blue bowl with the frieze of nymphs on the side, because my mother was no longer here to sing me lullabies, and over the years it had somehow become my fault.
I saw Arius the Barbarian, of course. His lanista flashed him all over the city like a prize stallion: dragged him into the theatre to watch the comedies, into the Campus Martius where everyone strolled to see and be seen, into the Circus Maximus to watch the chariot races. Wherever he went there was a hush of deliciously savored fear, a respectful drawing back, and afterward the buzz of speculation.
“He won’t last the next fight,” people scoffed in taverns. “Beating Belleraphon, that was a fluke.”
“And the Amazons?” his fans retaliated hotly.
“Anyone could beat a team of women!”
“No, he’s something special. Just wait till the Romani games in September—” The argument went on, even though he ignored his fans as if they were shadows and drank alone in taverns despite the hundreds who would have kept him company.
His face started to appear everywhere, painted badly on the sides of wooden buildings around the Colosseum. Crudely chalked graffiti greeted my eyes on alley walls: “Arius the Barbarian makes all the girls sigh!” Vendors hawked garish little portraits on gaudy ribbons. Taverns offered him free wine, and whores offered him free time. Arius, a slave and a barbarian, a man who would be cut up and fed to the lions when he died instead of meeting his gods in a proper tomb. Lower than sewer trash, but so important: His fights would calm the crowds when they grumbled too loudly over the Emperor’s taxes, his presence would titillate the most bored patricians at dinner parties and keep them from scheming, his blood would be sold to epileptics as a cure for their foaming fits, and brides would fight for one of his spears to part their hair on their wedding day and thus guarantee themselves a happy marriage.
All of it would vanish overnight, of course, if he lost his next fight. And I wondered how long he would last.
“Savages never live long,” an aging legionnaire said critically, slamming a mug of beer down on the table at a tavern where I’d gone to sing. “The Barbarian’s just like all those tribesmen I came up against in Britannia—throws too much into every stroke. Savages always lose in the end because they can’t keep their heads.”
Quite correct, I thought. Men who want to die usually do, and Fortune’s smile on gladiators is notoriously fickle. But . . .
I watched Arius stride through the forum, seeing the icy rigidity of his shoulders, the iron grip of the fingers clasped at the small of his back, the fierce impassive gaze he turned on the lanista who waddled complacent and perspiring at his side. Thin ice over savagery—a potent brew, and the fans lapped at it deliriously. The ice never broke, but stories persisted of the men he’d killed in street brawls, the taverns he’d wrecked in drunken rages, the fellow fighters he’d slain in sparring practice, and hopeful crowds turned up daily outside the Mars Street training courtyard in hopes of seeing it for themselves.
Yes. While he lived, while he lasted, he’d rise to the top.
“What’s the news in Rome?” Lepida wrote to me after a careless description of Tivoli’s cool winds and soothing rains, her success at local parties, the Tivoli girls she put to shame. I wrote back an inventive account of Arius’s carousing, naming each and every fabled beauty who’d reportedly offered her services free of charge, and volunteering my personal opinion that he’d sampled them all.
“My, aren’t you talkative,” she wrote back snappishly. “Well, you’d better start delivering these right away, one per week. And don’t think I won’t know if you conveniently lose them.”
“These” turned out to be a packet of letters: prewritten on expensive paper, sealed and scented, and addressed to “Arrius the Gladiator” in Lepida’s none-too-literate hand.
I saw Arius the Barbarian, of course. His lanista flashed him all over the city like a prize stallion: dragged him into the theatre to watch the comedies, into the Campus Martius where everyone strolled to see and be seen, into the Circus Maximus to watch the chariot races. Wherever he went there was a hush of deliciously savored fear, a respectful drawing back, and afterward the buzz of speculation.
“He won’t last the next fight,” people scoffed in taverns. “Beating Belleraphon, that was a fluke.”
“And the Amazons?” his fans retaliated hotly.
“Anyone could beat a team of women!”
“No, he’s something special. Just wait till the Romani games in September—” The argument went on, even though he ignored his fans as if they were shadows and drank alone in taverns despite the hundreds who would have kept him company.
His face started to appear everywhere, painted badly on the sides of wooden buildings around the Colosseum. Crudely chalked graffiti greeted my eyes on alley walls: “Arius the Barbarian makes all the girls sigh!” Vendors hawked garish little portraits on gaudy ribbons. Taverns offered him free wine, and whores offered him free time. Arius, a slave and a barbarian, a man who would be cut up and fed to the lions when he died instead of meeting his gods in a proper tomb. Lower than sewer trash, but so important: His fights would calm the crowds when they grumbled too loudly over the Emperor’s taxes, his presence would titillate the most bored patricians at dinner parties and keep them from scheming, his blood would be sold to epileptics as a cure for their foaming fits, and brides would fight for one of his spears to part their hair on their wedding day and thus guarantee themselves a happy marriage.
All of it would vanish overnight, of course, if he lost his next fight. And I wondered how long he would last.
“Savages never live long,” an aging legionnaire said critically, slamming a mug of beer down on the table at a tavern where I’d gone to sing. “The Barbarian’s just like all those tribesmen I came up against in Britannia—throws too much into every stroke. Savages always lose in the end because they can’t keep their heads.”
Quite correct, I thought. Men who want to die usually do, and Fortune’s smile on gladiators is notoriously fickle. But . . .
I watched Arius stride through the forum, seeing the icy rigidity of his shoulders, the iron grip of the fingers clasped at the small of his back, the fierce impassive gaze he turned on the lanista who waddled complacent and perspiring at his side. Thin ice over savagery—a potent brew, and the fans lapped at it deliriously. The ice never broke, but stories persisted of the men he’d killed in street brawls, the taverns he’d wrecked in drunken rages, the fellow fighters he’d slain in sparring practice, and hopeful crowds turned up daily outside the Mars Street training courtyard in hopes of seeing it for themselves.
Yes. While he lived, while he lasted, he’d rise to the top.
“What’s the news in Rome?” Lepida wrote to me after a careless description of Tivoli’s cool winds and soothing rains, her success at local parties, the Tivoli girls she put to shame. I wrote back an inventive account of Arius’s carousing, naming each and every fabled beauty who’d reportedly offered her services free of charge, and volunteering my personal opinion that he’d sampled them all.
“My, aren’t you talkative,” she wrote back snappishly. “Well, you’d better start delivering these right away, one per week. And don’t think I won’t know if you conveniently lose them.”
“These” turned out to be a packet of letters: prewritten on expensive paper, sealed and scented, and addressed to “Arrius the Gladiator” in Lepida’s none-too-literate hand.
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