Roma.The novel of ancient Rome - Saylor Steven (книги онлайн полные версии бесплатно .TXT) 📗

“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.”

The black stone, even more than the statue of the goddess, was the centerpiece of the new temple. It was said to have fallen from the sky, and its shape roughly depicted an even more primitive image of the goddess, an amorphous mass suggesting a massively pregnant female with no distinguishing features. The black stone, too, was unlike anything previously worshiped in Roma, but when the galli in the Phrygian city of Pessinus offered it as a gift, along with a request to establish Cybele’s worship in Roma, a verse had been found in the Sibylline Books that called on the Roman people to accept the gift and welcome the new goddess.

Whatever its religious function, the importation of Cybele possessed a political dimension as well. Men of vision, like Scipio, believed that Roma’s future now lay to the East. After Hannibal had been dealt with, the Romans turned their energies to defeating Philip of Macedonia, and had done so with help from Phrygia. Roma’s embrace of the Great Mother would strengthen her bonds with her new ally. When the stone arrived by ship at Ostia, the verse in the Sibylline Books required that only the greatest of the Romans could accept it. Naturally, Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus was chosen for the honor.

Perhaps because he was thinking of the galli and their sacrifice, Kaeso touched the golden fascinum that hung from the necklace he wore. He had put away the heirloom many years before, and had virtually forgotten about it, until he happened to come across it while going through a box of old things. The glitter of the gold caught his eye, and on a whim he decided to begin wearing it again on special occasions, as had been the practice, so he had once been told, of his ancestors.

Touching the fascinum led to another train of thought. He cleared his throat and said to Scipio, in an offhand way, “All these new religions flooding into Roma-some official, some…not so official. What do you think of the so-called Cult of Bacchus? They say it offers initiation into secret rites that promise an ecstatic release from the material world.”

Scipio looked at him sidelong and raised an eyebrow. “The Cult of Bacchus is controversial, to say the least. Like everyone else, I’ve heard about it. It seems to be an offshoot of a Greek cult that worships a god of wine and madness. How much of what I’ve heard can be believed, or how widespread the cult’s become, I don’t know. I do know it has no recognition from the state.”

“So it’s not illegal?”

“Not technically, I suppose. But, from what I’ve heard, the cult’s ‘ecstatic’ rituals are nothing more than drunken orgies where every possible sexual act is encouraged. Also…” Scipio lowered his voice. “The initiation of men into the cult requires that they submit to anal penetration-as if they were slave boys! I’ve also heard that the cult is nothing more than a front for a group of ruthless criminals. The so-called priests and priestesses are forgers, blackmailers, even murderers.” Scipio took a deep breath. “I would advise you, Kaeso, to steer clear of any cult that has no official status, especially the Cult of Bacchus!”

“Yes, of course,” muttered Kaeso. He hurriedly changed the subject. “I’m a grandfather now!”

Scipio smiled. “So I’ve heard. Congratulations.”

“My daughter struck a lucky match when she married young Menenius. No man could have given her a more beautiful baby. I only wish my wife had lived to see little Menenia.”

“Yes, I was saddened to hear of Sestia’s death.”

Kaeso shrugged. “To be honest, I was never much of a husband to her. Nor was I much of a father to Fabia. But the role of grandfather seems to suit me. I dote shamelessly on Menenia, as I never doted on her mother or grandmother. And what about you, Scipio? You’ve just had a daughter.”