The Song of the Gladiator (2 page)

During the trial of Christ, Pilate, according to the Gospels, wanted to free the prisoner. He was stopped by a cry that if he did so, he would be no friend of Caesar’s. According to commentators, Pilate recognised the threat. Every Roman governor and official was closely scrutinised by secret agents of the Emperor, ‘the Agentes in Rebus’, literally ‘the Doers of Things’! The Roman Empire had a police force, both military and civil, though these differed from region to region, but it would be inaccurate to claim the Empire had anything akin to detectives or our own CID. Instead, the Emperor and his leading politicians paid vast sums to informers and spies. These were often difficult to control; as Walsingham, Elizabeth I’s master spy, once wryly remarked, ‘He wasn’t too sure for whom his own men were working, himself or the opposition.’

The Agentes in Rebus were a class apart amongst this horde of gossip-collectors, tale-bearers and, sometimes, very dangerous informers. The Emperors used them, and their testimony could mean the end of a promising career. This certainly applied to the bloody and byzantine period at the beginning of the fourth century AD.

The Emperor Diocletian had divided the Empire into East and West. Each division had its own Emperor, and a lieutenant, who took the title of Caesar. The Empire was facing economic problems and barbarian incursions. Its state religion was threatened by the thriving Christian Church, which was making its presence felt in all provinces at every level of society.

In AD 312, a young general, Constantine, supported by his mother, Helena, a British-born woman who was already flirting with the Christian Church, decided to make his bid for the Empire of the West. He marched down Italy and met his rival Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge. According to Eusebius, Constantine’s biographer, the would-be Emperor saw a vision of the cross, underneath the words ‘
In hoc signo vinces
’ (‘In this sign you will conquer’). Constantine, the story goes, told his troops to adopt the Christian symbol and won an outstanding victory. He defeated and killed Maxentius and marched into Rome. Constantine was now Emperor of the West, his only rival Licinius, who ruled the Eastern Empire. Constantine, heavily influenced by his mother, grasped the reins of government and began to negotiate with the Christian Church to end centuries of persecution. Nevertheless, intrigue and murder were still masters of the day. There was unfinished business in Rome and the Agentes in Rebus had their hands full. Helena favoured the Christian Church, but soon realised that intrigue and murder were as rife there as they were at court . . .

‘
Iugula!
Kill him!’ The roar from the mob in the crowded, dusty, flea-infested amphitheatre thundered up to the sky. The day was turning very hot. The summer sun, a veritable demon in the blue sky, beat down on the spectators, who had whetted their appetite for blood and now bayed for more. In the amphitheatre two men fought for their lives, slipping and slithering on the sand, bodies drenched in sweat, limbs screaming with pain, throats as dry as the very sand they kicked up.

The Editor, or Promoter, of the Games, the banker Rufinus, had done his best to keep the tens of thousands of his invited guests as cool as possible. A great woollen awning, drenched in water, had been pulled across the top of the amphitheatre by a complicated system of pulleys and ropes to provide meagre shade, whilst perfumed water, drawn up by special pumps, had sprayed some coolness on the crowd. However, Rufinus need not have worried. Heat, thirst, dust and the merciless sun were no obstacle to the mob’s hunger for blood. Many of them had been there since before dawn, filing into the yellow-ochre and black vomitoria, the cavernous tunnels which divided into a series of smaller ones and took the spectators up to their ticketed places. Each arrival carried the prized piece of bone bearing the number allocated to him. Many of these had been distributed free by the Promoter. Rufinus was doing his best to please Rome’s mob, not for himself, but for the new Emperor Constantine, who had seized the imperial purple some eighteen months previously and was now settling down to enjoy the fruits of his victory.

Across the amphitheatre, above the podium, rose the brilliantly decorated imperial box, its front, sides and balustrade draped in costly purple cloths over which gold-painted ivy had been carefully twisted. The crowd was so busy watching the two gladiators fight, they were hardly aware of Rufinus, who sat next to his Emperor, or the person on the other side of Constantine, ‘Helena Augusta atque Pia Mater’, the Emperor’s ‘Noble and Holy Mother’.

The Emperor himself was ignoring the games, his heavy-jowled faced all screwed up in concentration: tongue jutting out from the corner of his mouth, he balanced a writing tray in his lap and read the various documents his Imperial Chamberlain, the fat-faced Chrysis, passed for perusal. Helena was similarly occupied, studying reports handed to her by her personal secretary, Anastasius, the Christian priest. Helena employed Anastasius not only because of his links with the new faith, but also because he was a man of learning, skilled in the Greek and Hebrew tongues. Above all, he was most discreet; he could not speak, as his tongue had been plucked out by the imperial torturers during the recent persecutions.

Helena stared down at the piece of parchment resting on her lap, the report of a spy on the city council in Corinth about certain naval manoeuvres. She kneaded her thigh with her fingers, a common enough gesture when her teeming mind was considering some problem. Her beloved son was now Emperor, at least of the Western Empire, but at Nicomedia lurked the upstart Licinius, self-proclaimed Emperor of the East. Helena narrowed her eyes and stared down at the gladiators in the amphitheatre.

‘One of them is in trouble,’ she whispered to herself. She leaned against the balustrade. Yes, the Retiarius, the golden-haired net man, had suffered a bloody wound to his right shoulder and was slowing down.

Helena stared at the gladiators but her mind was distracted. If the truth be known, her son, Constantine, and Licinius were themselves gladiators, fighting for the greatest prize in the world, an empire which stretched from the Great Western Ocean to the Black Sea, from the searingly hot sands of north Africa to the icy forests which fringed the Rhine. At the moment, the pair were circling each other, looking for a weakness. Sooner or later – and sooner rather than later – Constantine would have to close with his opponent. Would his armies march east, or would Licinius invade the West? Could Licinius’s troops be bought, the officials of his court seduced from their allegiance?

Helena gnawed at her lip. Would it be easier to poison Licinius, a few grains of powder mixed with his wine? But what would happen then? Some other upstart? She studied the report again. Licinius was definitely up to something with this increased activity at his court, and what was his fleet doing, massing in the Bay of Corinth? Manoeuvres? Or preparing for battle? Beside her, Constantine hastily slurped his wine, and Helena nudged him with her elbow. Her son, as he always did, turned and pretended to scowl, but that did not concern Helena. She prided herself on her icy demeanour and calm nerve; that was the way she’d dealt with Constantine’s father, not to mention upstart priests and mutinous army officers. She would act as she always did, as mistress of the Empire.

Helena’s grey hair was coiffed in the traditional fashion, and a purple gold-fringed shawl was draped around her shoulders, contrasting sharply with her simple snow-white linen gown. She deliberately wore no jewellery except for an amethyst ring on the little finger of her left hand. She had kicked off her costly Spanish sandals and now savoured the cool perfumed foot bath a slave had brought. As a veteran of her husband’s and son’s military campaigns, she never forgot the old soldier’s advice: ‘If you want to stay cool, slap water on the back of your neck and stick your feet in a cold bath.’ She wore no make-up, no paint on her long face with its high cheekbones, deep-set dark eyes and snub nose over a full mouth and firm chin. She saw no point in such decoration; she wanted to be severe and appear as such. Some whispered she had no taste; after all, wasn’t she the daughter of an innkeeper? Helena paid no heed to such gossip, and her only concession to fashion was to shave her eyebrows and put a little carmine on her lips. She was keen to imitate the warrior matrons of ancient Rome. More importantly, as she confessed to her son, in public the heat made even the costliest cosmetics run.

Helena peered around at the ladies behind her and smiled dazzlingly. Silly bitches, their faces now looked like German warriors! Ah well. She turned back, flexed her toes and gave her son another nudge. She had told him a thousand times never to pick his nose in public! Another document was brought. She clutched the arm of Anastasius, speaking slowly so that he could read her lips. He replied quickly with hand signs which Helena hoped only she could understand. She glanced around the amphitheatre. Good, the mob was still screaming at the poor bastard stretched out on the red-gold sand of the arena. Helena preferred the crowd to stare at the fighters rather than at the imperial box. She nudged her son to pay more attention. The crowd didn’t like it if they thought the great ones, the Lords of the Purple, were not revelling in the carnage and bloodshed of the show.

‘Constantine?’

The Emperor, in deep conversation with Rufinus, ignored her.

‘Beloved son?’ The Emperor still kept his back to her. ‘Constantine!’ Helena bellowed. ‘Don’t turn your back on me! Stop whispering to Rufinus and keep an eye on the crowd.’

‘Mother.’ Constantine turned, his heavy face showing an unacceptable unshaven stubble, his forehead, beneath the fringe of dark cropped hair, laced with sweat, his dark blue eyes tired and red-rimmed.