"Egnatius!" he called sharply. "Come here!"
Egnatius Capito came forward. Like Tanno and myself he was conspicuous since he was in his toga, most of those present being athletes and clad for practice.
"I did not notice you among your fellow senators at my levee," said the Emperor.
"I was not there," Egnatius admitted. "I had a press of clients at my own levee this morning and reached the Palace just in time to hear what you had to say to Vedius and Satronius. I tried to catch your eye as you pa.s.sed out, but you did not notice me at all."
"I had rather see you here than in the throne-room," Commodus said. "I am told that you have let your tongue run entirely too wild in talking of me lately. If I had not been also told that you had had too much wine I should animadvert on your effrontery officially. As it is I prefer to prove you wrong before these experts and gentlemen."
"Of what have I been accused?" Capito queried, steadily.
"There has been no accusation," Commodus disclaimed. "But I have been told that, at more than one dinner, you have been fool enough to say that I am only a sham swordsman, that I take a steel sword and face an adversary whose sword has a blade of lead: that it is no wonder that no one scores off me, and that I run up big scores in all my bouts."
"If I ever said anything like that," spoke Capito boldly, "I was so drunk that I have no recollection of having said it. And I am a sober man and a light drinker. Also I have never harbored such thoughts unless too drunk to know what I thought or said."
"You are cold sober now, aren"t you?" Commodus queried.
"Entirely sober," Egnatius agreed.
"And you are a fencer far above the average?" he pursued.
"I have been told I have no mean skill," said Capito modestly.
"Such being the case," said Commodus, "you and I shall fence. Go with the attendants and change into fencing kit. You"ll find all styles and sizes of everything needed in the dressing-rooms. First pick out a pair of cornel-wood swords, entirely to your mind."
When Capito had selected a pair of swords which suited both him and the Emperor, he went off to change. While he was gone Commodus had the armorer drill a tiny hole near the point of one sword and insert in it one of those thorn-like little steel points which are commonly used on the ends of donkey-goads.
When Capito returned he showed him the two swords. Capito looked up at him questioningly and amazedly.
"The idea is this," Commodus explained. "I mean to demonstrate my perfect ability to defend myself, as well as my dangerousness in attack. You are to use the sword with the goad point set in it; so that, if you succeed in hitting me, you will tear a long slash in my hide; for I am going to fence with you in my skin only, stark; mother-naked as I was born. I shall use the unaltered sword and you will have on your fencing-tunic, so that if I hit you, it won"t hurt you nearly as much as a hit from you will hurt me.
"If you draw blood from me, I"ll pay you one hundred thousand sesterces: if I fail to lay you out on the pavement, totally insensible, in three bouts, I"ll pay you two hundred thousand sesterces. You can pick any _lanista_ here to judge the fight and tell us when to separate and rest."
Capito, cool enough, indicated Murmex as referee.
"He"s not a _lanista_," Commodus objected.
"He"s Frugi"s pupil," Capito maintained, "and therefore the best _lanista_ here."
"I agree," said Commodus, and he called:
"Who"s the physician on duty?"
When the official came forward he said truculently:
"Get your plasters ready and your revivers. You"ll have to attend a man flat on the pavement, insensible and with a bad scalp wound, before much time has pa.s.sed."
And actually, though Capito fenced well, he was no match for Commodus.
The bout was worth watching. The adversaries were just the same height and differed little in weight. Capito seemed more compact and steady; Commodus more lithe and agile. Capito was a handsome man and made a fine figure in his scanty, leek-green fencing tunic. Commodus, always vain, of his good looks, delighted in exhibiting himself totally nude, not only because he loved to shock elderly n.o.blemen imbued with old-fashioned ideas of propriety, but also because he rightly thought himself one of the best formed men alive. He was fond of being told that he was like Hercules but, except in the paintings of Zeuxis, Hercules has always been depicted as brawnier and more mature than Commodus was then or ever became, to his last hour. To me he suggested Mercury, especially as he appears in the paintings of Polygnotus, or Apollo, as Apelles depicted him.
Besides the grace and good looks of the two, they fenced very well, Capito correctly and with good judgment, Commodus with amazing dash and originality.
Capito, though bold, was wholly unable to touch Commodus, while Commodus slashed him, even through his tunic, till his blood ran from a dozen scratches. Before the second bout was well joined Capito was felled by a blow on the head, which laid him flat and insensible, bleeding from a terrible scalp wound.
After Capito had been carried off by the attendants, the Emperor, wrapped in an athlete"s blanket, talked a while to Murmex and then went off to bathe, for he bathed many times a day.
Set free, I went out and was helped into my litter. The two dogs were still by it, took their places under it as if they had belonged to me since puppyhood and under it trotted as I returned home. Once home I ate the lunch permitted me and had an hour"s sound, dreamless sleep.
I woke feeling so well that I sent for Agathemer, bade him have my litter ready and told him I was going to the Baths of t.i.tus.
Inevitably Agathemer protested that I was not well enough; naturally I insisted and, of course, I had my way.
As with court levees, I have never been able to take as a matter of course without wonder and admiration, the marvellous spectacle afforded by an a.s.semblage of our n.o.bility and gentry gathered for their afternoon bath in any of our splendid Thermae. Of these I hold the Baths of t.i.tus not only the most magnificent, which is conceded by everybody, but also I hold them the most impressive ma.s.s of buildings in Rome, both outside and inside, and surpa.s.sing in every respect every other great public building in the city. Most connoisseurs appraise the Temple of Venus and Rome as our capital"s most splendid structure, but I could never bring myself to admit it superior to or even equal to the Baths of t.i.tus. To enter this surpa.s.sing building, always congratulating myself on my right to enter the baths and use them; to be one of the courtly throng of fashionable notables resorting to them: I could never take these things as a matter of course.
Nor could I ever take as a matter of course the sight of the bulk of Rome"s n.o.bility, gentlemen and ladies together, thronging the great pools and halls or roaming about the corridors, pa.s.sage-ways or galleries, all totally nude.
Social convention is an amazing factor in human life. One may say that anything fashionable is accepted and that anything unfashionable is banned. But that does not help one to explain to one"s self the oddity of some social conventions.
Oddest of all our Roman social conventions is the contrast between the insistence on complete concealment of the human figure everywhere else and the universal acceptance of its display at the Thermae.
At home, if receiving guests, on the streets, at a formal dinner, at Palace levees, at the Circus games or in the Amphitheatre, a man must be wrapped up in his toga. Any exposure of too much of the left arm, of either ankle, is hooted at as bad form, is decried as indecent.
So of our ladies, on dinner sofas, on their reclining chairs in their reception rooms, in their homes, in their litters abroad, at the Amphitheatre or at the Circus games, from neck to instep they are m.u.f.fled up. If one catches a glimpse of a beauty"s ankle as she goes up a stair, one is thrilled, one watches eagerly, one cranes to look.
Yet one encounters the same beauty the same afternoon in a corridor of the Baths of t.i.tus, with nothing on but a net over her elaborate coiffure and the bracelet with the key and number of the locker in which the attendant has put away her clothing and valuables and one not only cannot stare at her, one cannot look at her, not even if she accosts one and lingers for a chat.
I have pondered over this, the most singular of our social conventions, and the most mandatory and inescapable; and the more I ponder the more singular it seems.
Yet it is real, it is a fact. One meets the wives of all one"s friends, the wives of all Rome"s n.o.bility, naked as they were born; they mingle with the men in the swimming pools, in the ante-rooms, in the rest-rooms, everywhere except in the shower-bath cabinets and the rubbing-down rooms; one swims with them, lounges with them, joins groups of chatting gentlemen and ladies, chats, goes off, and all the while one cannot, one simply cannot stare at a nude woman, any more than any of the women ever stares at any man.
It is a social convention. But not the less amazing, although a fact.
One not only cannot scrutinize a woman, one cannot scrutinize a group of women, even at a distance, even all the way across a swimming pool. So, hoping to encounter Vedia in the gathering, I yet could not look for her.
I had met and talked with many of my acquaintances, notably Marcus Martius and his bride Marcia.
Marcia, rosy as the inside of a sea-sh.e.l.l, with her gold hair confined by a net of gold wire, was a bewitching creature, if I had been able to let my eyes dwell on her.
She was as contained and slow spoken and soft-voiced as always, but she was, for her, notably complimentary as to my share in the two fights; thanked me warmly for defending her, declared that she would certainly have been carried off, either as Xantha or Greia, or as a hostage for one or the other, if I had not fought "like both the Dioscuri at once," as she phrased it.
Martius corroborated her opinion of my services to them and thanked me warmly.
Delayed by chats with friends and acquaintances, held up by distant acquaintances and even by persons hardly known to me by sight, who congratulated me on the Emperor"s public championing of me against my powerful Sabine neighbors, I felt my strength ebbing and sometimes saw a gray blur between my eyes and what I looked at.
I was, in fact, so weak that I nearly fainted when, unseen in the swarm of bathers until he was close to me, I encountered Talponius Pulto, tall, handsome, disdainful, sneering and malignant as usual. From his proximity I escaped as un.o.btrusively as I could and as promptly.
The cold douche and a swim in the cold pool had revived me. Also, in the cold pool I had encountered Nemestronia, still personable enough at eighty-odd to mingle daily with her social world, as nude as they, and enjoy herself thoroughly. Yet, at her age, she knew she looked better when under water, and spent most of her time in the pools. She and I did some fancy swimming together, while she questioned me about my health.