The Moon temple on Aventine is so ancient that there is no myth about it as there is about the more recent Diana temple. King Servius Tullius in his day had it built in a circular shape from magnificent timber. Later a stone temple was built around the wooden building. The inner-most part of the temple is so holy that it has no stone floor, but is just flattened earth. Apart from votive gifts, there are no other sacred objects except a huge egg of stone, the surface of which is worn black and smooth with oil and salve. When one enters the half-light of the temple, one can feel the shiver of holiness one experiences only in very old temples. This shiver I had felt before in the temple of Saturn, which is the most ancient and most terrifying and most holy of all the temples in Rome. It is the temple of Time, and the high priest, who is usually the Emperor himself, on a certain day every year still beats on a copper nail in the oaken pillar which stands in the middle of it.
In the Moon temple there is no sacred pillar, but just the egg of stone. Beside it, on a tripod, a deathly pale woman was sitting so still that at first I took her for a statue in the darkness. But Aunt Laelia spoke to her in a voice that mewed with humility, calling her Helena and buying holy oil from her to rub into the egg. As she poured out the oil in drops, she mumbled a magic formula which only women are allowed to learn. For men it is useless to make offerings to this egg. As she was making offerings, I looked at the votive gifts and noticed to my delight that there were several small round’ silver boxes amongst them. I was ashamed at the thought of what I had promised to offer to the Moon goddess, for I considered it best to take it to the temple in a closed box when the time was right.
Just then the pale woman turned to me, looked at me with her frightening black eyes, smiled and said, “Don’t be ashamed of your thoughts, oh handsome youth. The Moon Goddess is a more powerful goddess than you think. If you can win her favor, then you will possess a power incomparably greater than the raw strength of Mars or the barren wisdom of Minerva.”
She spoke Latin with an accent, so that it sounded as if she had spoken some ancient forgotten language. Her face became enlarged in my eyes, as if shining with a hidden moonlight, and when she smiled I saw that she was beautiful despite her pallor. Aunt Laelia spoke to her even more humbly, so that I suddenly thought she looked like a thin cat, insinuatingly stroking and weaving herself around the stone
“No, no, not a cat,” said the priestess, still smiling. “A lioness. Don’t you see? What have you got to do with lions, boy?”
45
Her words frightened me and for a very brief moment I really seemed to see a thin troubled lioness where Aunt Laelia had been standing. It looked at me as reproachfully as the old lion outside Antioch had done when I had jabbed its paw with my spear. But the vision vanished as I brushed my hand across my forehead.
“Is your father at home?” asked Aunt Laelia. “And do you think he would receive us?”
“My father Simon has fasted and journeyed in many countries to appear unexpectedly to people who respect his divine power,” said the priestess Helena. “But I know that at the moment he is awake and is expecting you both.”
She took us through the rear door of the temple and a few steps beyond it to a tall block which had a shop for holy souvenirs on the ground floor full of both cheap and expensive moons and stars of copper and quite small polished stone eggs. The priestess Helena at once looked quite ordinary, her thin face yellow and her white cloak soiled and smelling foully of stale incense. She was no longer young.
She took us through the shop into a dirty back room where a black-bearded, thick-nosed man was sitting on a mat on the floor. He raised his eyes toward us as if he were still in another world, but then rose stiffly to greet Aunt Laelia.
“I was speaking with an Ethiopian magician,” he said in a surprisingly deep voice. “But I felt it in me that you were on your way here. Why do you disturb me, Laelia Manilia? From your silks and jewels I see that you have already received all the good things I foretold. What more do you want?”
Aunt Laelia explained meekly that I slept in the room in which Simon the magician had lived for so long. I had bad dreams at night, ground my teeth and cried out in my sleep. Aunt Laelia wanted to know the reasons for this and if possible to receive a remedy for it.
“I was also in debt to you, dearest Simon, when you left my house in your bitterness,” said Aunt Laelia, and she asked me to give the magician three gold pieces.
Simon the magician did not take the money himself, but just nodded to his daughter—if the priestess Helena really was his daughter—and she took it indifferently. Three Roman aurei is after all three hundred sesterces or seventy-five silver coins, so I was annoyed at her supercilious-ness.
The magician sat down on his mat again and asked me to sit opposite him. The priestess Helena threw a few pinches of incense into the holder.
46
Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270