Steven Saylor - The Triumph Of Caesar

But that was not what happened.

Instead, the crowd, which had been so eager to jeer at the captured military men and ministers of state, fell silent as Arsinoe passed by. Foulmouthed men became speechless.

In the sudden quiet, the soft clinking of Arsinoe's chains was the only sound. Then a murmur passed through the crowd. I could not make out any words, only a low grumbling, but its tone was clear. This was not right. What we were seeing was improper, indecent, wrong-perhaps an affront to the gods. The murmur grew louder, the crowd more uneasy.

It was Rupa who took action.

He was sitting next to me. When he stood, I thought he was getting up for some other reason-to go relieve himself or simply to stretch his legs. But something about the urgency of his movements caught my eye as he stepped over the spectators and made his way to the nearest aisle. Others saw him as well and took notice; there was a resoluteness about his demeanor that drew attention, especially amid that uncertain, suddenly anxious crowd.

He reached the bottom of the stands, and then, looming taller than everyone around him, he elbowed his way through the standing spectators. He stepped onto the triumphal path. He ran toward Arsinoe.

There were gasps of surprise and cries of apprehension. Rupa was so much larger than the princess, and his movements so determined, that some people must have thought he was about to attack her. Instead, before he reached Arsinoe, he turned and raised his hands, waving them in the air to catch the crowd's attention. At the same time, he opened his mouth and made a strange braying noise, a plaintive cry that echoed around the Forum.

His behavior excited cries from the crowd.

"Who is that big fellow?"

"Awfully good-looking-"

"And what does he want?"

"He's trying to say something-"

"Can't you see? He must be mute."

"Makes a loud noise, though."

"What's he up to?"

"Looks big enough to do whatever he wants with the little princess!"

Caesar's lictors, preceding the triumphal chariot, were not far behind Arsinoe. Seeing Rupa, the foremost among them broke from the processional file and rushed toward him. My heart lurched in my chest. Like everyone else in the stands, I jumped to my feet.

Amid the sudden tumult, a few voices rang out more clearly than the rest.

"The lictors will protect the princess!"

"From what? The mute won't hurt her. He means to escape with her!"

"Escape where? She's heading straight for the Tullianum, along with her pet eunuch!"

This last comment referred to Ganymedes. Realizing that something was transpiring behind him, he had turned. With a look of alarm on his wrinkled face, he was frantically shambling back toward Arsinoe, as if he could somehow protect her despite his shackles.

But Arsinoe was in no danger. With every eye fixed upon him, Rupa turned toward the princess. For a moment, he loomed over her. Then he dropped to his knees and bowed deeply. With a great flourish of his outspread arms, he touched his lips to one of her bare feet.

Throughout the entire episode, Arsinoe's expression, or lack of expression, had remained unchanged. But when Rupa's lips touched her big toe, a smile lit her face, transforming it completely. It was like the face of Alexandros's Venus of Milos-serene and aloof, sublime and majestic.

The reaction of the crowd was instantaneous and overwhelming, like a thunderbolt from Jupiter. People raised their hands in the air, giddy with excitement. They laughed, squealed, roared, shouted. Some of them mimicked the plaintive noise that Rupa had made, not mocking but paying homage.

I looked at Cleopatra across the way. Had she ever met Rupa? I thought not, and there was nothing to indicate that she realized who was kissing her sister's toe while all Rome watched. But on her face was a frown as dark as her sister's smile was dazzling.

Ganymedes, reaching Arsinoe and seeing that she was in no danger, fell to his knees beside Rupa. Awkwardly, because of his chains, he bowed deeply and kissed the princess's other foot.

The crowd became even more jubilant.

The lictors yanked Rupa to his feet. I held my breath, fearing the worst, but the lictors only threw him back into the crowd, where he sent spectators tumbling in all directions, like a boulder hurled from a catapult.

The lictors reached for Ganymedes. Flailing against his chains, the eunuch managed to thwart them and remained on his knees, abasing himself before Arsinoe.

"Spare the princess!" someone shouted.

"Yes, spare the princess!" cried others.

The cry quickly became a chant: "Spare the princess! Spare the princess! Spare the princess!"

"But what about the eunuch?" shouted someone.

"Kill the eunuch!" came the answer, followed by a roar of laughter.

This was added to the chant: "Spare the princess, kill the eunuch! Spare the princess, kill the eunuch!"

Ganymedes was finally pulled to his feet and shoved forward, with blows from the lictors' rods to speed him along. On his face was a look of both triumph and despair. Arsinoe, her head held high, the smile still lighting her face, resumed her mincing forward progress.

The princess passed from view, and the long file of lictors paraded before us, but still the chanting continued: "Spare the princess, kill the eunuch! Spare the princess, kill the eunuch!"

By some magic of group mentality, the crowd spontaneously split the chant between the two sides of the triumphal pathway. Those opposite the Capitoline Hill shouted, "Spare the princess!" Those on the other side responded, "Kill the eunuch!" The two sides competed to see which could yell the loudest. In the middle of this deafening crossfire came Caesar in his triumphal chariot. The chants roared back and forth, like volleys from rival catapults.

"Spare the princess!"

"Kill the eunuch!"

"Spare the princess!"

"Kill the eunuch!"

Caesar looked vexed and confused, and doing a poor job of trying not to show it, much as he had appeared in the Gallic Triumph when his soldiers teased him for his youthful liaison with Nicomedes. I saw him lift his gaze to the dignitaries' box and exchange a look of consternation with Cleopatra. These two should have been sharing the afterglow of the crowd's reaction to the golden statue of the queen; instead, they were being subjected to acclamations for Arsinoe.

Up in the stands, we were all on our feet, and my own family members had joined in the chant. Fortunately, we were on the side calling to spare the princess; I doubt that my wife, daughter, or daughter-in-law would have joined in calling for the death of Ganymedes, but Davus might have done so, and the bloodthirsty slave boys would not have hesitated. I myself remained silent.

As if trying to make sense of the crowd's fervor, Caesar ran his eyes slowly over the reviewing stands, looking from face to face. He saw my family, chanting with the rest; he saw me, standing silent. For an instant, his eyes met mine. He had no way of knowing that it was my adopted son who had set off the crowd's reaction.

The triumphal chariot eventually passed from view, followed by rank upon rank of veterans from the Egyptian campaign. Infected by the crowd's enthusiasm, even the soldiers took up the deafening chant: "Spare the princess, kill the eunuch! Spare the princess, kill the eunuch!"

"Oh, Rupa!" I whispered to myself. "What have you done?"

"Rupa, what were you thinking? You could be dead right now! The lictors could have dragged you up to the Carcer along with those wretched Egyptians and dropped you into the Tullianum, and we would never have seen you alive again!"

The sun had set. The moon had risen. Occasionally, here in my lamplit garden, I could hear snatches of music and revelry from the Forum, where the feast that followed the triumph still continued, with endless Egyptian delicacies on offer. But I was in no mood to eat and drink. Every time I thought of the terrible risk Rupa had taken that day, my blood ran cold.