His Empire might be confined to the City. The Persians and barbarians and Heraclius might be dividing the rest among themselves. But Phocas was Emperor in the only place that mattered. The barbarians could be bribed eventually into leaving. The Persians could be expected eventually to suffer some reverse. And Heraclius was stuck in Abydos, short of cash – his forces outside the City in the rain waiting for the first whiff of pestilence.
Phocas, on the other hand, was still in Constantinople, still holding court in the Circus.
Standing there beside him was not, perhaps, the safest place to be. But I was going home soon. This would be the culminating point of my stay in the city and would serve me well in the wine shops of Rome so long as I could remember any anecdotes at all.
For the moment, I soaked up the adoration of more people than could be found in the whole of Rome, and bowed to receive the embraces of an emperor who seemed not unmindful of my usefulness in getting him out of trouble.
There is something wonderful about these acclamations. To stand in their blast is like having an orgasm in bright sunshine. In the street, you wouldn’t give a second glance to those cheering trash. You might even have one of them set upon if he didn’t keep his distance. But the collective adoration of the Circus can do wonders for your self-respect. You might plan a coup to get it all for yourself.
Many have tried. Phocas did. He would, within six days, be a corpse floating headless in the Golden Horn. But no one at the time could have guessed that.
Now so close to them, I nearly jumped out of my skin when the trumpets sounded again for quiet in the Circus. That drew an approving belly laugh from the crowd, and even a smile from Phocas.
When silence was restored, the herald gave a tastefully sanitised official account of my doings. Among much else, apparently, I’d brought with me to the City news that the arms of Phocas had prevailed in Kent, and had won the whole province of Britain back to the Empire. No one in the crowd thought to question the inherent improbability of this event.
So the narrative continued through my visions of Saint Victorinus and His Saving Miracles, and my dispatching of a most flattering number of barbarians with my own hands.
More cheering and shouted acclamations. And a full service of thanks to Saint Victorinus. The Patriarch officiated, and even managed to utter my name without spitting.
Fortunately I wasn’t expected to take any further part in the proceedings. I’d been turning over some words that might not be held against me now or later. But one of the officials attending Phocas turned to me.
‘Sit over there,’ he said curtly, indicating a chair set into the white marble of the steps that led up to the throne. ‘Look ahead – neither words nor motion.’
I gratefully took my place. If lower than Phocas, I still had a fine view over the Circus. Now the proper games got under way.
When Constantine built his new capital, he decreed that there should be neither temples to the Old Faith nor gladiatorial combats. Constantinople was to be the City of God, and the bishops were adamant that its entertainments were to be unstained by human blood. The gladiatorial combats had grown out of the Old Faith, and remained too closely identified with it, so they were left behind with the old order in Rome. In this New Rome, there would be no amphitheatre to match the Coliseum.
For a while, there had been displays and hunts of wild beasts in the Circus. But these also had sacrificial undertones, and the bishops had nagged the Emperors about then until they, too, were banned.
This left only chariot racing, which soon became all that it had ever been in Rome and much more.
As with the executions, I won’t burden you with a close description of the races. But there is no public spectacle more exciting. As those chariots speed round the course, you almost feel yourself there beside the charioteer. Usually, the races seem to be over almost as soon as begun. Sometimes, though – as the fourth lap is passed – you feel that time has stopped. The chariots seem to slow down. The roars of the crowd seem to come from a great distance. Clouds of dust hang in the air. It’s now that wise men lay their bets in a quiet voice.
As the front-runners come to a halt before the Imperial Box, the crowd goes wild. You see the rippling wave of green or blue as the victorious Faction stand briefly, row by row, and seat themselves again. There are the various kinds of applause – clapping with cupped hands for a victory on points, flat handed for a victory based on pure skill and so on. There is the presentation from the Imperial Box and the roars as the victor stands beside the Emperor.
All personal troubles are forgotten in the excitement of a close race. All political differences are put aside in the greeting of the victors. Whatever might go on in the streets outside late into the evening, the mood inside the Circus is one of total identification with the incredibly rapid thunder of hoofs and wheels on the racecourse.
The morning session came to an end. The races had gone well. All victories had been decisive – with no need for the Emperor to upset either Faction by having to adjudicate on a hung race.
Slaves appeared pulling great carts and began distributing bread and very thin wine to the crowds. Many had brought their own hampers. But the poorer classes needed to be fed if the afternoon session was to go well. And what is a circus without bread?
The Senators and other persons of quality filed up from their terrace to the Imperial Box and then joined the Emperor for a buffet lunch in the dining room beyond.
A nice room, this. Its great windows faced away from the Circus and gave a good view over the palace down towards the sea. The room itself was of chastely white marble that contrasted with the variegated colours within the Circus. The only permanent splash of colour there was the double row of busts of all the emperors since Constantine. These were placed equidistant between the columns that ran down each side of the room.
The earlier busts – the anti-Christian Julian in particular – are in the realistic style of the ancients. Starting with the Great Theodosius, though, the features become more sharply etched, the eyes turning inward. From Anastasius on, the departure from realism becomes increasingly confident. The bust of Phocas himself was a lump of purple barely recognisable were it not for the shape of his beard and the slightly odd look in the eyes.
As everyone joined the queue for food, I found myself beside the Emperor at the wine table. He took up what looked like a small gold bucket and drained it without drawing breath. Then he directed one of the slaves to hand me a cup nearly small enough for Maximin to have held. Over in a corner, I could hear Theophanes discoursing to a group of very deferential officials on the merits of his kava juice. As ever, he found no takers for the stuff.
‘So, my little Briton,’ Phocas rasped in Latin, ‘how was our handling of the mob?’
What do you say when an Emperor throws that sort of question at you? You could try gross flattery. That works in most circumstances. But this was a casual opening and didn’t seem to admit of a formal response. So I tried the truth.
‘I thought for a moment you were in trouble,’ I said, gulping at my wine. ‘But all looks set fair now.’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I thought it went rather well. If I can find the traitor who started reciting from that old play, I might even reward him!’
He gave me a searching look, then: ‘Come over and eat something.’
He took me by the arm and led me to the front of the queue, which jumped back three paces at the approach. Phocas pointed silently at the dishes and waited as slaves piled golden plates high with delicacies. Then, we moved away again, our plates held before us by slaves dressed in long robes of green and blue stripes.
Back in Rome, Lucius had told me that Phocas didn’t know any Greek. He was wrong. The Emperor was from Thrace, where a common sort of Greek is the main language above the barbarian dialects. But he’d spent much of his career in a Latin regiment and was happier in military Latin than in the educated Greek of the City.
Anyone who believes that Phocas was a mere brute, devoid of all sociable qualities, has swallowed the line put out by his enemies. He had his faults, and I’ll not deny them. But he was neither stupid nor without the rougher social graces. So long as he wasn’t verging on the paralytic, or in fear of yet another plot against him, he knew how to put subjects at their ease. How else do you think he managed to depose poor old Maurice? How else did he arrange that rapturous entry into Constantinople after his coup? How else did he get Pope Gregory on his side?
Though now past sixty, he still had a good head of dark hair and a jauntiness about his manner that put you in mind of a much younger man. He soon discovered that I was new to the races, and he spent some time explaining rules that I hadn’t been able to pick up for myself. He even made me laugh a few times. This isn’t normally something you should do in front of an emperor, except the politest, most strangled titter. But he seemed to be in the mood for uncourtly behaviour. So I downgraded my own Latin to match his, and we chatted away like two outsiders in this most rarefied society of the Empire.
After a rough start, I was feeling remarkably full of myself, but I was also beginning to feel distinctly odd. I
