look helpful to the government. And Vespasian would like it, being a cheap measure.
“Too late for me!” Saturninus was right; he was too old and in a vile profession.
“So you decided to beat the system?” asked Helena quietly.
“I was young and hotheaded. Of course I was the type who had to take on the world in the hardest way available.”
“You became a gladiator.”
“And a good one,” he boasted pleasantly.
“Am I right that willing volunteers have greater status?”
“You still have to win your fights, lady. Otherwise you have all the status of a corpse being dragged out with hooks.”
Helena looked down at her sweetmeat bowl.
“When I won my wooden sword, it gave me a kind of bitter pleasure to become a lanista,” Saturninus went on after a moment. “Senators were allowed to maintain troupes of gladiators; for them it was just an exotic hobby. I used the profession for real. And it worked; it gave me all the status I wanted in the end.”
This man was an intriguing mixture of ambition and cynicism' He still looked as much like a gladiator as any slave sold into that life, yet he enjoyed his present luxuries quite naturally. Before he joined the fight business, he had grown up in Tripolitania being served his food by respectful minions and receiving it in elegant tableware. His wife Euphrasia ordered in the courses at dinner with an imperious wave; she too was fully at ease with their lifestyle She wore a huge necklace with rows of twisted wires and copper disks, including fiery carbuncles; it looked both exotic and antique, and was perhaps inherited.
“Yours is a typical Roman story,” I said. “The rules say you belong where your money places you. But unless your name is Cornelius or Claudius, and your family once owned a house at the base of the Palatine inside the walls of Romulus, then you have to manoeuvre your way to a place. New men need to push hard to gain acceptance. But it can be done.”
“With respect, Saturninus,” Helena joined in, “it's not entirely to do with being provincial. Someone like Marcus has just as hard a battle.”
I shrugged. “The Senate may be closed to many of us, but so what? Who needs the Senate? Who wants the bother of it, frankly? Anyone can move wherever he wants, if he has the staying power. You prove the point, Saturninus. You fought your way up, literally. Now you dine with city magistrates.” He showed no reaction as I alluded to Pomponius Urtica. “You lack nothing of luxury or social position”-I decided not to mention power, though he must have that too-“even though your occupation is sordid.”
Saturninus gave me a wry grin. “The lowest possible element-both pimps and butchers. We procure men, but as dead meat.”
“Is that how you see it?”
I had thought his mood dark, but Saturninus was thoroughly enjoying the conversation. “What do you want me to say, Falco? Pretend I supply my men as some religious act? Human sacrifice, a blood payment to appease the gods?”
“Human sacrifice has always been illegal for Romans.”
“Yet that's how it all started,” Helena demurred. “Pairs of gladiators were matched during funeral games held by the great families. It was a rite, perhaps intended to confer immortality on their dead by the shedding of blood. Even though gladiators fought in the Cattle Market Forum, it was still portrayed as a private ceremony.“
“And that's where everything differs nowadays!” Saturninus leant forwards, shaking his forefinger. “Now holding a private bout is disallowed.” He was right: the motive would be suspect. I wondered if this had particular relevance' Had there been some private bout recently? Or had somebody at least tried to commission one?
“That's the political element,” I said. “Now combats are given to bribe the mob during elections-or to glorify the Emperor. The praetors get a look in once a year in December, but otherwise, only the Emperor may offer Games to the public. A private display would be regarded as shocking and self-indulgent-and in effect treasonous. The Emperor would certainly view any man who commissioned one as hostile to him.”
Saturninus knew how to listen completely impassively. But I felt I was close to some truth. Were we still debating Pomponius Urtica, perhaps?
“Without the ceremony, it would just be a lust for blood,” said Helena.
“Why?” Euphrasia, the elegant wife, made a rare contribution: “Is it more cruel to shed blood in a private situation than before a huge crowd?”
“The arena enshrines a national ritual,” said Helena. “I do think it's cruel, and I am not alone' But gladiatorial games set the rhythm of life in Rome, along with the chariot races, the naumachia, and theatrical dramas.”
“And many combats are a formal punishment for criminals,” I pointed out.
Helena winced. “That's the cruellest part-when prisoners fight, naked and unprotected, each knowing that if he prevails against one opponent he will only be kept in the arena and made to fight another, one who is fresh as well as desperate.”
She and I had had this argument before. “But you don't even enjoy watching the professionals, whose swordplay is a matter of skill,” I said.
“No. Though that's not as bad as what happens to the criminals.”
“It's supposed to be redeeming for them. Their shame is denounced by the crowd; the statues of gods are veiled so they shall not see the proclamation of the condemned men's crimes; and justice is seen to be done.”
Helena still shook her head. “It ought to make the crowd feel ashamed to partake in the event.”
“Don't you want criminals punished?”
“I find what happens too routine; that's why I dislike it.”
“It's for the public good,” I disagreed.
“At least they are being seen to pay a penalty,” Euphrasia put in.
“If you don't think it's humane,” I wrangled with Helena, “what else do you think we should do with a monster like Thurius? He put unknown numbers of women through horrendous experiences, killed and dismembered them. Simply to fine him, or send him into exile, would be intolerable. And unlike a private citizen, he can't be ordered to fall on his sword when he is apprehended and disgraced; he's not conditioned to do it and anyway, he's a slave; he's not allowed a sword unless he's confined in the arena and is fighting as a punishment.”
Helena shook her head. “I know that prisoners being condemned to die in public is supposed to warn others. I know it's vengeance for the public. I just don't want to be there.”
Saturninus leant towards her. He had been listening in silence while we argued' “If the state orders an execution, should it not be carried out openly?”
“Perhaps,” Helena agreed. “But the arena uses punishment as a fom1 of entertainment. That's sinking to the criminals' level.“
“There is some difference,” the lanista explained. “To extinguish life in the arena, by the swipe of a lion's paw or with the sword, should be quick and fairly efficient. You called it routine-but to me that is what makes it pem1issible' It's neutral-dispassionate. It's not the same as torture; it's nothing like this criminal Thurius deliberately inflicting prolonged pain, and gloating over his victims' suffering.”
His wife biffed him with one graceful hand. “Now you're going to tell us about the nobility of a gladiator's death.”
He was blunt. “No. That's waste; it costs money; every time I have to see it I feel sick. If it's one of mine who dies, I'm angry too.”
“Now you're talking about your expensively trained professionals, not condemned men,” I smiled. “So you'd like to see fights where they all walk away? Just a display of skill?”
“Nothing wrong with skill! But I like what the crowd likes, Marcus Didius.”
“Always the pragmatist?”
“Always the businessman. There is a demand; I provide what is wanted. If I did not do the job, someone else would.”
The traditional excuse from suppliers of vice! That was why lanistae were called pimps. Since I had eaten at his table, I refrained from saying it. I was tainted too.
Euphrasia liked to stir things, apparently; she had a provocative streak: “I think you two guests have a big disagreement about cruelly and humanity!”
