The Memoirs of Cleopatra (40 page)

Ptolemy and I were seated with a number of distinguished foreign visitors and envoys who had traveled for the occasion. The kingdoms of Galatia and Cappadocia, the cities of Lycia, Laodicea, Tarsus, and Xanthus sent ambassadors—the east, that so fascinated and titillated Romans.

The stands filled rapidly as spectators rushed in like a wall of water. Their spirits were high; a wild excitement filled the air, as palpable as the heaviness just before a thunderstorm.

Caesar was talking to Calpurnia and Octavian, leaning over attentively. I saw that he was seated on a special chair; it was gilded and had a carved back. Undoubtedly it signified something; in Rome, everything did.

At last the arena was full. Every last place was taken, and the stands were a sea of color. The trumpeters, a company of at least fifty men, rose from their places and sounded their horns. The notes rang out, both glad and stirring. The noise of the crowd subsided.

A professional caller, a man with the loudest carrying voice I had ever heard, took his place at the railing before Caesar.

“Romans! Noble guests!” he yelled. There were more than a hundred thousand spectators—could all of them hear him? His voice rang and echoed all around us. “We are here to honor our
Triumphator
in the ancient way, inherited from our ancestors, with contests of valor and skill. Here before you the young knights will race their horses, to the glory of Jupiter and Caesar.”

A roar went up. He held up his hands for silence to continue. “We will begin with the
ars desultoria
. Accept their offerings!”

Caesar then stood up. He raised his right arm and cried, “Let the games begin!”

Immediately, from the gates at the far end of the Circus, two-horse pairs emerged, trotting nervously. The horses, the finest I had ever seen, gleamed in the afternoon sun. On their backs were young men who waved and bowed to the crowd, before coming to our section and making obeisance.

There were some twenty pairs of them, and the horses seemed to be matched in size and speed. At first they all trotted abreast, once around the track, but then the first pair left the others behind and went into a full gallop, necks straining and feet flying. Their riders were stretched low on their necks, gripping the heaving withers. Suddenly one of them stood up, and leapt onto the back of the neighboring horse, while the other rider did likewise. For an instant they crossed each other in the air, hanging there in sickening immobility, while the horses thundered on. Then they slipped onto the horses’ backs, and a cheer from the crowd went up. They turned backward and flipped themselves around, like acrobats, and all the while the horses hurtled forward. Scarves and handkerchiefs had been placed at intervals on the track, and the riders leaned so far down to scoop them up that their heads were right beside the pounding hooves. At each victorious feat, the crowd grew more excited. Behind the first pair there were now several others, all performing dangerous stunts on the galloping, skittish horses.

In attempting to grab a scarf near the sharp turn at one end of the Circus, one of the riders slipped off and his horse ran over him. A groan escaped from the crowd, but it was a groan that had a hungry edge to it. A team of men dashed from the sidelines to carry off the victim in a litter, but they were almost run down by the other horses and had to let the man lie there to be trampled for one more round.

Ptolemy was leaning forward, trembling with fear and excitement. “Is he dead?” he kept asking.

It surely looked as if he was. Before I could answer, another rider fell off; his head exploded in a red spray as his horse’s hoof landed right in the middle of it. This one was indeed dead.

The sand was beginning to be streaked with red. I looked around at the Romans surrounding me. Their eyes were fixed on the arena, and they seemed to have little revulsion for what they saw. The noise in the stands was growing steadily, feeding on the violence as a fire feeds on straw.

The teams attempted increasingly more difficult feats, until the winners did two midair somersaults between the galloping horses, landing precariously on the slippery, sweating backs. Caesar awarded them the prize, and the remaining fourteen or fifteen pairs of foam-flecked horses were led off the track.

A company of workers ran out and began raking the sand, getting ready for the next event. A late-afternoon breeze had sprung up; normally this was the part of day reserved for relaxation. But the tension was mounting.

“Why do they want to kill people?” Ptolemy was asking. “Why does anyone want to be one of those riders?”

“Men are ever drawn to dangerous enterprises,” I said. “No matter how dangerous a mission, someone will always volunteer for it.” That fact had always puzzled me.

Just then there was a stirring in Caesar’s section. Octavian had stood up and was making his way over to us.

“The most noble
Triumphator
has asked that I sit with you and explain the proceedings,” he said. The ambassador from Tarsus quickly vacated his seat next to me.

“How thoughtful of the
Triumphator
,” I said. I nodded to Caesar.

“Did you enjoy the exhibition?” Octavian asked.

“For an exhibition, some men paid a high price—their lives,” I said. “But their skill was impressive. What is the next event?”

Octavian smiled. “It is the favorite sport here in Rome—chariot races. Originally they were a religious rite. Today there will be ten four-horse teams, and the winners will come away with big purses of gold.”

“Oh, that should be exciting!” said Ptolemy. “And safer.”

Octavian shook his fair young head. “Hardly. Someone always gets killed. Sometimes three or four chariots get tangled up and are all destroyed. The sharp turns at each end of the Circus invariably cause some to turn over, even if nothing else goes wrong.”

“Is that why everyone likes the races so much?” asked Ptolemy.

“I wouldn’t say that,” said Octavian.

“Then why don’t they make them safer?” Ptolemy persisted.

“That would ruin the sport of it.”

A shout rose, and I saw that the chariots were emerging from the entrance arches. Each team burst through the narrow arch, horses pulling at the reins, eager to run. Behind them the light chariots, with their drivers standing on the tiny platforms, wheeled and shone in the golden afternoon sunlight. The horses were as large as possible, while the chariots were small and feather-light—which meant they were unstable and easily bounced and overturned. The helmets of the men glistened, some with spikes, some with feathers, some with colored scarves.

Octavian had stood up, and was shouting. His cheeks were flushed, and his eyes were riveted on one particular chariot driven by a swarthy man and pulled by four bay horses with unusually thin, long legs.

“Those are mine,” he said hoarsely. “From the stable of Arrius.” I had never suspected he could show such fervor. “You choose one,” he said.

There was another team of particularly well-favored horses, cream-colored, with gray manes and tails. I knew full well that a pleasing configuration did not always mean speed or stamina, just as a pleasant demeanor in men did not necessarily denote honesty, but I was still drawn to them. “The team with the small driver,” I said.

“From Campania,” he said. “They are reputed to be well fed and trained.”

“Which is Caesar’s favorite?” Ptolemy asked.

“He is partial to the blacks,” said Octavian, “because that stable bred his own favorite riding horse. But they are more powerful than speedy.”

The teams trotted once around the track, forty horses abreast, sweeping around the turn like a giant wing. The drivers must have had extraordinary skill to keep them all in line in this manner. Finally they halted just in line with us, and waited for the signal to begin.

Caesar rose, and held up a large white cloth. He raised it high above his head, and then, releasing it, let it float down to the arena. When it touched the ground, signalmen lowered their banners, and the horses were let loose.

Two or three of the teams leaped instantly ahead, and began immediately to struggle for the best position on the track. The width of four horses yoked in parallel meant that the competitors could not crowd too close together, but they also needed to make close turns if they were not to fall behind. The inside team risked being dashed against the central axis of the Circus and wrecked; the middle one squeezed into an accident; and the outside one losing his position by having to cover a greater distance.

The leaders were Octavian’s bays and two others; on the very first turn, one careened out of control and smashed on the wall of the spectators’ stand. Immediately one of the other teams, which had been hovering just behind, moved up into the vacated outside position. Another team hit the wreck of the first one, and was itself wrecked; the chariot seemed to explode and the driver was thrown a long distance, while his horses galloped aimlessly on.

The spectators were standing now, yelling. Beside me Octavian was breathing rapidly, muttering, “Yes! Yes!” as his team kept its lead, and he jumped to his feet. Only Caesar remained sitting, watching intently but calmly.

Another turn, another wrecked chariot; this one tumbled over into the central axis and impaled itself on a statue of Jupiter, who had been presiding over the contest. The horses squealed with fear and pain as they went down in a tangle of harness.

Now Caesar’s team unexpectedly began gaining on the others, coming up from the outside in a burst of speed. There were only seven teams left, leaving more room to maneuver. Octavian’s charioteer and the other one lashed their horses as, from the corner of their eyes, they saw the intruder catching up. But Caesar’s team, fresher than the others because it had conserved its energy, kept pace with them. It was unable to pass them, however, because it had to cover such a greater distance in pacing, using the outside lane.

My team was hanging back at a respectable distance, in a clump of the middle runners. One lone team of horses, all differently colored, brought up the rear.

On the next-to-last turn, the middle chariot of those in the lead seemed to stumble; suddenly it fell back into the knot of the other three. There was no room for it; the chariots on either side were unable to find a safe place for themselves. The three collided, including the former leader, and the grinding wheels and splintering wood were sickening. They were so enveloped in each other, harnesses crossed, yokes rammed together, limbs entangled, that they went down in a mass together, the horses and men crying out in one long, anguished scream. My team skidded around them, saved only by the fact that it had been lagging on the outside.

A roar went up from the crowd, almost a sigh of pleasure at the flying debris, the wheels rolling away, the chariot railings flying through the air, the arms and legs waving from the mess, the screams cut short by the stampeding horses pounding the helpless drivers into the dirt with their deadly hooves.

The lead chariots thundered on, unconcerned, and the hungry crowd had a choice of two equally arousing sights to satisfy them: the speed and flying finish of the front runners, and the carnage of the losers, stirring feebly on the sand behind them. Soon the leaders swept around to that section again, and had to steer wildly to avoid the mess; a gigantic cheer went up.

Octavian’s chariot won, followed by Caesar’s blacks. Mine finished a distant third, and the last one received an affectionate cheer, probably because by being so comically slow, it had preserved its own life.

“Congratulations,” I said to Octavian. “You choose well. How did you know?”

He turned to look at me, and I saw how clear and light his blue eyes were, with a little darker rim around the outside of the irises. He looked utterly detached, but I could not help noticing how ragged his breath still was, as he struggled to get his excitement under control.

“A lucky guess,” he said. “I looked at the legs and ignored all the rest.”

Caesar was standing, ready to receive the winning charioteer. The young man, trembling and covered with sweat, was led to him. Caesar placed the laurel wreath on his head.

“We triumph together this day,” he said.

The charioteer looked at him adoringly. “I will preserve this always,” he said, touching the laurel wreath. “I will keep it for my children, and my children’s children, and say, ‘This I won on the day of great Caesar’s Triumph.’ ”

“If he keeps on racing, he won’t have any children,” said Ptolemy in my ear. “He’d better retire right now!”

There were several more chariot races, but none as exciting as this first. There were more four-horse races, and several two-horse ones. They went on until it was almost too dark to see, and then riders entered the Circus with torches and announced that it was over. Behind them I could see a parade of elephants, each with a torch mounted on its back. They filed into the arena and walked around once majestically, the circle of fire punctuating the twilight. One elephant, fitted with a huge platform on his back, approached the stand where we sat, and knelt.

“Caesar will now be borne back to his home in the Forum. All loving citizens are welcome to accompany him,” the announcer shouted.

Caesar rose and descended to the kneeling beast, then mounted his back. The obedient animal lurched to his feet, and Caesar, his ceremonial toga’s gold embroidery winking in the torchlight, turned and lifted his hand to the people. Then he rode slowly away.

The rest of us mounted on other elephants, sharing them. Ptolemy and I were on one, Octavian and Calpurnia on another, the other nephews on a third. Between the line of the rest, the dignitaries walked, then streaming out behind them, as far as the eye could see, came the people. The torchlight threw long, jumping shadows on them, knitting them into one big creature instead of thousands of separate ones. Ahead of us I could see the rain of flowers and tokens being showered on Caesar, could hear the shouts rise wherever he passed, sighing like people let out into the light after a long imprisonment.

Caesar! Caesar! Caesar!
they cried.
Our joy, our savior, our life!