Douglas Jackson: Caligula

Day by day and week by week, his respect for Fronto grew. The animal trader had an unquenchable thirst for life that made even his competitors like him, and Rufus was sucked along on a tidal wave of enthusiasm which often left his head spinning. But when Fronto returned from his next trip to Africa to purchase stock to replenish the pens and paddocks, the grin that normally split his face was replaced by a weary frown.

'It's getting worse,' he complained, as they leaned together on a fence watching two gazelle bucks butting heads in a mock test of strength. 'Always our buyers look for something bigger, something better, something more spectacular, something more exotic, and each time I see my suppliers they claim that the animals are scarcer or the herds and the packs that feed on them have moved further south, and they put their prices higher. I'd say they were holding out on me but I know from other traders that it's the same wherever you go. The only consolation is, I can pass on the costs, but for how long, only Jupiter knows.'

'Can't you breed them?' Rufus asked.

'Breed them? I'm a trader, not a nursemaid. Buy cheap and sell at a profit. Anyway, most of them won't breed. It's been tried. You can do it with the antelope if you're careful and give them a bit of space and peace and quiet. But the rare ones, the ones where the real profit is? Never. Those big cats? In their own territory they breed like rats. No predators apart from their own kind. But put them in a cage and it's as if they forget how it's done. Come with me.'

Rufus followed Fronto as he marched purposefully towards one of the far pens. 'They tell me you learn fast, boy. That's good.' He unchained the gate. 'This one arrived today, from Africa. From now on she is your responsibility. Feed her. Understand her. Win her trust. Gain her respect.'

Rufus had his own leopard.

The cat was about six months old, the spots already showing on her flanks through the fading down of her cub fur.

'Her mother died on the passage from Africa. If I put her in a pen with a family of older leopards she'll be torn apart.'

As yet, she had none of the pent-up violence and hatred of humans that characterized an adult leopard. Instead, she exuded a kitten-like playfulness as she wrestled and toyed with anything moveable. To watch her in her innocent pleasure gave Rufus a feeling of joy such as he had never experienced.

He called her Circe.

Circe was the first thing of value Rufus had ever owned and he vowed to form a bond with the cat which would never be broken. As Fronto conceded, he had learned quickly and learned well from the other animal handlers. He knew when to approach and when to leave well alone, when to pet and when to punish. He would tame the cub, turn her to his will.

He didn't notice the sly smiles of his workmates as they watched him with the cat.

A month later, when Fronto next returned, he looked at the leopard lying at Rufus's feet and slowly shook his head.

'Come. It's time you visited the arena.'

The animal trader dressed in his finest for the occasion, and master and slave travelled to the capital in a one-horse cart.

'What are you gaping at, boy?'

Rufus knew this journey well, but the approach to Rome never failed to awe him. At first, the world's greatest city was a gigantic mirage of orange and white shimmering in the heat, but, as they moved closer, the images took on structure and shape, and finally — unbelievably — solidity.

The city rose before him, ridge after ridge like the craggy foothills of a mountain. Yet there was nothing natural about this magnificence. Every part of it had been created by human hands. There were buildings of such vast scale and splendour that they could only be the palaces of gods. Rows of huge pillars held up massive triangular roofs; great curved walls of stone rose like cliffs. And such colours: oranges and reds, silver and gold. The whole city glowed in the afternoon sunshine as if it was on fire.

Rufus's errands between the bakery and the baker's villa had allowed him to explore the crowded alleys and wide avenues. He was fascinated by the great triumphal arches and pillared, monumental buildings. He looked enviously at the inscriptions. Of course he could not read them, but he knew they were dedicated to the great heroes of the past: Julius Caesar, Augustus, Crassus and Pompey. The vast palace complex on the Palatine Hill, which he studied from the Sacer Clivus, drew him like a moth to a flame. He never dared to approach the narrow stairway which would have taken him to its centre, but he knew in his heart that here was a paradise fit for Jupiter himself.

And, as he explored, he made an important discovery. Rome was a slave city.

It was true. Slaves outnumbered Roman citizens by a margin of ten to one and if the Romans ruled Rome, slaves ran it. Slaves or former slaves were doctors, lawyers and moneylenders. They managed businesses for their masters. They made things, bought things and sold things. Many slaves were enormously rich and many more were trying to be. It was rumoured that slaves even had the ear of the Emperor.

Rome would be nothing without its slaves.

At the city gates, Rufus and Fronto were forced to dismount from the cart, for only wagons carrying imperial couriers or transporting goods to the markets were allowed within the walls during daylight. The animal trader hired a curtained sedan chair carried by four muscular Syrians and directed them to the great Amphitheatre Taurus. They set off at a steady trot with Rufus running alongside, battling his way through the crowds.

The babble of noise that accompanied the frenzied comings and goings in the city was an assault on the ears. Every Roman seemed to be talking at once and not all of them in the same language. Vendors shouted their wares from myriad stalls lining the street. The variety was mind-boggling. Within a few yards you could buy shoes, the leather they were made from and the knife you would use to cut it. In front of a spice shop, the air would be filled with the scent of cinnamon, pepper and frankincense. Mutilated beggars called for offerings of food from the entrances to narrow side streets while next door fat shopkeepers offered honeyed almonds at exorbitant prices.

The Taurus was close to the Campus Martius, on the northern side of the city. Only its lower storeys were made of stone, while the upper part was wooden, unlike the monumental Circus Maximus and the crumbling but still impressive Magnum, the 30,000-seat theatre of Pompey.

Taurus had been gifted to the city fifty years before. Now, it was showing its age like an old whore whose best days are behind her. Tiberius was rumoured to have plans for a new and even greater arena, but a building on such a scale would take many years to construct, if the notoriously frugal Emperor ever sanctioned the cost at all.

The amphitheatre had forty entrances for the paying public, but Fronto led Rufus to a small, unmarked door which opened on to a narrow, torchlit wooden stairway descending into the bowels of the complex. As he followed his master, Rufus felt the same excitement he experienced when he entered the monster's paddock. Fronto led the way through a labyrinth of passages, large and small rooms, and animal cages, all cloaked in a fetid atmosphere that was rank with the odours of stale sweat, urine and excrement, animal and human. There was also another smell, which overwhelmed the others and made his nostrils twitch. It puzzled him, until he was struck by a vision of the white bone and scraps of red meat which were all that was left of Titus after the lion had killed him. The smell was blood.

The realization of where he was sent a flutter through his chest. During his years in the bakery Rufus had dreamed of the moment when he would sit in the stands above and cheer on the favourites whose names and careers he knew by heart.