Roma - Saylor Steven (книги полностью .TXT) 📗

The Romans’ terms were harsh. Stripped of her warships and military stores and made to pay massive reparations, Carthage was reduced to little more than a client state of Roma. A war that had wreaked havoc on the whole of the Mediterranean for seventeen years had at last come to an end, and Roma emerged stronger than ever, a power poised to rival the fabled Egyptians or the Persians at the peak of their empires. The survivors who had fought and won the war could rightly consider themselves the greatest generation in Roman history, and the greatest among them, without question, was Publius Cornelius Scipio, forever after to be called Africanus—conqueror of Africa.

“He’s cut his hair short! When did that happen? I’ve never seen him without his long mane of chestnut hair.”

Kaeso spoke wistfully. Through the peephole beneath the stage, he gazed at the crowded bleachers of the Circus Maximus, where Scipio had finally arrived to take his seat of honor. The crowd stood and cheered him for a long time, crying “Africanus! Africanus!” Eventually the spectators began to take their seats, and Kaeso was finally able to get a clear view of the recipient of their acclaim.

“Are you disappointed, boss?” said Plautus, who was performing a last-minute inspection of the trapdoor. The simple task made him huff and puff; over the years, he had grown fat with success. “Does short hair not suit him?”

“Quite the contrary! It suits him very well indeed.” Kaeso squinted slightly; his eyesight was not as good as it used to be. “He no longer looks like a boy—”

“I should think not! He must be at least thirty-five.”

“But he’s more handsome than ever. Not so much like Alexander anymore; more like Hercules, perhaps. He used to be almost too pretty, you know? Now he looks so rugged, so—”

“By Venus and Mars, stop swooning!” Plautus laughed. “He’s just a man.”

“Really? Did you see the triumphal procession?”

“Some of it. It went on too long for me to watch the whole thing.”

“All those captives, all that booty! The splendor of his chariot, the magnificence of his armor! All those people shouting his name…”

“I’m only glad he decided to include an afternoon of comedy among the festivities—though I must admit I was a bit surprised when he requested that we revive The Swaggering Soldier for the occasion.”

“Why not The Swaggering Soldier? It hearkens back to his very first elected office; people still talk about the Roman Games of that year. And it’s a clever way for him to show people that he doesn’t take himself too seriously. The audience can see the play as an affectionate parody of Roma’s most beloved soldier, a man who’s earned the right to swagger, the invincible Scipio Africanus. Giving them a laugh at his own expense will only make them love him more.”

“While you, dear boss, could hardly love Scipio more than you already do.”

Kaeso made no reply. He was deep in thought, musing on Scipio’s spectacular success. His own life seemed hopelessly humdrum and shabby by comparison—a comfortable but loveless marriage, a daughter to whom he had never felt particularly close, an endless series of dalliances with actors and slave boys, and a merely adequate livelihood earned from his theater company and from his staff of scribes, who specialized in copying Greek books for sale to the literate upper classes.

Plautus slapped his shoulder. “Snap out of it, boss! You’ve been a shadow to Scipio all your life. You’ve admired him, desired him, idolized him, envied him—done everything, I suppose, except hate him.”

“That I could never do!”

“Ah, but there you differ from your fellow citizens. They adore him now—they worship him like a god—but they’ll turn on Scipio some day.”

“Impossible!”

“Inevitable. The audience is fickle, Kaeso. You alone are faithful, like the keeper of a shrine. Scipio should appreciate you more than he does! Has he invited you to dinner even once since we met to talk about putting on the play?”

“He’s been very busy.” Kaeso frowned. Then a flash of movement caught his eye; one of the actors had forgotten from which side he needed to make his entrance and was using the passage under the stage to get across. The actor was new to the company, and quite young; they seemed to grow younger every year. He was also uncommonly good-looking, with long hair and broad shoulders. He flashed a grin at Kaeso as he hurried past.

Plautus glanced over his shoulder, then looked back at Kaeso and smiled. “Ah, yes, the new boy, from Massilia. Scipio’s haircut notwithstanding, I see you haven’t entirely lost your appreciation for long-haired beauties.”

“I suppose I haven’t,” admitted Kaeso with a crooked grin.

Above their heads, the play began. The tromping of the actors across the boards was loud in their ears, but not as loud as the first roar of laughter from the audience. Amid the din, Kaeso was sure that he could distinctly hear Scipio, laughing louder and harder than anyone else.

191 B.C.

“It seems we hardly ever run into each other anymore, except at the theater,” said Scipio. “When did I see you last, Kaeso? It’s must have been a couple of years, at least.”

The festive occasion was the opening of a temple on the Palatine, dedicated to a goddess new to Roma: Cybele, the Great Mother of the Gods, whom the Romans called Magna Mater. Her cult was said to date back to prehistoric times, but was not native to Roma or even to Italy. It had been imported from one of Roma’s new allies in the East, the kingdom of Phrygia. Since the defeat of Carthage, Roma’s expanding sphere of influence had resulted in an influx of new people, new languages, new ideas—and new deities. Cybele was quite unlike any goddess previously seen in Roma. The statue in the new temple depicted her wearing exotic garments and adorned from head to foot with bull’s testicles. Along with her statue, the priests of Cybele had also been imported from Phrygia. They were called galli, and were also something new to Roma: eunuchs.

Games had been organized to celebrate the occasion, and a temporary theater had been erected in front of the new temple. The company of Plautus was about to put on a new comedy. For this performance, Kaeso had chosen to sit in the audience rather than remain backstage, and had invited Scipio to sit beside him. Before he could answer his friend’s question, a small commotion in the audience distracted them both. The galli had arrived in a group and were filing into their seats of honor, not far from Kaeso and Scipio. The priests were gaudily attired in red turbans and yellow gowns. They wore bangles on their wrists and paint on their cheeks.

“Can you imagine our grandfathers putting foreign-born eunuchs on the sacred payroll?” asked Scipio. “Our ancestors thought of eunuchs, if they thought of them at all, strictly as the sycophants of kings, half-men who could never breed, and so would never try to put their own progeny ahead of the king’s heirs. A republic has no king; ergo, no need for eunuchs. Yet now we have eunuchs in Roma, thanks to Cybele! Fascinating, aren’t they? I hear they cut off their testicles themselves. They work themselves into a such a frenzy that they don’t even feel it. Amazing, the acts to which religious devotion will drive a man!”

Kaeso winced at the idea of a man castrating himself, but found himself staring at one of the galli, a dark-eyed, exceptionally good-looking youth with full lips and skin like marble. He had heard that a man who was castrated in adulthood did not lose his erotic appetites. What sort of proclivities might such a young man possess, who had been willing to do such a thing for his goddess? Kaeso could not help being curious.

Aloud, he remarked, “If anyone should know about the Great Mother and her galli, it’s you, Scipio. After all, it was you who officially welcomed them to the city and accepted the gift of the black stone.”