First up was the execution of deserters, an event that Scipio was obliged to witness as an army officer; he and Fabius had arrived only a few minutes ahead of the first bullock cart, so there was little time to lose. They picked their way up the tiers of seats past the elegantly coiffeured matrons and their children and the men in togas, some of them wearing the purple-rimmed senatorial toga and bearing laurel wreaths on their heads, awards for civic accomplishment. Among them was a scattering of men in uniform, including Julia’s brother Sextus Julius Caesar, a fellow tribune who had also served in Macedonia, and their distinguished father of the same name, a decorated veteran of the Battle of Zama who nodded gravely at Scipio and returned their salute as he and Fabius passed.
Julia was standing apart from the other women of her gens in the upper tier with her two slave girls in attendance, and waved to Scipio and Fabius as they approached. She was not arrayed like the others and looked as if she had just returned from one of her secret sessions in the academy, her wavy hair loosely tied back and falling over her shoulders, her robe belted around her waist to reveal the firm curves of her hips and breasts. She was not allowed to wear any military ornamentation but carried an ancient family heirloom, a winged helmet of Attic Greek design with the eagle emblem of the Caesares embossed on the front. It was a small act of defiance that Fabius knew her father had allowed her, against the wishes of her mother and the other Vestals. Standing there with the helmet she looked as if she had been cut from the same mould as the caryatid sculptures that Fabius had seen on the Acropolis in Athens, yet finished in a manner that was wholly Roman; she had the straight nose and high cheekbones of the Caesares family, and the auburn hair and large eyes of her mother. As she turned to greet them she looked radiant, with none of the sadness that Fabius had seen in her since Metellus had returned, and he hoped that, like Scipio, she would be able to enjoy this evening and forget the future, the life that she would have to lead as a matron of the gens Metelli in the years ahead.
The crowd had already begun shouting and jeering, and Fabius saw the first in a line of wagons drawn by oxen trundle into view from the direction of the Forum. Each wagon bore a large iron cage, and as the first one came closer he could see a female African lion pacing to and fro inside, its eyes bloodshot and its tongue hanging out. He knew it would be half-crazed with hunger, its body lean from days of starvation in advance of the spectacle. Behind each wagon a man staggered with his hands bound behind his back and his ankles loosely shackled, a long rope extending from his wrists to the cage and another from a halter around his neck to a muscle-bound gladiator behind, dressed in the full armour of a bestiarius and cracking a whip every few moments against the prisoner’s back.
From a wagon somewhere behind, a lion roared, the sound rumbling through the stand like an earthquake, and the crowd hollered and bayed. They all knew what was coming next; the prisoners had been condemned damnatio ad bestias. Aemilius Paullus had shown mercy to many of those captured at Pydna, to the Macedonians themselves and to a few of the Thracian mercenaries suited to gladiator training, but any prisoner who was marched through a triumph in chains had only been temporarily spared. The plebs knew it, and would howl at any show of clemency. And these prisoners were the worst, not enemies but deserters, men whose former comrades and families were among those baying for their blood in the crowd today. Rome might send her men out garlanded and feted for war, but those who failed in courage or fortitude must know that they would be treated more harshly than any enemy, returned to Rome shackled and humiliated, brought to justice before those same crowds whose trust and expectations they had so grossly betrayed.
At intervals along the road thick wooden poles like crucifixion posts had been sunk into the ground, but instead of a crossbeam an iron loop had been attached to the upper ends. As each wagon drew up at a post, the crowd retreated to form a circular space, those in the front row holding hands and pressing back to make enough room. At the post nearest to them Fabius watched the beast-master alight from beside the wagon driver, go to the back of the cage and untie the rope that led to the prisoner’s wrists, and pass the end through the loop on the post before handing it to the bestiarius. He then reached into the cage and hauled out a coil of chain that was attached to an iron collar around the lion’s neck, hooking the other end to the loop on the pole. At a signal from the bestiarius the driver whipped the bullocks and the wagon lurched forward, causing the rear of the cage to open and the lion to leap out, its neck caught violently on the chain as it pulled taut. Enraged, the beast tossed its head and roared, then charged headlong at the crowd until the chain brought it short again, causing it to sprawl on the ground and snarl and chafe against the collar. It tried again, hurtling itself in the other direction, and then got up and paced around the edge of the clearing, slavering and pawing at the crowd, its claws sweeping within inches of the boys who dared each other to leap out in front. Fabius remembered when he had done it himself, dicing with death many times, goading the lion with severed bull’s legs they had taken from carcasses beside the sacrificial altars in the Field of Mars; the priests always left cuts of meat for this very purpose, remembering their own fun as boys when baiting the lions and acquiring scars was the quickest way to earn esteem as a street warrior.
The crowd went silent, watching the lion as it paced round and round. The bestiarius kept the rope to the prisoner’s hands taut, releasing enough slack through the loop so that the man could strain back and keep close to the edge of the crowd, just beyond the lion’s reach. Each time the lion came close, the boys tried to push the man forward, and on the third occasion he stumbled and the lion swiped at him before he could lurch back, ripping the side of his face off and pulling out one eye. The man screamed, falling to his knees, a bloody flap of skin hanging below his chin. Sometimes the bestiarius would allow more baiting, until the victim was nearly flayed alive, but this time he knew that the crowd had been stoked up and wanted gratification. He suddenly heaved on the rope and the prisoner lurched forward, tripping and twisting as the rope pulled his wrists up the pole until he was dangling from it, his feet kicking and shaking uncontrollably, his one remaining eye following the lion as it paced around him. The moment the lion stopped and looked at him, realizing that he was now within reach, the bestiarius released his hold on the rope and heaved on the one from the prisoner’s neck, hauling him back to safety just in time. The crowd roared, and Fabius could see the prisoner more clearly now, grey with terror, his legs brown with faeces.