Before the next event, the drivers walked to a recessed area filled with screaming young women and not-so-young women waving scarves and tokens for their favorites to wear. The drivers took the ones they fancied, and later, when the day was done, took the ones they fancied.
On his way back to the carceres, the starting end of the track, Varro glanced at the governor’s box and noticed two gloved hands wildly waving at him. This was partially commonplace: everyone was waving and everyone was wild. But the young charioteer did now have a special relationship with the ersatz proconsul, that is me, and so veered in our direction.
“He’s coming! He’s coming!” frothed Hanno, bouncing in the tight restraint of Malchus’ grip.
“Drusus,” Betto observed coolly from below, “you look like a horse breaking a rider.” A flailing arm sent a glass cup into the air but I caught and set it down out of harm’s way.
“Left-handed,” Malchus said, impressed. “‘Guess all that extra work you and Betto did up in the Circus Flaminius paid off.”
“I could give him something,” Livia said, reaching for her kit.
“No,” I said. “We’re not giving Hanno any of your Egyptian opium. He may never be this close to a chariot race again. Let him enjoy it.”
“My lord governor, why such pessimism?” my wife said with joyful sarcasm. “You may yet preside over many more races.”
A withering glance was all I had time to give her, for Varro had arrived. The newcomers crowded about the railing.
“You’re the winner your name is Varro!” a delighted Hanno said.
“I am.”
“My name is Hannibal, but my secret name is Hanno. This is my master and his secret name is-”
“Varro needs to get ready for the next race, Hannibal,” Livia said, introducing herself as the boy’s doctor.
“An honor to meet you, Hannibal. Shall I tell you a secret?”
Hanno drew in his breath. “What is it?” he whispered, leaning over the railing as far as Malchus would allow.
“As of today, he is my master, too.”
This sent Hanno into the rapture of one of his smiles, and Varro was too close not to be infected. “Tell me, Hannibal, do you have something to give me for luck, for the next race?”
Malchus almost lost his grip on the boy as Hanno’s level of thrilled excitement spun into frantic indecision.
Betto, his mouth full of grapes, said, “Give him a glove.”
Malchus whipped around to glare at his thoughtless friend, but it was too late. Hanno insisted, and as Livia untied the laces, she explained about an ‘accident,’ but nothing could prepare the charioteer. The look on Varro’s face when he saw the mutilated hand froze not only his own features, but everyone else’s who could see the horror in the young man’s eyes. And then it was gone, most of it.
“That’s pretty awful,” Varro said.
“Yeah, it is,” Hanno agreed. “I have two of them they look just the same. You can see-”
“I had a little brother who died when he lost just one of his fingers. He got a fever and he never got better.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t know I’m really really sorry.”
“Of course you didn’t know,” Varro said, looking up at the boy looking down upon his new hero. “But if you’d let me, I can’t think of anything better than this glove to take with me for luck.”
Ten charioteers began the next race, this time driving three-horse teams on larger, stronger chariots five times around the spina. I won’t keep you in suspense. Varro won. The One Who Sings walked up the steps at the railing and made a solemn and grateful ceremony of returning Hanno’s lucky talisman. Livia held the glove while Varro grasped the boy’s bare hand in both of his and told him how he was sure that when he sang of its owner to his horses, they practically grew wings. After a short moment, Hanno withdrew his hand and as was his usual custom when he had no words, pressed his head onto the charioteer’s chest and let his arms do the talking for him.
Because of the more spacious accommodations in the larger chariot, this time when the new governor of Antioch drove round the track with the red-headed boy who, with this new purse, was only 150,000 sesterces shy of buying his freedom, they had company. I venture to say that for that third boy, his deformities hidden by kind distance from the crowd, his brown-gloved hands extended in victory, his smile evidence of a delight unmarred by a single grain of impurity, this had been the happiest moment in his life.
I cannot write more about that circuit or the look in my wife’s eyes when it was done. I simply do not have the words. Now mark me. I am not one for sentimentality. Do not expect it of me often.
•••
Two of the participants that ended in that touching moment, however, did not make it across the finish line. And one of the spectators had to be dragged first to the center of the field, then carried off it. No one died, but perhaps there were one or two that wished they had.
It may be a lesson for other fields of endeavor that those who lag behind find themselves not only in the exponential difficulty of gaining the lead, but also in the most danger. Certainly the physics of a race track lends itself to such a theory. As any equestrian well knows, running to the inside of the track means there is less track to run. Therefore, horses, riders and chariots all tend to congregate close to the spina. How is one, then, to break free of the mob? The inside track is jealously guarded; but to outdistance the leaders by hurling yourself around the outside circumference means having to run both faster and farther then everyone else, making the task that much more difficult.
Two contestants, one of each color, found themselves in just such a predicament. Mid-way through the fourth lap, they were forced to the outside as they came out of the turn on the far side of the track. From our seats we did not have a good view of what happened, which is the only good thing I can say about the incident. Remember, we were sitting at the finish line halfway down the length of the hippodrome. We were therefore looking across the near track, the spina and the supine obelisk resting on its back, in addition to the width of the far track. Above all this the car of a chariot came briefly sailing in a most distressing arc. It was upside down, its pole broken, its driver nowhere in sight. The sound of the crash followed instantaneously, accompanied by gouts of screams and billows of dust.
Careening round the turn to our left raced the remaining six teams, Varro among them. Though we told Hanno that his new friend was safe, he would not leave his chair; for the remainder of the race he sat with his face buried in his gloved hands.
The wreckage-human, equine, wooden and iron was barely removed in time. Two of the six horses survived; the rest were put down. The charioteers lived, but would never race again. It was almost enough to make one believe in the gods: neither driver had been killed and each raced for different stables. Had either of those conditions not been met, a riot might easily have ensued. Even the horses were slaughtered equally between the greens and the blues.
As for the overzealous devotee of the greens who, whether to impress his girlfriend or win a bet, had thrown a nail-encrusted curse tablet onto the track, to his great and everlasting misfortune, he had neither good aim nor good luck. He been seen and seized. Because of this malefactor, the final race of the day, the most grueling and the most demanding, the contest Antiochenes had been thinking of as they packed their baskets of fruit, bread, cheese and wine in the dark that morning, would have to be postponed a while longer while the track and justice were restored.