Free Colosseum by Simone Sarasso Page B

has been traveling for three days. Only twelve more miles now, and Marcius’s band of warriors quickens it step.
    â€œThis is the third time I’ve explained it to you since we left! Damned Briton, you’ll age me by two
lustra
if we carry on like this: I’ll arrive at court grayer than a Pontus mule.”
    Marcius passes Verus the flask of spiced wine. He asked him to hang onto it, but every time they stop to take a piss the youth steals a sneaky swig from it. Meaning that he is now quite tipsy and a damned sight more stubborn than usual: “Come on, what does it cost you?”
    Marcius swallows another mouthful of the aromatic liquid, wipes his mouth with a hairy wrist and breathes deeply.
    â€œRight, what does it cost me? At a rough guess, a barrelful of good wine. And I always thought the gods had a bit of a soft spot for those who devote their lives to the sea…”
    â€œYou were saying,
velarium
…” Verus will not relent.
    The hills are now in sight, the distance to them halved by their eager advance.
    Marcius smiles. He did not think the journey would leave him in a good mood. Perhaps it is all down to the youth. He will miss him when they reach their destination. Verus does not know it yet but their paths are soon to diverge, and will cross only one more time. In a world that is not his own.
    For now though, there is no need to spoil the calm with unsavory thoughts. The sailor indulges him: “I told you about the Amphitheater, didn’t I?”
    â€œSure you did…” Verus is wearing the same ecstatic expression he always wears when they talk about the stone titan at the heart of Rome. The dream of two generations of Emperors, about to become reality.
    Marcius is unusually leisurely in his reply. Must be the wine. “No matter how hard you try, knucklehead, no matter how much you can imagine inside that little head of yours, you won’t believe your eyes when you find yourself standing before it. Bigger than anything you’ve ever seen in your whole miserable existence. The Amphitheater is the trunk of the tree of Jupiter, felled with chisels, sweat, mallets, blood, and exhaustion. The ground on which it stands is laced with an infinity of passageways linking it to the gladiator barracks: roots of stone stretching mile upon mile, crafted by countless calloused hands, by eyes lit up by flickering candlelight.”
    Verus is not fond of all this foreign rhetoric, but when Marcius drinks he waxes poetic. And stopping him is practically impossible. The youth tries though, savoring his own persistence: “And what have sails got to do with roots? The trees, Jupiter…”
    Marcius frowns, as he often does when he has to grasp a concept or put some poor wretch back in his place.
    â€œDamn you and all your kin, living and dead. And wash that mouth out, because it’s the masterpiece of Roman engineering you’re talking about, you witless barbarian!”
    And Verus falls silent, which is only right.
    Wine or no wine, he is still a slave, by the gods!
    Marcius scarcely notices and continues: “Just as trees need roots and leaves, the Amphitheater needs something to shelter it from the sun. Can you imagine how hot it gets in there at the eighth hour of an August day? Fifty thousand people shoulder to shoulder from the early morning, sweating, shouting and urging on the heroes of the arena. The air gets hotter and hotter, no one does their job as well as Apollo, especially in summer. Can you picture it?”
    Not really. Verus barely knows how to count to fifty. Well, he knows numbers higher than fifty, but
fifty thousand
is truly beyond his grasp. Sixty-two souls used to live in his village. In the quarry he worked alongside a hundred and thirty companions. Along with the guards, there might have been a hundred and fifty. At the port of Misenum there were a lot of people, that was true. But at a guess there were no more than a thousand.