Multiply the desire, the anticipation, the excitement. Add the heat and the crush, the hurry to grab a place with a decent view. Dust it all with a handful of impatience, and you will have some idea of the high-pitched hubbub that drowns out every other sound, saturating the air in the basement where Verus and his companions are elbowing one another like pals queuing up for the brothel.
“Well, you ready to drive them crazy?” Ircius asks his men.
Verus smiles: “We’re ready, my lord!”
The shout fills the belly of the Amphitheater. It is time for the solemn parade, the pompa triumphalis.
The Emperor himself, wrapped in the purple vestments reserved for great events, delicately crafted Greek sandals on his feet, and laurel leaves of undying victory on his head, leads the procession into the arena, crossing the threshold of the main entrance.
The whole world is reflected in Titus’s eyes: the crowd’s embrace is exuberant, the people love him. There can be no doubt. As they wait for the games to begin, the wastrels sitting on the terraces have already started playing morra, dice and capita aut navia, whereby someone tosses a coin and puts their faith in the blindfolded goddess by choosing heads or tails, in this case the coin’s “tail” aptly picturing a ship.
There is great excitement among the professional gamblers, but when they see the golden silhouette of the Emperor appear, they stop whatever they were doing, called to order by the invisible horsewhip of power. Meanwhile, the noblewomen arrange the cushions beneath their flaccid behinds, that they might better enjoy the spectacle, as Titus Flavius Vespasianus makes his entrance, one step at a time.
Before him the lictores take up their positions in a display of primordial authority, bronze fasces resting on their shoulders, symbols of the just and brutal power of the Eagle for the benefit of anyone who might dare disobey. Leather straps for tying up dissenters circle their waists. They represent the stick, ready to strike.
The king of the world is proud of them.
Dead proud.
Behind the purple throng winds a host of artists: musicians playing tambourines and openwork flutes, dancers, reed pipers. Skins of ebony and ivory daubed with powders and gold leaf, quilted in precious oriental silks and cloaked in music. The attendants in their light tunics announce the day’s program to the crowd: first will come the beasts, then the convicts, and lastly the gladiators. In the middle will come a surprise that is not to be mentioned, a magic trick that the Emperor has had up his sleeve for years now.
The monarch reaches the center of the arena and continues along the imaginary line across the sand, towards the terraces on the opposite side. As he does so the assistants enter, blue tunics symbolizing the city authorities draped neatly to their knees. They carry powerful weapons in their arms.
The essence of a merciful death.
It is the quiet before the hurricane: the officials test the burnished iron of the Ludus Argentumand the sharpened bronze of the Tridensof Capua with grandiloquent gestures. They discard the more harmless specimens, not many if truth be told, and pick out the most lethal.
And then, finally, their moment arrives.
Greeted by a riot of boorish shouting, the gladiators make their entrance.
Arranged in two neat lines, greased with oil and vigor, and nothing on but the subligaculum at their waists.
Practically naked, ready for anything.
Decius Ircius and Daimon lead the lines, both of them scrubbed and dressed up for the occasion. The first is wearing bright violet Tuscia cloth, dyed in the violarii of the Field of Mars: he has been keeping this miracle of tailoring, made from the finest thread and colored with the juices of orchella weeds and rock snails, for some time now. On his feet are a pair of striking sandals, dripping with silver and decorated with miniscule, hand-crafted lilies. His short hair and the shadow of a salt-and-pepper beard on his handsome, well-rested face complete the picture.
Daimon, on the other hand, has his own idea of elegance: a red, green, and black-checked shirt from the North, woven in the style of the island Verus came from, accompanied by baggy, brown burlap pants. His beard has been tamed with the aid of laces and strings into three neat braids like Poseidon’s trident, inexorably pointing down to the Underworld. Hair tied into a pony tail and heavy gold rings on his earlobes. Eyes heavily made up with black powder. Despite the infernal heat – August, real bitch of a month – Daimon wears a pair of goatskin boots on his feet.
But the furious applause is not directed at the captains.
The deafening wave of noise, the rain of kisses, whistles, shouts and bodily fluids that washes over the hungry lips of the Amphitheater is not for them, and nor is it for the Emperor.
Rome screams its impatience in the face of the gladiator army. And the two columns of warriors drink up every syllable, every yell, every shrieking comment with gusto.
The women are literally tearing their hair out. Horny girls and middle-aged women scream the names of their favorites: “Verus! Priscus! Tigris!”
It is only in that moment that Verus understands. His mind opens like a rosebud, transfixed by two eternal insights.
The first: this is what devotion means.
Women, Verus. Women…What do you know of charm or of love, of passion and what it can do? You thought you knew it all, just because your heart was lost between the thighs of the daughter of the Empire. But look around you: Rome loves you, it calls your name. It has thrown open its doors to let you in.
Will you be man enough to make the most of it? Will you survive long enough?
Yesterday Julia meant the whole world, but where is she now? Can you see her, lost in the shadows of the Emperor’s box? So tiny you can barely make her out, while she can see you, oh yes she can see you. But this time, my boy, the torment is all hers.
The second hits like a bolt of lightning: Priscus, damn it!
The Gaul is a step away from him. Last in line, behind a couple of ugly mugs.
Look at him, Verus. Look at your only friend, your brother, your enemy.
Feast your eyes on that smile you have missed so much.
Priscus returns the stare: empty galaxies and infinite pain fill his blue eyes.
Careful what you wish for, boy. Because you might get it…
It begins: the morning program calls for beast fights. Daimon, from his privileged vantage point, rubs his hands together and offers up a prayer to the dark gods that everything goes swimmingly. He is not the only supplier of wild beasts at work today: the Emperor wants only the best for inauguration day.
There are lists all around the stadium detailing the magical and exotic beasts on show. But nowhere does it say who will fight whom. The pairings are the very essence of surprise.
A bear and a bull are brought out, tied to one another with a chain and a rope. The eight-legged mass moves slowly, looking anything but merciless. A skinny, naked man—a Sunni slave—approaches with a hook and frees the tangled animals from their iron bonds, but the rope remains. It is short enough to ensure that the beast of the mountains and the beast of the plains cannot move too far from one another. After all, each is here to tear the other’s guts out.
At first, as the crowd whistles and bays for blood, the animals are disoriented. But after a few moments they both manage to rustle up their ancestral rage with which they came into this world. Thanks to the assistants, busy prodding red-hot pokers and sharpened spears into their innocent flesh.
The bear strikes first, with a roar that would be the envy of Cyclops, son of Poseidon. The first slash of its paw leaves a red stain on the black bull, unleashing the beast’s fury. It lets out a snort, the ring that perforates the cartilage of its snout slowly swinging like a battle standard. A rough hoof scuffs the sand and the animal charges.
The impact is shattering, horns penetrating fur, skin and flesh. The bear immediately betrays its four-legged nature and rears up to full height. Drooling with frenzy, it launches a well-aimed lunge that tears out one of the bull’s eyes. Th
e bovine beast crumples to the ground, coating itself in yellow sand.
The crowd goes wild.
The bear has not finished. It is drunk with pain from where a horn has penetrated one of its lungs; it whistles, hisses, oozes blood. The beast thrashes out like a venomous snake, its claws not resting even for a moment as it digs into the other animal’s dim-witted face with one slashing blow after another, until there is nothing left to dig into. The black bull collapses again, the son of the mountain has won.
The assistants drag the bear out of the arena, chains anchored to its thick collar. As soon as it is back in the cage they finish it off with a red-hot iron to the throat.
It is the law of the arena. No beast survives. Only the She-wolf breathes eternal.
The body of the bull, on the other hand, remains where it is.
The mob is warming up and the games continue. There is no time to lose.
Next up is the savannah: king against queen, lion against female leopard, two animals with absolutely no concept of pity. They have crossed the world to tear one another to pieces, and that is exactly what they will do.
They move in circles, each one’s eyes locked on the other. There is no need to goad them: the assistants stay well clear while Daimon, their master, licks his lips. He watches on from his filthy seat behind a heavy metal grate, a cup of tepid ale in his hand and a girl from the Island on his knee. Today is the day, and anything goes.
The leopard opens the dance: this pussycat is hungry for fresh meat. She goes straight for the throat, but the lion knows his stuff: he dodges to the left and opens her flank with his claws.
First blood.
A frenzied yowl, a grating scream that rises from deep inside the spotted beast. Pumping adrenaline sharpens the senses, fangs on show beneath contorted faces. She squares up to him.
A series of three lunges and then the lethal fray: the leopard grapples onto the lion, sinks its claws in deep and does not let go.
The king of the savannah tries to shake the female off, but the bitch struggles, digging her way into his juicy hide while her teeth poise ready for his jugular.
The enormous ball of fur rolls roughly and inseparably all around the arena, the atrocious panting, the deafening snarling that is enough to make the crowd’s hairs stand on end. They have their hearts in their throats.
Until the female finds what she is looking for: the bundle of veins that runs parallel to the neck muscles is her woodwind instrument, and she moistens her lips with a lick of her rough tongue as she prepares to play. Her teeth are the reed and the red that sprays out, after it has sunk in, the music. Impetuous and uncontrollable at first, then weaker, sweeter, as only a rapid death can be. A symphony of warm organs.
The lion falls to the ground in the space of a few moments.
The battle is over.
The jubilation of the crowd has no effect whatsoever on the calm self-control of the winning beast, completely indifferent to the hermaphrodite roar of the mob. Her snout, bloodied with domination, is decked out in war paint. The feline shakes the blood off her paws and heads for the exit. She growls and hisses whenever an assistant dares approach her. The queen needs no escort. Daimon decides that she will live, at least until the next fight: she has earned it, after all.
The dead lion is left where it fell, just like the bull.
The show goes on.
Four animals at a time, now.
The Royal Brawl: an elephant, a rhinoceros, a buffalo, and a cow.
A cow?
Exactly. A cow.
The Emperor wants to really get the games going: the spectators must shout so hard they dislocate their jaws.
Because today is the day.
Getting the contenders in place is easier than expected: the elephant seems to trust the boy who leads it to the center of the arena and whispers something in its ear. Like the beast, he too is from India, a smile always on his face.
The cow sways gently in, totally unaware of what is going on.
The buffalo is bold and fierce, as dull-witted as the rest of her species, long, curved horns that bring to mind the hairstyles of certain oriental prostitutes, with a central parting that divides their brown hair into equal-sized parts.
The rhinoceros, the last to arrive and a genuine four-legged divinity, is dragged into the game area with great difficulty by eight freedmen. The ancient, powerful animal is a sculpture of murderous rage, its hide so tough that it looks like stone; a hardened shell of skin, spotted by age, covers its most exposed joints. With each step, the ground shakes. The crowd holds its breath, all eyes glued to the horn, a lethal weapon jutting up through a tangle of dark, iron rings. They glint in the rays of the sun, which is growing hotter by the minute.
Emperor Titus will give the order shortly, and the Misene sailors will unfurl the velarium, allowing the canvas to cool the sweaty souls of the clamoring Romans. But this battle must take place in the heat. And so, at a whistle from the master of the arena, the chains are released all at once and all of the bipeds run for cover.
It is between the animals, now.
The first to fall is the cow, of course. The rhinoceros takes aim, obeying the instinct that leads the strong to slaughter the harmless.
The cow does not even have time to realize what is smashing into her as the gigantic horn stabs into her flank and she lets out a surprisingly high-pitched yowl. The wound is terrible, but she does not die instantly. The impetuous fury of the lord of Africa drags her all the way to the western terraces, which shake with the impact. The crowd of senators and vestal virgins, staring down so as not to miss a single detail of the epic battle, starts and screams in fear. But the rhinoceros does not even notice. It backs up and charges once more, smashing innocent bones as the ruminant, defenseless and dying, collapses without being able to offer anything more than terror to face this most violent of killers. The crowd shudders with revulsion at the stomach-wrenching crack of bones.
The rhinoceros backs up again and goes on striking until it is sated. Until there is only a bloody mess left staining the sand. The blood rite observed, it lets out a powerful bellow, to let everyone know who is in command.
A trumpet sounds in reply: the elephant has grasped that this is life or death. It advances slowly, but is not yet ready to face the gray enemy, picking instead on the buffalo, which has the strutting air of a cockerel that has just entered a henhouse. Of all the animals on the face of the earth, bovines are the unluckiest. None of the gods was good enough to imbue them with the sense of self-love that is necessary for survival. After all, they eat grass.
The elephant, for its part, is not a natural predator, but it knows the power of its enormous weight. It knows that a raised foot is enough to do serious damage, and that is the tactic it now adopts. It waits for the buffalo to come within range and then raises and lower its front left leg, with all the agility its bulk allows for, in an attempt to smash the other animal’s skull. But the other is fast despite its stupidity, weaving to one side in time to dodge the lethal hammer. Alas, it is not quick enough on its hooves, and is ground into a thousand pieces in an instant beneath the crushing weight of the gray beast.
Another savage bellow shakes the onlookers to their core. A gush of red squirts across the sand and the buffalo limps away, deprived of the only advantage capable of keeping it alive: speed.
The rhinoceros spots the opportunity and does not hesitate to take it. It bucks at the yellow earth and launches its attack.
The porous horn of the African beast strikes the buffalo square in the face. It cuts cleanly through the jaw, pierces the palate and mutilates the brain, shattering the herbivore’s weakened defenses.
Death is instantaneous.
But the horn is stuck. The rhinoceros is exhausted and drops to the ground, wedged forever in a trap of hair and broken bones.
The elephant does not wait. It rears spectacularly onto its hind legs, trumpeting its timeless fury into the Roman heavens. The crowd falls silent before the Indi
an god, eyes transfixed by the feet and trunk stretched skyward, bearer of luck and dark winds. Then, when the war cry has sounded, it brings down its bulk like an executioner’s ax on the thick-skinned back of its foe.
The elephant’s hammer blow destroys the rhinoceros. Its feet grind bone and internal organs to pulp, plowing into the armored hide like a red-hot vise into dry leather ready for tanning.
The rhinoceros implodes, a prisoner crushed to death without so much as a groan, its spine broken by the impact.
The elephant’s expression does not change.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner.
Infinite applause and cadavers decorating the sand.
This is how it works, in the arena—the body count rises with each minute that passes. Everywhere is frenzy and the stench of flesh, blood, and flies.
In the meantime, the order is sounded between the arches overhead. Marcius and his valiant Misene classiarii get to work oiling winches and tugging at ropes, their efforts transformed into shade as they unfold the greatest sail in the world above the roasting heads of the Romans. It is time for thevelarium.
It is called “the Emperor’s Triumph over Nature,” but in reality it has nothing to do with his majesty Titus the Great, given that Vespasian’s firstborn is comfortably seated in the audience and is triumphing over nothing other than Rome itself. He prefers to leave nature to the venatores and bestiarii.
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