Winter Quarters, page 13
‘Were your ancestors wiser than you? Did they also call on their ancestors? Who was your first ancestor?’ asked Nicanor, as though genuinely seeking information.
‘That’s one of your Greek traps, but it won’t catch me. The founder of my house was the Wargod, who once carried off a mortal maiden. By calling on my ancestors I call on the Wargod,’ said Acco proudly.
‘Ah yes. Now who is your Wargod? Is he Ares, whom the Romans call Mars?’
I interrupted, to close the exchange before tempers were lost.
‘Our Wargod has a name, though I don’t know it. Probably Acco has been told, since he once trained to be a Druid. But he cannot repeat the name to a Greek.’
‘I understand. It is a mystery. Where there is a mystery reason and argument are useless. For that matter I myself learned at Eleusis certain names which I may not repeat to strangers.’
‘There you are,’ said Acco, with a triumphant smile. ‘I thought you Greeks reverenced only reason, and worshipped the gods solely to make the crops grow. I see you have secrets also. I have a special reason for inquiring into these matters, since I have been driven into exile by the angry divinity of my native land. But the close of a supper party is no time to discuss such deep matters. Can we meet again, to have another talk and see the great temples on the Acropolis?’
We had concluded our business, and in four days must leave Athens for Thessalonica. We arranged to spend the next day but one with Nicanor.
On the intervening day Acco went off alone to inquire into the public facts about Athenian worship, which anyone will gladly tell to a stranger. When I came home in the evening, after some final calls in Piraeus, I found him restless and excited.
‘I have again met traces of the Goddess,’ he told me. ‘That armed maiden on the hill is an attendant on Skyfather, as we thought at first. But at Eleusis they worship a goddess by secret rites. They tell strangers of the annual pilgrimage to the shrine, and of the purification beforehand. There is nothing secret about it, except what they actually do in the temple when they get there.’
‘Can anyone go?’ I asked. ‘We might try it ourselves.’
‘It only comes once a year, so we can’t wait for it. I think any Greek can go, and they dare not forbid Romans, though they do not welcome them. Other foreigners are definitely forbidden to attend.’
‘Then don’t think about it any longer. I suppose Nicanor knows all about it, but he won’t tell us. A man who would reveal the secrets of his mystery is not to be believed anyway, so we shall never find out.’
‘Nicanor would not break an oath of secrecy, but when I have told him why the Goddess is my foe he may let us know whether the Goddess is the divinity worshipped at Eleusis. There can be no harm in that.’
Acco’s perpetual search for the Goddess was beginning to bore me; but strangers meeting him for the first time were often captivated by his eager curiosity. It was likely he would get something out of Nicanor.
We started next morning at sunrise, for Greeks keep earlier hours than Romans. All the same, when we reached the Acropolis it was already crowded. Nicanor read us the inscriptions on votive offerings and told us the history of each building. But there is nothing secret about the Acropolis. The maiden-goddess is obviously one of the warrior-maids who serve Skyfather, and the other principal god, though his legs are carved as serpents, is merely the human founder of the city, deified in reward for his achievement. Everything is clear and straightforward and on the whole kindly. They will tell you all about the ritual, and they never mention the Great Sacrifice.
From the battlements of the many-coloured marble fortress we could see Eleusis in the plain below. Acco told of the death of Grane and the killing of the bear, and then asked Nicanor to give us what information he could, without revealing holy secrets.
‘Gaul must be a very fearful place, and I’m not surprised you left it. But about Eleusis I can set your mind at rest. There we worship the mother of the fruitful earth, and her daughter who teaches the barley to grow. They are kindly ladies, and when we have fulfilled our ritual they grant us another gift as well, which I may not speak of. They hunt neither men nor beasts, and blood is not offered to them.’
‘Then they are not Pyrene,’ said Acco with relief. ‘Though she is sometimes both Bride and Mother, she is always then the Terrible One as well. If she is not single she must be triple.’
I saw that Nicanor was suddenly reminded of something unpleasant. A shadow passed over his face. But at the time he said nothing.
From the Acropolis we went on to the Theatre, where Nicanor spoke of Dionysius and the Bacchic rites. In this there seemed to be a smell of the Goddess; but what they worshipped was undoubtedly male, as we could see from the statues nearby. I suppose it is possible for men to make magic by themselves, without the help of women; though in Gaul we would never attempt such foolishness.
When we had seen enough of the wonders of Athens we went to dinner at the best tavern in the city. Nicanor ordered, for he knew what to ask for; but I paid, from army funds. In Greece the food is never so good as in Rome, but the wine is often better.
Nicanor, an excitable youth, was on fire with a new plan which had just entered his head. He proposed to join the Army of Syria, if we could find him some post where there would be no drilling and he could live in comfort. He explained that his father had sent him abroad only to gain business experience; he had chosen Athens, but any mercantile city would have done as well. The Piraeus branch was run by his clerks, who could get on without him. The Army of Syria promised to be a more important business centre than any of the ancient and bankrupt cities of Greece; if he could make friends at headquarters he might get valuable orders for the family workshops.
I did not see why we should recommend him to headquarters, rather than any other merchant who had been useful to us. It was quite as an afterthought that the scatterbrained young man mentioned his important qualifications.
‘We mustn’t sell you too much leather,’ he said casually, ‘or you will find all your baggage-animals have been killed for their hides. My father buys his skins from the desert Arabs, and I suppose you will want these Arabs to supply guides and transport. If I come with you I shall meet some old friends. I have travelled all over the desert, selling wine and buying camels, as far as the Tigris. I am rusty in the language, but I expect it will come back when I hear it spoken.’
‘You know the frontier, and the people who live on it?’
‘Of course I know the people who live in the cities beyond Tigris and Euphrates. They are as Greek as I am. No one notices that desert frontier, except sometimes to pay customs-dues if there is no easy way of dodging the collectors. Haven’t you heard that the whole east, right up to India, is really Greek? Nearly three hundred years ago our Greek Alexander conquered it for civilisation, and whether ruled by barbarous Romans or by barbarous Parthians it remains Greek.’
‘Then you must come with me to Marcus Crassus,’ I said firmly. ‘You will be attached to headquarters as guide and interpreter. No one will ask you to drill, and you will live as softly as any soldier on campaign. Afterwards, when we have restored the empire of Alexander, you will have something to boast about to your grandchildren.’
‘And at the same time I shall be making money for my father. Of course I will come with you.’
He told us stories of his travels in the desert, which Acco capped with stories of the uncanny wonders of the Druids; until the people of the tavern begged us to leave, for the whole city was asleep. Then we said good night and parted; but while Acco walked back to our lodging I made an excuse to get away (Acco thought I wanted to be sick) and ran to overtake our guest.
‘When we spoke of the Triple Goddess this afternoon something came into your mind, though you said nothing openly. I saw it in your eyes. Tell me now, privately, while Acco thinks himself safe. There may be a danger of which I should warn him.’
‘When you mentioned the Triple Goddess I thought of Hecate, that’s all,’ Nicanor answered. ‘But she is not worshipped officially by the magistrates of the city. You will find her images at forks in the open road, usually three women exactly alike. Yet some older statues show her as an old woman, a desirable bride, and a huntress; just like your Goddess.’
‘And who worships her, if the magistrates neglect her?’
‘Ignorant old women, and a few young ones who are angry with their lovers. No one of importance.’
I thanked Nicanor, and with a heavy heart rejoined Acco. That night as we undressed for bed I broke the news to him: the Goddess rules in Attica, as she rules in the rest of the earth.
Next day we went up for a last look at Athene in her lovely shrine. She stands there armed, gazing straight ahead from a cold and perfect face, flawless but not desirable. The Athenians call her the Maiden, but in truth she is neither male nor female. A maiden waits to fulfil herself as a bride; Athene is intelligence without flesh. The Romans know her as Minerva, patron of wisdom and learning. Looking on that cold statue I felt she had no part in the loves and hates of men, but in their reasons only.
The same thought must have come to Acco; as we left the temple he said, sneering: ‘The finest statue in the world, as any Athenian will tell you. Yet it is nothing but a gold-and-ivory doll. I don’t complain that there is no woman in it; they were not trying to make it look like a woman. But there is no divinity either. The divine comprehends emotion; that thing has just found out that two and two make four, and will never make a deeper discovery.’
‘It’s a fine building and a beautiful image inside. No one asks us to worship her. We can admire, and reverence the man who made her,’ I answered.
‘Oh yes, reverence some man. That’s what this teaches, everything round here. They build a mass of expensive temples on this hilltop, but really they worship nothing but man and his intelligence.’
Within half an hour we were proved wrong. Not far from the Propylaea, the fortified gateway of the Acropolis, lay the state prison. Yesterday Nicanor had pointed it out, for it is famous as the place where a learned man long ago suffered an unjust death, and every stranger in Athens asks to see it. It is still in use as a prison, and we did not like to approach too closely for fear of offending the guards. As we passed we saw a group of prisoners exercising in a little yard; several loiterers were staring, and we thought it safe to join them.
The prisoners looked like prisoners all the world over; dirty and hungry and anxious to give no trouble to their keepers. All except one couple. The first was a man all right, as his beard proved, but he was dressed as a woman. He was very ugly. Fettered to him was another very ugly man, in male attire. These two scowled at the guards, who kept their distance and seemed nervous of angering the strange pair.
A horrid little urchin came up to pester us, as urchins pester strangers all over Athens. ‘Meet my sister, very cheap, very clean,’ he began – and then broke off with a snigger. ‘Take care, barbarians,’ he went on in a mocking tone. ‘Don’t look at the poison. It might poison you.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Acco gravely. ‘How can a man in woman’s dress be poison?’
The child continued to gabble in the whining broken Latin beggar-boys learn in their cradles. ‘Poison, bad luck, ugly … all the same thing. Never mind. Next month, whack, skulls cracked, no more poison. Pharmakoi, ugly, soon dead.’ As the queer couple looked towards us he dropped his head, to avoid meeting their glance. Then he returned to praising the charms of his sister until Acco frowned and he ran away.
Acco never forgot a strange word, I suppose because as an Ovate he had spent years of his life learning meaningless spells by rote. That evening, as we paid the reckoning for our horses, he suddenly shot at the Latin-speaking head ostler: ‘Who are the Pharmakoi, and what do you do to them?’
‘This year they are a couple of bandits from the Isthmian road,’ the man answered readily. Then he saw what Acco was at, and explained more fully. ‘It’s a very old custom, and there’s nothing cruel about it. In fact it does them a kindness, keeping them alive until the festival. You see, they are criminals who deserve death anyway. We never kill men for fun, as they do in some cities. Surely you understand? In a place this size there must be a lot of bad luck. We put it all on the two ugliest criminals in the gaol. One ought by rights to be a woman, but women don’t often commit serious crimes, or if they do they are too artful to be caught. So one of them wears woman’s dress and pretends to be a woman. Then when the right day comes we take them out of the city, with our bad luck on them. The boys throw stones, and there’s our bad luck gone; until next year, of course.’
He saw our interest, and went on making excuses for his city.
‘I know you gentlemen are not really Romans. You won’t take offence if I tell you that we think some Roman customs beastly. We never kill men for fun. Romans tie brigands to a cross until they die slowly; we crack their heads with stones so fast they feel no pain. But there must be two Pharmakoi, one for the men and one for the women. Otherwise we should never be rid of our bad luck.’
Acco thanked him with a piece of silver. When we were out in the street he clasped me by the arm. ‘This is what happens to the Great Sacrifice when there are no Druids to perform the rites with due reverence. These people boast that they worship only the Lady of Reason, but in her name they do some very odd things.’
‘Is this something that gives pleasure to the Goddess?’
‘Of course it is. They do other things as well. Do you know that the slang name here for a pretty girl is a little bear? That’s because their young girls dress up as bears to dance round the image of the Bear Lady. One of the tavern-pimps told me, but I kept it to myself. Yes, the Goddess rules here, in the very stronghold of reason.’
Next morning when we rode north Acco did not turn for one last look at the great shining citadel. Nicanor, who rode with us, was surprised that any foreigners should leave Athens without a backward glance.
At Thessalonica we were once more in the male world, where there is no room for the Goddess. The army was preparing for active service. Besides the legions in their square camp other detachments arrived daily: Greek engineers of the siege-train, Thracian skirmishers whose long hair and broad sabres reminded me of Gallic foot, naked slingers from the islands. Presently the Gallic horse rode in, weary after their tremendous journey from the distant shores of Ocean.
There were more than a thousand of them, all gallant young nobles of high birth, and many of them the oath-bound comrades of Publius Crassus. They had been chosen from a crowd of volunteers, for the expedition was extremely popular. Adventurous young warriors who feared to oppose the Romans at home, and yet thought that fighting for Rome against Gallic rebels looked like treachery, saw it as a way out; in Syria they would be respectable mercenaries, not subjects fighting for a new master.
Presently we took up our march again, still riding into the sunrise. For Acco and me the journey had been broken by our stay in Rome, but our comrades had ridden from Gaul as fast as their horses could carry them; they were awed by the extent of the world and the length of the road. Their talk brought it home to us that we were a very long way from the valleys of the Elusates.
They had heard tell, of course, of our Accursed March from the City. Most of them considered it a trick of Roman politics which could not harm free allies who had not been present; and the few doubters were encouraged by Acco’s cheerfulness.
‘We know what a curse can do, we Gauls who obey the Druids,’ he said when he heard grumbling at our promised ill-luck. ‘Armies are blighted by disease, or fortresses hidden by magic mists. When our wise men call down the wrath of the Wargod, the army they have cursed does not march a thousand miles unharmed. Who among us has been injured by the curses of old Capito? The gods knew he was making a political speech, and they paid no attention. We are safe enough, as safe as any men who fight for a living.’
Most of our comrades agreed that a curse of real power would have already brought some spectacular result; the others, the really god-fearing, were impressed by the devout practice of the Roman army. Every morning before we set out the Proconsul sacrificed an ox, reverently inspecting the entrails. The standards of the legions, sacred emblems of the Wargod, twice a day received incense and barley-meal. In this army the gods were served; they should not be hostile.
The savage hills of Thrace now lay on our left, and the sea on our right. We marched in due order, with a cavalry screen and advance-guard, while light-armed skirmishers made good the heights before legions and baggage were committed to a defile. Thus we would march until we encountered the enemy, though we had many hundreds of miles to go; for to the eastward the Roman dominions have no definite border, and though we marched through lands which had submitted to Lucullus or Pompeius we might meet war at any moment.
We continued eastward until we reached the city of Byzantium, and then turned to the south, crossing an arm of the sea which seems more like a wide river. Since we left Thessalonica we had traversed a patchwork of cities and kingdoms which were in name free allies of Rome. In fact, they were as obedient to a Roman army as the oldest and most peaceful province. However, now that we were in Asia there might be trouble from Pontus or Armenia, newly won in the last few years. One reason why we took such a roundabout route was to impress the natives, lest while we were engaged with the Parthians there should be trouble in our rear.
Acco and I had eased ourselves into one of those comfortable berths which can be acquired, if you are sober and tactful, in most large armies. Our duties lay partly in the quartermaster’s department, partly with the Gallic horse. Since Longinus, the quartermaster, and Publius Crassus, the commander of the horse, were both overworked, neither bothered to control us; so long as we gave no trouble and looked busy we could ride with our friends the Gauls and dine in the comfort of headquarters. Whenever we passed a place that seemed interesting we left the ranks to go sightseeing, explaining that we must get in touch with a local merchant. Other staff officers enjoyed the same freedom, though if one of them got scandalously drunk or molested a Roman citizen, the high command became aware of his existence and he was returned to regular duty. Our independence depended on continued good behaviour.
