, Lupus and Flavia stood watching the bodies of four men burn on a pyre of dried palm fronds. The man in the dog-headed mask had taken away the screaming woman and gone to get help. The rich hostess of the party – a woman named Isidora – had arrived with four muscular slaves. She was dressed as Queen Dido, with a tower of golden curls and a bloody stola. She had taken charge immediately, sending her slaves to search the beach. They had found the bodies of three crewmembers, in addition to the captain, and were still looking for other survivors.
As Lupus watched the blackening bodies shiver in the flames, he remembered another pyre on another beach, and the burning body of the man who had cut out his tongue. Then his eyes focussed on the figures standing on the other side of the pyre. Isidora was having a quiet discussion with Thonis and Myrrhina. She was shaking her head, as if to say: no hope.
Lupus felt a tap on his shoulder.
Turning, he saw a boy with dark curly hair and warm brown eyes smiling weakly at him. The boy was wheezing and holding a damp herb pouch under his nose.
Lupus’s cloak fell to the sand as he threw his arms around his friend.
‘Ohe!’ said Jonathan. ‘More than I want to see!’ He grinn
ed and bent to retrieve Lupus’s cloak.
‘Oh, Jonathan!’ cried Flavia, and threw her arms around him. ‘Praise the gods! You’re alive! Have you seen Nubia? Or Uncle Gaius?’
Jonathan shook his head. ‘I’m sorry,’ he wheezed, ‘I haven’t seen either of them.’ I woke up on the beach and I saw the smoke. He looked around. ‘Where are we?’
‘Canopus, a town in Egypt.’
Lupus nodded vigorously, pointed towards the southeast and grunted.
Flavia explained: ‘See that star with the smudge above it, where Lupus is pointing? That’s the fire and smoke from the lighthouse of Alexandria.’
‘Master of the Universe!’ Jonathan squinted towards the distant lighthouse, then turned back to them and lowered his voice. ‘Who are those people?’ he said. ‘Actors? Mimes?’
Lupus imitated someone drinking from a wineskin and swayed on his feet, as if tipsy.
‘They’re revellers from a party at one of those villas,’ whispered Flavia. ‘Some of them are a bit drunk and they all speak Greek, but they’ve been kind to us. The couple dressed up as Anthony and Cleopatra found me, and the lady with blonde hair is Isidora, the hostess. They’ve been helping us look for bodies. You can see we found the captain and three crewmembers, including that nice Phoenician who always used to let Lupus win at dice.’
‘Well, there’s nobody back that way,’ said Jonathan quietly. ‘Only the dead body of one of the lions.’
‘How did you survive?’ asked Flavia.
‘Barrel,’ said Jonathan. ‘I held on to a barrel of something. When it broke apart I thought I was dead. Then I felt the bottom of the sea under my feet and I managed to walk ashore.’
‘I know,’ said Flavia. ‘I think it’s very shallow for a long way out. That’s why the ship was wrecked. It ran aground.’
‘Who’s this?’ said Thonis in Latin, coming up to them with Myrrhina and Isidora close behind. Lupus noted that although his eyes were still bloodshot, his speech was no longer slurred.
The Roman Mysteries Complete Collection Page 219