Lucius summoned his last vestige of strength to crawl on his hands and knees to the lump of bloody flesh on the sand. What would Apollonius think of his intention? Apollonius believed that men should not eat animals, but Lucius had never heard him express the opinion that animals should not eat men. It was in their nature, and they could not be reasoned out of it.
Grimacing with disgust, Lucius grabbed hold of the lump of flesh and flung it at the lion. The beast scrambled back, then poked its head towards the flesh and sniffed at it. It leaped onto the bloody lump, seized it with both paws, and attacked it with its powerful jaws.
The lion relished its meal. When it was done, it rose to its feet and sauntered towards Lucius, who stayed where he was, too exhausted to do anything except shut his eyes. He breathed deeply and awaited what was to come. As the lion drew nearer, Lucius heard its footsteps on the sand and smelled the gore on its breath.
Something rough and wet touched Lucius’s hand. He opened his eyes and saw that the cat was licking the blood from his fingers. The lion took its time and did a very thorough job, then sat beside him and closed its eyes, seemingly content.
From the stands came a strange mixture of sounds – applause and laughter, but also angry jeers and cries of scorn. Some of the spectators were enthralled by the scene they had just witnessed and hailed Lucius’s bravery. Others felt cheated of the thrill of seeing a man torn apart, and suspected that some trickery was afoot.
Lucius looked at the imperial box. Domitian was on his feet. Catullus was beside him, speaking into his right ear. Epaphroditus was speaking into his left ear. Domitian waved them both aside and gave an order to another courtier in his retinue. A few moments later, the attendants with long poles again appeared in the arena. One of the poles had a bit of meat tied to the end. They lured the cat to one of the openings and through the gate, which clanged shut after them.
A courtier beckoned to Lucius from the imperial box. Somehow, Lucius rose to his feet and staggered in that direction. Domitian stood at the parapet, looking down at him.
The emperor raised his hand. The spectators fell silent.
Domitian flashed a chilly smile. Thanks to the extraordinary acoustics of the amphitheatre, he barely had to raise his voice to be heard by Lucius. “I think, Lucius Pinarius, that you are the luckiest man I have ever met. More than once I have intended to do away with you. More than once I have changed my mind.”
“Caesar is merciful,” Lucius managed to say. His throat ached and his voice was hoarse from screaming.
“Perhaps. Or perhaps Caesar is mindful of some powerful magic about you. Did the magician from Tyana teach you to cast that spell on the lion?”
“I am always mindful of the Teacher’s example, Dominus. But he did not teach me any spells.”
“Then perhaps that amulet you wear is responsible for your good fortune. It must possess a powerful magic.”
Lucius touched the fascinum.
“You are pardoned and released, Lucius Pinarius. The property that was to be confiscated from you is hereby returned. Epaphroditus, see to the details.”
“But, Dominus-” protested Catullus, before Domitian cut him off by pressing a finger to the man’s lips.
Attendants assisted Lucius from the arena. They were strong men, and for that Lucius was glad. His legs had turned to water and the attendants practically had to carry him out.
AD 96
The weather was unusually stormy all through the summer months and into September – or Germanicus, as the month had been renamed by Domitian. As one violent tempest followed another, even casual observers noted the unprecedented occurrence of lightning. Lightning struck the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline. Lightning struck the Temple of the Flavians, causing damage to the statue of Vespasian in the sanctuary. Lightning struck the imperial palace on several occasions, including, it was said, a strike that caused a small fire in the emperor’s bedchamber. There was widespread speculation on what so many omens from the sky could mean.
Wrapped in a woolen cloak, Lucius sat on a stone bench in his sodden garden under the threatening morning sky. A bolt of lightning flashed above his head, casting a weird light on the glistening greenery around him, followed a heartbeat later by a thunderclap that caused the leaves to tremble. If there were omens to be perceived in all the lightning, Lucius was oblivious to them. He was again at a low ebb in his life, the lowest he had experienced since the death of Cornelia. How he missed her still, especially at a time like this!
He also missed Apollonius. Since his disappearance from Roma, the Teacher had been constantly on the move, travelling from city to city in the Eastern provinces, staying just ahead of Domitian’s agents. For a long time, Lucius had no news of him at all, but eventually the senator Nerva paid Lucius a visit and revealed that he was in contact with Apollonius. Nerva even offered to send messages between the two of them, sharing with Lucius a cipher with which he could encode his letters.
Apollonius’s letters to Lucius were encouraging, but brief to the point of being perfunctory. A typical letter, after being decoded, read: “I am in a coastal town which must not be named, among good people. I told them the tale of my friend in Roma who lay beside a lion in the arena. How I wish I had been there to see it. Your courage gives courage to others. Farewell.”
When Lucius wrote to Apollonius, he said little about himself – there was little to report about his secluded existence – so he mentioned events in Roma that he thought might be of interest to the Teacher, though he suspected that Nerva already kept Apollonius well informed on that count.
These infrequent exchanges were no substitute for the personal contact Lucius once had enjoyed with the Teacher. With Apollonius no longer present to set a daily example for him, Lucius often felt confused and lost. He still adhered to the Teacher’s tenets, abstaining from wine, meat, and sex, but the sense of balance and well-being he had felt at the side of Apollonius often eluded him.
More lightning flashed across the sky, followed by a long rumble of thunder.
Despite the Teacher’s belief that one should not dwell on sadness, Lucius found himself brooding over the loss of all the people who had mattered most to him. The suicide of his father had been a terrible blow, and even after all these years, the death of Sporus still haunted him. His mother had died from the plague that followed the fall of ash on Roma after Vesuvius erupted; without her presence to unite the family, he had drifted further and further from his three sisters, and his appearance in the arena, a mark of shame despite his pardon, had completed the estrangement. He had grieved when Domitian banished Dio of Prusa; now the emperor had seen fit to banish Epictetus as well, along with virtually every other philosopher in Roma. And while once Lucius had taken enjoyment from Martial and his wit, the poet’s sycophantic loyalty to Domitian had alienated Lucius long ago; to him, Martial might as well have been dead. With Apollonius gone and likely never to return to Roma, Lucius felt forlorn and isolated, the lone survivor of the ongoing catastrophe that was his life.
These morbid thoughts had been set off by the terrible news Lucius had received the day before: Epaphroditus was dead.
No man had ever been a better friend to him. Epaphroditus had kept Lucius safe through the treacherous months that followed the death of Nero, had welcomed Lucius into his circle of learned friends, had been the only person in whom Lucius confided about his love for Cornelia. The intimacy of their friendship had eventually lessened, but only because Lucius’s melancholy had driven him to seek inspiration outside Epaphroditus’s circle.
Epaphroditus’s reappearance in his life, at the trial of Apollonius, had been as brief as it was unexpected. After being spared by Domitian, Lucius arrived home from the arena to find a letter from Epaphroditus, delivered not by imperial courier but by a private messenger. The letter expressed joy at Lucius’s good fortune, but also made it clear there could be no further contact between them: “My return to imperial service and your singular history with the emperor make it impossible that we should be as close as we once were. You are a dangerous man to know. So am I. Let us keep a distance between us, for both our sakes. But know, Lucius, that I am forever fond of you, and I wish you well. I trust you will destroy this message after you have read it.”