This vicious and deliberate attempt to frighten me made me so angry that I mustered all my strength and managed to turn Arminia in order to try to unseat some of the riders myself. But at the last moment I remembered Barbus’ advice, controlled myself and instead rode past them shouting, laughing and waving a greeting.
When Arminia had worked off her rage, she at last calmed down and became irreproachably obedient. When I dismounted in front of the stable, she did try to bite my neck, but I think it was mostly in fun and I contented myself in return by butting her with my elbow under her muzzle.
The stablemaster and the breaker-in looked at me as if I were a monster, but the stablemaster pretended to be angry.
“You’ve ridden her into a lather and torn the mouth of a valuable horse so that it bled,” he said reproachfully. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
“It’s my own horse and my own business how I ride it,” I answered.
“You’re quite wrong,” he said angrily. “You can’t ride her at practices because she won’t stay in line and doesn’t obey orders. She’s used to being ahead of the others.”
Several of the riders had left their horses and had gathered in a circle around us. They encouraged me and cried out that I was a good rider and they all agreed that the stablemaster had allotted me the horse by shouting it out for all to hear.
“Don’t you see it was a joke?” the stablemaster finally had to admit. “Every recruit has to try Arminia the first time, if he’s not too feeble. Arminia is a real warhorse and no miserable parade nag. She’s even fought with wild animals in the amphitheater. Who do you think you are, you insolent boy?”
“Joke or not,” I protested, “I stayed in the saddle and you fell into your own trap. It’s a shame to keep a fine horse like that shut up for days on end just to use for frightening recruits. Let’s meet each other halfway. I want to ride her every day, but for practices I’ll take another horse if she can’t keep in line.”
The stablemaster called on all the gods of Rome to bear witness that I had demantled two horses instead of one, but the others were on my side and cried out that he had played his joke with Arminia long enough. Every one of them had a bump or a scar or a broken bone to remind them of their attempts to ride Arminia as recruits, although they had all been riding since infancy. If I were mad enough to want to break my neck then I had a right to have Arminia. She was in any case the property of the Order of Knights.
But I did not want to quarrel with the stablemaster, so I promised him a thousand sesterces as a tip and said I should like to stand everyone some wine to wet my riding boots. In this way I was taken into the Roman cavalry and made friends among my contemporaries and also among the older youths. After a while I was chosen to join the elite riders in place of a youngster who had broken his leg, and we started practicing seriously for the competitive games at the centenary festivities. They were sufficiently dangerous that no one was allowed to take part simply because of noble birth or wealth, but only according to his own skill and ability. So I was proud of being chosen.
It is unnecessary to continue boasting about my success in the equestrian games. We were divided into two sections which performed a regular cavalry battle at the great circus at the centenary feast. It was a rough game, although it was prescribed that neither side either won or lost. I managed to stay on Arminia’s back right to the end but after that I had to be carried home and I saw little of the displays in the amphitheater or the performances at the circus which were supposed to be the most brilliant and best organized that had ever been seen in Rome. In the middle of the festivities, many of my friends found the time to come and see me on my sickbed and assured me that without me they would have won much less honor and glory. I contented myself with having ridden my black mare and with having heard a couple of hundred thousand people roaring with excitement and shouting my praises before I broke several ribs and my left thigh. But I had stayed in the saddle on Arminia until the very end.
The most significant political outcome of the centenary festival was that people paid great tribute to Emperor Gaius’ nephew, that ten-year old Lucius Domitius, who beautifully and fearlessly led the more innocent displays of the boy riders. Claudius’ own son, Britannicus, was put completely in the shade. The Emperor did call him up to his box and tried his best to show him to the people, but the crowd only shouted for Lucius Domitius and he received the acclaim with such modesty and good manners that everyone was even more delighted.
As far as I was concerned, I should have been lame for life if the cavalry doctor from the temple of Castor and Pollux had not been so skillful. He handled me cruelly and I suffered fearful pain. I had to lie in splints for two whole months. After that I had to practice walking on crutches and could not leave our house for long.
The pain, the fear of being a cripple and the discovery of how fleeting are all success and fame were certainly good for me. At least I did not become involved in the many fights which the wildest of my friends joined in at night in the streets of Rome during the general excitement of the festival. At first I thought that my enforced confinement in bed and the intolerable pain were part of fate’s efforts to determine my character. I was lonely, once more abandoned by my father because of his marriage. I had to decide for myself what I wished from my life.
As I lay in bed right into that hot summer, I was seized with such melancholy that everything that had hitherto happened seemed to be quite meaningless. Aunt Laelia’s good and nourishing food tasted of nothing. At night I could not sleep. I thought of Timaius, who had committed suicide because of me. For the first time I realized that a good horse was perhaps not after all the best in life. I had to find out for myself what was best for me, duty and virtue or comfort and enjoyment. The writings of philosophers which had formerly bored me suddenly became meaningful. And I did not have to think very hard for long before I realized that discipline and self-control gave me more satisfaction than childish lack of restraint.
The most faithful among my friends turned out to be Lucius Pollio, the son of a senator. He was a slender, frail youth only a few years older than I, and he had only just managed to get through the riding exercises. He had been attracted to me because my disposition was the exact opposite to his, rough, self-confident and irresponsible, and yet I had never spoken a harsh word against him. That much I had probably learned from my father, so I was more friendly to those who were weaker than to those who were like me. I was reluctant, for instance, to strike a slave, even if he were insolent.
In the Pollio family there had always been bookish and scientific interests. Lucius himself was also much more of a bookworm than a rider. The riding exercises were for him nothing but a tedious duty which he had to endure for the sake of his career and he did not enjoy hardening his body. He came to me with books from his father’s library which he thought would be good for me to read. He envied me my perfect Greek. His secret dream was to be a writer, although his father, Senator Mummius Pollio, took it for granted that he would be an administrator.
“What’s the use of my wasting several years on riding and listening to cases?” said Lucius rebelliously. “In time I’ll be given command of a maniple with an experienced centurion under me and after that I’ll be in command of a cavalry division somewhere in the provinces. In the end I’ll become a tribune on the staff of some legion building roads at the other end of the world. Not until I’m thirty can I apply for the office of quaestor, if one can get dispensation on the grounds of age because of one’s own or one’s family’s merits. I know perfectly well that I’ll be a bad officer and a wretched official because I’ve no real interest in such activities.”