The Chiron Confession

VII

The death march to the Tullianum prison ended in the Forum at the base of Capitoline Hill, where the ancients used to quarry. Indeed, the prison was really nothing but a hole in the ground to hold very important prisoners until their execution. Common-day criminals were usually marched up the hill’s adjoining Gemonian Stairs and beheaded, their skulls bouncing down the flight of stone steps like so many melons. So in some ways his stay at the Tullianum was an honor. He was about to join the ranks of foreign generals like Jugurtha and Vercingetorix, and domestic conspirators like Publius Cornelius Lentulus Sura and the apostles Peter and Paul.

The prison was underground with two levels. The guards were on the upper level, the prisoners kept in the lower level. The walls were made of blocks of volcanic tuff rock. To Athanasius, who was being processed on the upper level, the effect was that of standing in the bottom of a small pyramid with a flat top.

“Interesting accommodations,” Athanasius quipped to mask his horror. “Do you have any better?”

The warden, a surly old fart with a face that looked like a smashed melon, told the Praetorian escort that the prisoner’s armor had arrived. With a mixture of dread and curiosity, Athanasius suddenly wondered what cruel fate Ludlumus had devised for him in the arena tomorrow.

The guards unlocked his chains to strip him of his toga and tunic. Now he stood naked but for his loincloth. They slipped a red tunic over his head, and over that a centurion’s subarmalis or leather armor.

“Look at this, Chiron,” the warden said, reading from a note. “You get a ‘belt of truth’ and ‘breastplate of righteousness.’ Me thinks this is some of the ‘spiritual armor’ that one of our former inmates, Paul, used to instruct his followers in Ephesus to sport in spiritual battle. Too bad it couldn’t save his head from Nero’s ax man. But I’ll bet you make a fine spectacle in it tomorrow.”

They tied a legionary belt around his waist, then strapped him into a heavy lorica segmentata with polished armored plates. Athanasius knew the gleaming plates were for effect in the arena, to shine under the beating sun and highlight his own blood once the blade of a sword or spear had slipped through the plates.

Ludlumus was going to make him fight to the death. The depths of this impending public spectacle of his humiliation had now moved him beyond self-pity and a sense of loss to pure, unadulterated rage. He knew in his heart that this was the last moment before the arena that he would be free of chains, and despite the odds of one man against four guards — two Praetorian, two prison — and a warden, he would get no better.

The warden said, “You’ll get your ‘shield of faith’ and ‘sword of the spirit’ tomorrow, just before you’re launched into the arena. For now, take the ‘helmet of salvation.’”

Athanasius took the centurion’s helmet from the warden. It had brass accents and the infamous red plume. The plume, he knew, was less for décor than for the optical effect of making a centurion look taller.

“You know, I wore a helmet like this once to a costume party with my girlfriend, the model Helena,” he told the guards, and he could tell by their response that they all knew of Helena and had probably fantasized about her every time they passed a statue in her image. “Funny thing is, my eyes still only reached the tip of her nose, and I was staring at her nostrils the whole evening.”

They started laughing at the comic playwright, who was certainly different from the usual vermin. But as they laughed, Athanasius took the helmet and smashed the warden’s head. The warden cried out as his face split in a bloody gash.

“A considerable improvement,” Athanasius said, grabbing the sword from the warden’s side and spinning around in time to drive it into the gut of the oncoming Praetorian from behind. Athanasius put his foot to the stomach of the Praetorian and pushed him into the other one. They both fell back onto the stone floor.

The two remaining prison guards circled Athanasius with a long chain between them, lingering beyond the reach of his sword. They crisscrossed him with the chain, tightening it around him.

Athanasius rushed the closest guard while he could and tackled him to the ground. He ripped off the guard’s helmet and began to smash his head with it when he heard the clank of chains. He felt something heavy and blunt hit him in the head from behind, then he blacked out.

Athanasius awoke in the darkness of the dungeon below, chained to the wall in his heavy armor. At one time prisoners had to be lowered through the floor of the upper room. But he had a dim recollection of being dragged in his armor down a flight of stone steps to this dungeon, all to the murderous threats of the bellowing warden.

His head throbbed inside its “helmet of salvation,” and his shoulders drooped from the weight of his armor. His body felt dead to the world, his spirit crushed from the realization that he was about to depart this earth with so many unfinished dreams. The end always came more swiftly than the characters in his plays ever expected, and so it was with his own life.

In the silence he heard only the distant sound of running water somewhere, and then made out a small cistern drain in the dimness. It was probably connected to the Cloaca Maxima — Rome’s central sewer known as the Great Drain.

He ran his dry tongue over his teeth, touched his fingers together and squeezed his toes to confirm he still possessed these and other bodily appendages. The warden and guards would have killed him on the spot were he not already condemned to a public execution. To deny the mob its entertainment seemed a worse crime than murder in Rome.

Athanasius ruminated over his sorry twist of fate and what would become of Helena. I have become the very tragic hero that I mock in my comedies, he thought. Now only my ghost will haunt the Pompey like Julius Caesar — if Pliny can figure a way Rome can profit from it. Athanasius could already hear the tour operators: “He killed the gods in his plays only to be killed by their wrath. Hear ye and be warned, citizens of Rome!” That’s how he would play it, and raise the tour price. Two ghosts were better than one, and the new one should at least bring a sense of humor. Yes, Pliny would make sure of it.

But the thought passed as he realized the cold, cruel truth that while it might keep him alive to some, his body would decompose in the earth, or be fed to dogs, and the glory and immortality he sought as a playwright would die with him in the grave.

Surely, this cannot be the end. This was too rushed, his epic poem cut short. Now he would be the butt of jokes.

Could he hang himself in his chains? Get a guard to fetch him poison? Yes, Helena or Pliny might smuggle him some. That would be better than whatever sort of entertainment Ludlumus was planning to extinguish him in. The famous Death Relay, perhaps, to humiliate him by not singling him out for execution but by making him a bit player?

This was it, he feared — the greatest horror of the Games, to not even be the center of attention. He would not die an infamous death, but a relatively anonymous one. Surely the cruelest death of all.

It didn’t matter. Rome had won, because Rome had had the last word on him.

Or had it? Perhaps there was something he could say, or signal at his death, so that he got the last word in, somehow. Some small triumph, even if it was spelled out with his own blood on the white sand of the arena floor.

He thought of September 18, mere months away, and gnashed his teeth that he should perish so close to the prophesied end of Domitian, if only it were so.

He thought of Helena and his family in Corinth. The Romans always went after family. He was worried that he had not lived well, which was the most important thing to him in life. Socrates took the poison. He, on the other hand, bowed before Caesar to save himself, betraying himself and his ideals. He rationalized that it was for Helena. But if it was for Helena, then it was for himself.

He was tormented most of all by questions. Why him? What could he have written that was worthy of death? Why on earth the accusation of Chiron?

None of it made any sense.

It’s over. The show is over, like Ludlumus said.

There were plays I have yet to write, a life with Helena I have yet to live. What will happen to her? Who will provide for her? What will happen to my plays? My body of work? He knew he was spinning out of control.

Calm down, Athanasius. Perhaps there is still a way out of this. There must be a way. Even on the arena floor. Something to get the mob to move Caesar’s hand and make him an exception.

Oh, Jupiter, he prayed. Spare me, and I will serve you. I will never mock you again under any name. I will write plays for you, and mock those like me who mock you. People will buy your idols and make sacrifices to you.

He knew it was pure magic, the kind of pointless prayer that Helena made to gods who were not there but figments of imagination. But he took comfort in knowing she was praying for him too.

And then, as if by magic, he heard a noise outside the door. A key rattled in the lock.

A faint flicker of hope began to stir inside him. Perhaps Domitian wished to show himself generous and merciful! Perhaps Pliny and Maximus had bargained him a reprieve, an offer to write a glorious ode to Domitian in exchange for freedom! Or even just Helena to say her goodbye. To see her face one last time would be enough.

Yes, perhaps salvation had come.

The door swung open, the light of a torch splashing on the dirty floor, and in walked Ludlumus.

“Third-act trouble, Athanasius?”

Athanasius propped his tired back against the wet wall and sunk his head on his chest in despair.

Ludlumus shut the door and hung the oil lamp on an iron hook nailed to the ceiling. The effect cast light on him like an actor on the stage. He removed a clay tablet and stylus from the fold of his toga.

Athanasius spoke in a dry, cracked voice. “You’re the one who will pray for deus ex machina, Ludlumus. It’s only a matter of time before Domitian does to you what he’s done to me.”

“So that’s your confession, Athanasius? You are innocent and Caesar is guilty?”

“Yes.”

Athanasius could feel Ludlumus stare at him thoughtfully, and then watched him put away the tablet and stylus. Whatever was about to be said, he realized, was not going to be recorded.

“And how did you come to this conclusion?”

“Motive,” Athanasius said. “For all his so-called evidence, Regulus never established a believable motive for me to be Chiron. I, on the other hand, have found two personal motivations for Domitian to get rid of me.”

“Tell me.”

“Either Domitian wants to get his hands on Helena for himself, or he wants to keep me out of the hands of his wife Domitia.”

“I’m impressed, Athanasius. You figured this all out here in the dark?”

“So which is it?”

“It doesn’t matter, Athanasius. Did you really believe you could pen comedies about the rape and death of gods and get away with it? Domitian needs no personal motivation. Your own works are reason enough to execute you.”

“Then why bother accusing me of being this Christian terrorist Chiron? It makes no sense. Executing me doesn’t rid Rome of the real Chiron. Unless…”

“Unless what, Athanasius?”

Athanasius knew he had struck a nerve. “Unless, of course, you are Chiron.”

Ludlumus began to laugh at the joke, as if he wished he had come up with that one himself. “Not quite, Athanasius. But you are very close.”

“Then it’s Domitian.”

“Try again.”

Now Ludlumus was cruelly teasing him. Athanasius was out of suspects. Then it struck him, an idea so simple and horrific he wondered how he didn’t think of it first.

“There is no Chiron, is there, Ludlumus? You invented him.”

Ludlumus actually clapped his hands. “Bravo, Athanasius.”

Athanasius began to breathe faster, his mind racing. His hunch about Chiron was right, but it didn’t explain everything. “Why? How? You certainly didn’t invent Dominium Dei, did you? How could you? It’s been around for decades.”

“True, but instead of the Dei infiltrating Rome, Rome has infiltrated the Dei. Now Caesar can assassinate senators or other threats to the empire and pin the blame on Christians, whom we then feed to the Games. It’s all economical.”

“Economical?!” Athanasius exclaimed.

“All right then, let’s call it… poetic,” Ludlumus said. “Like the poetry of the Flavian Amphitheater itself. Rome’s temple of death was financed with the treasures that Vespasian looted from the Jews after Titus destroyed their great temple almost 30 years ago. Of course, the Judean War cost a million lives on both sides. So to pacify the mobs back home, the Flavians built their eponymous coliseum as a political weapon. By making the Games the center of our universe, they’ve practically been getting away with anything else ever since.”

“So the Dei is an imperial organization, not Christian,” Athanasius stated for his own understanding. “Only the Christians don’t know it, do they?”

“No. Too bad you won’t live to tell them.”

Something wasn’t right, Athanasius thought. But he couldn’t put his finger on it, and he couldn’t let Ludlumus go yet without learning of Helena.

“What is to happen to Helena? Tell me, Ludlumus. You owe me at least that much.”

“Why torture yourself even more, Athanasius?” Ludlumus asked, although he seemed quite pleased to go on. “If you must know, Domitian is confiscating her instead of the house on Caelian Hill. She will be allowed to keep it, but must remain on call for whenever her emperor requires her affection.”

“No!” Athanasius screamed until his throat went raw and twisted like a rag. And then the tears that he had been holding back for hours burst forth like a flood, and he sobbed.

“If it’s any consolation, Athanasius, I finally made you interesting. Helena and all Rome now think you are Chiron. As for the Christians, some might even mourn you as a hero.”

Athanasius lifted his head and through tears of rage looked at Ludlumus. “Caelus the astrologer.”

“What about him?”

“That business in Ephesus was something else. Something that went wrong. Domitian didn’t want him dead. Not his precious astrologer.”

Ludlumus paused, as if mulling over whether he would answer, then apparently decided that Athanasius was a dead man and it didn’t matter. “We control the Dei at the very top. But as you can imagine, there are far more dupes who have no idea who they are really working for. Some true believers took matters into their own hands with Caelus.”

“So that’s what rattled Domitian, and why you had to produce Chiron in public. You, Domitian’s little dog.”

“You have it all wrong, Athanasius. My stage is much bigger than the arena now. Your trial tonight should be proof enough for you. Think about it. Caesar says he is Lord and God. Yet the Games control his destiny; if he loses the mob, he loses Rome. I am the Master of the Games. Therefore, I control Caesar. And if I control Caesar, then I, Ludlumus, am the true god of this world and hold the keys to Hades.”

“Then I’ll go and prepare a special place for you down there.”

Ludlumus yawned at the empty threat, signaling that confession time was over.

“I had it in the back of my head to come and free you, Athanasius. To call it all a big mistake. To keep Chiron out there, and to make Domitian look merciful. If only for Helena’s sake. But once again you’ve proven that any thought that comes into your head must come out of your mouth. Now you have to die. You know too much. Far more than I would have given you credit for. Interrogator!”

The door opened to reveal several torches bobbing in the stairwell, and a decorated Praetorian saluted. “Sir!”

“Cut out his tongue and bring it outside,” Ludlumus instructed as he stepped out. “I’ll have a man from the palace kitchen waiting for you. Domitian would like to eat it with his favorite wine tomorrow evening to celebrate Chiron’s death. He will then enjoy the model Helena for dessert.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Oh, and no further questions for the prisoner — or you might as well cut out your own tongue.”

“Understood, sir.”

With that Athanasius watched Ludlumus turn his back on him forever and stride out while the Praetorian interrogator marched in, his black cape fluttering as he closed the door behind him. Slowly, carefully, he removed a short, rather sinister-looking blade and let it glint in the dim light.

“Trust me, Chiron,” he said. “This won’t take long.”