Mika Waltari: The Roman

Thanks to Barbus, my father realized it was necessary for me to learn Latin. Barbus’s own legionary Latin did not go very far. My father thus saw to it that I read the history books by Virgil and Livy. For evenings on end Barbus told me of the hills, splits and traditions of Rome, its gods and warriors, so that I was finally seized with a wild desire to go there. I was no Syrian, but had been born a Roman of Manilian and Maecenean lineage, even if my mother had been only a Greek. Naturally I did not neglect my Greek studies either, but at fifteen years of age already knew many of the poets. For two years I had Timaius from Rhodes as my tutor. My father had bought him after the disturbances in Rhodes and would have freed him, but Timaius bitterly refused each time, explaining that there was no real difference between slaves and freedmen, and that freedom lay in a man’s heart.

So I was taught the Stoic philosophy by an embittered Timaius who despised my Latin studies, since Romans in his opinion were barbarians, and bore a grudge against Rome, which had deprived Rhodes of its freedom.

Among the youth of the city who took part in the equestrian games were ten or so who vied with each other at wild exploits. We had sworn allegiance and had a tree to which we made sacrifices. On the way home from riding practice, we once recklessly decided to ride through the city at a gallop, and while doing so, to snatch the wreaths hanging on the shop doors. By mistake I grabbed one of the black oak-leaf wreaths which were hung as a sign that someone in the house had died, although we had meant to do no more than annoy the shopkeepers. I should have realized that this was an ill omen, and inwardly I was frightened, but despite this I hung the wreath on our sacrificial tree.

Everyone who knows Antioch will realize what a commotion our exploit caused, but naturally the police did not succeed in proving us guilty. We ourselves were forced to admit our guilt, for otherwise all the partakers in the equestrian games would have been punished. We escaped with fines since the magistrates did not want to offend our parents. After that we contented ourselves with exploits outside the city walls.

Down by the river we once saw a group of girls busy doing something which roused our curiosity. We thought they were country girls, and I hit upon the idea of pretending to carry them off, just as the ancient Romans had seized the Sabine women. I told my friends the story of the Sabines and it amused them very much. So we rode down to the river and each of us seized the girl who happened to be in his way and lifted her onto the saddle in front of him. This was in fact easier said than done, and it was equally difficult keeping the screaming, kicking girls there. In actual fact I did not know what to do with my girl, but I tickled her to make her laugh and when I had, as I thought, shown her sufficiently clearly that she was completely in my power, I rode back and let her down to the ground. My friends did the same. As we rode away, the girls threw stones at us and we were gripped with evil presentiments, for as I had held the girl in my arms, I had indeed noticed that she was no peasant girl.

In fact they were all girls from noble families who had gone down to the river to purify themselves and make certain sacrifices which their new degree of womanhood demantled of them. We should have known this from the colored ribbons hanging on the bushes as a warning to outsiders. But which of us was versed in the mysterious rites of young girls?

The girls might have kept the matter secret for their own sakes, but they had a priestess with them and her sense of duty drove her to think that we had deliberately committed blasphemy. So my idea led to a fearful scandal. It was even suggested that we ought to marry the girls whose virtue we had dishonored at a delicate moment of sacrifice. Fortunately none of us had yet received the man-toga.

My tutor, Timaius, was so angry that he hit me with a stick although he was a slave. Barbus tore the stick from his hand and advised me to flee from the city. Superstitious as he was, he also feared the Syrian gods. Timaius feared no gods since he saw all gods as nothing but idols, but he considered that my behavior had brought shame on him as a tutor. The worst was that it was impossible to keep the matter secret from my father.

I was inexperienced and sensitive, and when I saw the fear in all the others, I myself began to think that our exploit had been more serious than it in fact was. Timaius, who was an old man and also a Stoic, ought to have been more balanced and encouraged me in the face of such trials rather than depressing me. But he revealed his true nature and all his bitterness when he said:

“Who do you think you are, you idle, repulsive braggart? It was not without reason that your father gave you the name of Minutus, the insignificant one. Your mother was no more than a wanton Greek, a dancing-woman and worse, perhaps a slave. That’s your descent. It was according to the laws and no whim of Emperor Gaius that your father was struck from the rolls of knights, for he was expelled from Judaea in the time of Governor Pontius Pilate because he was involved in Jewish superstitions. He is no true Manilianus, only an adoptive one, and in Rome he made a fortune with the help of a shameful will. Then he was involved in a scandal with a married woman and can never again return there. So you are nothing, and you will become even more insignificant, you dissolute son of a miserly father.”

He would undoubtedly have said even more had I not hit him across the mouth. I was immediately horrified at what I had done, for it is not correct for a pupil to hit his tutor, even if he is a slave. Timaius wiped the blood from his lips and smiled malevolently.

“Thank you, Minutus my son, for this sign,” he said. “What is crooked can never grow straight and what is base can never be noble. You ought also to know that your father drinks blood in secret with the Jews and worships the goblet of the Goddess of Fortune secretly in his room. How else could anyone have been so successful and become so rich with no merits of his own? But I have already had enough of him, and of you, and of the whole of this unhappy world in which injustice reigns over justice, and wisdom has to sit by the door while insolence holds a feast.”

I did not take much notice of his words as I had quite enough to think about with my own tribulations. But I was seized with a blind desire to demonstrate that I was not insignificant and at the same time make good the evil I had done. My fellow conspirators and I remembered that we had heard of a lion which had been attacking cattle half a day’s ride from the city. It was rare that lions dared to approach so close to a large city and the matter was much discussed. I thought that if I and my friends could capture it alive and give it to the city’s amphitheater, we should thus redeem our evil deed and win fame.

This thought was so demented that it could only have been born in the sore heart of a fifteen-year-old, but the most lunatic thing of all was that Barbus, who was as drunk as usual that afternoon, considered the plan an excellent one. Nor was it easy for him to oppose it after the many stories he had told me of his own heroic deeds. He himself had caught lions in nets innumerable times to acquire extra income to supplement his meager pay.

It was necessary that we leave the city immediately since the police might well be on their way to arrest me, and in any case I was certain that our horses would be taken from us forever-early the following morning at the latest. I found only six of my friends, for three of them had been wise enough to tell their parents at once what had happened, and their parents had immediately sent them out of the city.

My friends, who were severely shaken, were so delighted with my plan that we soon began to bluster and brag among ourselves. We fetched our horses from the stables in secret and rode out of the city. Meanwhile Barbus got a bag of silver pieces from Marcius the silk merchant, took it to the amphitheater and bribed an experienced animal trainer to come with us. They loaded a cart with nets, weapons and leather protectors and met us outside the city by our sacrificial tree. Barbus also brought meat, bread and a couple of large jars of wine. The wine restored my appetite, for hitherto I had been so anxious and depressed, I had not been able to swallow a single bite of food.