Of course Queen Monime was there, looking as pleased as a cat with a bird in its mouth to see her father invested with the rank of episcopus. Mithridates clucked his tongue and kissed her dainty fingers and doted on her as if she were a child, which she is, completely lacking in the mature refinement and dignity one wishes to see in a queen. Of course, refinement and dignity were not the attributes that induced Mithridates to marry the little vixen and seat her on a throne next to his.
Mithridates himself was more splendidly adorned than I had previously seen him. He literally sparkled, so covered with jewels and precious metals was every garment he wore, from his curl-toed shoes to his necklace-laden breast. But for a crown, as always, he wore only a simple fillet of twined purple and white woolen yarn. From his broad shoulders, as if it were his own family heirloom, hung the centuries-old cloak of Alexander the Great.
After the investiture of Philopoemen, amid the feasting, the guests were treated to an entertainment combining dancing with a recitation in verse. The story was based on a century-old legend: the tale of the Syrian warrior Bouplagos, who came back to life to prophesy the end of Rome. No author was credited. The man who recited the poem was clearly a professional actor, not the poet.
Who composed this entertainment? I do not know. Before I describe it, let me admit something. Before I arrived, when I looked forward to taking my rightful place in the king’s court, I anticipated that one of my roles would be to compose just this sort of entertainment, providing uplifting verses to be recited for the edification of the king, his household, and his guests. Instead I am made to sit in silence while the verses of some unknown, second-rate poet are inflicted on us.
With the dancers I have no quarrel. In fact, they displayed a great deal of skill and created several memorable tableaux as they acted out the scenes described by the poem. The lighting effects, the costumes, and the various theatrical illusions were all very well done. Nor do I fault the actor who recited the poem, for he did his best with the text he was given.
I will not attempt to quote the entire text. Suffice to say that for the most part the metaphors were unoriginal, the rhythms awkward, and the vocabulary unimaginative. What might I, Antipater of Sidon, have done with the same material? I am tempted to write my own version of the tale of Bouplagos, to show the king what can be achieved when a true poet rises to the occasion. But no, the material is simply too sordid and sensational to inspire a first-rate poem. I suspect it was the king himself who chose the topic, judging by the rapt expression on his face all though the recitation. Perhaps-horrible thought!-he even wrote the poem himself.
The setting of the story was a battle at Thermopylae-not the famous last stand of the three hundred Spartans, but the much later battle that took place only a hundred years ago, between the Romans and King Antiochus of Syria, who was then laying claim to that part of Greece, and who counted among his mercenaries that old “Rome-Hater,” Hannibal of Carthage. (Already you can see why this tale fascinates Mithridates, who sees himself as the successor of these noble warriors against Rome.) In this battle, the Romans were triumphant. So devastating was his defeat that King Antiochus was forced to withdraw from Greece entirely, fleeing all the way to Ephesus, leaving behind at Thermopylae a veritable mountain of fallen soldiers.
After the battle, the Romans set about the grisly task of stripping armor and other spoils from the corpses of their enemies. Among these cadavers was the body of Bouplagos, a Syrian cavalry commander held in great esteem by Antiochus. Bouplagos had fought long and nobly against the Romans, suffering twelve ghastly wounds before he fell.
While the Romans were stripping the dead bodies, Bouplagos suddenly got to his feet. Fresh blood began to pour from his twelve wounds. It hardly seemed possible that he could have survived those wounds, yet the alternative-that he had come back to life-seemed even more impossible.
This part of the story was well enacted, I must admit. The dancer playing Bouplagos sent a tremor of fear through the audience. He was dressed in bloodstained armor, his face was made to look waxy and pale, and fluttering streamers of red cloth simulated blood flowing from his wounds.
Bewildered and terrified, the Roman soldiers fell back. Bouplagos marched slowly but steadily through the Roman camp and into the tent of the generals, who were as frightened as their soldiers. Standing before the Roman commanders, Bouplagos spoke. At this point in the recitation, the actor pitched his voice in a manner calculated to chill the blood of everyone in the room:
“Cease despoiling my brave comrades, gone to Hades’s lands.
Already Zeus is angry at the slaughter by your hands.
He shall raise up a leader to bring about your fall.
The name of Rome shall be spat upon by all.”
As soon as the reciter finished speaking the prophecy, the dancer playing Bouplagos collapsed into a heap of bloody armor, as if his bones had turned to water.
For the next tableau the room was made very dim. This was the visit by the Roman generals to the Oracle of Delphi, asking what the temporary resurrection of Bouplagos signified. The Pythia, the priestess of Apollo’s temple at Delphi, was danced by a figure in heavy robes, illuminated by lamps set all about her but seen by the audience only through a screen of dark veils-an ingenious effect that created a genuine aura of mystery. From offstage, a female singer provided the voice of the Pythia, making birdlike, nonsense sounds. At last she fell silent, leaving it to the priests of Apollo to discern her meaning. The reciter spoke the oracle:
“Restrain yourselves, Romans, let justice abide,
Lest Ares in his anger support the other side.
Your farms and cities will be made a desolation.
Your women to their conquerors will look for consolation.”
Such a stark, unambiguous message was something rare from the Oracle of Delphi, but the Romans shrugged off this warning and continued their war against Antiochus. But no sooner had they returned to the theater of battle than one of the generals suddenly began to rave and to thrash about, so violently that the other commanders gave up trying to restrain him and fell back.
This tableau began with the dancers, dressed in stage armor and red capes, all gathered in a circle. Then, as the reciter imitated the incomprehensible rantings of the possessed Roman general, the dancers gathered more closely, and at the same time began to whirl about in a circle, causing their red capes to whip through the air. As the whirling grew more and more frenzied, one dancer after another flew away from the group, like sparks from a whetting stone, until, revealed at the center, was none other than … Quintus Oppius!
I looked at the place where Oppius had been sitting, next to the giant Bastarna. Sure enough, both were gone. It truly was Quintus Oppius before us, a genuine Roman general playing the role of a Roman general-or at least it was the head of Oppius, for the oversized body beneath him, dressed in stage armor and a cape, was some sort of grotesque puppet, with thrashing limbs that moved in impossible ways. It appeared that Oppius was somehow restrained inside the costume, along with one or more unseen dancers, who operated the arms.