Andivius Hedulio: Adventures of a Roman Nobleman in the Days of the Empire

by Edward Lucas White

The apparitor who had gone off before the trial began produced a barber.

"Trim his hair and beard!" Ravillanus ordered. And I had to submit to having my long locks shorn and my beard clipped close, leaving me far too like my true former self for my comfort, since I still had hopes of Agathemer catching the real murderers in time to save me from the doom impending over me because of the fanaticism of Ravillanus, while I anticipated nothing but inescapable death should I be recognized as not Phorbas, but as Andivius Hedulio.

I was then, late in the afternoon of the Kalends of July, haled off to the Colosseum and immured in one of the cells of the lowermost crypt, far below the street level. To my amazement I found myself sharing the cell with Narcissus, who had been similarly condemned to exposure to the beasts, as the murderer of Commodus.

Together we spent five dreadful days in the darkness, dampness, chill and foulness of that tiny cell. I found that influence such as Tanno and Vedia possessed and cash such as they had at their disposal, could do much even for the occupant of such a cell, destined to such a doom. I was visited by Galen, more than once, and he emphasized the still hopeful possibility, nay probability, that Agathemer might, in time, save me, run down and bring before a magistrate the real murderers. I was gloomy, I admit. But his presence in that horrible hole and his words cheered me, by brightening the hope I had never wholly lost.

Also I was tended, massaged, rubbed, chafed, washed each day in warm water brought in big pails and poured into a big, shallow pan; I was anointed; clothed in a comfortable tunic, strengthened with plenty of good food and strong wine and provided with a cot and bedding and blankets. I was able to have Narcissus indulged also, in order that he might be a less unpleasant cell-mate.

He talked to me freely of life in the Palace, of Commodus, of Marcia, of Ducconius Furfur, of his own fatal mistake, of the amazing likeness, even apparent identity, between Furfur and Commodus, of the naturalness of his inability to tell them apart.

I drank and ate all the food and wine I could swallow, slept all I could, and tried to be hopeful.

Thus passed five horrible days and six hideous nights.

After no more than twelve days, as I learned later, Severus felt himself securely established as Prince of the Republic. By spending almost every moment of daylight on official business, denying himself more than the merest minimum of sleep and food, he had put every department of the government sufficiently in order to feel assured of their smooth and effective operation. His troops were now all outside the City, comfortably camped, well supplied and content; the City was orderly and its life had resumed its normal aspect and activities. He felt free to win the regard of the populace by magnificent exhibitions in the amphitheater, on the occasion of the eight days of the Games of Apollo, beginning the day before the Nones of July.

Early next day Narcissus and I were haled from our cell and led, by passages only too well known to me since my service in the Choragium, to the iron-gated doorway from which condemned criminals were thrust out into the arena for the lions or other beasts to tear. From inside that doorway I could look across the sand of the arena and could see not only the herald on his tiny platform, elevated above the leap of the most agile panther, not only the arena-wall opposite me, but also the faces of the senators in their private boxes on the podium, even a portion of the nobility behind them and of the populace higher up and further back.