‘Good morning, madam, please accept my apologies for yesterday-’ Magnus began.
‘Have some manners whipped into this man, Gaius,’ Vespasia demanded.
‘Calm my dear,’ Gaius soothed, ‘Magnus is-’
‘Magnus!’ Vespasia exclaimed. ‘That’s a very big name for such a little crook.’
‘My grandfather fought for Pompeius Magnus at Pharsalus. He named-’
‘I’ve no interest in your sordid little family’s history.’
Gaius stepped between them. ‘Vespasia, please. Magnus is a trusted friend of mine and a great source of information. For my sake, won’t you overlook this misjudgement on his part and let us be on our way to the circus? He and his comrades will prove their worth by beating a path through the crowds.’
Vespasia paused and looked down her nose at Magnus and his men who bowed their heads in abject apology.
‘Very well, brother, for your sake I shall,’ she replied loftily.
Magnus nodded in acknowledgement and then turned to Gaius. ‘I assume that you are heading to your normal place, the senators’ seats to the left of the imperial box.’
‘Indeed we are, my good man; I’ve had five slaves there reserving seats since before dawn.’
Gaius headed off down the Quirinal Hill surrounded by his family, clients and bodyguards. As they descended Vespasian saw many similar parties of important-looking men escorted by crowds of hangers-on; the more important the man, the bigger the crowd. All were heading in the same direction: to the games.
Nearer the circus the crowds did indeed become horrendous, as Gaius had predicted. Magnus and his brothers sweated as they pushed through the hordes of race-goers all sporting the colours of their favourite team, Red, Green, White or Blue. They cheered passing groups of the same faction and hissed and jeered supporters of the opposition. They chanted songs praising their teams at the tops of their voices whilst waving the coloured flags that proclaimed their allegiance. Here and there scuffles would break out as the press of the crowd forced two rival groups into each other, but in general the mood was good-natured, mainly because it was too early in the morning for anyone yet to have drunk too much.
They passed groups of racing horses and wagonloads of chariots and equipment being transported from the four teams’ stables on the Campus Martius outside the northern walls of the city to their race-day bases.
‘They’ll be bringing horses in and out all day,’ Gaius shouted above the din. ‘With twelve races of twelve chariots each, most of which will be four-horse, they’ll get through a lot of animals.’
‘Five hundred and seventy-six,’ Vespasian said without thinking.
Sabinus scoffed but dared not criticise his brother’s calculation in case it was right.
‘And at least another two hundred spares,’ Gaius said, raising an eyebrow at the speed of his nephew’s arithmetic. ‘Plus the mounts of the hortatores, the riders who lead each of the chariot teams around.’
Vespasian savoured the atmosphere. His mind filled with the images of the city that they had passed on their mile-long journey: the arches on the Sacred Way; the temple of Jupiter, resplendent in the early-morning sun, perched on the Capitoline Hill above the Forum Romanum; the Senate House and next to it the Rostra, adorned with the rams of Carthaginian ships captured in the battles of Mylae and Cape Ecnomus in Rome’s first struggle with its ancient foe long, long ago. He had seen the new forum of Augustus, the forum of Caesar and other public buildings both religious and civic, buildings he had only heard of, never seen, and had been struck dumb by their size, splendour and beauty.
The outer walls of the circus were now in sight. Four storeys high, they rose majestically above the swarms of people pushing and shoving their way through their arches and into the belly of the building. Once in they would make their way through the colonnaded interior, filled with vendors of hot food, cushions, wine and other necessities, then up one of the many sets of marble steps that led into the huge stadium seating nearly a quarter of a million people.
To his right Vespasian could see the temporary camps of the racing factions set up in the Forum Boarium in front of the narrow, straight end of the circus, through which all the competitors would enter. Thuggish-looking guards, who made Magnus and his friends look like acolytes at a religious ceremony, kept this area secured from the riff-raff keen on getting a sneak preview of the teams being readied for the day.
They passed underneath an arch into the heaving bowels of the circus and Gaius’ party started to diminish as his clients paid their respects to their patron and wished him good fortune, before leaving to try their luck gaining access through one of the many public entrances. Magnus’ job became increasingly difficult in amongst the colonnaded passageways, beating a path through the tightly packed mass of humanity, occasionally pausing to give way to another party of higher status, then following on in their wake. Slowly they made their way to the entrances reserved for senators and their guests.
Gaius called out greetings to acquaintances as they passed close in the heaving melee: ‘Good day to you, Lucius, may the gods smile on you and give you good fortune… Postumus, I hope your Whites fare better today. I shall be backing them in the second race…’ all the time giving Vespasian and Sabinus a brief resume of who they were and how influential they may or may not be.
Close by a fight broke out as one of the entrances was closed, being full to capacity, leaving hundreds of people stranded outside and forced to try to get in through another gate – all of which were already choked with eager race-goers desperate for a seat inside. Screams and shouts filled the air as skulls and bones were cracked by club-wielding marshals, who, intent on pulling shut the gates, fiercely pushed back the disappointed many who had arrived too late to get in.
Eventually Magnus and his brothers forced their way through to the far less congested senators’ entrance.
‘I shall leave you here, sir,’ Magnus said as he and his fellows turned to go. ‘May fortune favour you and your companions.’
‘And you and yours, Magnus,’ Gaius replied, slipping him a weighty purse. ‘Use this well, although I have no doubt that you will just bet on your beloved Greens without any thought of who’s driving and how their current form is.’
‘Well, sir, once a Green always a Green,’ Magnus said seriously as he left.
Gaius smiled and pulled out a wooden ticket from within the folds of his toga and showed it to the marshal on the gate, who bowed and let the party through into the long passageway that led up to the stadium.
Nothing could have prepared Vespasian for the sight that greeted him as he came out of the tunnel into the sun-filled circus. Over two hundred thousand people, a quarter of Rome’s population, were crammed into the huge seating areas that surrounded the track, a hundred paces wide, a third of a mile long. Down its middle, slightly offset to one side and closer to one end of the arena than the other, ran the spina : a long, low barrier eight paces wide with turning posts at each end, around which the races were run. Between the turning posts the spina was ornamented with an obelisk brought back by Augustus from Egypt as well as huge statues of the gods, which were spaced far enough apart so as not to obscure the view of the other side of the track. Above the seating areas long colonnaded walkways ran the length of the stadium in which thousands more people not lucky enough to get a seat would spend the day standing, thankful that they had got in at all. Behind the colonnades on either side could be seen the rich buildings and luxurious gardens on the Palatine and Aventine, for the Circus Maximus was set in the valley dividing the two hills.
The cheers of the crowd echoed around the stadium as they enjoyed the antics of a group of desultores, acrobatic riders dressed in loincloths and strange conical hats, who, before the racing started, hurtled around the track at full gallop leaping from one horse to another in rhythm. They cracked their long whips every time they landed on a new mount to the raucous appreciation of the crowd. For their finale they stood on the backs of their horses and in unison did a backwards somersault to land astride their mounts again; the crowd was ecstatic.
‘I can see my boys down there,’ Gaius shouted over the roar. ‘Follow me.’ He led them off down the steps between two areas of seats at a pace that belied his bulk. Halfway down he turned right along a narrow walkway passing between rows of seated senators who were all enjoying the spectacle as much as the masses that surrounded them, cheering the riders as they left the arena to be replaced by a small army of slaves with brushes who began to smooth the sand in preparation for the first race.
‘Well done, boys,’ Gaius cried to five angelic-looking house slaves sitting in a line at the end of a row. ‘Excellent seats indeed.’ He gave them each a silver coin. ‘Go and enjoy yourselves, my dears. I expect you back at the house after the end of the last race.’
The boys left, leaving five plump cushions and a large bag containing enough food and drink to last the party
