Flavia caught the steel in her husband’s voice and stilled her tongue.
Vespasian pulled his daughter close and kissed her. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’
‘Won’t you be back after the games, Tata?’
‘No.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘I’ve got to go and say goodbye to a man who has to leave Rome because of me.’
*
A white handkerchief fluttered in the light wind; a quarter of a million pairs of eyes fixed on it and a quarter of a million voices echoed around the Circus Maximus calling for its release. With a shaking hand, Claudius held the handkerchief aloft, displaying it to the masses crammed on the stepped-stone seating along both sides of the circus’s six hundred-pace length. Messalina stood next to him at the front of the imperial box, her head held high and her arms around her two children, Britannicus and Claudia Octavia, bathing in the reflected glory of the husband who had been an object of ridicule and the butt of countless jokes when she had married him. But now the people of Rome loved their Emperor for his gift of the Secular Games, which, for the last ten days, had been celebrated in lavish style. Today would be the climax of the festival and they cheered Claudius with savage ferocity as he dropped the handkerchief and the first of the hundred pitch-soaked prisoners chained to stakes around the track burst into flames.
A team of men wielding torches jogged around the circus igniting the howling victims, one by one, to the roars of approval of all who watched. Black smoke rose in columns from the flames and then, wafted by the breeze, circulated around the crowd, bringing the acrid tang of blazing pitch and burning flesh to the nostrils of delirious spectators as they savoured every writhe and scream of the agonised human torches. Once the last had been fired, and his skin had begun to shrivel and blister, the torch-bearers left the circus through the great gates at the northern end, passing a herd of filthy, condemned prisoners. Whipped onto the sand-covered track, soon to be soaked in their blood, the hapless men — and a few women, there to add spice to the proceedings — looked around with eyes wide with terror at the scene that greeted them. On either side of the spina, the low barrier running down the centre of the track around which chariots sped on race days, the flaming carcasses of the human torches sagged against their chains, life still just evident in a few of them, whilst the onlookers jeered at their suffering. Forced even further out onto the track by the lashes of their drivers the prisoners cried, unheard above the din, to their disparate gods to save them from a fate worse than burning: to be ripped asunder and their flesh consumed before their very eyes by beasts starved to the point of madness, for the delectation of the people of Rome.
With vicious farewell cracks of their whips, the drivers retreated to the gates and the noise began to dull. Bored of the opening act of the spectacle, which was now doing nothing more exciting than spasm occasionally, the crowd eyed the huddled prisoners with interest. There were a lot of them, at least a hundred, and the knowledgeable in the audience — which was most of them — knew what that meant: many beasts. Anticipation settled on the Circus Maximus.
‘I b-b-believe the crowd are pleased, my d-dearest,’ Claudius observed, seating himself on his well-padded chair.
Messalina took her seat next to him. ‘It was an original idea of yours to surprise them by setting fire to those prisoners. I’m sure everyone thought that they were going to be mauled to death. You’re so clever, dear Claudius.’
Claudius twitched and took his wife’s hand. ‘We must keep them entertained if we’re to keep their love.’
Vespasian sat behind the imperial couple, between Lucius Vitellius and Flavia, who could not help but scan the crowd nearest the imperial box to see who was looking at her. Behind them sat a sallow-faced little man with a crooked back, whom Vespasian knew by sight to be a drinking companion and toady of Claudius.
‘The Emperor has a real talent for pleasing spectacles,’ Vitellius commented to Vespasian loud enough for Claudius to overhear.
‘He has a talent for many things, consul,’ Vespasian replied, playing Vitellius’ sycophantic game, ‘justice being one of them, as we saw this morning.’
‘Indeed; allowing Asiaticus the mercy of suicide and keeping his property was the act of a wise and just ruler.’
Vespasian detected a stiffening in Messalina’s posture but then the roar of the crowd turned his attention to the gates through which a dozen carts were being wheeled, each supporting a large wooden box. There was a stirring amongst the prisoners as the guttural roar of bears emanated from the boxes and the huddle began to disperse as the natural human instinct to put as many other people as possible between oneself and the threat took over. Prisoners ran to either side of the spina, sheltering close to the still burning torches in the hope that the flames would protect them.
Ropes, pulled from behind the boxes, opened the doors and the muzzles of twelve snarling bears poked out.
‘That’s split them all up,’ Claudius exclaimed, rubbing his hands together.
The crook-back smacked his lips in anticipation. ‘I do admire the strength of a bear.’
‘Th-th-that, Julius Paelignus, is because you have so little yourself; hunchback.’
Paelignus flinched and Vespasian was amused that the crippled emperor had someone more unfortunate than him to be the butt of his jokes. He wondered idly what unsightly creatures Paelignus consorted with to help him feel better about his deformity.
The bears’ keepers rapped rods on their boxes to encourage the beasts out in the face of the mighty roar of the crowd. One by one they emerged, shaking their huge frames and prowling up and down as a small gate, at the rounded far end of the circus, opened and at least twenty scraggily thin lions swooped onto the sand. The crowd’s din rose to even greater heights as the delicious prospect of the possibility of beast versus human and beast versus beast in the same combat became apparent.
Britannicus clapped his hands in excitement and Titus ran to join his friend to get a better look; together they leant on the box’s wall craning their heads left and right as the beasts fanned out and their victims ran about screaming, knowing there was no place to hide other than in death. Claudius smiled benevolently at the two boys, enjoying their enjoyment, before turning round. ‘What do you say to a wager, Lucius?’
‘With pleasure, Princeps; what’s it to be?’
‘A thousand denarii says that the bears will do for the prisoners and the lions before the bestiarii come in to finish them off.’
‘Caesar, my money is on the lions.’
‘What about you, Vespasian?’
‘Well, Princeps, I’m certainly not going to bet on the prisoners.’
Claudius chortled, spraying spit in abundance. ‘Oh, very good, not going to bet on the prisoners indeed. No, my friend, that would be foolish, you may sit this bet out. I won’t b-b-bother to ask you, Paelignus, you p-p-pauper.’
Paelignus flinched again. ‘If you make me procurator of Cappadocia as you promised then I’ll be able to afford to wager with you again.’
Claudius seemed unconcerned by such an importune demand. ‘We’ll see; until then you can make a note of the bets.’
Relieved at having got out of such a large wager, Vespasian turned his attention back to the track just as the massive jaws of a bear clamped onto a prisoner. Britannicus whooped and jumped in the air as the spilling of the first blood sparked a killing frenzy. Fleet and agile, the lions hunted their slower two-legged prey, twisting and turning in sprays of sand as they ran down and then pounced upon their victims, shredding flesh with their razor claws and blood-dripping teeth. Bears lumbered with rolling shoulders then, suddenly accelerating, bounded on screaming targets, punching them to the ground to dismember them with gore-spattered ferocity as the people of Rome cried out for yet more blood.