Publius Syrus was on the stage, rehearsing his cast and chorus, his support crew, and all the rest of the multitude he needed to get a whole set of theatricals presented. Most of us, seeing only the performance, which involves a mere handful of people, are never aware of what a mob is required to present a single play.
“Ah, Aedile,” Syrus cried, catching sight of me, “you have come!” As if I needed to be told this. But artists like Syrus had to be handled delicately.
“As always, I am prepared to drop everything to consult with my Master of Theatricals,” I said heartily. “Is anything wrong with the plays?”
“The plays? Of course not! They shall be superb!” All this declaimed with many broad gestures. Then, more calmly, “If, that is, there is a theater to celebrate them in.”
“Eh? What are you talking about?”
“Come with me, Aedile.” He looked up at the stage. “The rest of you, continue practicing! You have only days to master your roles and your duties!”
“Have the seat cushions arrived yet?” I asked, scanning the nearby seats. “I ordered seat cushions, good ones made of Egyptian linen, stuffed with raw wool. No grass or hay, mind you. Newly sheared raw wool.”
“It’s far too early for that, Aedile,” Syrus insisted. “They’ll just get wet. You don’t want cushions delivered until a day or two before the festival.”
“Well, they’d better be in place by the first performance or heads will fall.” I was especially determined to have these cushions because everyone would think I was being terribly extravagant. Actually, one of my clients dealt in wool and cloth, and when the performances were done he would dismantle the cushions and get me back at least three-quarters of my outlay. Best of all, the cushions would outrage Cato. He always went into frothing frenzies anytime an innovation appeared that made people more comfortable.
We walked into a passage beneath the stage, and Syrus praised himself and his work. “Aedile, I have rewritten the scene where King Ptolemy tries to burgle the house of Crassus. Instead of finding Crassus in bed with Caesar’s wife, he discovers General Gabinius in bed with the wife of Crassus!”
I nodded. “The news from Egypt has it that Gabinius has been very successful. He really needs to be smeared and lampooned and slandered.”
Syrus smiled happily. “My very thought. Too much praise attracts the jealousy of the gods, so we will be doing him a favor.” Syrus was the foremost practitioner of this sort of political satire. It was considered scandalous, and various senators had tried having it declared criminal; but it was wildly popular with the plebs, so the tribunes saw to it that no such legislation was passed. Everyone who could hired Syrus to libel and belittle their political rivals and enemies. Sooner or later, someone was going to hire him to give me this treatment, and I was not looking forward to it.
“How are the rehearsals for Agamemnon coming along?” I asked him.
Syrus looked as if he had bitten into something sour. “It is not the Agamemnon of Aeschylus, Aedile. It is Antigone, which is by Sophocles, you will recall.”
“Ah, yes, I always confuse those old buggers. They all sound alike to me, but my wife is very fond of them. Rehearsals going well, are they?”
He closed his eyes. “Beautifully, Aedile. Tears and pity and terror shall be the order of the day.”
I didn’t see that it mattered very much, but I was trying to be polite. Nobody would want to attend the tragedy anyway, except for scholars like Cicero and high-born ladies and whatever protesting husbands they could drag along. What the plebs loved were the comedies and satyr plays, the mimes, and the Atellan farces; and I planned to deliver these in good measure. I wasn’t going to be as radical as Pompey, though, and provide large animals and armies clashing in mock battle on stage. It was dangerous, and his innovation had been a failure anyway, spreading panic and dismay. Such activities properly belonged in the arena, not the theater. The Roman public was extremely conservative about this sort of thing.
We came out onto an outside gallery used by the scene shifters and other workmen of the theater. The gallery ran along the straight side of the semicircle, and it was cluttered with heaps of rope, buckets of paint, parts of the crane used for lowering gods into the action, and so forth. It all looked like total chaos to me; but to those whose business it was, it was as orderly as the arrangement of a seagoing vessel.
“Look down there, Aedile,” Syrus said, leaning over a railing and pointing downward.
I did likewise, and so did Hermes. The theater backed almost against the riverbank, and the gallery upon which we stood projected out over the mud fiat like a balcony. Below us, a crew of workmen were shoring up the building with heavy wooden beams. The muddy, turbid water of the Tiber was already within a few yards of their feet.