I was more concerned for fear of arousing suspicion in Colgius by not behaving as he would expect a Gallic Provincial to behave at his first sight of the great games in the Circus Maximus. I could not be sure at what he would expect me to exclaim, what I ought to wonder at and remark on to seem natural in my assumed role of Marseilles scapegrace.
We were a party of eight, Colgius, his wife Posilla, and two teamsters or drovers named Ramnius and Uttius, who conveyed goods or convoyed cattle between Ostia and the markets of Rome. They had their wives with them, but I forget their names. The three women were arrayed in wonderful costumes of cheap fabrics dyed in gaudy hues and adorned with jewelry of gilt or silvered bronze set with bits of colored glass. I had seen such at a distance, but never so close.
Both Agathemer and I liked Ramnius and Uttius; we felt at ease with them at first sight. And they were evidently intimates of Colgius and high in his favor. He and they wore their togas with all the awkwardness to be expected from men who donned togas only for Circus games and Amphitheatre shows. To my amazement I found myself really delighted at again wearing a toga. Like all gentlemen I had always loathed the hot, heavy things. But I found myself positively thrill at being again garbed as befits a Roman on a holiday or at a ceremonial. Besides I found that a toga, over a poor man's tunic, was not nearly so uncomfortable as it was over the more complicated garb of a fashionable person of means and position.
The interior of the Circus, from my novel location, appeared sufficiently strange to lull my dread that I might seem too familiar with it. Of course we were very far back, only five rows in front of the arcade, whereas as long as I was a nobleman of Rome in good standing, I had always sat in the second tier, far forward.
But what made much more difference than sitting far back and high up instead of well forward and low down was that we were on the other side of the Circus from my old seat and almost directly opposite it. I had always sat in section E, about the middle of the east side of the Circus and not far from the Imperial Pavilion in section C. We were in section P, directly facing E, and not far from the judges' stand in section O.
Now from where I had been used to sitting, facing a little south of west, I had viewed only the tiers of seats and of spectators, the upper arcade, and, above that the roofs of the not very lofty, large or magnificent temples on the Aventine Hill. From where we sat with Colgius we faced the Palatine and I was overwhelmed by the vastness, beauty and grandeur of the great mass of buildings which make up the Imperial Palace. On a festival day, of course, they were exceptionally gorgeous, for every window was garlanded at the top and most displayed tapestries or rugs hung over the sill, every balcony was decorated similarly and with greater care than the windows, and every window, balcony and portico was a mass of eager faces. Especially my eye was caught by the crowd of Palace officials and servants on the bulging loggia built by Hadrian in order to be able to catch glimpses of games when he was too busy to occupy the Imperial Pavilion in the Circus itself. That Pavilion, as yet occupied only by a few guards, I gazed at with mixed feelings.
Colgius put Agathemer next him, then me; beyond me sat Ramnius and his wife and then Uttius and his. But across Posilla we were introduced to two cattle inspectors named Clitellus and Summanus of whom we felt uncomfortably suspicious from the instant we laid eyes on them. They looked to me like secret-service agents and Agathemer nodded towards them, when they were not looking, raised his eyebrows and touched his lips.
I for some time satiated myself with gazing at the Palace, with admiring the wonderful charm of the outlook from this side of the Circus, with revelling in the sense of delight at being again in it, with feasting my eyes on its gorgeousness, on the magnificence of its vastness, of its colonnade, of its costly marbles, of its tiers of seats, of the obelisks, shrines, monuments and other decorations of thespina.
Then, after the upper seats were well packed with commonality, the gentry and nobility began to dribble into the lower tiers and even a few senatorial parties entered their boxes in the front row. I began to peer at party after party, outwardly trying to keep my face blank, inwardly excited at the probability of recognizing many former friends and acquaintances.
The first man I recognized was Faltonius Bambilio, unmistakably pompous and self-satisfied. Although a senator he came early. Later I saw Vedius Vedianus and, far from him, Satronius Satro. Didius Julianus, always the most ostentatious of the senators, was unmistakable even in section B, further from me than any part of the Circus except the left hand starting stalls and their neighborhood.
I looked for Tanno in section D, and early made him out.
But, even after the equestrian seats and senatorial boxes had all filled, nowhere could I descry any feminine shape at all suggestive of Vedia. I was still peering and sweeping the senatorial seats with my eyes, hoping to espy her, when the bugles announced the Emperor's approach and the audience stood up. My eyes were on the Imperial Dais watching for the appearance of the Emperor. But when he came into sight, and I joined in the cheers, I viewed without emotion this man, who had honored me with his favor, yet who had credited to the utmost, without investigation, my inclusion among the number of his dangerous enemies. I reflected that no man accused of participating in a conspiracy against any Prince of the Republic had ever been given any sort of hearing or his friends allowed to try to clear him.
I used all my powers of eyesight to con the Emperor, distinctive in his official robes but too far off to be seen well. He appeared to me to have lost something of his elegance of carriage and grace of movement. He seemed less elastic in bearing, less springy of gait. There was, even at that distance, something familiar in his attitude and stride, but it did not seem precisely the presence of Commodus as I had known him. I stared puzzled and groping in my mind. But I felt no emotion as I stared and peered at him.
Oddly enough, from the moment when I received Vedia's letter of warning until I caught sight of the head of the procession about to enter the Circus through the Procession gate, I had had not one instant of despondency or of self-pity. But, at sight of the head of that magnificent procession, a sort of wave of misery surged through me and inundated me with a sudden sense of wistful regret for all that I had lost and also with an acute realization of the precarious hold I had on life, of the peril I was in from hour to hour. This unexpected and unwelcome dejection possessed me until the whole line of floats displaying the images of the gods had passed and the racing chariots came along.
The very first of these drawn by a splendid team of four dapple grays, was driven by a charioteer wearing the colors of the Crimsons' Company. I did not need to hear the exclamation of Colgius:
"There is Palus! That is Palus!" to recognize this Prince of Charioteers. The descriptions I had heard were enough to have told me who he was. For at even a distant sight of him I did not wonder at the tales which gave out that he was a half brother of Commodus, or Commodus in disguise. He was more like Commodus than any half brother would have been likely to have been; like as a twin brother, like enough to be actually Commodus himself. He had all Commodus' comeliness of port and refinement of poise. Every attitude, every movement, was a joy to behold. I stared back and forth from this paragon in a charioteer's tunic to the stolid lump on the Imperial throne, perplexed at the enigma, feeling just on the verge of comprehension, but baffled. I kept gazing from one to the other till Palus rounded the further goal and was largely hidden by the posts, the stand for the bronze tally-eggs, the obelisk and the other ornaments of thespina. [Footnote: See Note G.]
There were about two hundred chariots, for very few teams were entered to race twice. More than a third were driven by charioteers, the rest by grooms, or others, quite competent to control them at a walk, though some of the more fiery had also men on foot holding their bits.
"Felix," Agathemer queried, "did you notice anything peculiar about the first chariot?"
"Yes, Asper," I replied, "I did. I never saw a chariot with its wheels so close together, nor with such long spokes. Its axle is higher from the ground than any I ever set eyes on."
"I recall," said Agathemer, "hearing you recount a lecture on chariot- design you once heard from a man of lofty station."
"The design of that chariot," I replied, "certainly tallies with the design advocated in that lecture. It would seem to indicate that Palus has accepted the views of that very distinguished lecturer."
"Perhaps," said Agathemer drily. "Perhaps it indicates something more notable."
"Perhaps," I admitted.
Most of the teams were white or dapple gray, those being the favorite colors of all the racing companies except the Whites themselves, among whom it was a tradition that teams of their racing-colors were unlucky for them. Next most frequent were bays, then sorrels, while roans and piebalds, as usual, were distinctly scarce. In fact there were but three teams of roans, all with the white colors, and two of piebalds, one belonging to the Greens and one to the Blues. The Blue team caught my eye, even at so great a distance. When it came opposite us I nudged Agathemer and queried:
"Asper, did you ever see any of these horses before?"
"Yea, Felix," he replied. "You are quite right in your judgment; the left- hand yoke-mate is the very stallion you are thinking of, which you and I have seen and handled before to-day. You and I know where you rode him and how he passed out of your ken."
It was, in fact, the trick stallion I had ridden at Reate fair and won as a prize of my riding him, which had been spirited away from my stables not many nights after he came into my possession. At once I foresaw some attempt at altogether unusual trickery in the course of this racing-day. The team of four splendid piebald stallions, about five years old, was one of the few entered for two races. I could not conjecture how a horse which had spent his youth as trick-horse in possession of an itinerant fakir, had acquired, since I knew him, reputation enough to be yoke-mate in a team highly enough thought of to be entered for two races the same day in the Circus Maximus. This was a puzzle almost as absorbing as the likeness and contrast between the Emperor and Palus.
The racing had many remarkable features, but I am concerned to relate only those in which Palus took part.
At once after the procession he drove in the first race, always a perilous honor. When we saw the chariots dart out of the starting-stalls, the Crimson emerged from the stall furthest to the left, just that which is the worst possible position from which to start. Although thus handicapped the Crimson seemed a horse-length ahead before the other chariots had cleared the sills of their stalls and a full chariot-length ahead before it reached the near end of thespinawall. We saw Palus take the wall easily and hold it throughout the race, after the first turn never less than two full chariot-lengths ahead of the Green, which came second. The Red was third, which comforted Colgius a little. As Palus passed the judges' stand he threw up an arm, with a gesture so boyish, so debonair, so graceful, so altogether characteristic of Commodus, that I felt a qualm all over me. And a second gesture of exultation as he vanished through the Gate of Triumph was equally individual.
The Red won the second race, which put Colgius, Uttius and Ramnius in high good humor and seemed to make their fat, smiling wives even more smiling.
Agathemer and I agreed that the rumors retailed by Colgius concerning the wager said to have been made by Palus were probably correct; for he did just what that rumor specified and so singular and spectacular a series of feats could hardly have been fortuitous. It was quite plain that he pulled in his team in the third race, and let a Gold team get the lead of him and keep it till five eggs and five dolphins had been taken down by the tally- keepers' menials and there were but two full laps to run. Then he took the lead easily in the middle of the straight and won by four full lengths.
So of the other races in which he drove. He pulled in his team at the start and each time allowed to get ahead of him one more team than in his last race. Then he joyously and without apparent effort passed first one, in one straight, then another in another, varying his methods from race to race, watching for and seizing his opportunities, biding his time, dashing into top speed as he chose, all smoothly and in perfect form.
The Blue team of piebalds with my trick-stallion among them won the fourth race in which Palus did not compete.
The eleventh race, in which Palus let the whole field of five precede him, was most exciting, especially because of the length of lead he gave even to the fifth team, and the impression of inevitableness about his victory afterwards. The thirteenth, in which he did not drive, was notable for an appalling smash-up of five chariots, in which three jockeys were killed and eight horses killed outright or so badly injured that the clearing- crew had to put them out of their agonies.
The fourteenth race would have been spoiled by an even worse massacre had it not been for the superlative skill of Palus and his amazing luck. He had passed five of the seven chariots which had the lead of him at the start and was a close third to the two Blue teams, with the entire field well up behind, three abreast, mostly, bunched up in a fashion which seldom happens. The whole dozen had gathered way after the tenth turn, as they came up the straight past the judges and us on the first lap, while two eggs and two dolphins still remained on the tally stands. Two thirds up the straight, just when all twelve teams were at their top speed, the Blue chariot furthest out from thespinawall swerved to the right as if the jockey had lost control of his team. Palus lashed his four and they increased their speed as if they had been held in before and darted between the two Blues. As the twelve horses were nose to nose the outer Blue pulled sharply inward in a way which appeared certain to pocket Palus and wreck his team and chariot, but even more certain to wreck the swerving Blue. What Palus did I was too far off to see, but the roar of delight from the front rows, which spread north, south and west till it sounded like surf in a tempest, advertised that he had done something superlatively adequate. Certainly he slipped between the two Blue teams and won his race handily, as he did every other in succession, though eight, nine, ten and eleven chariots led him at the start of each in succession.
"What do you think of that, Asper?" I asked Agathemer.
"Felix," he replied, "there has never been but one man on earth who could manage horses like that. I've seen him do it. I've been smuggled in to watch him, like many another servant supposed to be waiting for his master outside. I recognize the inimitable witchery of him."
"No need to name him," I said. "But if you are right, who is wearing his robes and occupying his usual seat to-day?"
"Don't ask me!" Agathemer replied. "But you yourself, Felix, who have seen him drive so much oftener than I have must agree with me about Palus."
I was mute.
I never saw a better managed racing-day. The first twelve races of six chariots each were over and done with more than an hour before noon and we had plenty of time to eat the abundant lunch Posilla and her two friends had put up for us, to drink all we wanted of the wine served in the tavern in the vault to the left of the entrance stair, underneath the seats of our section, and to return to our seats, refreshed like the rest of that fraction of the spectators which went out and came back, most of them sitting tight in their seats, unwilling to miss any of the tight-rope- walking, jugglers' tricks, fancy riding and rest of the diversions which filled up the noon interval. Also the twelve afternoon races of twelve chariots each were so promptly started, with so little interval between, that the last race was run a full two hours before sunset, while the light was still strong; stronger, in fact, than earlier in the day, for a sort of film of cloud had mitigated the glare of noon, while by the start of the last race the sky was the deepest, clearest blue and the sun's radiance undimmed by any hindrance.
That last race! Palus passed nine competitors in ten half laps, and, in the first half of the sixth lap, was again third to two Blue teams one of which was the piebald team with the Reate trick-stallion as left-hand yoke-mate. Again, as in the fourteenth race, the field was close up, widespread, bunched, and thundering at top speed. Palus was driving the dapple grays with which he had won the first race.
Now, what happened, happened much quicker than it can be told, happened in the twinkling of an eye. The inner leading Blue team apparently hugged thespinawall too close and jammed its left-hand hub-end against the marble, stopping the chariot, so that the axle and pole slewed and so that the horses, since the pole and the traces did not snap, were brought nose on against the wall and piled up horridly, just at the goal-line, opposite the judges stand, and falling so that as they fell they straightened out the pole and brought the chariot to a standstill with its axle neatly across the course.
The other Blue, with the piebalds, was not close in to the leaders, but fairly well out and about a length behind. As the wall-team piled up something happened among the free-running piebalds. Of course, I conjecture that the trick-stallion threw himself sideways at a signal. But it seems incredible that a creature as timid as a horse, so compellingly controlled by the instinct to keep on its feet, should, in the frenzy of the crisis of a race, while in the mad rush of a full-speed gallop, obey a signal so out of variance with his natural impulse. Agathemer vows he saw the trick-stallion throw himself against the chief horse while he and the other two were running strong and true. I did not see that; I only saw the four piebalds go down in a heap in front of their chariot, saw the chariot stop dead, saw, even at that distance, that its axle was perfectly in line with the axle of the other wrecked chariot, both chariots right side up and too close together for any chariot to pass between them.
Palus, skimming the sand not three horse lengths behind the piebalds, was trapped and certain to be piled up against the wrecked Blues, under three or four more of the field thundering behind him.
Actually, at that distance, I saw his pose, the very outline of his neck and shoulders, express not alarm but exultation. Although his right ear and part of the back of his head was towards me, I could almost see him yell. I could descry how the lash of his whip flew over his team, how craftily he managed his reins.
Right at the narrow gap he drove. In it his horses did not jam or fall or stumble or jostle. The yoke-mates held on like skimming swallows, the trace-mates seemed to rise into the air. I seemed to see the two wheels of his chariot interlock with the two wheels of the upright, stationary wrecked chariots, his left-hand wheel between the chariot-body and right- hand wheel of the chariot on his left, his right-hand wheel between the chariot-body and left-hand wheel of the chariot on his right.
Certainly I saw his chariot, with him erect in it, rise in the air, saw it bump on the ground beyond the two stationary chariots, saw it leap up again from its wheels' impact upon the sand, all four of his dapple grays on their feet and running smoothly, saw him speed on and round the upper goal-posts.
As Palus came round the next lap, well ahead of the diminished field, he craftily avoided the heap of wreckage. As he won he dropped his reins altogether, threw up both, arms, and yelled like a lad. As he vanished through the Triumphal Gateway, he again dropped his reins, left his team to guide themselves, and turned half round to wave an exultant farewell to the spectators.
"What do you think, Asper?" I asked Agathemer.
"Felix," said he, "I wouldn't bet a copper that the occupant of the throne is not Commodus. But I'll wager my amulet-bag and all it contains that Palus is not Ducconius Furfur."
He said it under his breath, that I alone might hear.
"My idea, precisely, Asper," I replied.
As we left the Circus I heard in the crowd near us, along with fierce denunciations of the Crimsons and Golds, execrated by all the commonality as merely rich men's companies, the most enthusiastic laudations of Palus and expressions of hopes that the Blues, Greens, Reds or Whites, according to the preference of the speaker, might yet win him over and benefit by his prowess.
Colgius, although the Reds had won but five races, was in a high good humor and insisted on the whole party coming in to a family dinner. The three wives occupied the middle sofa, while Agathemer and I had the upper all to ourselves. The fare was abundant and good, with plenty of the cheaper relishes to begin with; roast sucking-pig, cold sliced roast pork, baked ham, and veal stew for the principal dishes, with cabbage, beans and lentils; the wine was passable, and there was plenty of olives, figs, apples, honey and quince marmalade.
The women talked among themselves and the men, with us putting in a word now and then, of Palus. They argued a long time as to just what he did in the fourteenth race and how he had saved himself at the critical moment. As to his victory in the last race, all three of them were loud in their praises. Colgius said:
"Nothing like that has ever happened before. The chariot which Palus drove had the shortest axle I ever saw or anybody else. No other chariot but that could have passed between the two wrecked chariots; any other would have crashed its two wheels against the wrecked chariot-bodies and would have smashed to bits. His chariot was so narrow that its wheels passed between the two chariot-bodies, clear.
"Even so any other chariot would have stopped dead when its wheels hit the axles of the stalled chariots, for it was plain that his wheels interlocked with the wheels of the stalled chariots and hit the axles. But his chariot had the longest spokes ever seen in Rome, or, I believe, anywhere else, and so had the tallest wheels ever seen and had its axle higher above the sand than any other chariot; so its wheels engaged the stalled axles well below their hub-level and so the team pulled them right over the axles and on."
"Yes," said Uttius, "but that never would have happened but for Palus' instantaneous grasp of the situation and lightning decision. Any other charioteer would have reined in or tried to swing round to the right; he lashed his team and guided them so perfectly that, with not a hand's- breadth to spare anywhere, the two wheels passed precisely where there was the only chance of their passing, and he guided his horses so perfectly that the yoke-mates shot between the stalled wheels without jostling them or each other. No man has ever displayed such skill as Palus."
"Nor had such luck," Ramnius cut in. "No man could have guided the yoke- mates as he did and, at the same time, exerted any influence whatever on the trace-mates. They showed their breed. Each saw the stalled wheel in front of him, neither tried to dodge. Each went straight at that wheel, reared at it, and leapt it clean. As they leapt they were not helping to pull the chariot, the yoke-mates pulled it over the stalled axles. But the momentary check as the chariot hit the axles and leapt up gave the leaping trace-mates just the instant of time they needed to find their feet and regain their stride. The whole thing was a miracle; of training, of skill and of luck."
"But don't forget," said Colgius, "that the skill and judgment Palus displayed counted for more than the breed of his team and his luck. Do not forget the perfect form he showed: not an awkward pose, not a sign of effort, not a hint of anxiety; self-possession, courage, self-confidence all through and the most perfect grace of movement, ease, and suggestion of reserve strength. He is a prodigy."
After Agathemer and I were alone in the dark on our cots we whispered to each other a long time.
"Do you really believe," I said, "that Commodus is so insane about horse- racing as to be willing to put Furfur on his throne in his robes so that he can degrade himself under the name of Palus?"
"I do," said Agathemer. "No other conjecture fits what we saw. The man on the throne was certainly the image of Commodus, but had not his elegance of port and grace of movement. Palus has all the inimitable gracefulness which Commodus displayed when driving teams in the Palace Stadium."
"He is incredibly stupid in undervaluing and failing to prize his privileges as Emperor," I said, "and amazingly reckless in allowing anyone else to occupy his throne, wearing his robes."
"He is yet more reckless to race as he does," Agathemer commented, "and I should not be astonished if we have seen his last public appearance as a charioteer."
"Why?" I queried startled.
"Because," said Agathemer, "he must be incredibly stupid not to perceive, now, what opportunities the Circus offers for getting rid of an Emperor posing as a charioteer.
"A stupider man than Commodus can possibly be should be able to comprehend that there must have been a very carefully planned plot in the Blue Company, a plot which must have cost a mountain of gold to carry so far towards success, a plot which never would have been laid for a mere jockey, however much his rivalry threatened the Company's winnings and prestige. Only a coterie of very wealthy men could have devised and pushed it. It cost money to induce charioteers to come so close to almost certain death in order to compass the destruction of another charioteer. It cost money to sacrifice a company's teams in that fashion. Such a plot was never laid to get rid of Palus the jockey; it was aimed at ridding the nobility of an Emperor they fear and hate, however popular he may be with the commonality.
"I miss my guess if there is not a violent upheaval in the Blue Company, and if there is not an investigation scrutinizing the behavior and loyalty of every man affiliated with them, from their board of managers down to the stall-cleaners. I prophesy that the informers, spies and secret- service men will have fat pickings off the Blues for many a day to come. I'll bet the guilty men are putting their affairs in order now and hunting safe hiding-places. Commodus may be insane about horse-racing and fool enough to put a dummy Emperor in his place, so he can be free to enjoy jockeying, but he is no fool when it comes to attempts at assassination. He'll run down the guilty or exterminate them among a shoal of innocents."
I agreed.
But I added:
"What is the world coming to when the Prince of the Republic prizes his privileges so little that he neglects state business for horse-jockeying, when he is so crazy over charioteering that he lets another man wear his robes and occupy his throne? It is a mad world."
Next morning we were early on Orontides' ship and once more Agathemer charmed a crew with his flageolet.
At Ostia Orontides found he must lay over for some valuable packages consigned to a jeweler at Antioch for the conveyance of which he was highly paid. He suggested that, as the day was hot for so late in the year, we go ashore and see the sights which, indeed, we found well worth seeing, for Ostia has some buildings outmatching anything to be found outside of Rome. We took his hint, but he warned us:
"I have some sailors I don't trust. Don't leave anything aboard. Take your wallets with you."
We passed a pleasant, idle day, lunching and taking our siesta at an inn outside the Rome Gate. We had planned to dine at an inn near the harbor- front, on the west side of the town, not far from the Sea Gate: there we had barely sat down and begun tasting the relishes, when in came Clitellus and Summanus. They seemed surprised and pleased to recognize us, greeted us as if we had been old friends and close intimates, appeared to assume that we were as glad to see them as they were to see us, and, as a matter of course, joined us at dinner, telling the waiter-boy to bring them whatever we had ordered, only doubling the quantity of every order.
They talked of the races we had seen, of Palus, of his driving; of the smash-ups, of Posilla, of Colgius and of everything and anything. They announced that they would accompany us to our ship and see us safe aboard. Both Agathemer and I more than suspected that they had associates in waiting to follow them and, at a signal, fall on us and seize us. I felt all that and Agathemer whispered to me a word or two in Greek which advised me of his suspicions.
We prolonged our meal all we could, but there was no shaking them off. Agathemer ordered more wine, Falernian, and had it mixed with only one measure of water. Watching his opportunity he threw at me, in a whisper, two Greek words which advised me, since they were the first in a well- known quotation from Menander, that our only hope was to drink our tormentors dead drunk.
It turned out to be a question whether we would drink them drunk or they us. Certainly they showed no hesitation about pouring down the wine as fast as it was mixed and served, nor did either of them appear to notice that we drank less than they; they seemed able to hold any amount and stay sober and keep on drinking. As dusk deepened and the waiter-boys lit the inn lamps, I found myself perilously near sliding off my chair to the floor and very doubtful whether, if I did, I should be able to get up again or to resist my tendency to go to sleep then and there.
I was, in fact, just about to give up any attempt to resist my impulse to collapse when Summanus collapsed, slid to the floor, rolled over, spread out and snored.
Clitellus thickly objurgated his comrade and all weak-heads, worthless fellows who could not drink a few goblets without getting drunk. To prove his vast superiority and his prowess, he poured more wine down his throat, spilling some down into his tunic.
Agathemer winked at me and fingered the strap of his wallet. I groped for mine and fumbled at it.
Clitellus, with a hiccough, slid to the floor beside Summanus.
I was for trying to rise.
"Let us be sure," said Agathemer in Greek, "perhaps they are pretending to be drunk, just to catch us."
But, after a brief contemplation of the precious pair, we concluded that no acting could be as perfect as this reality. They were drunk at last and safely asleep.
Agathemer paid the whole amount, for all four of us, adjured the waiter- boy to be good to Clitellus and Summanus, gave him an extra coin, and signalled me to rise. I lurched to my feet, swaying, almost as drunk as our victims and beholding Agathemer swaying before me, not only because of my blurred eyesight, but also because of his unsteadiness on his feet.
We almost fell, but not quite. Somehow we staggered to the door, where, once outside, the cool night air made us feel almost sobered, though still too nearly drunk to be sure of our location or direction.
More by luck than anything else we took the right turn and found the harbor front before the night was entirely black. In the half gloom we tried to find the pier from which we had come that morning. As we explored we heard a cheerful hail.
"Is that you, Orontides?"
Agathemer called.
"Aye, Aye!" came back the cheery answer. "Come aboard!"
And we were met and assisted up the gang-plank and down over the bulwarks.
"I was afraid you boys were lost," the shipmaster said, "and I am to sail at dawn, after all; everything is aboard. I'm glad to see you. You've dined pretty liberally. Come over here and get to sleep."
And he led us to where we found something soft to sleep on.
I was asleep almost as soon as I lay down.
I awoke with a terrific headache and an annoying buzzing in my ears, awoke only partially, not knowing where I was or why and without any distinct recollections of recent events. My first sensation was discomfort, not only from the pain of my headache, but also from the heat of the sunrays beating on me, and that despite the fact that I could feel a strong cool breeze ruffling my hair and beard.
I sat up and looked about me. Agathemer was snoring. The sun was not low; in fact, at that time of the year, it was near its highest. I had slept till noon!
Then, all of a sudden I realized that the ship was wholly strange to me and that it was headed not southeast, but northwest. That realization shocked me broad awake. At the same instant I saw the shipmaster approaching. He was not Orontides, nor was he at all like him. He had small feet, was knock-kneed, tall, lean, had a hatchet-face and red hair.
"Awake at last!" he commented. "You lads must have dined gloriously last night. You don't look half yourselves, yet."
He stared at me, and at Agathemer, who had waked, into much the same sort of daze in which I had been at first.
"Neptune's trident!" the shipmaster exclaimed. "You two aren't the two lads I was to convoy! Who are you and how did you get here?"
"We were hunting for our ship after dark," Agathemer said, "and somebody hailed us. We asked whether it was Orontides and the answer that came back was: 'Aye, Aye!' We were pretty thoroughly drunk and were glad to be helped aboard and shown our beds. That's all I know."
"Kingdom of Pluto!" the shipmaster cried, "my name's Gerontides, not Orontides. I heard your question, but you were so drunk I never knew the difference: probably I shouldn't have known the difference if you had been sober. I was on the lookout for two lads much like you two who had part paid me to carry them to Genoa. They'll be in a fix."
"'Bout ship," said Agathemer, "and put back to Ostia. You can't be far on your way yet. We'll pay you what you ask to set us ashore at Ostia."
"I wouldn't 'bout ship," said Gerontides, "for twenty gold pieces."
"We'll pay you thirty," said Agathemer.
"Don't bid any higher, son," Gerontides laughed. "If you were made of gold, to Genoa you go. I've a bigger stake in a quick landing at Genoa than any sum you could name would overbalance. Best be content!"
And content we had to be, no arguments, no entreaties, nothing would move him.
"I'll be fair with you," he said. "The lads I took you for had paid me all I had asked them except one gold piece each on landing at Genoa. That's all you'll have to pay me."
Nothing would budge him from his resolution. Agathemer in despair drowned his misery in flageolet playing. It seemed to comfort him and certainly comforted me. The crew were delighted. After a voyage as easy and pleasant as our cruise with Maganno, we landed on the eighth day before the Ides of September, at Genoa, paid our two gold pieces and set about getting out of that city as quickly as might be. We avoided, of course, the posting- station where we had changed horses while in couriers' trappings. But there was a posting-station at each gate of Genoa and we, having talked over all possibilities in the intervals of flageolet playing, were for Dertona. We had little trouble in buying a used travelling-carriage. Horses we did not have to wait long for, as hiring teams were luckily plentiful that day and Imperial agents scarce. Off we set for Milan.
We were in haste but there was no hurrying postillions on those mountain roads. We nooned at some nameless change-house and were glad to make the thirty-six miles to Libarium by dusk. The next day was consumed in covering the thirty-five miles to Dertona. From there on we travelled, in general down hill, and so quicker, but not much quicker, so that a third day entire was needed for making the fifty-one miles to Placentia.
Placentia, a second time, was unlucky for us. It might have been worse, for we did not again encounter Gratillus, or anyone else who might have recognized me. But I made a fool of myself. I am not going to tell what happened; Agathemer never reproached me for my folly, not even in our bitterest misery; but I reproached myself daily for nearly three years; I am still ashamed of myself and I do not want to set down my idiotic behavior.
Let it suffice, that, through no fault of Agathemer's, but wholly through my fault, we were suspected, interrogated, arrested, stripped, our brand- marks and scourge-scars observed and ourselves haled before a magistrate. To him Agathemer told the same tale he had told to Tarrutenus Spinellus. It might have served had we been dealing with a man of like temper, for travellers from Aneona for Aquileia regularly passed through Placentia turning there from northwest along the road from Aneona to northeast along the road to Aquileia.
But Stabilius Norbanus was a very different kind of man.
"Your story may be true," he said, "but it impresses me as an ingenious lie. If I believed it I'd not send men like you, with their records written in welts on their backs, with any convoy, no matter how strict, on the long journey to Aquileia, on which you'd have countless opportunities of escape. I do not believe your tale. Yet I'll pay this much attention to it: I'll write to Vedius Aquileiensis and ask him if he owned two slaves answering your descriptions and lost them through unexplained disappearance or known crimping by Dalmatian pirates at about the time you indicate.
"Meantime I'll commit you to anergastulum[Footnote: See Note H.] where you'll be herded with your kind, all safely chained, so that no escape is possible, and all doing some good to the state by some sort of productive labor. A winter at the flour-mills will do you two good."
Our winter at the mills may have benefited us, but it was certainly, with its successor at similar mills, one of the two most wretched winters of my life. And Agathemer, I think, suffered every bit as acutely as I. We were not chained, except for a few days and about twice as many more nights; as soon as the manager of theergastulumfelt that he knew us he let us go unchained like the rest of his charges.
This was because of the structure of theergastulum. It was located in the cellars of one of the six or more granaries of Placentia, which has, near each city gate, an extensive public store-house. The granary under which we were immured was that near the Cremona gate. Above ground it was a series of rectangles about courtyards each just big enough to accommodate four carts, all unloading or loading at once. It was everywhere of four stories of bin-rooms, all built of coarse hard-faced rubble concrete. The cellars were very extensive, and not all on one level, being cunningly planned to be everywhere about the same depth underground. Where their floor-levels altered the two were joined by short flights of three, four or five stone steps, under a vaulted doorway, in the thick partition walls.
Each cellar-floor was about four yards below the ground level so that a tall man, standing on a tall man's shoulders, could barely reach with his outstretched fingers the tip of the sill of one of the low windows. These windows, each about a yard high and two yards broad, were heavily barred with gratings of round iron bars as thick as a man's wrist, set too close together for a boy's head to pass between them, and each two bars hot- welded at each intersection, so that each grating was practically one piece of wrought iron, made before the granary was built and with the ends of each bar set deep in the flinty old rubble concrete. The inmates need not be chained, as no escape was possible through the windows, though raw night air, rain, snow at times and the icy winter blasts came in on us through them.
Similarly no escape was possible up the one entrance to the cellars, which was through an inner courtyard, from which led down a stone stair with four sets of heavy doors; one at the bottom, one at each end of a landing lighted by a heavily barred window, and one at the top. Between the inner and outer courtyard were two sets of heavier doors and two equally heavy were at the street entrance of the outer courtyard. On the stair-landing was the chained-up porter-accountant seated under the window on a backless stool by a small, heavy accountant's table on which stood a tallclepsydraby his big account-book. Checking the hours by theclepsydra, he entered the name of every human being passing, up or down that stair, even the name of the manager every time he came in or went out. By him always stood a wild Scythian, armed with a spear, girt with a sabre, and with a short bow and a quiver of short arrows hanging over his back. Similar Scythians guarded the doorways, a pair of them to each door. The slide by which the grain was lowered into theergastulum, the other slide by which the flour, coarse siftings and bran were hauled up, were similarly guarded. Escape was made so difficult by these precautions that, while I was there, no one escaped out of the three hundred wretches confined in theergastulum.
There we suffered sleepless nights in our hard bunks, under worn and tattered quilts, tormented by every sort of vermin. Swarming with vermin we toiled through the days, from the first hint of light to its last glimmer, shivering in our ragged tunics, our bare feet numb on the chilly pavements. We were cold, hungry, underfed on horribly revolting food, reviled, abused, beaten and always smarting from old welts or new weals of the whip-lashes.
It was all a nightmare: the toil, the lashings, if our monotonous walk around our mill, eight men to a mill, two to each bar, did not suit the notions of the room-overseer; the dampness, the cold, the vermin, the pain of our unhealed bruises, the scanty food and its disgusting uneatableness.
The food seemed the worst feature of our misery. So, in fact, it appears to have seemed to our despicable companions. Certainly, of the food they complained more than of the toil, the cold, the vermin, the malignity of the overseers or even of the barbarity of the Scythian guards. Anyhow their fury at the quality of their food brought to me and Agathemer an alleviation of our misery. For some hotheaded wretches, goaded beyond endurance, jerked the bars of their mill from their sockets and with them felled, beat to death and even brained the cook and his two assistants.
After their corpses had been removed, the floor swabbed up and the murderers turned over to the gloating Scythians to be done to death by impalement, Scythian fashion, with all the tortures Scythian ferocity could devise, the manager went from cellar to cellar, all through theergastulum, enquiring if any prisoner could cook. No one volunteered, and, when he questioned more than a few, everyone denied any knowledge of cookery.
A second time he made the tour of his domain, promising any cook a warm tunic, a bunk with a thick mattress and two heavy quilts, all the food he could eat and two helpers; the helpers to have similar indulgences. On this second round, in our cellar, a Lydian, nearer to being fat than any prisoner in theergastulum, admitted that he could make and bake bread, but vowed that he could not do anything else connected with cooking. Spurred on by his confession and tempted by the offers of better clothing and bedding and more food, also by the memories of Agathemer's cookery the winter before, I blurted out that Agathemer could not make bread, but could do everything else needed in cookery. Agathemer, after one reproachful glance at me, admitted that he was a cook of a sort, but declared that he was almost as bad a cook as the wretch just murdered. The overseer bade him go to the kitchen and told him he might select a helper; the baker would have been the other helper. As helper Agathemer, naturally, selected me.
After that we suffered less. The slaves acclaimed Agathemer's cooking; for, if their rations were still scanty by order of the watchful manager, at least their food was edible. Far from being ultimately killed, like our predecessors, and continually threatened and reviled, we were blessed by our fellow-slaves. We slept better, in spite of the vermin, on our grass- stuffed mattresses, under our foul quilts, we shivered less in our thicker tunics. We were not too tired to discuss, at times, the oddities of our vicissitudes, to congratulate each other on being, at least, alive, on my not being suspected of being what I actually was, and, above all, on the safety of our old, blackened, greasy, worthless-looking, amulet-bags, with their precious contents. To be reduced to carrying food to three hundred of the vilest rascals alive was a horrible fate for a man who had, two years before, been a wealthy nobleman, but it was far better than death as a suspected conspirator. And Agathemer was hopeful of our future, of survival, of escape, of comfort somewhere after he had sold another emerald, ruby, or opal. Nothing could, for any length of time, dim or cloud the light of Agathemer's buoyancy of disposition.
Our promotion from the mills to the kitchen took place early in March of the year when Manius Acilius Glabrio, after an interval of thirty-four years since his first consulship, was consul for the second time and had as nominal associate Commodus, preening himself, for the fifth time, on the highest office in the Republic, which he had done little to deserve, and while he held it, did less to justify himself in possessing, since he left most of the duties of the consulship to Glabrio, as he left most of the Principate to Perennis, his Prefect of the Praetorium. All of this, of course, we learnt later in the year; for, inside our prison, we knew nothing of what went on in Placentia, let alone of what went on in Italy and in Rome itself.
We had been cooking for more than three months, when, about the middle of June, our attention in the cellars was distracted from doling out food, as that of the wretches we served was distracted from eating their scanty rations, by an unusual uproar in the street outside of our windows. We could descry, in the morning sunlight, military trappings, tattered cloaks, ragged tunics, dingy kilt-straps, sheenless helmets, unkempt beards, and brawny arms in the crowds which packed the narrow streets. The mob seemed made up of rough frontier soldiery, and we marvelled at the presence of such men in Italy.
The uproar increased and we heard it not only from the streets but from the courtyards; we could not make out any words, but the tone of the tumultuous growls was menacing and imperative. After no long interval the doors at the foot of the one stair burst open and there entered to us three centurions, indubitably from distant frontier garrisons, accompanied by six or sevenoptiones[Footnote: See Note F.] and a dozen or more legionaries. The privates and corporals stood silent while one of the three sergeants addressed us:
"No one shall be compelled to join us. Every man of you shall have his unforced choice. All who join us shall be free. Such as prefer to remain where they are sit down! All who select to join us stand up!"
If any man sat down I did not see him. Through the door we flowed without jostling or crowding, for at the first appearance of a tendency to push forward the sergeant's big voice bellowed a warning and order reigned. Up the stair we poured, passing on the landing the mute, motionless porter- accountant and his Scythian guard, cowed immobile between two burly frontier centurions; out into the courtyard we streamed, more and more following till the courtyard was packed. The whole movement was made in silence, without a cheer or yell, for, like the porter and the Scythians, the most unconscionable villains in ourergastulumquailed before the truculence of the frontier sergeants.
In the outer court, at the suggestion of one of those same centurions, every man of us drank his fill at the well-curb, pairs of the legionaries taking turns at hauling up the buckets and watering us, much as if we had been thirsty workhorses. After they had made sure that none had missed a chance to quench his thirst, they roughly marshalled us into some semblance of order and out into the street we trooped, where we found ourselves between two detachments of frontier soldiers, one filling the street ahead of us from house-wall to house-wall, the other similarly blocking the street behind us. Between them we were marched to the market- square, where we had plenty of room, for we had it all to ourselves, the soldiery having cleared it and a squad of them blocking the entrance of each street leading into it, so that the townsfolk were kept out and we herded among the frontier soldiery.
Their centurions, to the number of eighteen, stood together on the stone platform from which orators were accustomed to address or harangue such crowds as might assemble in the market-square. Before it we packed ourselves as closely as we could, eager to hear. About us idled the soldiery not occupied in guarding the approach to the square.
One of the sergeants made a speech to us, explaining our liberation and their presence in Placentia. He called us "comrades" and began his harangue with a long and virulent denunciation of Perennis, the Prefect of the Palace. Perennis, he declared, had been a slave of the vilest origin and had won his freedom and the favor of the Palace authorities and of the Emperor not by merit but by rank favoritism. He maintained that Perennis, as Prefect of the Palace, had gained such an ascendancy over Commodus that besides his proper duties as guardian of the Emperor's personal safety, surely a charge sufficiently heavy to burden any one man and sufficiently honorable to satisfy any reasonable man, his master had been enticed into entrusting to Perennis the management of the entire Empire, so that he alone controlled promotions in and appointments to the navy, army and treasury services. In this capacity, as sole minister and representative of the sovereign, Perennis had enriched himself by taking bribes from all from whom he could extort bribes. By his venality he had gone far towards ruining the navy and army, which were by now more than half officered by hopeless incompetents who had bought their appointments. As a result the legionaries garrisoning the lines along the Euphrates, the Carpathians, the Danube, the Rhine and the Wall, since they were badly led, had suffered undeserved mishandling from the barbarians attacking them; and even the garrisons of mountain districts like Armenia, Pisidia, and Lusitania had been mauled by the bands of outlaws. He instanced the rebellion of Maternus as a result of the incompetence and venality of Perennis.
Worse than this, he said, Perennis was plotting the Emperor's assassination and the elevation to the Principate of one of his two sons. This project of his, which he was furthering by astute secret machinations, had come to the knowledge of a loyal member of the Emperor's retinue. He had written of it to a brother of his, Centurion [Footnote: See Note D.] of the Thirteenth Legion, entitled "Victorious" and quartered on the Wall, along the northern frontier of Britain, towards the Caledonian Highlands. This letter had reached the quarters of the Thirteenth Legion late in September. Its recipient had at once communicated to his fellow-sergeants the horrible intimation which it contained. They had resolved to do all in their power to save their Prince by forestalling and foiling the treacherous Perennis. They had called a meeting of their garrison and disclosed their information to their men. The legionaries acclaimed their decision. Deputations set out east and west along the Wall and roused the other cohorts of the Thirteenth Legion and those of the Twenty-Seventh. From the Wall messengers galloped south to the garrisons throughout Britain. In an incredibly short time, despite the approach and onset of winter, they apprised every garrison in the island. Messengers from every garrison reached every garrison. So rapidly was mutual comprehension and unanimity established, so secretly did they operate, that on the Nones of January all the garrisons in Britain simultaneously mutinied, overpowered their unsuspecting officers, disclosed to them the reasons for their sedition, and invited them to join them. Of all the officers on the island only two hesitated to agree with their men. These, after some expostulation, were killed. The rest resumed their duties, if competent, or were relegated to civilian life, if adjudged incompetent.
The three most prominent legions in Britain, the Sixth, Thirteenth and Twentieth, each entitled, because of prowess displayed in past campaigns, to the appellation of "Victorious," selected the equivalent of a cohort apiece to unite into a deputation representing the soldiery of Britain collectively, to proceed to Rome, reveal to the Emperor his danger, save him, foil Perennis, and see to it that he was put to death. In pursuance of this plan the six centuries chosen by the Thirteenth Legion, about five hundred men, had set out southward from the Wall on the day before the Ides of January. Accomplishing the march of a hundred and thirty-five miles to Eburacum, in spite of deep snow and heavy snow-storms, in fourteen days, there they foregathered with the main body of the Sixth Legion and were joined by their six selected centuries. The twelve, some thousand picked men, accomplished the march of eighty-five miles to Deva in nine days, though hampered by terrible weather. There they were joined by the delegates of the Twentieth Legion. Together the fifteen hundred deputies made the march of two hundred and eighty miles to Ritupis by way of Londinium, in twenty-eight days. At Ritupis they took part in the festival of Isis, by which navigation was declared open for the year and navigation blessed. Next day, on the day before the Nones of March, they had sailed for Gaul and made the crossing in ten hours, without any hindrance from headwinds or bad weather.
From Gessoriacum they had tramped across Gaul, inducing to join them such kindred spirits as they encountered among the squads of recent levies being drilled at each large town preparatory to being forwarded to reinforce the frontier garrisons. These inexperienced recruits they had organized into centuries under sergeants elected by the recruits themselves from among themselves, which elective centurions had handily learnt their novel duties from instructions given by one or two veterans detailed to aid in drilling each new century. Before they reached Vapincum they had associated with them fresh comrades equalling themselves in number, equipped from town arsenals. With these they had crossed into Italy through the Cottian Alps.
At Segusio they had been told that, under the misrule of Perennis, theergastulaof Italy were filled, not half with runaway slaves, petty thieves, rascals, ruffians and outlaws, but mainly with honest fellows who had committed no crime, but had been secretly arrested and consigned to their prisons merely because they had incurred the displeasure of Perennis or of one of his henchmen, or had been suspected, however vaguely, of actions, words or even of unspoken opinions distasteful to him or to anyone powerful through him. Acting on that information they had been setting free the inmates ofergastulain cities through which they had passed, such as Turin and Milan, and had formed from these victims two fresh centuries. They proposed that we join them and march with them to Rome to inform and rescue our Emperor and foil and kill Perennis.
Of course the liberated riffraff accepted this suggestion with enthusiasm and without a dissenting voice. We were divided into squads of convenient size and marched off to the near-by bathing establishments. In that to which Agathemer and I were led, we, with the rest of our squad, were told by the sergeant superintending us to strip. Our worn, tattered and lousy garments were turned over to the bath-attendants to be steamed and then disposed of as they might. We were thoroughly steamed and scrubbed, so that every man of us was freed from every sort of vermin. During our bath the centurion, in charge of us unobtrusively inspected us individually and collectively. In the dressing-room of the bathing establishments, after we had been steamed, scrubbed, baked, and dried, we were clad in military tunics fetched from the town arsenal or its store-houses. Also we were provided with military boots of the coarsest and cheapest materials, made after the pattern usual for frontier regiments.
Outside the bath the watchful sergeant divided us into two squads, a larger and a smaller, the smaller made up of those who, like Agathemer and me, bore brands, and scourge-marks. In the market-square we were again herded together, surrounded by the British legionaries and now ourselves divided into those like me and Agathemer, who were marked as runaway slaves and the larger number who showed no marks of scourge or brand. From among the unmarked the frontier centurions picked out thirty whom they judged likely material for sergeants like themselves. These thirty they bade select from among themselves three. Then they set the three, an Umbrian and a Ligurian outlaw, and a Dalmatian pirate, along the front of the stone platform and asked us whether we would accept those three as our centurions. Two speakers, one a Venetian and the other an Insubrian Gaul, objected to the pirate. In his place we were bidden to choose some other from the twenty-seven already selected by the sergeants. A second Umbrian outlaw was selected.
Then the centurions bade the newly-elected three to choose each one man in rotation, until they had made up for each the nucleus of a century from the unmarked men.
After the three new centuries were thus constituted, they asked them to decide whether they would accept as comrades and associates the residue of the inmates of ourergastulumwho were marked plainly as runaway slaves. They voted overwhelmingly to accept us. Then the three new sergeants proceeded to choose us also into their centuries. The choosing was interrupted by a Ravenna Gaul, who called the attention of the assembly to the fact that Agathemer had been cook to theergastulumand I his helper; similarly to the baker and his assistant. After some discussion it was unanimously voted that the baker and his helper be treated as any others of the liberated rascals, that the three new centurions draw lots which should have Agathemer for cook to his century and me for his helper, and that the other two centuries appoint cooks by lot unless cooks and helpers volunteered. Four of the brand-marked rabble at once volunteered.
After the last man had been selected and the British centurions had marshalled, inspected and approved the three new centuries thus constituted, we were marched off to the town arsenal and there equipped with corselets, strap-kilts, greaves; cloaks, helmets, shields, swords and spears; only Agathemer, I, and the four other cooks and helpers, were given no spears, shields, helmets or body-armour, only swords, jackets and caps.
Then, full-fledged tumultary legionaries, we were marshalled as well as greenhorns could be ranked and we marched from the market-place the length of the street leading to the Fidentia Gate. Outside it we found the semblance of a camping-ground and tents ready for us to set up. Up we set them, we new recruits, clumsily, under the jeers of the old-timers, to the tune of taunts and curses from the disgusted veteran centurions.
When the camp was set up a fire was made for each century and we cooks and helpers fell to our duties, with a squad of privates to cut wood, feed the fires, fetch water and do any other rough preparatory work, such as butchering a sheep or a goat, killing, picking and cleaning fowls, and what not. For this welcome, if clumsy, assistance we had to thank one of the British centurions, who admonished our newly-elected Umbrian sergeant that camp-cookery called for any needed number of assistant helpers to the chief cook if the men were to be fed properly and promptly.
The town officials had sent out to the camp a generous provision of wheat, barley, lentils, pulse, sheep, goats, fowls, cheese, oil, salt and wine. I did not learn how the volunteer cooks fared, but the barley-stew, seasoned with minced fowls, which Agathemer concocted, was acclaimed by our century.
That night, in our tent, Agathemer and I, talking Greek and whispering, discussed our situation. After two fulfillments, the prophesy of the Aemilian Sibyl seemed in a fair way to be fulfilled a third time; we were headed for Rome.
To Rome we went. We had, in that first consultation, in many similar consultations later, planned to escape and hoped to escape. But we were too carefully watched. Whether we were suspected because of our scourge- marks and brand-marks, or were prized as cooks, or whether there was some other reason, we could not conjecture. Certainly we were sedulously guarded on all marches, and kept strictly within, each camp, though we were free to wander about each camp as we pleased.
We had planned to escape in or near Parma, Mutina, Bononia, or Faventia, any of which towns Agathemer judged a favorable locality for marketing a gem from our amulet-bags. But in these, as everywhere else, our guards gave us no chance of escape.
When not busy cooking I found myself greatly interested in the amazing company among which I was cast. In my rambles about our camp, when all were full-fed and groups sat or lay chatting about the slackening camp- fires, I became acquainted with most of the eighteen centurions from the legions quartered in Britain, and had talks, sometimes even long talks, with more than half of them. These bluff, burly frontier sergeants, like their corporals and men, treated all their volunteer associates as welcome comrades, even welted and branded runaway slaves acting as cooks. From them I heard again and again the story of discontent, conspiracy, mutiny, insurrection and attempt at protest about rectification of the evils they believed to exist, which tale we had all heard outlined by the sergeant-orator in the Forum of Placentia.
Among the eighteen centurions there was no sergeant-major nor any centurion of the upper rank. The highest in army rank was Sextius Baculus of Isca, a native of Britain and lineally descended, through an original colonist of Isca, from the celebrated sergeant-major of the Divine Julius. He had been twelfth in rank in the Sixth Legion, being second centurion of its second cohort. Not one of his seventeen associates had ranked so high: the next highest being Publius Cordatus, of Lindum, who had been second sergeant of the fourth cohort in the Twentieth Legion.
The totality of my mental impressions of what I heard from these two and other members of this incredible deputation of insurgent mutineers and of what I saw of the doings of the whole deputation, was vague and confused. From the confusion emerged a predominating sense of their many inconsistencies and of the haphazard irresponsibility and inconsequence of their states of mind and actions. They were, indeed, entirely consistent in one respect. Unlike Maternus and his men, not one of them blamed Commodus for anything, not even for having appointed Perennis to his high office and then having permitted him to arrogate to himself all the functions of the government of the Republic and Empire. One and all they excused the Emperor and expressed for him enthusiastic loyalty: one and all they blamed not only the Prefect's mismanagement but also his own appointment on Perennis. Consistent as they were in holding these opinions or in having such feelings, the notions were inconsistent in themselves.
So likewise was their often expressed and manifestly sincere intention to forestall the consummation of the alleged conspiracy and save the Emperor inconsistent with their slow progress from Britain towards Rome. Never having been in Britain and knowing little of it from such reports as I had heard, I could not controvert their assertion that the state of the roads and weather there had made impossible greater speed than they had achieved from their quarters to their port, yet I suspected that men really systematically in earnest might have accomplished in twenty days marches which had occupied them for fifty-one days. I was certain that it was nothing short of ridiculous for legionaries in hard fighting condition and well fed to consume one hundred and one days in marching from their landing-port on the coast of Gaul to Placentia: ten miles a day was despicable marching even for lazy and soft-muscled recruits; any legionaries should make fifteen, miles at day under any conditions, earnest men keyed up to hurry should have made twenty and might often march twenty-five miles between camps. These blatherskites were on fire with high resolve, by their talk, yet had loafed along for a thousand miles, camping early, sleeping long after sunrise, resting at midday and gorging themselves at leisurely meals. All this was amazing.
Equally astonishing was the condition of supineness, of all governmental officials in Gaul, local and Imperial, as their tale revealed it. Neither the Prefect of the Rhine, nor any one of the Procurators of Gaul, had, as far as their story indicated, made any effort to arrest them, turn them back, stop them, check them, hinder them or even have them expostulated with. As far as I could infer from all I heard neither had the governing body of any city or town. For all they were interfered with by any official they might have been full-time veterans, honorably discharged, marching homeward under accredited officers provided with diplomas properly made out, signed, sealed and stamped. Everywhere they had been fed at public expense, lodged free or provided with camping-grounds and tents; their pack-animals had been replaced if worn out, and everything they needed had been provided on their asking for it or even before they made any request. I could only infer that they had inspired fear by their numbers and truculence and that each town or district had striven to keep them in a good humor and to get rid of them as soon as possible by entertaining them lavishly and speeding them along their chosen way.
As they told of their own behavior there had been no consistency or system or method in their additions to their company. By their own account they had enticed men to join them or had ignored likely recruits in the most haphazard fashion, purely as the humor struck them. The like was true of their emptyings ofergastulain Italy. At Turin, as well as I could gather from my chats with this or that centurion or soldier or liberated slave, they had set free the inmates of theergastulumby the Segusio Gate and had then turned aside to that by the Vercellae Gate, but had ignored the largerergastulumby the Milan Gate; though they had marched out of Turin, necessarily, by that gate. Similarly at Milan, they had emptied twoergastulaand ignored the rest; as at Placentia, where they had expended all their time and energy on the firstergastulumthey happened on inside the Milan Gate and on ours, and then had ignored or forgotten the four or five others, equally large and equally well filled.
On our progress to Rome I saw similar inconsistencies in their behavior. They never so much as entered Fidentia, but marched round it, acquiescent to the gentle suggestion of a trembling and incoherent alderman, quaking with fear and barely able to enunciate some disjointed sentences. At Parma they emptied twoergastulaand never so much as approached the others, repeating this inconsistency at Mutina and Bononia. Outside of Faventia something, I never learned what, enraged a knot of the veterans, so that their fury communicated itself to all the soldiery from Britain and inflamed their associates, Gallic and Italian. Whereupon we burst the Bononia Gate of Faventia, flocked into the town, sacked some of the shops, left a score of corpses in the market-place and some in the streets near it, set fire to a block of buildings, and burst out of the Ariminum Gate, tumultuous and excited, but without so much as trying the outer doors of anyergastulum.
Yet, after this riotous performance, we did no damage at Ariminum, not even entering the town, not even enquiring if it had anergastulum, as it must have had.
Similarly at Pisaurum, at Fanum Fortunae, at Forum Sempronii, though these were small towns and could not have resisted us, we camped outside, accepted gracefully the tents and food provided for us and made no move to maltreat anyone or do any looting. But at Nuceria, at Spolitum and at Narnia we entered the towns and liberated the inmates of two of theergastula, in each, though we never so much as threatened Interamnia.
Looking back over these proceedings I explain them to myself approximately as follows: the eighteen centurions from Britain treated each other as if they all felt on terms of complete mutual equality, none ever assumed any rights of superiority, seniority, precedence, or authority, none was ever invested with any right of permanent or temporary leadership. If some whim prompted any one of the eighteen to take the lead in emptying anergastulumor breaking in a town gate, or sacking a shop, not one of his fellow-sergeants demurred or expostulated or opposed him; they all concurred in any suggestion of any one of them. And the soldiers followed their centurions with, apparently, implicit confidence in them, or a blind instinct of deference. So of submission to the request of any town decurion, that they stay outside: mostly, they were acquiescent. But if something irritated a sergeant, or even a soldier, the entire deputation flamed into fury and burst gates, sacked shops and even fired buildings until their rage spent itself, after which they were civil and kindly to all townsmen, whether officials, citizens, slaves or women and children. I never could detect any reason for any action or inaction of theirs.