The Emperor's Elephant(71)

He sniffed, a sound that conveyed both amusement and disdain. ‘Renegade Greek priests, refugee preachers, ambitious prelates. Rome is full of every sort of delinquent. Some genuine, some with a hidden agenda. I should know: many of them come to my office seeking favours.’

He paused for a moment. ‘I’m a papal gatekeeper but the person I recommend for an audience with the pope doesn’t necessarily get what he wants. There are other hurdles to clear before one benefits from the pope’s patronage.’

It all sounded very much like Abram’s warning to me that Rome was like a snake pit. I should be wary. I decided it was safer to turn the conversation to a more neutral subject, something closer to Paul’s interest.

‘I saw workmen ripping marble slabs from a fine-looking palace back there. Is that allowed?’ I asked.

‘That sort of thing has been going on for centuries,’ he answered cheerfully. We had turned into a broad avenue dominated by a looming triumphal arch. Sixty feet high, its three archways were flanked with columns of yellow marble topped with over-size human figures draped in togas. Huge panels of carved marble depicted scenes of warfare and hunting, trophies, gods, Roman soldiers and defeated enemies. Sections of the frieze had fallen away and the surface was streaked with dirt. Wild plants had taken root in cracks in the stonework and grown into bushes high above the ground. It looked shaggy and forsaken.

Paul waved up at it. ‘We’re standing on the Triumphal Way. That arch was erected five centuries ago to celebrate an imperial victory. Yet already most of those marble panels were second hand. They were taken down from previous monuments and reused. We Romans have little loyalty to the past when it suits us.’

I should have been listening to him more closely, but my attention had wandered. An extraordinary structure dominated the skyline beyond the triumphal arch. The Nomenculator did not have to explain to me what it was. My teacher had told me about it when I was a boy and I had never expected to see it for myself. The Colosseum was everything that I had imagined – soaring up like a vast perforated drum, three layers of ornamented arcades perched each on top of the other and surmounted by a podium. There was a wide break on the side of the drum where a huge section of the edifice had collapsed, but the overall effect was still breathtaking.

Paul noted my amazement. ‘The greatest structure of the Roman world. A feat of engineering and design that has never been equalled,’ he said with more than a hint of pride.

‘It is stunning,’ I confessed.

He looked at me from under the wide brim of his hat, and a mischievous smile spread across the blotchy red face. ‘That is where you and your embassy will be accommodated for the winter.’

I thought I had misheard, and stood rooted to the spot.

He had to repeat himself. ‘That,’ he said, pointing, ‘is where you will be staying. It’s your winter quarters and will house the beasts too.’

‘But how . . . ?’ I stammered.

His smile grew even broader. ‘Alcuin listed the animals you were bringing. When I got his letter I wondered where on earth I could possibly put such creatures. It was like trying to find accommodation for a circus. Then, of course, it came to me: the very centre of Rome has a place designed precisely for circuses and their strange and curious beasts.’

‘But the Colosseum was for gladiatorial contests.’

‘It was, and sometimes the fights were between wild animals or between men and beasts. So the Colosseum has dozens of stalls to accommodate dangerous creatures.’

‘And is it still possible to use them nowadays?’

His face twitched in the convulsive wink once more, and he laid a conspiratorial hand on my sleeve. ‘Believe it or not, the Nomenculator can wield considerable influence when he wants to. Besides, the Colosseum is not as impressive on the inside as from where we stand. Those stalls and shacks should give you a clue.’

Around the base of the Colosseum squatters had thrown up a line of lean-to shops and poor dwellings. Like limpets, they rested against the outer wall of the amphitheatre. Here, as elsewhere, the citizens of Rome took indiscriminate advantage of their city’s heritage.

Followed by his train of servants, the Nomenculator guided me through one of the many entry archways in the Colosseum’s lower wall. We walked down a dank tunnel smelling of rotting rubbish and excrement, and came out on the lowest of the spectator terraces. We were standing where the most important onlookers once must have sat, within yards of the gory action in the arena immediately below them. Now the spectacle was utterly different. On the far side of the amphitheatre a large part of the upper arcades had fallen inwards, causing an unsightly landslide of rubble. On the edge of the ancient arena was a small rustic-looking chapel made from salvaged stones. The floor of the arena close to the chapel was being used as a burial place. Crude stumps of broken marble served as grave markers. Much of the lowest arcade had been converted into makeshift dwellings. Smoke rose from their cooking fires. Higher up, the arcades had been abandoned, presumably as they were unsafe, but not before being robbed of building material, some of which still lay in untidy heaps in the arena. The only area that retained anything like its former function as a gladiatorial arena lay directly in front of us. A sturdy fence of wooden boards had been erected to make a semi-circular enclosure some thirty yards across. Inside the enclosure, the sand of the original arena had been cleaned of rubbish and swept. Several tiers of stone seats that looked down into the enclosure were intact.