Martin sat beside me like a frozen block of his lemon water. He was never one for big crowds, except at a good church service. Authari was impressed by the spectacle, without understanding much of it. But I joined in the cheering and laughing as if I’d been going to the Circus all my life.
Rome had nothing to match this.
At a burst of louder cheering and catcalls, I turned round to see Philip and some of the other students. Dressed in wonderful clothes – Philip himself was wearing shoes all of woven gold thread – and sprawled along one of the higher rows, they had a fine view of the racecourse and over the Imperial Box to the palace and the City beyond. They had brought food and drink and were sharing a jolly breakfast. Philip beckoned me up to join them but Alypius pounced before I could move.
‘You stay in your allotted place,’ he breathed from beside me.
Even so, they did send down a jug of reasonably unwatered wine to keep me going through the remainder of the festivities. Alypius brought it, concealed in the folds of his robe. Most welcome, this. Martin for some reason had got Authari to pack only fruit juice in our hamper.
The Factions now burst again into chanting – yet more celebration of the qualities of their champions. So long as they don’t turn ugly, proceedings in the Circus follow a ritual as set in its essentials as in a church.
At last, however, the teams began to move towards the far end of the racecourse and the shouting diminished in volume. There was a flurry of movement on the Senatorial Terrace. Everyone there was on his feet and facing away from the racecourse, looking up. Even the Patriarch was standing.
On each side of the Imperial Box above them, seven men in golden robes had appeared. They stood looking around and waiting for reasonable silence. Then they raised their golden trumpets. A peal of bright sound rang out across the Circus.
There was silence.
A herald stood forward in the Imperial Box. He raised his arms to maintain the silence.
‘We unite’, he cried in a slow, clear voice that reached to the topmost rows behind me, pausing at each phrase to draw breath, ‘in greeting our Lord and Master, the Most Holy and Orthodox and Ever-Victorious Flavius Phocas – Caesar Augustus, Autocrator, Dominus et Imperator, appointed by God Almighty Himself, Ruler of the Universe.’
32
I’d seen representations of Phocas any number of times. There was a crude image of his face on all the coins. There was an icon of him in every public building throughout the Empire. And, of course, there was the golden statue of him atop its column in Rome. His presence was evident in all things.
Although I’d been living in his shadow ever since my arrival in the City, this was the first time I’d seen the Emperor in person. At a distance of three hundred yards, I can’t say I was able to make out that much of him. It was a small, dumpy figure who shuffled into view at the front of the Imperial Box. Dressed in shimmering purple, a band of gold on his dark head, he stood with set features to receive the acclamations of the Senators and of the whole crowd.
On the Terrace below him, the Senators stretched out as one in the formal prostration, or Adoration of His Majesty. The Patriarch, of course, was exempt from the full prostration, but he bowed low before the Living Symbol of Divine and Earthly Power that was currently Phocas. The rest of us stood with bowed heads in reverent silence. Far off, on the racecourse below the Imperial Box, a choir was singing praises of Christ and the Virgin. As we raised our heads again, the Patriarch was getting ready to bless the teams.
At last, with an elaborate sign of the Cross that could be seen from every point of the Circus, the Emperor took his seat far above us. There, he sat as dignified and impassive as a painted statue.
Another blast of the trumpets, and the herald stood forward again. ‘To God the Father and Son’, he cried, ‘be Glory in the Highest.’
‘Be Glory and Honour ever in the Highest,’ came the response of the whole Circus.
The herald: ‘And to the Empire, be victory and glory on all frontiers.’
The crowd: ‘Victory and glory on all frontiers.’
And so the litany continued. Peace and plenty in all the Provinces. Plague and famine to be banished from the earth. Solidity to the foundation of the Churches. Anathema to the variously described heresies. Anathema to the Great King of the Persians and his heathen armies, and to all the barbarians who had violated the frontiers of the Empire. And so on and so forth as if in some huge service in church.
Then from the herald: ‘And to Heraclius, renegade Exarch of Africa, and to Heraclius, the usurping son, anathema and oblivion.’
Silence throughout the main Circus. On the Senatorial Terrace, hard under the watchful Eye of Power, the response sounded in grim unison. From the rest of the Circus came a scattering of shouts that died at the realisation of its own thinness of volume. From all other places there was a tense and ominous silence, as of a landscape that darkens under gathering stormclouds.
The herald looked round. Though I couldn’t make out his features, I could sense the consternation from the movements of his body. Then I saw Theophanes step forward beside him. Dressed with a splendour that eclipsed all previous appearances I’d seen, his face shining with white lead and gold leaf, he began a rapid conversation with the herald. Their voices didn’t carry outside the Box. But I could tell from their furtive glances that their conversation involved Phocas, who continued looking stead ily forward at no one in particular.
It was obvious they were in a bind about how to continue. The litany should have culminated in a long set of praises of the Emperor but if these went ahead, there was every chance of humiliation from the crowd. They had expected at least one of the Factions to take up the responses but instead they were facing a citizenry united in hostility. It might even provoke rioting that, given the siege, could be fanned into revolution.
But dropping the culmination risked hardly worse. I saw Theophanes look up at the sky. The clouds were lifting to leave the day cool but bright – ideal rioting weather. Perhaps he was thinking of his deal with Heraclius – whatever that might be.
You see, there’s nothing much to be done when people are gathered together in the Circus. Whereas, as individuals, they can be terrorised into obedience, together in the Circus they can make their feelings known with impunity. An Emperor secure on his throne can set the army on the crowd. There’s nothing like an indiscriminate massacre for restoring order.
But Phocas wasn’t at all secure. I never could make out why the races had been allowed to go ahead in these circumstances. I suppose it was in the hope that a pretence of normality would bring on its reality. They had begun badly and might easily turn catastrophic.
Then came salvation. Instead of waiting for events to move in their direction as inexorably as water runs down a gully, whoever was behind all this tried hurrying them forward. Someone in the Blue Faction began reciting from a chorus of Sophocles. It opened with the lines:
Wasted thus by death on death
All our city perisheth.
Corpses spread infection round;
None to tend or mourn is found.
One voice became two, and then a dozen, and then hundreds. Almost at once, in a rolling blaze of sound that united all parts of the Circus beyond the Senatorial Terrace, the words continued to their conclusion:
Golden child of Zeus, O hear
Let thine angel face appear!
There is no public theatre in Constantinople. Even so, the old plays do get a regular airing in the Circus. They’re put on in afternoon sessions during the hot summer months, when it’s too hot for racing, or there are no executions left over from the morning.