Empire (68 page)

“He wears a talisman of some sort.”

Catullus raised his eyebrows. “How did this happen, Epaphroditus? You were to make sure the prisoners had no magical devices on their persons.”

“I’m as baffled as you,” said Epaphroditus.

Domitian stepped from the dais and approached Lucius. Lucius flinched but stood firm. The emperor reached out and took hold of the fascinum. “What is this? Did this amulet play some part in the magician’s disappearance?”

“It’s a fascinum, Dominus. A family heirloom. I call on it for protection, but I know of no other powers it might possess.”

Domitian frowned. “It looks like a cross.”

Catullus scurried to them, tapping his staff on the floor before him. “A cross, Dominus?” Domitian put the fascinum into the hand of Catullus, who examined it with his fingertips. Lucius cringed at having the man so close to him. Catullus cringed, as well. He released the fascinum with a show of disgust.

“Most certainly this is a magical amulet. I can feel the sorcery in it! Christian magic, I suspect.”

“Christian?” said Domitian.

“They use amulets in the shape of a cross to bewitch their enemies.”

“It’s a fascinum, Dominus, not a crucifix,” said Lucius.

“He lies,” said Catullus. “When I was preparing my dossier on this man, I discovered that his uncle was a Christian, one of those punished by Nero for arson. Can it be a coincidence that he wears a Christian amulet?”

Domitian peered down his nose at Lucius. “This man is follower of Apollonius, and whatever else he might be, Apollonius is not a Christian.”

“We cannot expect the enemies of the gods to be consistent in their blasphemy. This secret Christian has just assisted in the escape of a most dangerous magician, and by means of this amulet he may intend to endanger your divine person. Lucius Pinarius has conspired against you, Dominus. He must be punished.”

Domitian narrowed his eyes. “Yes, but how?”

“His uncle was burned alive in the Circus Vaticanus.”

Lucius felt a sudden prickling sensation all over his body and saw oily
spots before his eyes. He tried to emulate the courage of Apollonius, but he swayed and fell to the floor.

Domitian looked down at him. “Are you sure this pitiful wretch poses a threat to me, Catullus?”

Catullus lowered his voice to a whisper. “Dominus, if the magician Apollonius has truly escaped, then this one must be made to suffer in his place. His punishment must be public, and it must be made to fit his crime.”

Domitian nodded. “I know what to do with him.”

Lucius was taken not to the cell where he had previously been held but through a series of narrow underground passages to a much smaller cell, large enough to hold only one prisoner. He was allowed to keep the fascinum. From the whisperings of the guards, Lucius gathered that they had been instructed to take it from him, but they were all too afraid to touch it.

His cell was a bare, windowless cubicle of dank stone with iron bars on one side. Beyond the bars, set too closely for him to stick his head between them, was a curved hallway, dimly lit by indirect sunlight. From somewhere nearby he heard wild animals—the growling of lions, the snorting of aurochs, the yelping of dogs. The air was heavy with the odors of straw, dung, and urine, and the smell of the raw meat that was fed to the carnivores.

From elsewhere he heard the clashing of swords and gruff voices—the sounds of gladiators training—and realized where he must be: in the cells beneath the Flavian Amphitheater. If he recalled correctly, the next occasion for games in the amphitheater was five days away.

By the alternation of darkness and light he was able to mark the passage of the days. At night the hallway was unlit and the darkness of his cell was absolute. The blackness of the nights terrified him at first, but in his imagination he sought the company of Apollonius and was comforted. It seemed to him sometimes that the Teacher actually spoke to him during the night, but in such complete darkness he could not tell if he was awake or dreaming, or even if he was alive or dead. “Be calm,” Apollonius said. “Though my body is far away, I am with you.”

On the fifth day, Lucius awoke to a great tumult of sounds from near and far—the blare of trumpets, men shouting and laughing, gates clanging, and the steady hum of a vast crowd, punctuated at intervals by roars of excitement. The amphitheater above him was filled with people, and the games had commenced.

The punishment of criminals was a part of the games. Lucius had watched such exhibits many times, until he had become a follower of Apollonius and ceased to attend the games. Though he had sometimes imagined himself in the role of the hunters in the arena who stalked exotic prey, he had never imagined himself as one of the wretched criminals forced to fight to the death or to become the prey of savage beasts. And yet, that was to be his fate.

Had Apollonius foreseen this outcome? Why had the Teacher fled, saving himself, only to abandon Lucius to a horrible and humiliating death? Why had he not used his magic to take Lucius with him?

For a brief instant, Lucius fell into despair. Then his spirits suddenly lifted. He felt a sense of lightness, as if a great weight had been lifted from him. Even his shackles felt lighter. He decided to surrender himself completely to the Teacher, to trust that Apollonius had foreseen this moment and had sufficiently prepared Lucius to face it calmly and with dignity. All was for the best.

When the guards came for him, they were surprised by his demeanor. They were used to seeing men who cringed, wept, struggled, and begged, or who fell limp or went stiff and stared into space. But Lucius looked them in the eye, nodded to them amiably, and stood up to follow them.

They removed his shackles. His arms and legs felt weak and stiff after such long confinement, but he was glad to be free of the restraints. He stretched out his arms and spread his fingers wide. He kicked out his legs and lifted his knees, testing his control of his body. It was a good thing that in his final moments he would be able to feel like man again, however briefly.

They took off his tattered tunic so that he wore only his filthy loincloth. Around his waist they fitted a leather belt with a sheath; in the sheath was a knife. He pulled it out for a moment and saw that the blade was very dull. They handed him a bow and a single arrow. The bow was weak and poorly strung, and the head of the arrow was made not of metal but of
cork. From a distance, the spectators would not be able to tell that the weapons were useless.

As they proceeded down a hallway, the roar of the crowd grew louder. They arrived at a gate made of iron bars. The gate opened. The guards lowered their spears, but there was no need for them to drive Lucius into the arena. He walked barefoot onto the sun-heated sand, squinting at the brightness of the day.

He had beheld the enormity of the amphitheater from the stands but never from the arena floor. The magnitude of the crowd was staggering. The imperial box looked very small amid the vastness, and the people within it seemed like figures in a picture. Lucius spotted Domitian and the empress, and also the emperor’s small-headed companion. The most highly favored members of the imperial family were there, including the emperor’s beautiful niece Flavia Domitilla, along with her husband and two of their young sons. Earinus was there, and close to the eunuch, Lucius saw with a slight shock, was Martial. Would he make a poem of what was about to happen? Amid the courtiers, Lucius saw Catullus, and also Epaphroditus.

There was a hush. A crier made an announcement. The words echoed oddly in Lucius’s ears. He was unable to make out anything the man said, except his own name: “Lucius Pinarius . . .”

His name sounded strange to him, a collection of sounds that had nothing to do with what he was. “Lucius Pinarius: I am called Lucius Pinarius,” he said to himself. “I am in a place called Roma. I am about to die.”

Lucius strode to the very center of the arena and turned in a slow circle, gazing around him.

He felt that he was at the precise center of the cosmos, surrounded on all sides by the whole population of Roma, and by the city itself, and by the vast empire and the lands and oceans that lay beyond it. Every eye in the amphitheater was upon him; he was the focus of every gaze. And yet he felt not exposed and vulnerable but strangely isolated and protected. All around him was ceaseless noise and swirling chaos, but in the place where Lucius stood there was silence and stillness. He stood in the pupil of the eye of the Divine Singularity. Had Apollonius known that he would feel this? Was that why the Teacher had guided him to this place and this moment?

He heard the clanging of a gate and turned to see that he was no longer alone in the arena. A lion had been released. The beast looked about, sniffing the air, then spotted Lucius. It crouched for a moment, tensing and flexing its haunches, then sprang forward and ran straight toward Lucius.

Of what use were the bow and arrow? Even if Lucius took aim and struck the beast, he would only aggravate it. Lucius cast them aside.

Of what use was the knife? There was a slim chance that even with such a dull blade Lucius might inflict a wound on the beast; he might even, by some miracle, fatally wound it. But by the time that happened, the lion would have mauled him, and in the best possible outcome they both would die. Lucius felt no desire to kill the lion. He drew the knife from the sheath, which greatly excited the crowd, then cast it away, which elicited cries of derision and mutterings of confusion.

Lucius looked at the belt around his waist. What would Apollonius think if he saw Lucius wearing a garment made of leather? Lucius undid the belt and cast it away.

He suddenly loathed the touch of the filthy loincloth against his flesh. He did not want to die wearing it. He pulled off the loincloth and threw it to the ground.

Lucius stood naked at the center of the cosmos, stripped of all earthly pretense—naked except for the fascinum, which caught the sunlight and glittered brightly.

Where did he find the sense to do what he did next? An old slave, the scarred survivor of many dangerous hunts over a long lifetime, had once advised Lucius on the best way to comport himself should he ever encounter a deadly animal in the wild without the advantage of a weapon: “You must be as wild and fierce as the beast. No—wilder, fiercer! Jump, flail your arms, scream and shout like a madman.”

“Pretend to be dangerous?” Lucius had asked.

“No pretending,” said the slave. “You must find inside yourself the part of you that truly is as savage as the beast.”

“And what if there is no such part of me?” said Lucius.

“There is,” the slave had answered.

Lucius had quickly forgotten this exchange, but he remembered it now, as the lion ran toward him.

He heard a shrieking noise so bloodcurdling that even he was unnerved
by it, though he knew he must be producing it himself. His body was in motion, but he had no conception of what his movements must look like. Perhaps they were comical, like the writhing of a mime, for he heard laughter from the stands. But the lion did not seem amused by his screaming and stamping and flailing. The beast stopped in its tracks and sprang back, looking startled. Lucius sensed that he had the advantage and pursued it. He did what no sane man would have done: he charged the lion.

What would he do if the lion stood its ground? He would have no choice but to leap onto the beast and wrestle it. The idea was absurd, but there was no turning back.

He heard gasps of disbelief and screams of excitement from the spectators. The lion crouched, flattened it ears, lifted a paw, and bared its fangs. Lucius continued his headlong rush, screaming at the top of his lungs, waving his arms and gaining speed as he drew closer. Just as he was about to leap, the beast turned and began to run.

Lucius chased the lion. The roar from the crowd was deafening. He perceived a vast upward movement all around him. The spectators, in unison, had risen to their feet.

The lion ran for a short distance, then stopped and looked back at him with flattened ears, made ready to fight, then lost its nerve and began to run again, staying low to the ground. The beast seemed as perplexed by its own craven behavior as it was by Lucius’s headlong advance. The predator was not used to being pursued.

Lucius could not continue to scream and run for long. He was weak from imprisonment. He had managed to find within himself an unexpected reservoir of energy and had released it in a great burst of noise and action, but already he was flagging.

In the blink of an eye, his strength was gone. He stopped running. He could scream no longer. He gasped for air. He could barely stand.

The lion ran until it reached the far side of the arena. It spun around and peered at Lucius, then sat on the sand like a Sphinx and snapped its tail this way and that.

They stayed like that for a while, man and lion, peering at each other across the sand. Eventually, a gate opened. Attendants with long poles ran onto the sand and poked at the lion, trying to goad it into attacking Lucius
again. But the cat turned on the attendants instead, spitting and batting its claws at them. Eventually the attendants retreated. The lion sat on the sand again, panting and showing its tongue.