command was wiser and decided to come with us when we told him that we were voluntarily on our way to the City Hall to give ourselves up. Two policemen made a way for us with their batons, for as always in Antioch, all the loafers began to crowd around as soon as word spread that something unusual had happened. At first the crowd shouted abuse and threw lumps of manure and rotten fruit at us, for an exaggerated rumor had circulated that we had violated all the girls and gods in the city. Irritated by the noise and cries of the crowd, our lion began to roar dully, and it continued to roar, encouraged by the sound of its own voice, until our horses once again began to rear and shy away.
It is possible that the animal trainer had played a part in the roaring. Anyhow, the crowd fell back willingly before us and when they saw our bloodstained bandages, several of the women gave cries of sympathy and wept.
Anyone who has ever viewed the broad mile-long main street of Antioch, with its endless columns, will understand that our procession gradually began to look like a procession of triumph rather than of shame. It was not long before the easily influenced crowd began to throw flowers in our path. Our self-confidence grew, and when we reached the City Hall we already felt ourselves heroes rather than criminals.
The city fathers allowed us first to present our lion to the city and dedicate it to the protector Jupiter, who in Antioch is usually called Baal. After this we were brought before the criminal magistrates. But at that time there was a famous lawyer, with whom my father had spoken, working with them, and our voluntary appearance made a deep impression on the magistrates. They took our horses from us of course, which was inevitable, and we had to listen to gloomy words on the depravity of youth and about what one could expect in the future when the sons of the city’s best families set such an appalling example to the people, and about how different it had all been in the days when our parents and forefathers had been young.
But when I returned home with Barbus, a death wreath hung on our door, and at first no one would speak to us, not even Sophronia. Finally she burst into tears and told me that my tutor, Timaius, had the previous evening asked for a pan of warm water in his room and then had opened his veins. His lifeless body had not been found until morning. My father had shut himself in his room and had not even received his freedmen, who had sought admission to console him.
Actually no one had really liked the morose and discontented Timaius, but a death is always a death and I could not escape from my sense of guilt. I had struck my tutor and by my behavior had brought shame on him. Now I was seized with terror. I forgot that I had looked a real lion straight in the eye, and my first thought was to run away forever, go to sea, become a gladiator or enlist in one of the most distant Roman legions in the countries of ice and snow, or on the hot borders of Parthia. But I could not flee from the city without landing in prison, and so I thought defiantly of following Timaius’ example and in that way ridding my father of my troublesome presence.
My father received me quite differently from the way I had thought he would, although I ought to have imagined something like it, as he rarely behaved as other people do. Weary from his vigil and weeping, he fell on me, took me in his arms, pressed me to his breast, kissed my cheeks and my hair and rocked me gently to and fro. He had never before held me in his arms in this way and with such gentleness, for when I was small and longed for his caresses he had never wished to touch me nor even look at me.
“My son Minutus,” he whispered. “I thought I had lost you forever and that you’d fled to the end of the world with that drunken veteran, because you had taken money with you. And you must not mind about Timaius, for he wished for nothing but to avenge his destiny as a slave and harness his vague philosophy on you and me, and nothing can happen in this world that is so evil that there is no way of reconciliation and forgiveness.
“Oh, Minutus,” he went on, “I am not fit to raise anyone, for I have not even been able to manage my own life. But you have your mother’s forehead and your mother’s eyes and your mother’s short straight nose and your mother’s lovely mouth too. Can you ever forgive me for the hardness of my heart and my neglect of you?”
My father’s incomprehensible gentleness melted my heart and I began to weep loudly, although I was already fifteen years of age. I threw myself down before him, clasped my arms around his knees and begged forgiveness for the shame I had caused him and promised to improve if he once again showed leniency. But my father too had fallen to his knees and embraced me and kissed me, so that we knelt there and begged each other’s forgiveness in turn. My relief was so great and so sweet that my father wished to take upon himself both the death of Timaius and my own guilt, that I wept even louder.
But when Barbus heard my wails, he could no longer contain himself. Banging and clattering, he burst into the room with drawn sword and shield, in the belief that my father was beating me. Hard on his heels came Sophronia, weeping loudly. She tore me away from my father and clasped me to her own ample bosom. Both Barbus and she bade my cruel father beat them instead, since they, rather than I, should take the blame. I was still a child and had certainly meant no harm with my innocent pranks.
My father rose in confusion and defended himself hotly against the accusation of cruelty by assuring them that he had not struck me.
When Barbus realized his state of mind, he noisily called on all the godx of Rome and swore that he would fall on his own sword to make good his guilt, as Timaius had done. He became so excited that he probably would have done himself harm had not we all three, my father, Sophronia and I, succeeded in wresting his sword and shield from him. What he had in fact thought of doing with the shield, I did not know. Afterwards he explained that he had been afraid my father would strike him on the head and his old head could no longer bear the blows it had once borne in Armenia.
My father asked Sophronia to send out for the best meat and have a feast prepared, since we must all be hungry after our escapade, and he himself had not been able to eat a thing after he discovered I had left home and that he had been so unsuccessful in bringing up his own son. He also had invitations sent to his freedmen in the city, for they had all been concerned about me.
My father washed my wounds with his own hands, smeared them with healing ointment and bandaged them with clean linen, although I myself would have preferred to retain the bloodstained bandages a little longer. Barbus was given the opportunity of relating the story of the lion. My father became even more morose and accused himself even more that his son had felt himself bound to face death in a lion’s mouth rather than turn to his own father to atone for a boy’s youthful prank.
Finally Barbus became thirsty from all his talk and I was left alone together with my father. He said that he realized he must talk to me about the future, for I should soon be receiving the man-toga, but he found it difficult to find words to begin. He had never before spoken to me as father to son. He looked at me with troubled eyes and sought vainly for the words which might help him to find me.
I looked at him too, and I saw that his hair had grown thin and his face furrowed. My father was already nearer fifty than forty and in my eyes was elderly lonely man who could enjoy neither his life nor the fortunes of his freedmen. I looked at his scrolls and for the first time realized that there was not a single idol of a god in his room, nor even an image of a genius. I remembered Timaius’ malevolent accusations.
“Marcus, my father,” I said. “Before his death my tutor, Timaius, told me several evil things about my mother and you. That was why I struck him on the mouth. I do not want to excuse what I did in any way, but all the same, tell me if there is anything evil. Otherwise as an adult how shall I be able to watch over my actions?”
My father looked troubled, rubbed his hands together and avoided my eyes. Then he said slowly, “Your mother died giving birth to you, and that I could not forgive either you or myself until today, when I noticed that you are the image of your mother. I first feared I had lost you, then my sight returned and I realized that I have little to live for except you, my son Minutus.”
“Was mother a dancing woman, a loose woman and a slave, as Timaius maintained?” I asked directly.
My father was visibly upset.
“You shouldn’t even speak such words, Minutus,” he cried. “Your mother was a more noble woman than any I have known, and of course she was no slave although she had, because of a promise, dedicated herself to serve Apollo for a time. I once journeyed in Galilee and Jerusalem with her, looking for the king of the Jews and his kingdom.”
His words gave me courage. My voice trembled as I said, “Timaius told me that you were so involved in the secret conspiracies of the Jews that the magistrate was forced to expel you from Judaea, and this was why you did not regain your knighthood and not just because of a whim of Emperor Gaius.”
My father’s voice also shook as he said, “I have waited before telling you all this until you had learned to think for yourself, and I did not have to force you to think about things which not even I fully understood. But now you stand at the crossroads and must yourself choose the direction you take. I can only hope that you choose the right
