Chrysos Copyright © 1996 Nurmi Husa, All Rights Reserved.
How old are you, if I may inquire of your Worship? Twenty-five?
Twenty-eight! Ah. . . Yes. Never could be trusted with guessing ages.
You look young for your age. Men don't trust men who look young for their age. Not that I don't trust you, your Worship - - I do. I don't mean to offend. I'm just saying. . .
My name is Chrysos. It was my hair, you see. The color of burnished bronze once. Not golden, as the name suggests - - but a darker, richer bronze color. It was very much admired. I was very much admired. Now it and I are just a dirty yellow.
Women don't respect you when you look too young. They may desire you, but they never respect you. A woman should respect a man. Men have more than enough desire all on their own. Or so I have observed, your Worship.
Ha! About some things even an old and silly slave can be knowledgeable. You see, respect is one thing I do understand. As a slave, it is my duty to provide it to my master. And in the case of my master, it is a pleasure to do my duty.
I have always been a slave. I come from a long line of slaves. Or so my mother told me when I was very young. I remember very little about my mother. I remember that she wore blue. That the steward of the estate liked her in blue. That she was very pretty. With beautiful blue eyes, just like mine. With beautiful soft skin, just like mine - - once. So very beautiful. It was a burden for her, her beauty. You might think life's easier for a pretty slave. But it isn't. I should know. In my day, I was very pretty. Handsome! Pretty. . . You mightn't think it to look at me now. But I was. Very pretty. And life was never easy for me.
Oh, I don't know, perhaps it was - - in some ways. But in others . . . The gods are jealous of the gifts they give. And so are masters. Sometimes. Husbands too.
I always liked sex. Which did make some things easier. And when I was younger, I wasn't afraid of having it rough. I'm a slave, you know. A certain amount of roughness is to be expected. No, it is the occasional act of tenderness that shocks a slave.
Look at all these wrinkles. Never thought I should live to this age. Who could have imagined it, eh? I suppose I have achieved a kind of respect now, after a fashion. Age gives one that at least. For a while. In return for all it takes away.
I looked young for my age, you know. I still do. It's true. I may look old to you, but I'm really quite antique!
Of course I can laugh. Why shouldn't I. What these old eyes have seen. Ha! The comings and goings of things. Of people. Of passions. And fashions. And for what? Hum? In the end, what is accomplished? Hum? Of course one must laugh. One saves one's tears for unimportant matters. Like a torn fingernail, a ruined soup, a smile not granted. But to cry over the fate of one's miserable self? Not worth the effort.
I may have no beard, but full of philosophy, I am. And such a dreadful gossip. Oh, the things I could tell you! That's all I'm good for anymore. Gossip. Hiss, hiss, hiss. Like an old goose. Or rather, like an antique goose. And that is why the young master has sent me to you. To gossip with you. To tell you stories.
Some more wine? Lovely color, isn't it? "Like an autumn sunset," the old master used to say. He was very poetic, the old master. Very poetic.
So, you want to hear my stories, do you? Do you really? This is a very dangerous thing you ask, you know. Are you prepared for the consequences, your Worship?
To hear my stories, is to learn of my life. To learn of my life is to see me as a man as you yourself are a man. And I am not a man - - I am a slave. Slaves do not have Lives, as men have Lives. For if they did, they would be men - - and a man, if he is truly a man, can never be a slave. Except to love.
Or to philosophy. The old master inflicted it on me when he tried to educate me. "Philosophy is a sickness," he used to say, "from which one never recovers." Indeed. There are some things it is best for a slave not to know. Not to understand. Not ever. Not if he is to remain a slave . . .
On the whole, I am a very bad slave. A wicked slave. Willful. Opinionated. Worthless. But then I have been burdened with . . . gifted with . . . freedoms . . . and responsibilities . . . an ordinary slave could only have imagined. Once, a very long time ago, I was given a chance to better myself. To grapple with the Fates. To wrestle them to the earth. To seize from them the wondrous, magical thread that means everything. To take it into my own hands and become the master of it. To weave it into whatever splendid tapestry I should like. But those shriveled old bitches proved much stronger than I. Or more to the point, I, wretched creature that I am, proved far weaker than they. So. Here I am. Things do not happen by chance, your Worship. We - - each of us - - earn the miserable life we lead. I am a slave - - not because the Fates decreed it so - - but because slavery is what I have earned. I am a slave because I deserve no better.
So, shall I tell you of this life of mine that cannot be a Life?
I have a good master. A very good master. And I recognize that I am most fortunate in that. He treats me far better than I deserve. I have nothing to complain of and much to rejoice in. A very good master is the young master. He is his father's son in that.
Shall I tell you how old I am? Shall I? If what I was told at a very young age had a nodding acquaintance with the truth - - I am seventy-three. You're surprised. Perhaps even impressed. Age impresses. Beauty thrills, Age impresses. Seventy-three. You see, I am quite antique. Almost as old as the stones beneath your feet, and about as useful.
Oh, I help at table, now and then. But my hands are . . . So I read, until my eyes ache. Until my brain aches. And so I babble.
"Impart your wisdom to the youth," the young master says. My wisdom. "Teach them," he says. So I hiss at the little rats and they ignore me. Such is life. Ah well, I ignored my elders when I was their age. And they, the little rats, shall be ignored when they are my age. If they live to be this old. It's all part of a great cosmic joke, the point of which one cannot fully appreciate until very old, or very dead.
"Teach them Standards," the young master says. Standards. Ha! Standards are not what they once were. Not by half. And why should they be? Things change. Rome - - the Eternal City - - has been sacked. Not once, but twice. What hope is there for any of us, when Rome itself has fallen to the Barbarian? Paulos who cleans the stables says that these are the Final Days. That the End of the World is Nigh. Just moments away. Smell the fire & brimstone, he says! Prepare to meet the Lord God, he says! But what Lord God? Paulos' Jehovah, or the old master's Jove? With all the horrible events of the last few years perhaps Paulos is right. The world is coming to an end and to a bad end at that. But pretty little Paulos is just a seventeen-year-old stablehand, and knows nothing about the world but what passes through a horse. What glitters as shining wisdom in his straw-stuffed, manure-soaked, well-muscled brain can be no match for what can be learned at the Academy in Athens where the old master studied. It's a thousand years old, you know. The Academy. Now that's real wisdom. And yet on the other hand, there is something profoundly - - fundamental about manure, isn't there? Aah, who knows? Not me.
Some more wine, your Worship? Marvelous goblet, isn't it? Alexandrian, you know. The old master had them blown to his personal specifications when he lived there. Notice the delicate tracery in gold leaf layered inside the wall of clear glass. Splendid golden lions chasing each other's tails. Marvelous, perfectly marvelous. The old master was a man of superb taste. A man of considerable refinements. A man - - a Man among Men.
Such a very beautiful goblet - - so delicate! So small! It has always required my careful attention to keep it - - hospitably - - filled to the brim. "It reminds us," the old master used to say, "It reminds us that the pleasure that beauty holds for us lasts for but the briefest moment. Come Chrysos," he'd say. "Come, Chrysos, fill my cup again and again. Let me drink so deeply that I might forget this painful truth until tomorrow morning. Tomorrow morning when pain and truth roar in my brain like Hannibal's vengeful elephants and make me want to forswear beauty and pleasure forever!"
The old master.
The old master is dead these twenty years, and the young master - - who is now anything but young - - is right to try to instill something in the next generation. I'm just old and bitter - - like a wine that does not travel well. The young master is right to chastise me for my cynicism. I'm an old fool. A withered bag of skin and bone - - who sits alone and remembers . . . too much. Too many memories. Things that were, that perhaps were not, that should have been - -that never could be.
I have been with the young master's family for fifty years. The old master, while a student in Athens - - he was a good student, brilliant in his way, he shouldn't have had to take over these estates for his worthless brother - - he could have been - - he should have - - uh - - he took pity on me and bought me off a brothelkeeper in stinking Piraeus who had used me - - harshly - - for some years.
Are you sure you want to hear this story? Are you? Am I? Well . . .
He was not my first master, this brothelkeeper. I was born in the clean, fresh air of Gaul. On a country estate of a Senator who lived in Rome and never visited his holdings in the Provinces. When I was ten, I was given to a cousin of the Senator who had been offered the hospitality of the estate. He found himself, this cousin of the Senator, on the wrong end of a scandal in Rome and to save the family honor - - the Senator still believed in such a thing - - to save the family honor the Senator offered him a refuge far from Rome. The Romans pride themselves on their families. Their honor. Their hospitality. Their generosity. His name - - his name is unimportant. I hardly remember what he looked like anymore. But I do remember that my mother did not cry when he took me away. Her eyes would have swollen and turned red. She had beautiful eyes, my mother. I never saw them again.
He was to provide a great adventure, this new master. I was very excited to go. Oh, yes. You see, until that time, I had only worked in the fields. I was a good lad, a solid worker, quick learner. I had a way with animals. The steward of the estate commented on all that as he handed me over. He laughed. So did my new master. So did I.
Very soon I learned that my new master had no need of a ten-year-old farmhand. I was to be taught new and different skills. My new master was - - well - - shall we say he appreciated my farm-boy physique and taught me to make the most of it. He was vile. Along with everything else, he beat me. He was - - In that regard, he - - Some people sing, some people write poetry, some paint. He - - he understood pain. Or so he thought. A Praxiteles of Pain, he fancied himself. A Praxiteles - - harumnph. He was wild, unpredictable, deeply jealous - - weak. Soft. He was vile. I came to despise him - - not only as a master - - but as a human being.
Between a Master and a Slave, there is a . . . Distance. Or should be. It is essential for both of them. He destroyed that in me. Quite thoroughly. Before I ever understood how important . . . I have tried ever since to regain that sense of distance. Shall I confess to you that I have not succeeded? Shall I? Despite my best efforts? That I pretend, even now? Shall I? I think not. Of all the terrible things he did to me - - of all the disgusting things he "taught" me, it is that which, in the end, has done the most harm . . . caused the most pain. To have deprived me of that distance, that necessary distance. Perhaps, after all, he was a Praxiteles of Pain.
After three years of this "careful instruction" in his little Academy, I was wagered - - on the spur of the moment, as I remember, the spur of the moment. On the roll of a die was my life - - and the life of my General - - changed forever. It is said that in the smallest of moments are the greatest of destinies shifted. . . On the roll of a single die I was wagered and lost in a drunken - - lost to a General who was passing through Marseilles on his way to his new command in Illyria. I was deeply grateful. Had I still believed, I would have prayed a loud thanksgiving to some god. Any god. I did, I suppose, in my way. I don't remember . . .
The General. My General. For a military man, he was very sensitive. He never forced himself on me. I didn't know what to make of that. By that time, by that very experienced age of thirteen - - I was just - - I had already learned to expect - - even to enjoy - - even to prefer a certain - - roughness. It was all I knew of affection. Yes, well . . . This good General wouldn't oblige me in that regard. Not even if I encouraged it - - and I did encourage it.
I was young, after all. And for a slave, willful. I was pretty. Ha! Pretty. And the General was so sweet - - there's a strange word for a General, eh? Sweet. But he was . . . sweet. You see, I didn't understand him, I didn't understand what he wanted. From me. From himself. From . . . How could I? All I understood was pigs and olives - - and roughness.
In the end, I - - uh - - naturally I - -uh - - behaved badly.
I didn't know what I was there for. He had me trained to help at table, to be a cup-bearer. Well, I understood what a cup-bearer - - a Ganymede - - was to do. My old master had taught me the meaning of that old story very thoroughly. And yet my General never touched me. He kept his - - ah - - distance. Distance. I was very confused. And angry.
So. I decided I had to make him jealous. Silly, eh? A slave trying to make a master jealous. How stupid. But I did it, it was what masters expected, wasn't it? My old master was jealous of - - virtually - - What did I know? How was I to know? I was only thirteen. And no matter how old and experienced I thought I was I could never have imagined what - - I - - uh - - I did what I thought was expected of me. I suppose?
The General - - for a barbarian - - he was a German, you see - - the General was a very civil and civilized man. He was an important man. A man with expectations, as they say. And so, consequently, he entertained lavishly and often. Calling together what passed for cultivated company in our little city overlooking the Adriatic.
There was a certain merchant who was well-known in the city and among the soldiers as a man who appreciated pretty boys and clean-limbed young men. At any one time, he might have a half dozen in attendance upon him. He came often, but irregularly to the General's dinners. He was known, this merchant, to pay outrageous amounts to acquire some luscious little piece of flesh he desired. And he was powerful enough to be able to afford to displease any authority, religious or secular, with little fear of retribution.
So, after much careful thought, I decided to make myself the object of this merchant's passion - - for the deceptively simple reason that it would rile the General. He was very attached to me, the General. I knew that much. I understood that much. If only I could make this impudent merchant desire me, I thought, I might awaken in the General a fit of jealousy that would rouse him to that - - roughness for which I so sorely ached.
The General. The General was a German. I mentioned that, didn't I. Anyway, he had worked his way up in the ranks - - a possible thing, even in those days, for a man of intelligence and drive. And the General had both in abundance. He was young. Well, relatively young. In his mid to late thirties, as I remember. And very well put together. He was a very attractive man, my General. He exercised with his soldiers daily and was much admired and respected by them. And he was a good general. A very good general. Had he wanted it, he could have had most any of them. But not my General. Oh, no, not him. No, he would not mix with his soldiers in that way. He believed, and rightly so, that it interfered with discipline. And my General prided himself on the discipline of his troops. Any one of them would gladly have died for him. Yes. . .
I learned, much later, from a client in that brothel in Piraeus, that my General had been taken in slavery as a spoil of war when he was a child. That the Roman officer who bought him, raised him, freed him, brought him into the army and gave him his start in the world. Adopted him, and bequeathed his fortune to him.
I can not help but wonder now, if that was why he wagered his pay packet for me in that filthy little tavern in Marseilles - - did he see himself in that blond, blue-eyed, weary-eyed, little slave-boy? I want to believe - - but I daren't . . .
At the time, I never understood what must have been going on inside of my General. I was an just arrogant child who never looked beyond his own petty little intrigue. I can believe now that my General loved me. I want to . . . I mustn't . . . He loved me. In the deepest and finest sense of that word. But I don't think I - - no, I know I didn't - - I couldn't - - not then - - not as I was then. I didn't really love - - What did I know of love? Ignorant little bitch who mistook - - roughness for - - passion for . . .
I do not believe I am capable of love. What slave is? Capable of compassion, perhaps, or even hatred- - which are forms of love. Shadows. But love itself? In its deepest and finest sense? No. Love is a curse for such a worthless thing as I am, and truly a curse for anyone who would be intimate with something like me.
The General . . . My General . . .
He decided to have one of his famous dinners to celebrate a certain upcoming Games. Games originally in honor of a local deity, Games now held in honor of a local Christian saint - - a brand new saint whose name and aspects are strikingly similar to those of the aforementioned local deity. Very shrewd fellows these Christians, eh? Taking our ancient heritage and remaking it into their own image. Or so said the General. He was not a Christian, you see. He was a devotee of Mithras. You know of Mithras? No, we probably shouldn't speak of such things these days. Pretty Paulos and his greedy young friends are much too - -
I don't offend your Worship, do I? I thought perhaps not . . .
Yes, well, there were to be these Games. Games, as you can well imagine, that were very hotly contested. Indeed, as they are yet today, eh? Civic pride being what it is. Vanity, as Paulos would say, cheering his team . . .
The dinner was, as usual, on a very lavish scale. As the General's cupbearer, it was for me to keep the wine - - a very fine old Falernian - - the General knew his wines - - to keep the wine flowing. This task gave me an excellent opportunity to display myself in a favorable manner to the merchant I was telling you about. He lay on the couch with one of his favorites, an actor of less credit to Thespis than to Paint.
I had very good skin for my age, and aside from my "burnished tresses," my most attractive feature was my torso - - especially my shoulders - - a legacy of my days in the sunny fields of Gaul.
As I approached the merchant, I shifted the oinochoe from one arm to the other - - I shifted it from one arm to the other - - allowing my tunic, in a splendidly elaborate process to slip - - I always wore them a trifle large - - the General preferred the antique fashion - - I allowed the tunic to slip artlessly from off one remarkable shoulder. I stumbled slightly as I poured his wine, carefully splashing a few drops on his hand. He looked up at me in surprise - - our eyes met for the briefest moment - - but not so brief that I could not mistake his sudden interest - - and I knew he was mine. I knelt immediately, mumbling the appropriately abject apology. He bade me rise as he shifted his goblet from one jeweled hand to the other. He commented languidly that his hand was wet. I sat the oinochoe on the floor next to his couch and rose, not looking at him directly and making the most of the awkward grace of adolescence. I lifted the hem of my tunic to dry his hand. His hand slowly grazed the inside of my thigh. I shivered and stepped back oh, so demurely, glancing obliquely at my General. But the General was wrapped in conversation with the wife of one of the local magistrates. He hadn't even noticed my carefully planned and executed infidelity. I looked back at the merchant. He was laughing. He knew exactly what I'd been up to. And he knew that the General hadn't seen a thing. I was furious.
I picked up the oinochoe and turning too quickly, tripped over the next couch. I lost my grip on it and it smashed to the floor, splattering wine everywhere, and I went sprawling over the occupant of the couch. He was much entertained by the accident. Apparently he had been watching with some amusement my little game with the merchant. He grabbed me and rolled me under him. Roughly.
"Whoa, boy" he said, "I prefer riding to being ridden."
He - - ah - - was a charioteer - - not a particularly witty charioteer - - but a charioteer of some considerable renown in our little city overlooking the Adriatic. He was a rough young man, one of the merchant's current favorites and much desired by many, male and female alike. He was generous with himself, in that way. I was deeply mortified by what had happened. I was also very excited by the - - roughness. Which, of course, made me all the more mortified. I struggled to get free, and in the process ripped my tunic. Oh, Jove. How quickly youth forgets the games it plays when the games it plays stop being games.
"You're a wild one, aren't you," he laughed as he rolled me about. Suddenly I saw the opportunity and brought my knee up into his groin. With a roar of pain, and a roar of laughter from the assembled, he let me go. I jumped up, my tunic falling around my feet. My - - excitement - - visible to all. I grabbed for the remnants of my tunic and shrank back against the wall of the dining room. Suddenly, a hush fell across the room. I looked to my General and he was striding across the room towards me. But he wasn't looking at me. He was glaring at the charioteer. He picked the charioteer up with both hands and threw him across the room.
"How dare you!" he thundered at him. "How dare you!"
The charioteer was a hot-tempered young man - - although who might not react as he did, given the situation - - the charioteer rose and pulled a small dagger from somewhere on his person and thrust it at the General. Everything happened so quickly. There was a shriek - - a spray of blood. The charioteer's, it must have been. The General, of course, easily disarmed the poor idiot and threw him at the soldiers who, on account of the commotion, had just run into the room.
"Get him out of my sight!" He roared at them. Then he turned to me. "Are you all right?" he asked me gently. Almost tenderly. I told him yes, I was fine. He stroked my face, then told me to go get dressed. I ran out of the room.
I should have told him right then and there what I'd done. I should have. But I didn't. Even though it was all my fault. I should have said something. I should have said something. Anything. But I didn't open my mouth. Not then. Not later.
You see, I'd never seen him like that - - my General. And for all my aching for a bit of rough, he had frightened me. Terrified me. The roughness I had known and wanted was, in retrospect, mostly playful. Even innocent in a quietly depraved kind of way. Even the Senator's cousin, for all his perversity and vileness was - -
There was nothing playful about my General when he threw the charioteer across the room. Nothing playful. Nothing innocent. Nothing - -
After I found some clothes, I hid for the rest of the evening in a little secret place I had made for myself in the stables. I said nothing. Nothing.
The charioteer was the city champion. That is to say he represented the city in the Games. My General would not let him out of custody to race, so angry was he at what he had done to me in front of his guests. We take our Races and our Games too seriously, you know. Much too seriously. Someone said something. Someone else repeated it. One thing led to another. As it inevitably does. The General was prepared for trouble, of course. He was always prepared. He was a good General. He ordered his soldiers to disperse the mob at the Races. I understand many died in the confusion. And then there was the rioting afterwards when they stormed the General's villa. They killed him. In reprisal, the Emperor - - Theodosius, you know - - arranged for the city to be decimated. All in all, some seven thousand people died - - because - - a worthless, little slave-boy wanted to make his General - - jealous.
He freed me in his will. But in the - - commotion afterwards, it was overlooked and I was sold to that brothelkeeper in stinking Piraeus.
And now, your Worship, I am seventy-three. I hiss at children, tell stories, am laughed at, am ignored - - remember - - live - - and serve at table still, when my hands . . .
Your goblet is empty, your Worship. More wine?
-o-o- FINIS -o-o-
Chrysos, Apollonios and Anthea are excerpted from a larger piece, RHOMAIOI, a series of loosely related dramatic monologues and poems focusing on the experiences of ordinary people in Late Antiquity (roughly from the 2nd through the 6th century C.E.). It is a fascinating and tumultuous epoch of human experience - - a period which has bequeathed to the modern world much of our religious and political structure - - and yet for most people it is mysterious and misunderstood. It is in a very real sense mythological. "Rhomaioi" is Greek and means "Romans." It is the word the ordinary citizen of the "Roman" Empire would use to describe himself in the Greek-speaking East.