As we spent the hottest part of the summer on the coast at Caere, my wife Flavia Sabina found an outlet for her need for activity in building us a new modern summer dwelling, instead of the old rush-roofed fisherman’s hut. At the same time she observed me and my weaknesses, without my knowledge, and without mention of my future plans, for she noticed that the mere mention of office depressed me. After our return to the city, she consulted her father, with the result that the City Prefect, Flavius Sabinus, sent for me.
“The wooden amphitheater is just being completed and Nero himself is to be present at the opening ceremony,” he told me. “I am having trouble with the valuable wild animals which keep arriving from all corners of the world. The old menagerie in the via Flaminia is much too small, and Nero is making special demands. He wants trained animals which can perform acts which have never before been seen, and senators and knights are to give demonstrations of their hunting skills in the arena. So the animals which care to be hunted mustn’t be too wild. On the other hand, the animals which are to fight each other must be exciting enough to watch. What we need is a reliable superintendent who will be responsible for the animals and who will also arrange all that part of the program. Nero is willing to nominate you for the post, as you have some experience with wild animals, and it is a worthy office in the service of the State.”
I suppose I had only myself to blame for this, as I had happened to boast that as a boy I had once captured a lion alive, and among the brigands in Cilicia I had once saved the lives of my companions when a brigand chieftain amused himself by chasing us into a bear’s cave. But to care for hundreds of wild animals and arrange performances in the amphitheater was such a responsibility that I did not consider I had the right qualifications to fill the post.
When I said this to my father-in-law, he replied caustically, “You’ll receive whatever money you need from the Imperial treasury. The most experienced animal trainers from every country will be competing to enter the service of Rome. Nothing more is asked of you than good judgment and good taste in choosing the programs. Sabina will help you. She has been running around the menagerie since she was a child and loves taming animals.”
This was news to me. Cursing my fate, I returned home and complained bitterly to Sabina.
“I’’d rather take the post of Quaestor to please you than be an animal trainer,” I said.
Sabina looked at me, as if summing me up, then put her head on one side.
“No, you’d never be a consul, you poor thing,” she said. “So why shouldn’t you have an exciting and interesting life as superintendent of the menagerie? There’s never been anyone in that post with the rank of knight before.”
I told her my interests lay more in a bookish direction.
“What’s a reputation earned in a lecture room worth,” she said scornfully, “where fifty or a hundred people clap their hands in gratitude when you at last stop reading? You’re an unenterprising idler. You’ve no ambition at all.”
Sabina was so angry that I did not dare annoy her even more, although the reputation to be gained from stinking wild animals did not appeal to me. We went at once to the menagerie, and during our brief tour, I could see that matters were even worse than the City Prefect had described.
The animals were starving after their long journeys and they had no suitable food. A valuable tiger lay dying, and no one had any real idea what the rhinos, which had been brought from Africa at great expense, normally ate, for they had trampled their experienced keeper to death. The drinking water was foul, and the elephants would not eat. The cages were much too cramped and dirty. The giraffes were practically dying of fright because they had been placed next to the lions’ cages.
The bellowing and roaring from the harassed animals made my head spin and the stench was overpowering. None of the foremen and slaves in the menagerie wished to be responsible for anything. “Not my job,” was the usual reply when I attempted to ask anyone anything. They even protested that hungry and frightened animals fought better in the arena, as long as one could keep them more or less alive until the day of the performance.
Sabina was most interested in two enormous hairy apes, larger than men, which had been brought to Rome from some unknown part of Africa. They took no notice of the meat offered to them and would not even drink.
“The whole place must be rebuilt,” I said decisively. ‘The animal trainers must have enough space and the cages must be big enough for the animals to be able to move about. Running water must be brought to them. Every species of animal must be fed and cared for by especially appointed men who know their habits.”
The foreman with me shook his head.
“What’s the point of that?” he said. “The animals will die in the arena anyhow.”
Infuriated by all these objections, I flung the apple I had been eating at the cage of giant apes.
“Must the first thing I do be to flog you all,” I shouted, “so that you learn your trade?”
Sabina put her hand on my arm to calm me, at the same time nodding toward the apes. I watched in wonder as a hairy arm reached out for the apple, and then the beast bared its frightful teeth and crunched up the apple in one bite. I frowned and looked as stern as I could.
“Give them a basket of fruit,” I said, “and fresh water in a clean vessel.”
The keeper burst out laughing.
“Wild animals like that are meat eaters,” he said. “You can see that from their teeth.”
Sabina snatched the whip from his hand and struck him across the face.
“Is that the way to speak to your master?” she cried.
The man was both frightened and angry, but to show me up, he fetched a basket of fruit and emptied it into the cage. The starving animals came to life and fell on the food, and to my own surprise, they even liked grapes. This was so strange to the keepers that they all gathered around to watch and stopped laughing at my orders.
When my authority had been established, I soon noticed that the main failing was not lack of experience but a general indifference and lack of discipline. From foreman down to slaves, it was considered a natural right to steal some of the ingredients of the animals’ food and so the animals were haphazardly fed.
The architect who had designed Nero’s wooden amphitheater and was responsible for its construction considered it beneath him to trouble with animals cages and exercising yards. But when he saw my drawings and heard Sabina’s explanations of what was involved, in fact an entirely new section of the city, he became interested.
I dismissed or gave other work to all the men who were amusing themselves by tormenting the animals, or who were too frightened of them. Sabina and I thought up an attractive uniform for the menagerie’s many employees, and we also built ourselves a house within the menagerie grounds, for I soon noticed that I had to be at the place day and night if I really wished to care for these valuable animals properly.
We abandoned all social life and devoted ourselves completely to the animals, even to the extent of Sabina’s keeping lion cubs in our bed and forcing me to feed them from a horn when their mother died at their birth. Our own married life we forgot in the rush, for to supervise a menagerie is undoubtedly an exciting and responsible task.
When we had cleaned up the menagerie, found sufficient regular provisions and appointed efficient and interested keepers for all the different animals, we had to begin planning the events for the inaugural performance in the amphitheater, the day of which was approaching with alarming speed.
I had watched a sufficient number of animal fights to know how hunts should be organized in the arena to be as safe as possible for the huntsmen but yet look exciting. It was more difficult to decide which animals should be set against which, for the crowd was used to seeing the most remarkable combinations of this kind. I had great hopes of. the displays by the trained animals, for skilled animal trainers from every country were constantly offering me their services.
The actual practicing for these displays proved less difficult than trying to keep them secret until the day. We were constantly overrun with spectators who wanted to come into the menagerie, so in the end I decided on an entry fee for those who wished to walk about. The money that came in in this way, I used for the menagerie itself, although I could have kept it, as had been my initial idea. Children and slaves came in free, if the crowds were not too great.
A week before the inauguration, a lame bearded man came to see me, and I did not recognize him as Simon the magician until he began to speak to me. The ban on fortunetelling by the stars was still in force, so he could no
