Last Act In Palmyra

Chapter XXXIX

Gadara called itself the Athens of the East. From this Eastern outpost had come the cynic satirist Menippos, the philosopher and poet Philodemos, who had had Virgil as his pupil in Italy, and the elegiac epigrammatist Meleager. Helena had read Meleager's poetic anthology The Garland, so before we arrived she enlightened me.

'His themes are love and death – '

'Very nice.'

'And he compares each poet he includes to a different flower.'

I said what I thought, and she smiled gently. Love and death are gritty subjects. Their appropriate handling by poets does not require myrtle petals and violets.

The city commanded a promontory above a rich and vital landscape, with stunning views to both Palestine and Syria, westwards over Lake Tiberias and north to the far snowcapped mountain peak of Mount Hermon. Nearby, thriving villages studded the surrounding slopes, which were lush with pasture-land. Instead of the bare tawny hills we had seen endlessly rolling elsewhere, this area was clothed with green fields and woodlands. Instead of lone nomadic goatherds, we saw chattering groups watching over fatter, fleecier flocks. Even the sunlight seemed brighter, enlivened by the nearby twinkling presence of the great lake. No doubt all the shepherds and swineherds in the desirable pastures were busy composing sunlit, elegantly elegiac odes. If they were kept awake at night struggling with metric imperfections in their verse, they could always put themselves off to sleep by counting their obols and drachmas; people here had no financial worries that I could see.

As always in our company, argument about what play to put on was raging; eventually, with matters still unresolved, Chremes and Philocrates, supported by Grumio, strolled off to see the local magistrate. Helena and I took a walk around town. We made enquiries about Thalia's lost musical maiden, fruitlessly as usual. We didn't much care; we were enjoying this short time alone together. We found ourselves following a throng of people who were ambling down from the acropolis to the river valley below.

Apparently the routine here was for the citizens to flock out in the evening, go to the river, bathe in its reputedly therapeutic waters, then flog back uphill (complaining) for their nightly dose of public entertainment. Even if bathing in the river had cured their aches, walking back afterwards up the precipitous slope to their lofty town was likely to set their joints again, and half of them probably caught a chill when they reached the cooler air. Still, if one or two had to take to their beds, all the more room on the comfortable theatre seats for folk who had come direct from the shop or the office without risking their health in water therapy.

We joined the crowds of people in their striped robes and twisted headgear on the banks of the river, where Helena cautiously dipped a toe while I stood aloof, looking Roman and superior. The late-evening sunlight had a pleasantly soothing effect. I could happily have forgotten both my searches and relaxed into the theatrical life for good.

Further along the bank I suddenly noticed Philocrates; he had not spotted us. He had been drinking – wine, presumably – from a goatskin. As he finished he stood up, demonstrating his physique for any watching women, then blew up the skin, tied its neck, and tossed it to some children who were playing in the water. As they fell on it, squealing with delight, Philocrates stripped off his tunic ready to dive into the river.

'You'd need a lot of those to fill a punnet!' giggled Helena, noticing that the naked actor was not well endowed.

'Size isn't everything,' I assured her.

'Just as well!'

She was grinning, while I wondered whether I ought to play the heavy-handed patriarch and censor whatever it was she had been reading to acquire such a low taste in jokes.

'There's a very odd smell, Marcus. Why do spa waters always stink?'

'To fool you into thinking they are doing you good. Who told you the punnet joke?'

'Aha! Did you see what Philocrates did with his wineskin?' 'I did. He can't possibly have killed Heliodorus if he's kind to children,' I remarked sarcastically.

Helena and I started the steep climb up from the elegant waterfront to the town high on its ridge. It was hard going, reminding us both of our wearying assault on the High Place at Petra.

Partly to gain a breathing space, but interested anyway, I stopped to have a look at the town's water system. They had an aqueduct that brought drinking water over ten miles from a spring to the east of the city; it then ran through an amazing underground system. One of the caps to a flue had been removed by some workmen for cleaning; I was leaning over the hole and staring down into the depths when a voice behind made me jump violently.

'That's a long drop, Falco!'

It was Grumio.

Helena had grabbed my arm, though her intervention was probably unnecessary. Grumio laughed cheerfully. 'Steady!' he warned, before clattering downhill the way we had just come.

Helena and I exchanged a wry glance. The thought crossed my mind that if someone fell down into those tunnels and the exit was re-covered, even if he survived the tumble no one would ever hear him call for help. His body would not be found until it had decayed so much that townsfolk started feeling poorly:

If Grumio had been a suspect who could not account for his movements, I might have found myself shivering.

Helena and I made our way back to camp slowly, amorously intertwined.

Not for the first time with this company, we had walked into a panic. Chremes and the others had been gone too long; Davos had sent Congrio to wander round town in his most unobtrusive manner, trying to find out where they were. As we reached the camp Congrio came scampering back, shrieking: 'They're all locked up!'

'Calm down.' I made a grab at him, and held him still. 'Locked up? What for?'

'It's Grumio's fault. When they got in to see the magistrate, it turned out he had been at Gerasa when we were there; he'd heard Grumio doing his comic turn. Part of it was insulting Gadarenes:' As I recalled Grumio's stand-up act, most of it had involved being rude about the Decapolis towns. Thinking of Helena's recent joke, we were only lucky he hadn't mentioned punnets in connection with the private parts of their pompous magistrates. Maybe he had never read whatever scroll Helena had found for herself. 'Now our lot are all thrown into prison for slander,' Congrio wailed.

I wanted my dinner. My chief reaction was annoyance. 'If Grumio said the Gadarenes were impetuous and touchy and have no sense of humour, where's the slander? It's obviously true! Anyway, that's nothing to what I heard him say about Abila and Dium.'

'I'm just telling you what I heard, Falco.'

'And I'm just deciding what we can do.'

'Cause a fuss,' suggested Davos. 'Tell them we intend to warn our Emperor about their unkind welcome for innocent visitors, then beat the local jailor over the head with a cudgel. After that, run like mad.'

Davos was the kind of man I could work with. He had a good grasp of a situation and a down-to-earth attitude to handling it.

He and I went into town together, dressed up to look like respectable entrepreneurs. We wore newly polished boots and togas from the costume box. Davos was carrying a laurel wreath for an even more refined effect, though I did think that was overdoing it.

We presented ourselves at the magistrate's house, looking surprised there could be a problem. The nob was out: at the theatre. We then presented ourselves at one end of the orchestra stalls and hung around for a break in what turned out to be a very poor satyr play. Davos muttered, 'At least they could tune their damned panpipes! Their masks stink. And their nymphs are rubbish.'

While we fretted on the sidelines, I managed to ask, 'Davos, have you ever seen Philocrates blow up an empty wineskin and throw it into water, the way children like to do? Is making floats a habit of his?'

'Not that I've noticed. I've seen the clowns do it.'

As usual, what had looked like a pinpointing clue caused more confusion than it solved.

Luckily satyr plays are short. A few disguises, a couple of mock rapes, and they gallop off-stage in their goatskin trousers.

At last there was a pause to let the sweetmeat trays go round. Seizing our moment we leapt across the pit to beard the elected nincompoop who had incarcerated our gang. He was an overbearing bastard. Sometimes I lose faith in democracy. Usually, in fact.

There was not much time to argue; we could hear tambourines rattling as a fleet of overweight female dancers prepared to come on-stage next and titillate with some choric frivolity in see-through skirts. After three minutes of fast talking we had achieved nothing with the official, and he signalled the theatre guards to shift us.

Davos and I left of our own accord. We went straight to the jail, where we bribed the keeper with half our proceeds from performing The Birds at Scythopolis. Anticipating trouble, we had already left instructions for the waggons and camels to be loaded up by my friends the scene-shifters. Once we had organised our jailbreak, we spent a few moments in the forum loudly discussing our next move eastwards to Capitolias, then we met the rest of our group on the road and galloped off in the northerly direction of Hippos.

We travelled fast, cursing the Gadarenes for the indelicate swine they had shown themselves to be.

So much for the Athens of the East!