Fake Peasants, Fake Huns

[First-person narration by Gaius Galen, relating a day at the chariot races]

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I’ve been a pagan, an orthodox Christian, a monophysite, an Arian and a Jew, but I always come back to my true religion here: I am a Green.

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“Green wins – again and again!” I shouted along with half of the Hippodrome, the Green fans at least 35,000 strong and roaring over the losing Blues. Our Constantius was first and Diosophone second, Blues lost and humiliated on the final lap. Up from the crowd here and there flew pigeons, a message with the race results tied to the leg on its way to a betting shop in the city or across the Bosphorus Strait in the Asian suburbs.

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Eighty-two thousand men below me and one Messalina beside, lightly pressing against me as she delighted with the gleeful chariot racing fans, her luscious bounce constrained and unseen yet vibrating my being. Her bosom bound as tight as a charioteer wraps his reins around his chest, Messalina had paved over the curves of her hips and breasts with layers of cloth, adding extra belly wraps for pudgy detail. She was made up to be a he, Semacus, who accompanied Atakam and me.

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Over the Greens’ jubilation and hyena taunting of the Blues rained a near invisible cloud of dust from my track mix, pulverized into the air by 48 horses and 12 chariots through seven laps, dusting all, Blue and Green, winner and loser, senator and slave, alike.

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This chilly day of December races was well viewed from the railing of the top row where we stood in the Green section. Up here Atakam and I could talk more freely and explain things to Messalina. The Hippodrome shimmied from the rhythmic stomping of the victorious Greens. Shaped like a massive elongated ark with curved bow pointing south to the nearby shore, the shaking arena seemed ready to launch downhill into the Propontis Sea.

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Messalina pointed across the track to an ornate, enclosed viewing box and asked, “Is that where Emperor Justinian and Empress Theodora are, watching the races?”

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“Yes, from the Kathisma. But they probably watch their subjects around them more than the races,” Atakam answered. “Many come hoping to see the crowd tangle with the emperor, yelling for relief from taxes and even hissing and stamping their feet at the emperor himself. In these times of growing discontent, people are beginning to think that the bear keeper – ” and he nodded his head to the Kathisma – “might well be devoured by the beast he tries to control. And everyone here who backs a color would love to see that sight – much more than any race.”
 
“I always thought the idea of chariot fans posing a danger to the emperor was fanciful bragging,” said Messalina, taking in the raucous spectators. “But here among them, I feel a force barely contained. I don’t know how to describe it. Is it the same in Rome?”

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“Not the same,” Atakam answered. “The people’s attachment to the colors is more intense here and volatile. Our Hippodrome is smaller than Rome’s Circus Maximus, but in our New Rome, we have better drivers, better horses, better fans, better riots.”

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“I despise rioters,” she said with disgust. “Their destruction and violence have nothing to do with these athletes’ accomplishments.”

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“Sounds as if you have some personal experience with that,” Atakam said to her in a joking manner, for the two had struck up a liking for each other after just meeting not an hour ago.
“I do, and it’s not something I wish to talk about,” and she turned away to look at the Kathisma, where vigilant fanners worked to keep most of the track dust out.

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Learning that I was technically a despised person by this woman I very much wanted to like me chased this enjoyable moment of Green victory out of mind and replaced it with a vivid recollection of Ammianus kissing my cheek. I chased that image away by looking at Messalina, hidden underneath Semacus.

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Her lovely face was disguised as if in a recent fight, with artful makeup of bruises, a couple of healing cuts with dried blood (lamb’s), a bandage across the top of her left eye and forehead, and the look of dirt and sun from daily toil roughing her skin. Pantalooned and heavy-booted like a northern barbarian, Semacus in her peasant’s field coat blended in with the hundreds of other such coats around us. On this cold race day her green knitted scarf marked her allegiance and was worn high across her mouth to hide the pure female sex of her sensuous lips. Being right next to her, I couldn’t even see that she was a woman – but certainly sensed it.

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She has begged me for three months to bring her to the Hippodrome – in violation of law, God’s command and my own common sense, which has been called meager. She wanted to experience how everyone in the city and the empire got so worked up about the 70 race days a year given to this entertainment, some days crammed with as many as 24 races. It was heaven for race fans and most everyone in the city, but a devilish mystery for the minority of others who could not understand how a color on a chariot going around a track could mean so much to so many. Now Messalina was taken with my Constantinople Greens, stomping slightly herself and raising her rough-gloved hands to the sky, as triumphant as the veteran fans around her watching the emperor hand the laurel wreath of victory to Constantius.

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She leaned in to speak to me behind her hand, “Thank you for bringing me, Gaius.” She pressed her hip against my thigh, and I had to keep myself from pulling down her scarf and kissing her. I hadn’t felt that leap of heart in ages.

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I distracted myself from that by telling her a little about the spina area that split the track down the middle. This dividing island was decorated with fabulous statues and other treasures brought from around the world. I told her a little about the serpent column, the Egyptian obelisk and the colossal statue of Hercules. Atakam pointed out the huge eagle with holes in its outstretched wings that directed shafts of light to the ground marking time like a sundial.

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While the track was clearing for the next race, insults flew back and forth among the Greens and Blues. Many were religious-based chants to paint the other side as heretics, a favorite Hippodrome game. It was no game for the emperor but a serious, often bloody series of challenges to herd the competing Christian sects into one under imperial imprimatur – all the while attempting to terminate the still considerable draw of paganism, and tolerating in some fashion the Jews, who disdained Christ more than did the pagans, which was an accepting group always willing to bring another god into their tent.

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The Blues roared out that Greens were all monophysites:
Deranged with their one-natured Christ,
All God and no man cannot be right!

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“How do so many know to chant this at once?” Messalina asked me.

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“See that fellow down there with his back to the track, raising up his hands as if leading a choir?” She nodded. “He’s a professional claquer, as they are called. He and others coordinate the calls, which are familiar to all Blues. The Greens should respond – and look, see the Green claquers standing up?”

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She saw them exhort their fellows, and the Greens yelled out a practiced chant that Blues were all Arians, slandering God by denying that his son Jesus is divine.