The Etruscan by Mika Waltari

Posted by admin_akashic on Mar 10th, 2022 in Stories

Tertius Valerius did not have another paralytic stroke despite the fervent wishes of his relatives who had long suffered the taunts of the man diey considered simple-minded. Even as a youth he had been so untalented in comparison to both his intelligent brothers that he had been called simply Tertius, the third son, while in the Senate he was known as Brutus, the imbecile.

But he was not untalented. His gifts were merely of another kind than those of his politically astute brothers who performed glorious deeds for Rome and rose to be first among the first. Every man, even an apparently simple one, has his own talent which is peculiar to him and which is perhaps never recognized by those around him if he has no opportunity to reveal it. Others are given the opportunity only once. Such, among the Romans, was the one-eyed Horatius who, although only a stupid, brawny man, remained alone on the Etruscan shore to defend the Roman bridgehead until the others behind him had time to destroy the bridge. Bull-headed stupidity was his talent, even though Lars Porsenna did conquer the city despite his stand.

Such lands and wealth as Tertius Valerius possessed could not have been accumulated by a stupid man. Nor was it ambition, in my opinion, that drove him to yield his sons to the lictors but rather an excessive sense of responsibility as a Roman and a desire to emulate his admired brothers. The Etruscans who were descended from patrician families strove to be even more Roman than the Romans themselves, attempting by their actions to dispel the understandable skepticism of the plebeians. One would have thought that those of Etruscan origin would have desired the return of Etruscan kings to Rome, but they did not. They preferred to rule the city and the people as patricians, senators and state officials.

Because of Arsinoe’s nearness and my simple care, Tertius Valerius quickly recovered from his paralytic stroke and was deeply grateful to us both. When he had emerged from his twilight condition he no longer imagined Arsinoe to be his deceased wife, although he remembered well that he had done so. He believed merely that his wife’s spirit had fleet-ingly transferred herself to Arsinoe’s body so that she might care for him tenderly. He declared himself fortunate to have been able to beg her forgiveness for having disregarded her pleas and sacrificed their sons.

When he was again able to move about, I had a skilled massager manipulate his face carefully so that his eyelid no longer drooped as badly as before. Saliva still trickled from his twisted lip, but Arsinoe wiped his beard like a devoted daughter with a warm linen towel that she kept nearby. She also began to supervise the household, patiently advising the old slaves and servants, so that the old man received better food than formerly. Likewise the rooms were swept every day, the dust was wiped from the Penates and the dishes were kept clean. I hardly recognized her, for she had never before seemed domestic.

As I expressed amazement she said, “How little you know me, Turms. Haven’t I always declared that as a woman I ask for no more than security and four walls and a few servants to command? Now that I have them, thanks to this grateful old man, I can ask for nothing more.”

But I was not pleased when, upon my approaching her in bed, she submitted meekly to my caresses with her thoughts obviously elsewhere. In. a way I should have been content, for when she was restless she created mere disorder, but when it had happened several times I complained bitterly.

“Oh, Turms, doesn’t anything that I do please you?” she exclaimed. “After all, I do show you that I still love you. Forgive me if I can no longer participate wholeheartedly, but your blindness and my own body have already caused me sufficient grief. My terrible life in the Siccanian forest made me realize that any other condition would be more desirable. After all, it was my mad passion for you that plunged me to the level of the lowest barbarian. Now at last I feel myself secure. Security is a woman’s greatest happiness so permit me to retain it.”

Concerning the events in the city, I can relate that the same assembly at which Tertius Valerius had suffered his paralytic stroke impeached the former hero Caius Marcius. Pursuing the fleeing Volscians alone, he had once forced his way into the city of Corioli, set fire to the nearest houses and held open the gate long enough for the cavalry to follow him. For that deed he had been given the privilege of participating in the triumph, standing beside the consul who had led the army and receiving the honorary appellation of Coriolanus from the people. Now the people were impeaching him for despising them and accusing him of secretly harboring designs of autocracy. It is true that he felt bitterness toward the people, for when the plebeians had ascended the holy mountain they had sacked and burned his country house together with the others’, and had marched him under a yoke. His pride had never been able to forgive that humiliation. The plebeians had been pacified with the acquisition of two tribunes, who had the privilege of discontinuing the enforcement of any official edicts which they considered detrimental to the people’s interests. But Coriolanus compelled the tribunes to step aside when they passed, spat before them and jostled them.

Coriolanus knew well that his own kind could not protect him from the wrath of the people during the trial. Fearing for his life, he evaded the lictors guarding his house, escaped over the wall, stole a horse from the barn at his own country house and rode through the night across the border south to the land of the Volsci. It was said that they greeted him with honors, gave him new clothes and permitted him to make sacrifices to the Volscians’ city gods. The Romans were so famous for their military strategy that it is no wonder the Volscians welcomed a Roman commander to train their troops.

That same autumn the seven-day games at the circus had to be repeated because of an error that had occurred during the original celebration. The gods had revealed their displeasure through an unfavorable omen, and so the Senate undertook to repeat the expensive games rather than insult the gods. True, Tertius Valerius observed venomously that the Senate accepted the omen only because it wished to take the people’s mind off other things, but this was merely his opinion.

Through him we obtained seats in the Senate’s stand, and the Circus Maximus was truly something the like of which we had never seen before. Its fame had spread even to the neighboring peoples, so that crowds streamed to it from every direction, even from Veii, which was an incomparably finer city than Rome and only a day’s journey away. A large group of Volscians arrived from Corioli with their families, but hardly had they seated themselves than a disturbance broke out and the people began to scream with one voice that the Volscians were the enemies of Rome and planned to seize the city during the games.

Even the patricians rose from their benches and finally the members of the Senate joined in the demand that the Volscians be ousted not only from the stand but from the entire city to restore order. The consuls ordered the lictors to remove the Volscians from the circus and to see that they immediately went to their lodgings, gathered their things and left the city. A better reason for war could not have been devised.

The Roman circus was completely unlike the Greek athletic games in which free men competed among themselves, but differed little from the Segestan games in which paid athletes and slaves boxed and wrestled. But horse races were the main attraction. The Romans had adopted the spectacle from the Etruscans, but the combats had lost their original significance and retained only their superficial aspects. Although the high priest determined the combatants’ clothes and weapons, such as a trident and net against a sword, according to instructions that had been preserved, he hardly remembered their allegorical purpose.

Why should I describe the circus, which has changed from a worship of the gods to bloodshed for the sake of bloodshed? The Romans were truly wolf people, for each time they bestowed the greatest acclaim on the Kharuns who stepped into the arena with their sledge-hammers to crush the skulls of the vanquished. The combatants were slaves, prisoners of war and criminals, and not voluntary sacrifices to the gods as they had been under the Etruscans. Why shouldn’t the Roman Senate have permitted them to slay one another for public amusement to divert the commoners’ minds from their own problems? The same thing will presumably happen throughout the ages. Thus it is useless for me to describe further the various performances, or even the horse races despite the magnificent teams that had arrived even from the Etruscan cities.

I shall describe only Arsinoe’s enchantment with the scene and her glowing eyes during those late autumn days as she clapped her white hands whenever blood bubbled forth onto the sands of the arena, or the horses plunged by with streaming manes and snorting nostrils. But even in the excitement she did not forget to adjust the blanket on Valerius’ knees or to wipe the saliva from his beard as he cackled with glee at the familiar scenes.

I shall say no more about the laughter and excitement, the horror and cruelty of the circus. They will always remain although the form may change, and I shall not need to be reminded of them. I want only to remember Arsinoe’s face in those days, still youthful and glowing. I want to remember her as she sat on a red cushion in the midst of a screaming crowd of ten thousand. Just so do I want to remember her, because I loved her.

The Romans dedicated the darkest days of the year to the earth god Saturn who was so old and sacred that they hardly dared strengthen the rotted wooden pillars of his temple. He was older even than Jupiter on the Capitoline hill, whose temple their first king, Romulus, had erected. They themselves declared that he was as old as the earth.

They celebrated him with the Saturnalia that lasted for days in which all work ceased and normal life turned upside down. People gave one another gifts even though Romans under ordinary circumstances did not willingly do so. Masters served their slaves and slaves ordered their masters and mistresses about to compensate for the heavy days of the remaining year. The position of slaves was not an easy one in Rome where fear ruled because of the city’s own violence. Thus many had their male slaves castrated, not to protect the chastity of their wives and daughters as was the case in the eastern lands and in Carthage, but to destroy the slaves’ virility and rebelliousness. During the Saturnalia, however, the wine flowed, master and slave exchanged places, patrician and plebeian met as equals, strolling players performed on street corners and no jest was too daring.

Those distorted days changed Roman life completely, abolishing dignity, severity and even frugality. Arsinoe received many presents, and not only the customary clay bread, fruit and domestic animals, but valuable jewelry, perfume, mirrors and wearing apparel. She had attracted much attention despite her modest demeanor as she walked in the streets and market places accompanied by Hanna or one of Valerius’ old slaves. She accepted the gifts with a wistful smile, as though a secret sorrow were preying on her. As return gifts Tertius Valerius bestowed upon the givers, on her behalf, a clay oxen or lamb to remind the recipient of the simplicity of traditional Roman customs.

But Arsinoe declared, “These festivities are nothing new to me. The celebrations in Carthage which honored Baal were much wilder. I can still hear the furious music of the drums and the rattles in the days when I was young and attended the temple school. The youths became so frenzied that they slashed their bodies like the priests, and wealthy merchants presented fortunes, houses and ships to the women who could please them. This primitive festival is really quite tame compared to the festivals of my youth.”

She met my glance and explained hastily, “Not that I long for those days of futile passion. It was passion that plunged me to destruction, causing me to lose for your sake all that I had achieved. But surely I can think of my youth with a sigh now that I am a mature woman who is content with her lot in a secure house and a place in a bed beside a useless man.”

In that manner she reminded me that I was but a guest in Tertius Valerius’ house and even that only through her efforts. But she was so under the spell of the gifts, the festivities and the excitement that she drew me to her in the dark of night. I felt the glow of the goddess in her body and once again she flung back her white arms and breathed her hot breath into my mouth.

But as we lay in the darkness and I felt myself happy once more she began to talk. “Turms, beloved, months have passed and you have done no more than gape about you. Soon Misme will be four years old and it is time for you to become sensible. If you won’t think of me and my future, at least think of your daughter and her future. How does she feel, seeing that her father is a mere idler who is content with crumbs of charity? If you were even a driver of race horses or a skilled horn blower, you would be something. But now you are nothing.”

Her caresses made me so happy that her words did not anger me, nor did I care to remind her that Misme really was not my daughter. I was very fond of the little girl and enjoyed playing with her, while she liked me more than Arsinoe who rarely had time for more than scolding.

I stretched my limbs in the bed, yawned deeply and said in jest, “I trust that you are still satisfied with me as a lover. If you are, that suffices for me.”

She let her palm slide down my bare chest.

“You don’t have to ask that,” she whispered. “No man has ever loved me so divinely as you. You know that.”

Then she raised herself on one elbow, blew into the brazier so that her face was lighted by its reddish glow, and said thoughtfully, “If that is your only skill, Turms, at least take advantage of it. Although Rome is superficially strict in its habits, I doubt whether it actually differs much from other lands. Many a man has risen to high position merely by choosing the right bedchamber.”

Her cold-blooded suggestion made me sit upright. “Arsinoe,” I exclaimed, “do you really mean that you would want me to sleep with a strange woman for the purpose of obtaining political or material benefits from her husband or friends? Don’t you love me any more?”

“Of course I would be slightly jealous,” she hastened to assure me. “But I would forgive you knowing that it happened for the good of our future. Only your body would be involved, not your heart, and thus it would mean nothing.”

She caressed my limbs and laughed lightly. “Truly, your ‘body is so beautifully formed and is so appropriate to its task that I fear it would be wasted if it made only one woman happy.”

“The same is true of your own body, Arsinoe,” I said coldly. “Is your suggestion a threat?”

She raised her hand to her mouth and yawned. “It was so unnecessary for your tone to harden,” she said reproachfully. “You yourself have noticed the change in me. No, Tertius Valerius would not understand and forgive me if he saw that I were wanton. But forget what I have said. I merely spoke what came to my head. Some other man would have considered my words a compliment. Only you are as hard-headed as ever.”

Only a few days later, when the palling after-effects of the festival were still felt throughout the city, and I myself was depressed to think that I was nothing, Arsinoe came to me in great haste. Her face was set in a hard white mask, not beautiful but horrifying as a Gorgon in my eyes.

“Turms,” she said sharply, “have you looked at Hanna recently? Have you noticed something different about her?”

I had not looked at Hanna especially although I had felt her presence and bright glance whenever I played with Misme. “What is wrong?” I asked in surprise. “Perhaps her face is thinner. Surely she is not ill?”

Arsinoe struck her hands together in impatience. “How blind you men are! Still, I myself have been just as blind in trusting that girl. I thought I had reared her well, but now she is pregnant.”

“Pregnant—Hanna?” I stammered.

“I happened to look at her and demanded an explanation,” said Arsinoe. “She had to confess, for she can’t hide her condition much longer. That stupid slut obviously thought that she could deceive me, her mistress, and began to sell herself. Or perhaps, in even greater stupidity, she became fond of some handsome lictor or wrestler and slept with him. But I’ll teach her!”

Only then did I remember my own guilt with a pang. It was I who had warmed my loneliness with her virginity in the harbor of Panormos. But Arsinoe had assured me that I was sterile, so Hanna could not have become pregnant by me. I had merely opened the way, and it was my fault if she had succumbed to temptation in a city like Rome. But that I could not confess to Arsinoe.

Arsinoe became calmer and pondered on the matter coldly. “She has betrayed my trust. What a price I would have received for her if she were undefiled, and how well I would have arranged everything for her! She could have even earned enough to buy her freedom in accordance with Roman laws. But a pregnant female slave will be bought at best by some overseer who wants to increase his workers. But why weep over a broken crock? We’ll sell her quickly, that’s all.”

Horrified, I declared that Hanna had, after all, taken good care of Misme and that Arsinoe should not have been concerned with her support since Tertius Valerius bore the cost of it.

Arsinoe screamed shrilly at my stupidity, shook my shoulders and exclaimed, “Do you want a harlot to care for your daughter? What manners do you think she will teach Misme? And what will Tertius think of us for not keeping an eye on our servant? First the girl must be flogged, and I myself shall see to it that it is not done clumsily.”

And again I can plead no defense save that everything happened too rapidly and that my own feeling of guilt stunned me. As Arsinoe rushed out I sat with my head between my hands staring at the colored tiles of the floor and was roused only by screams of agony coming from the courtyard.

Running outside, I saw Hanna tied by her wrists to a stake and the stable slave lashing her bare back so that welts had formed on her smooth skin. I snatched the whip from the slave’s hand and, blind with rage, struck him across the face with it. Arsinoe stood nearby, red-faced and quivering.

“That’s enough,” I said. “Sell the girl if you wish, but she must be sold to a good man who will take care of her.”

Hanna had slumped to the ground, hanging by her wrists, and sobs shook her body although she tried to control them. Arsinoe stamped her foot and her eyes were round.

“Don’t interfere, Turms! The girl must confess who has raped her and with how many she has slept and where she has hidden the money that she has earned. It is our money and we can collect something from the rapist if we threaten him with legal action.”

At that I slapped Arsinoe across the face. It was the first time that I had hit her and I was frightened by it myself. Arsinoe turned pale and her face twisted, but to my surprise she remained calm.

When I took out my knife to free Hanna, Arsinoe signaled to the slave and said to me, “Don’t cut the costly thongs. Let the slave open the knots. If the girl is so dear to you that you don’t want to know what happened, so be it. Let her be led immediately to the cattle market to be sold. I myself will accompany her there to make certain that she finds a respectable master, even though she doesn’t deserve one. But you have always been tender-hearted and I must obey your wishes.”

Hanna raised her face from the ground, her eyelids swollen from weeping. She had bitten her lips raw, for despite the flogging she had refused to divulge a word although it would have been easy for her to name me as the one who had led her down the wrong path. But her glance was not accusing. She merely opened her eyes as though in joy that she could see me defending her.

A cowardly relief came over me when I caught her glance and it did not occur to me that Arsinoe might be untrustworthy. Nevertheless I felt sufficiently skeptical to ask, “Do you swear to look out for the girl’s good even though it means getting a lower price for her?”

Arsinoe looked me in the eye, took a deep breath and assured me, “Of course I swear it. The price makes no difference so long as we get rid of the girl.”

One of the household slaves brought her the large stole worn by Roman women and draped it over her head and shoulders. The stable slave pulled Hanna to her feet, tossed a rope around her neck and so they departed through the gate, the slave first, leading Hanna by the rope, and Arsinoe last, tightly wrapped in her stole.

I ran after them, touched Arsinoe’s shoulder and begged in a tearchoked voice, “At least take down the name and city of the purchaser so that we will know where Hanna is.”

Arsinoe paused, shook her head and said gently, “Turms dear, I have already forgiven you, for I understand your ugly behavior. Apparently it is as though you had to let some beloved animal be killed because of sickness. In such a case, doesn’t the kind master entrust the deed to a dependable friend without seeking to know how and where it happens or where the carcass is buried? For your own sake it is better that you don’t know where the girl goes. Trust me, Turms. I will take care of everything for you since you are so sensitive.”

She brushed my cheek with her hand and hastened after the slave. I had to admit that Arsinoe’s words sounded reasonable, but doubt gnawed at my heart and I felt guilty no matter how I tried to persuade myself that as an Elymian Hanna was innately wanton. Otherwise she would not so readily have flung herself into my arms. It would be better for me if I thought no more of the matter.

In that Arsinoe helped me, for when she returned that afternoon she was so considerate that she did not even mention the price that she had obtained for Hanna. Nor did she say one word about the matter even later. That in itself should have made me suspicious, but instead it helped me to forget. So settled was I in everyday life in Tcrtius Valerius’ house.