Gates Of Hades

JOURNAL OF SEVERENUS TACTUS

Gulf of Naples

Campania, Italy

The sun was beginning to set behind the mountains to the west when I reined my horse in at the top of a hill. The Bay of Baia shimmered gold in the setting sun. Even though the town at the bottom of the hill was only a mixture of white marble and lengthening shadows, the thought of my coming visit to the underworld somehow gave it a sinister pall.

As I started downward, I could see the villa of Agrippa, ^1 a place I had once visited long ago with my father. The general had been old then and must now be ancient, but I knew he still had the ear of the emperor for whom he had won so many batdes. ^2 He and my father had had a long relationship that ended for reasons I knew not when I was barely twelve. Should I survive my ordeal, I decided to pay him a visit.

Spurring the horse forward, I made for the inn where I had taken a single room. There, sometime in the night, I would be taken away to a place unknown, to a bath, where I would be purified by steam and by magic potions for two days before entering Hades.

In the inn's courtyard, I let the thirsty horse plunge its nose into the impluvium. ^3 Once the beast was sated, I handed the reins to a waiting groom and swung a leg over the animal's back.

"Be quick to dismount, Severenus," came a voice from behind me.

Turning, I saw a figure in a black cape, his face concealed both by its folds and the final darkness of the night.

"Who tells me when to dismount?" I snapped, unused to taking orders since my father's death.

Undaunted, the stranger replied, "The dead tell you. In your room you will find suitable vestmenta. Once you have put them on, come outside and follow the slave with the torch."

"It is dark. Any slave on the street will be carrying a torch for his master."

"Then you must select the correct one."

The stranger stepped back into the deeper of the shadows. By the time I reached the spot where he had been, the man was gone.

On the way to my room I was accosted by a young girl, perhaps ten or eleven, her face gaudily painted. Prostitutes were not allowed to solicit business at respectable inns, since several men occupied the same bed. The farther one got from Rome, the less enthusiasm the local authorities had for enforcing the rule.

I shooed her away. As she slunk down the stairs with a sultry look far beyond her years, I wondered what such a meeting might portend. ^4

I retired to my cubiculum ^5 to change. On top of the rough-woven covers was a cloak similar to the one I had seen in the courtyard below. Stripping off my horse- sweat-soaked clothes, I exchanged them for a clean tunic, over which I tossed the new cloak and went back downstairs. Outside the gate to the inn, a lone slave waited with a torch.

I followed down dark and deserted alleys, fearful of robbers or worse, until we came to a marble-lined doorway dug into the side of a hill. The hair on the back of my neck felt as though it were rising when the door swung open without sign or sound from my guide. Inside, a long hallway was lit by lamps.

My guide wordlessly stood aside and pointed to an open door through which I entered a small room. Its dimensions were such that I could neither lie down nor stand erect. As the door shut, the light of lamps revealed the most terrifying paintings on the walls: people with various deforming and hideous diseases, old age, hunger, death, insanity, and all matter of evil were vividly displayed. ^6 Had I known I would be left alone to confront such fearful images, visited only on occasion, as food and drink were brought by silent figures who left after refreshing the lamps, I might have wavered in my resolve to come here. ^7

Whether day or a night-I could not tell-a single bowl was placed before me filled with vegetables cooked in strange spices. After each meal, a different god or spirit would appear, though none would converse with me. ^8 At other intervals, my keepers would bathe me with strange-smelling waters and massage my body with oils. ^9

I know not how long I remained there, but at least twice priests in black robes with high, pointed headgear ^10 sacrificed one of the bullocks I had provided, examined its liver, and, finding the lobes flawed, postponed my journey. With each delay, the spirits who visited me became increasingly angry, and I began to wonder if I would go mad.

NOTES

1. Not to be confused with his father, Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, senator and statesman.

2. Notably Actium, a sea battle in which the forces of Antony and Cleopatra were defeated 31 b.c.

3. A small pond that was the opening to the cistern common to villas and inns where the viaducts did not run or did not supply sufficient water.

4. Few things in Roman life were without possible significance in foretelling the future: the formation of a flight of birds, the frequency of croaking frogs, persons accidentally met on the street. Like most ancient cultures, the Romans used a number of methods to ascertain their fortunes: extispicy, or augury by inspection of animal entrails, particularly the liver, oracles, and omens. Interestingly, astrology did not become a popular method of divination in Rome until about the time of Christ, although other cultures-Babylonian, Egyptian, Greek-had seen the future in the stars for millennia.

5. A closet-sized, windowless room usually large enough to hold only the bed. Any activity other than deeping was conducted elsewhere. A stone slab was covered with a stuffed cloth mattress.

6. Virgil's Aeneid gives a similar description of such a room.

7. Alone, confronted by his fears, perpetual light, cramped and uncomfortable quarters, sleep deprivation, visited only by those bringing sustenance, at the mercy of unknown keepers- Tactus's captivity bears a remarkable resemblance to so-called brainwashing techniques or modern interrogation methods designed to break down the subject's resistance and perception of reality.

8. Pliny the Elder tells of a number of hallucinogenic plants with oracular connections, such as thorn apple, whose roots were made into a sort of tea; and henbane and nightshade (belladonna), both deadly poisons if used carelessly. Indeed, Greco-Roman oracular history is full of pilgrims to the underworld who never returned, their "spirits having been retained by other shades." Other accounts tell of travelers to Hades whose dispositions were forever changed or who died within months of their return. Coincidence or misuse of drugs?

9. The skin, the body's largest organ, is absorbent, as anyone who has ever used anything as common as suntan lotion knows. What is frequently overlooked is the skin's ability to absorb drugs applied as salves or ointments.

10. The conical hats of religious penitents, medieval witches, and the Ku Klux Klan.