Our world, the elder (on the younger side)
By banning bloodshed in his Hippodrome Bloodshed redoubles, while in elder Rome The younger, yielding to barbarian folk.
Sees his most trusty Council rise in smoke.
Arcadius, the Emperor of the East Romans ('the younger side'), fulfilled his part of the prophecy in the same year. One day, in the
Hippodrome at Constantinople, a mad monk darted between two armed gladiators just as they had reached the most exciting phase of their combat. He called on them in a loud voice to refrain from murder, in Christ's most holy name. The gladiators were chary of killing the monk, which would have brought them bad luck — gladiators are naturally superstitious. They broke away, and by signs asked the Emperor, who was acting as President, what they were expected lo do next. The spectators were affronted by the monk's tasteless interference with their amusement; swarming over the barrier, with lumps of concrete in their hands and bricks torn from the seats, they stoned the monk to death. Arcadius was equally affronted at this usurpation by the audience of his authority as President. He took the very severe step of forbidding all gladiatorial displays for an indefinite period. This decree provoked riotous protests, in punishment of which he dissolved the gladiators' guild altogether and allowed the monk, whose name was Telemachus, to be proclaimed a martyr and honourably enrolled on the diptychs. The consequences were not happy.
In the first place, as the Sibyl seems to have foreseen, the populace, denied its customary pleasure of seeing men kill one another publicly and professionally, sought satisfaction in unofficial sword-fights in the streets and squares between the young coxcombs of the Blue and Green factions. In the second place, the disappearance of the gladiatorial part of the Hippodrome games raised bear-baiting from an inferior position to a very high one. The mastiffs which fought the bears were, I may mention, not jointly owned by the faction, as the bears themselves were, and the horses, but privately trained by wealthy sportsmen. Occasional fights were also staged between lion and tiger (the tiger always won) or wolves and bull (the wolves always won, if in health, by attacking the bull's genitals) or bull and lion (the odds were even, if it was a strong bull) or wild-boar and wild-boar. But bear-baiting provided the most consistently good sport, and was more popular even than the spectacles, still permitted at some hippodromes, in which armed criminals attempted, more or less ineptly, to protect themselves from the attacks of these various wild beasts.
The more devout Christians cither left their seats or shut their eyes during such set fights; and by some encyclical letter or other bear-keepers and lion-keepers and chariot-drivers and other Hippodrome entertainers were not allowed to profess Christianity. Or rather, they were forbidden to take part in the Eucharist, since their profession! were supposed to be wicked ones that excited men's minds and drew them away from calm contemplation of the Heavenly City. For this reason the entertainers were naturally hostile to the Christian religion as one that despised their traditional callings, of which they were by no means ashamed. They took pleasure in circulating stories to the discredit of Christianity, especially about the hypocritical behaviour of devout Christians. There was more than one high officer of the Church who used secretly to send a present of money to the Green or Blue Dancing Master, asking him to select a clever woman to enliven a dinner-party; and yet, in the streets, these same men would draw their garments away in horror if they met an actress, as though afraid of pollution.
I was at one with the entertainers in this: my experiences while in the employment of my former master Barak had given mc profound suspicions of the Church, suspicions which I still retain. It is something ingrained in mc and not to be washed away; just as the colour Green was ingrained in my master Damocles' soul. But I have met some honourable men among the Christians, and therefore cannot in justice write anything against Christianity itself — only against those who have used it to their own ends and made a parade of holiness as a means of self- advancement. At any rate, there was this hostility to the Church among the Hippodrome people (I include in this term the entertainers from the Theatre, which was closely connected with the Hippodrome); and their rooms and offices were a sanctuary for the few priests of the Old Gods who survived, and for Egyptian and Syrian sorcerers and fortune-tellers and Persian mages, who were adepts in the interpretation of dreams. Only the Dancing Masters, who acted as our intermediaries with the faction management and thus with the Court and the Church, were, by custom, Christians; and a sly, unlovable set of men they were, to be sure.
Damocles' friend, the Bear Master Acacius, was killed in the exercise of his duty. The he-bears were excited by the presence of a she-bear in a neighbouring stall. They became refractory. One of them managed to break his chain and then beat in the door of his stall, furious to get at the she-bear. Acacius offered him honeycomb on a Stick, and tried to persuade him to return peaceably to his stall. But the bear seemed insulted to be offered one sort of sweetness when he had set his heart on another, and struck petulantly at Acacius, though with no intent to hurt him seriously, and tore his arm. The wound became poisoned, and Acacius died that same evening, to the great grief of his associates of the Green faction, and especially of my master Damocles; and to the grief, I am told, of the bear, who mourned for him like a human being.
The Assistant Bear Master, Peter, was a sort of cousin to Damocles-most of the Hippodrome people were related by marriage — and it was decided that he should marry Acacius's widow and apply to the i action management to be appointed Bear Master in his place. This was done; and, though the marriage might seem a little lacking in good taste, celebrated so soon after the Bear Master's death, it was necessitated by circumstances. None of the Greens thought any the worse of cither of the contracting parties.
But the dead Bear Master's term of office had been so successful — he had improved the defensive powers of the bears by giving them regular exercise and a careful diet, instead of keeping them always locked up in the dark, as the custom had been — that the management had recently voted for his salary to be doubled. It now amounted to 500 gold pieces a year, apart from perquisites. This bounty was justified by the huge increase in the ringside betting on the bear-baiting shows, for three per cent of the winnings went to the faction funds. Five hundred a year was a tempting sum, and the Dancing Master, who was typical of his class, did not wish to give it away for nothing. When Cappadocian John, who happened to be a prominent Green, offered a thousand for it on behalf of a retainer of his, the Dancing Master was not deaf. The matter was easily arranged, Cappadocian John being chairman of the Committee for Appointments. The Dancing Master stated at the meeting that the only other candidate was Peter, the Assistant Bear Master, who not only should be refused the rise in position but did not deserve to keep his present post. He insinuated to the Committee that Peter might have had something to do with the escape of the bear that killed Acacius; and made Peter's haste in marrying his dead master's widow seem indecent.
The Committee not only dismissed Peter's application, but also Peter himself. When Damocles heard of the decision he was rightly disgusted. He went to his fellow-charioteers to complain. He asked them to sign a petition to the Governors of the Hippodrome, who were a higher authority than the Green-faction management, complaining of the double injustice done to the Bear Master's widow and tlircc children, and to the Assistant Bear Master.
The charioteers were not eager to do anything in the matter, however, though the new Cappadocian Bear Master had openly boasted that the post had been bought for him, and though he was an outsider with no previous connexion with the Hippodrome. Their reasons were that they were not interested in bear-baiting themselves, being charioteers; that Cappadocian John was a powerful man at Court and in the faction; and that they held it as unreasonable to carry a matter which touched the honour of the Greens before the Governors, among whom there were Blues as well.
Damocles refused to let the matter rest. He interviewed other prominent Greens, trying to persuade them to take an interest in the case, but none of them would listen to him.
The Blues soon came to hear the whole story and sent two of their charioteers to sound Damocles secretly. They asked him whether they could assist him in any way to get justice done. Damocles was so distracted that lie answered bitterly: 'Yes, indeed! I would accept assistance from anyone, even from the Blues, nay even from the accursed Christian monks, if they could bring about the disgrace of this Dancing Master and this Cappadocian.'
The charioteers said: 'Suggest to the woman and her children that they put garlands on their heads and take posies in their hands and go out as suppliants, escorted by Peter, to the lower race-post just before the bear-baiting is to begin. The better-minded of the Greens will intervene on their behalf; and we can promise that the Blues will support the appeal vociferously.'
He agreed to this plan, which was only, of course, intended by the Blues to discredit the Green management; they had no genuine desire to help the woman and her children. But strange things now began to happen. In the first place, by a remarkable coincidence, the Bear Master of the Blues dropped dead that same afternoon as he was walking across the Square of Augustus. In the second place, Thomas, the Treasurer of the Blues, had a dream that night in which a big black bear, wearing a Green favour and ridden by a little girl with a garland on her bead, came
