Andivius Hedulio: Adventures of a Roman Nobleman in the Days of the Empire Part 68

Within a very few days after my encounter with Vedia at Bambilio's dinner Falco and I had just ascended the stair of his residence after returning from a conference with Pullanius and his partners at which both sides had finally agreed on terms to the last detail and the contracts had been drawn up, executed, signed and sealed. He said:

"Phorbas, I am pleased with you. Such imposture as I have enticed you into cannot have been palatable to a man of your character. You have manifestly disrelished it, but you have valiantly stomached it for my sake. Actually you may be comforted, for it has not really been dishonest or dishonorable; you have only acted and spoken vicariously for Salinator: to a certainty he would have done and said just what you have, had he been present in person.

"You are a wonderful actor. No Greek or part Greek or half Greek or quarter Greek or thirty-second Greek I ever knew or heard of, clever as Greeks are at histrionics, could so perfectly act a Roman n.o.ble in every detail of demeanor, manner and word: down to the most trifling expression of every prejudice inherent in a Roman born. I admire you. Also I thank you.

"And I am as relieved as you will be to be able to tell you that your masquerade is at an end, successful and unsuspected.

"Now the important thing is for Salsonius Salinator to vanish from Rome at once.

"I suppose you have the wigs and false-beards you said you would buy or have made?"

"They are in my dressing-room," I replied.

"Then," he continued, "have yourself waked early, have your valet paint you and powder you and rouge you and fit you out with a wig like the head of hair you had before I made you impersonate Salinator, and with a false beard no one will suspect; have him rig you up in your favorite attire and load you with jewelry, then set off in my travelling-carriage for Baiae.

Be out of Rome by sunrise. Travel straight to Baiae as rapidly as you find practicable without fatiguing yourself. At Baiae you will have the Villa and servants all to yourself. Stay there until you have grown your hair and beard as it was before your masquerade. Then return to Rome as Phorbas."

He paused, gazed at me and added:

"And I mean to make a new will. Besides leaving you your freedom and the legacy specified in my last will I mean to leave you my gem-collection and a full fourth of all my other estate. You deserve a lavish reward and I believe I love you better than any living human being."

I thanked him with my best imitation of the manner of a Greek, but with genuine feeling and from a full heart.

Actually I was glad to get out of Rome, glad to linger at Baiae. I made my time as long as I could and resisted several importunities from Falco before I finally returned to the city more than a year after I had left it. Thus I was out of Rome during the great fire, which destroyed, along with the Temple and Altar of Peace, the Temples of the Divine Julius and the Divine Augustus, the Temple of Vesta, the Atrium of Vesta and most of the other buildings about the great Forum, also the Porticus Margaritaria and the shop of Orontides. Strangely enough, when, at Baiae, I read letters from Falco, Tanno and Agathemer describing the devastation, my mind dwelt more on the annihilation of the shop where I had encountered Vedia than on the destruction of the Palace records and most of the public records, or of the many revered temples which had vanished in the flames.

When I returned to Rome the ruins were already largely cleared, and rebuilding, especially of the Temple of Vesta, was vigorously under way.

In Falco's household and manner of life I found few changes, except that Falco, really in excellent health, had become concerned about his trifling ailments, and, after trying one and another physician, had enrolled himself among the patients of the most distinguished exponent of the healing arts. Galen therefore, was a frequent visitor at my home and I saw him not infrequently. When I had some minor discomfort, Falco, always pampering me, called Galen in and enrolled me also among his charges.

After my return to the City the chief topic of conversation among persons of all grades of society and the pivot, so to speak, on which the spectacles of the amphitheater revolved was Palus the Gladiator.

I may set down here that I, personally, am now, as I was when I saw him appear as a charioteer for the last time, certain that Palus was Commodus in person. And I set this down as a fact. It will be seen later that I had more opportunity than any man in Rome, outside of the Palace, to know the facts.

Many people then believed and not a few still maintain that Palus was merely a crony of Commodus. Some whispered that he was a half-brother of Commodus, a son of Faustina and a favorite gladiator, brought up by the connivance of her too-indulgent husband; which wild tale suits neither with Faustina's actual deportment, as contrasted with the lies told of her by her detractors, nor with the character of Aurelius. Others even hinted that Palus was a half-brother of Commodus on the other side, off-spring of Aurelius and a concubine. This invention consorts still worse with the nature of Aurelius, who was one of the most uxorious of men and by nature monogamic and austere, almost ascetic. Some contented themselves with conjecturing that Palus accidentally resembled Commodus, which was not so far from the truth.

For I knew Ducconius Furfur from our boyhood and I solemnly a.s.sert that Palus was Commodus and that, whenever Palus appeared in the circus and, later, in the amphitheater, while the Imperial Pavilion was filled by the Imperial retinue, with the throne occupied apparently by the Emperor, the throne was occupied by a dummy emperor, Ducconius Furfur, in the Imperial attire, and Commodus was in the arena as Palus. Anyone who chooses may, from this p.r.o.nouncement, set me down as a credulous ninny, if it suits his notions.

When Palus drove a chariot in the circus he never appeared with his face fully exposed, but invariably wore over its upper portion the half-mask of gauze, which is designed to protect a charioteer's eyes from dust and flying grains of sand. Similarly, when Palus entered the arena as a gladiator he never fought in any of those equipments in which gladiators appear bareheaded or with faces exposed: as a _retiarius_, for instance.

He always fought as a _secutor_ or _murmillo_, or in the armor proper to a Samnite, Thracian, or heavy-armed Greek or Gaul; all of which equipments include a heavy helmet with a vizor. Palus always fought with his vizor down.

It seems to me that the plain inference from these facts corroborates my opinions concerning Palus: certainly it strengthens my belief in my views.

And these facts were and are known to be facts by all who, as spectators in the circus or in the amphitheater, beheld Palus as charioteer or as gladiator.

As a gladiator he was more than marvellous, he was miraculous. I was present at all his public appearances from the time of my return from Baiae. Also I had seen him closer, from the senatorial boxes in the amphitheater, three several times during my impersonation of Salsonius Salinator. Moreover I had seen him as a gladiator not a few times before that, since Falco, soon after we came to Rome from Africa, because of his affection for me and his tendency to indulge me in every imaginable way and to arrange for me every conceivable pleasure, had contrived to use the influence of some new-found friends to make possible my presence at shows in the Colosseum, and that in as good a seat as was accessible to any free-born Roman not a n.o.ble or senator.

The very first time I saw Palus in the arena I felt sure he was Commodus in person, for he had to a marvel every one of his characteristics of height, build, outline, agility, grace, quickness and deftness and all his tricks of att.i.tude and movement. The two were too identical to be anything except the very same man.

It will occur to any reader of these memoirs that Palus was a left-handed fighter, and that Commodus not only fought left-handed, but wrote, by preference, with his left hand and with it more easily, rapidly and legibly than with his right. But I do not lay much stress on this for about one gladiator in fifty fights left-handed, so that the fact that Palus was left-handed, while it accords with my views, does not, in my opinion, help to prove them.

What, to my mind, much more tends to confirm my views, is the well-known fact that Palus was always equipped with armor and weapons more magnificent and more expensive than any ever seen on other gladiators.

Everything he used or wore was of gold or heavily gilt; even his spear heads and sword blades were brilliantly gilded; so were his helmets, s.h.i.+elds, bucklers, corselets, breastplates, the scales of his kilt-straps when he fought as a Greek, and his greaves, whether of Greek pattern or of some other fas.h.i.+on. If he appeared in an armament calling for arm-rings, leg-rings, or leg-wrappings, these were always also heavily gilt. So was his footgear, whether he wore thigh-boots, full-boots, half-boots, soldiers' brogues, half-sandals or sandals. His shoulder-guards (called "wigs" in the slang of the prize-ring) were, apparently, of pure cloth of gold, which also appeared to be the material of his ap.r.o.ns when his accoutrements did not include a kilt.

Now it may be said that this merely indicates that his equipment was the most extravagant instance of the manner in which opulent enthusiasts lavished their cash on the outfitting of their favorites in the arena. To me it seems too prodigal for the profusion of any or all of such spendthrifts: it appears to me more like the self-indulgence of the vainglorious master of the world. Palus often wore a helmet so bejeweled that its cost would have overtaxed the wealth of Didius Julia.n.u.s.

I consider that my opinions are corroborated by the well-known fact that whenever Palus appeared as a gladiator in the amphitheater, Galen was present in the arena as chief of the surgeons always at hand to dress the wounds of victors or of vanquished men who had won the approbation or favor of the spectators or of the Imperial party. True, Galen was often there when Palus was not in the arena, for he was always on the watch for anatomical knowledge to be had from observation of dying men badly wounded. But, on the other hand, while he was often in the arena when Palus was not there, he was never absent when Palus was fighting.

Similarly, after Aemilius Laetus was appointed Prefect of the Palace, he was always present in person in the arena whenever Palus appeared in it.

This, too, makes for my contentions.

The first fight in which I saw Palus revealed to me, and brought home to me with great force, the reason for his nickname, its origin and its astonis.h.i.+ng appropriateness. The word "_palus_" has a number of very different meanings: manifestly its fitness as a pet name for the most perfect swordsman ever seen in any arena came from its use to denote the paling of a palisade, or any stake or post. Palus, in a fight, always appeared to stand still: metaphorically he might be said to seem as immobile as the post upon which beginners in the gladiatorial art practice their first attempts at strokes, cuts, thrusts and lunges. So little did he impress beholders as mobile, so emphatically did he impress them as stationary, that he might almost as well have been an upright stake, planted permanently deep in the sand.

I first saw him fight as a _secutor_, matched against a _retiarius_. This kind of combat is, surely, the most popular of all the many varieties of gladiatorial fights; and justly, for such fights are by far the most exciting to watch and their incidents perpetually varied, novel and unpredictable. It is exciting because the _retiarius_, nude except for one small shoulder-guard and a scanty ap.r.o.n, appears to have no chance whatever against the _secutor_ with his big vizored helmet, his complete body-armor, his kilt of lapped leather straps plated with polished metal scales, his greaves or leg-rings or boots and his full-length, curved s.h.i.+eld and Spanish sword. The _secutor_, always the bigger man and fully armed and armored, appears invincible against the little manikin of a _retiarius_ skipping about bareheaded and almost naked and armed only with his trident, a fisherman's three-tined spear, with a light handle and short p.r.o.ngs, his little dagger and his cord net, which, when spread, is indeed large enough to entangle any man, but which he carries crumpled up to an inconspicuous bunch of rope no bigger than his head.

Yet the fact is the reverse of the appearance. No one not reckless or drunk ever bet even money on an ordinary _secutor_. The odds on the _retiarius_ are customarily between five to three and two to one. And most _secutors_ manifestly feel their disadvantage. As the two men face each other and the _lanista_ gives the signal anyone can see, usually, that the _retiarius_ is confident of victory and the _secutor_ wary and cautious or even afraid. Dreading the certain cast of the almost unescapable net, the _secutor_ keeps always on the move, and continually alters the direction and speed and manner of his movement, taking one short step and two long, then three short and one long, breaking into a dogtrot, slowing to a snail's-pace, leaping, twisting, curving, zigzagging, ducking and in every way attempting to make it impossible for the _retiarius_ to foretell from the movement he watches what the next movement will be.

Palus behaved unlike any other _secutor_ ever seen in the arena. He availed himself of none of the usual devices, which _lanistae_ taught with such care, in the invention of which they gloried and in which they drilled their pupils unceasingly. He merely stood still and watched his adversary. The cunning cast of the deadly net he avoided by a very slight movement of his head or body or both. No _retiarius_ ever netted him, yet the net seldom missed him more than half a hand's breadth. When the disappointed _retiarius_ skipped back to the length of his net-cord and retrieved his net by means of it, Palus let him gather it up, never dashed at him, but merely stepped sedately towards him. If the _retiarius_ ran away, Palus followed, but never in haste, always at a slow, even walk. No matter how often his adversary cast his net at him, Palus never altered his demeanor. The upshot was always the same. The spectators began to jeer at the baffled _retiarius_, he became fl.u.s.tered, he ventured a bit too near his immobile opponent, Palus made an almost imperceptible movement and the _retiarius_ fell, mortally wounded.

I was never close enough to Palus to see clearly the details of his lunges, thrusts and strokes. I saw him best when I was a spectator in the Colosseum while impersonating Salsonius Salinator, for in my guise as colonial magnate I sat well forward. Even then I was not close enough to him to descry the finer points of his incomparable swordsmans.h.i.+p. Yet what I saw makes me regard as fairly adequate the current praises of him emanating from those wealthy enthusiasts who were reckoned the best judges of such matters. By the reports I heard they said that Palus never cut a throat, he merely nicked it, but the tiny nick invariably and accurately severed the carotid artery, jugular vein or windpipe.

I can testify, from my own observation, to his having displayed comparable skill in an equally effective stab in a different part of his adversary's body. As is well known, a deep slash of the midthigh, inside, causes death nearly as quickly as a cut throat; if the femoral artery is divided the blood pours out of the victim almost as from an inverted pail, a horrible cascade. Most of the acclaimed gladiators use often this deadly stroke against the inside midthigh, slas.h.i.+ng it to the bone, leaving a long, deep, gaping wound. Palus never slashed an adversary's thigh; in killing by a thigh wound he always delivered a lunge which left a small puncture, but invariably also left the femoral artery completely severed, so that the life-blood gushed out in a jet astonis.h.i.+ngly violent, the victim collapsing and dying very quickly. Such a parade requires altogether transcendant powers of accuracy from eye and hand.

Besides fighting as a _secutor_ against a _retiarius_ Palus in the same accoutrements fought with men similarly equipped, or accoutred as Greeks, Gauls, Thracians, Samnites, or _murmillos;_ also he appeared in the equipment of each of these sorts of gladiators against antagonists equipped like himself or in any of the other fas.h.i.+ons.

In all these countless fights he was never once wounded by any adversary nor did he ever deliver a second stroke, thrust or lunge against any: his defence was always impregnable, his attack always unerring; when he lunged his lunge never missed and was always fatal, unless he purposely spared a gallant foe.

Besides the exhibitions of bravado and self-confidence traditional with gladiators, all of which he displayed again and again, Palus devised more than one wholly original with himself.

For instance, he would take his stand in the arena equipped as a _secutor_, the _lanista_ would have in charge not one _retiarius_, but ten, or even a dozen. One would attack Palus and when, after a longer or shorter contest, he was killed, the _lanista_, would, without any respite, allow a second to rush at Palus; then a third; and so on till everyone had perished by the _secutor's_ unerring sword. No other secutor ever killed more than one _retiarius_ without a good rest between the first fight and the second. Palus, as was and is well known, killed more than, a thousand adversaries, of whom more than three hundred wore the accoutrements of a _retiarius_.

Palus was even more spectacular as a _dimachaerus_, so called from having two sabers, for a _dimachaerus_ is a gladiator accoutred as a Thracian, but without any s.h.i.+eld and carrying a naked saber in each hand. Such a fighter is customarily matched against an adversary in ordinary Thracian equipment. He has to essay the unnatural feat of guarding himself with one sword while attacking with the other. Such a feat is akin to those of jugglers and acrobats, for a sword is essentially an instrument of a.s.sault and cannot, by its very nature, take the place of a s.h.i.+eld as a protection. Everybody, of course, knows that showy and startling ruse said to have been invented by the Divine Julius, which consists in surprising one's antagonist by parrying a stroke with the sword instead of with the s.h.i.+eld and simultaneously using the s.h.i.+eld as a weapon, striking its upper rim against the adversary's chin. But this can succeed only against an opponent dull-witted, unwary, clumsy and slow, and then as a surprise. A _dimachaerus_ has to depend on parrying and his antagonist knows what to expect.

Palus was the most perfect _dimachaerus_ ever seen in the Colosseum.

Without a s.h.i.+eld he fought and killed many Thracians, Greeks, Gauls, _murmillos_, Samnites and _secutors_. He even, many times, fought two Thracians at once, killing both and coming off unscathed. I saw two of these exhibitions of insane self-confidence and I must say that Palus made good his reliance on his incredible skill. He pivoted about between his adversaries, giving them, apparently, every chance to attack simultaneously, distract him and kill him. Yet he so managed that, even if their thrusts appeared simultaneous, there was between them an interval, brief as a heart-beat, but long enough for him to dispose of one and turn on the other, or escape one and pierce the other. I could not credit my own eyes. With my belief as to the ident.i.ty of Palus I marvelled that a man whose life was dominated by the dread of a.s.sa.s.sination, who feared poison in his wine and food, who hedged himself about with guards and then feared the guards themselves, who distrusted everybody, who dreaded every outing, who was uneasy even inside his Palace, felt perfectly at ease and serenely safe in the arena with no defence but two sabers, and he between two hulking ruffians, as fond of life as any men, and knowing that they must kill him or be killed by him. In this deadly game he felt no qualms, only cert.i.tude of easy victory.

The controversies over the ident.i.ty of Palus have produced a whole literature of pamphlets, some maintaining that he was Commodus, others professing to prove that he was not, of which some rehea.r.s.e every possible theory of his relations.h.i.+p to Aurelius or Faustina. Among these the most amazing are those which set forth the view that Palus was Commodus, but no skillful swordsman, rather a brazen sham, killing ingloriously helpless adversaries who could oppose to his edged steel only swords of lath or lead.

This absurdity is in conflict with all the facts. Manifestly the antagonists of Palus were as well armed as he, both for defence and attack.

And, what is much more, the populace clamored for Palus, booed and cat- called if Palus did not appear in the arena; cheered him to the echo when he did appear; yelled with delight and appreciation at each exhibition of his prophetic intuition as to what his adversary was about to do, of his preternaturally perfect judgment as to what to do himself, of the instantaneous execution of whatever movement he purposed, of its complete success; and applauded him while he went off as no other gladiator ever was applauded. It was the popular demand for him which made possible and justified the unexampled fee paid Palus for each of his appearances in the arena. The managers of the games were obliged to include Palus in each exhibition or risk a riot of the indignant populace.

Now no sham fighter could fool the Roman populace. A make-believe swordsman, such as the pamphlets which I have cited allege Commodus to have been, might, if Emperor, have overawed the senators and n.o.bles of equestrian rank and compelled their unwilling applause of sham feats. But no man, not even an Emperor, could coerce the Roman proletariat into applauding a fighter unworthy of applause. Our populace, once seated to view a show of any kind, cannot be controlled, cannot even be swayed. No fame of any charioteer, beast-fighter or gladiator can win from them tolerance of the smallest error of judgment, defect of action, attempt at foul play or hint of fear: they boo anything of which they disapprove and not Jupiter himself could elicit from them applause of anything except exhibitions of courage, skill, artistry and quickness fine enough to rouse their admiration. They admired Palus, they adored him.

This is well known to all men and proves Palus a consummate artist as a gladiator. Not only would the populace howl a bungler or coward off the sand, they know every shade of excellence; only a superlatively perfect swordsman could kindle their enthusiasm and keep it at white heat year after year as did Palus.

Palus, I may remark, was always a gallant fighter, and a combination of skill and gallantry in an adversary so won his goodwill that he never killed or seriously wounded such an opponent. If his antagonist had an unusually perfect guard and a notably dangerous attack, was handsome, moved gracefully, displayed courage and fought with impeccable fairness Palus felt a liking for him, showed it by the way in which he stood on the defensive and mitigated the deadliness of his attacks, played him longer than usual to demonstrate to all the spectators the qualities he discerned in him, and, when he was convinced that the onlookers felt as he felt, disabled his admired match with some effective but trifling wound.

Then, when his victim collapsed, Palus would leap back from him, sheath his sword, and saw the air with his empty left hand, fingers extended and pressed together, thumb flat against the crack between the roots of the index finger and big finger, twisting his hand about and varying the angle at which he sawed the air, so that all might see that he wished his fallen adversary spared and was suggesting that the spectators nearest him imitate his gesture and give the signal for mercy by extending their arms thumbs flat to fingers.