SPQR Chapter 8
The voice came from the back of the cell, puny and cracked. Martellus thought he was in solitary confinement but there was indeed somebody there in that foetid cell. When Martellus first heard it, his first thought that it was some puny creature like a mouse or a squirrel but once his eyes adjusted to the darkness of the disgusting room, he saw a lion. Or to be more precise, a skeletal wraith of a lion, preyed upon by many foul diseases. His cell mate had been badly mistreated by the guards, who took sadistic glee in beating prisoners. The lion's body was covered head to toe in scars left by the Roman flagella cruelly laced with metal and shards of glass; many of the scars showed advanced signs of infection. There was no mane to speak of on this feline prisoner and there were numerous bald spots, a sign of malnutrition. Only an ill-fitting burlap rag kept the lion's more delicate body parts unexposed but given the Roman propensity for cruelty, there was little doubt in Martellus' mind that they had been mutilated in some respect. And yet the lion was still alive, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary. The worst injury to his body was the large red "M" emblazoned on his left paw, the sign of a murderer.
"Thou shalt not kill... not even thyself," the lion wheezed, as though it required a superhuman effort to even mouth the words of his scriptures. Of course, he would have been the one to talk about murder.
"I am Eliezer ben-Yehuda. And I am a... murderer (cough)" Everything would be slow for this lion who had been so badly abused by the Roman guards. Martellus knew that was a Jewish name and that he was now face-to-face with one whose very way of life he helped destroy all those years ago during the occupation. But this prisoner was too abused to be offensive towards anyone, his strength, wealth, vigor and youth stripped away after only one year of Roman torture. The lion had literally been beaten into submission.
The wolf then spoke, oblivious to his own nudity and embarrassment at the sight of one who was even more miserable than he was. "I was a soldier in the Roman army, and then a Senator. I spoke against the Imperial abuse of power by Domitian and in his cruelty, he threw me into this forsaken place. The Emperor is an evil and wicked man and I chose to forfeit my position and life rather than endure his misrule."
"You... are not the only victim of... his evil. I... was a scholar who... (cough) had to repay a favor by killing... a magistrate. Decius Commodus, the victim's name. I will pay... am paying for that. I was a Sicarii." The Sicarii were to be feared during the Judean occupation, Martellus rmembered- disguised as religious students and scholars they carried daggers under their robes and stabbed to death any Roman unfortunate enough to be alone with them. They were religious extremists and terrorists who thought they could win freedom for their homeland by killing the appointed officials, even those who were innocent.
"If your life be miserable, why don't you commit suicide as I was about to. This decaying room is worse than anything else imaginable."
"But there... is still hope. For you and for me! And a divine purpose." The lion had a point. His woeful and unhappy tale tormented him as he had no one to confess his sins to and the details of his fall from grace tortured him, as did the guards routinely. He was a murderer yes, but as Martellus soon found out this prison sentence was in one way, self-inflicted.
The crime was a mystery that none of the prelates and centurions could have discovered and Eliezer had for months left the investigators of Commodus' death at a loss. But his conscience, burning hotter than the Egyptian sun kept him from enjoying his life of sin and soon he turned himself to the authorities, knowing full well he would be led to this painful state. Such was the price of repentance to the Judean, who knew that the price for taking a life was that his own life be taken. His sins he had committed in ignorance and stupidity, believing that violence was the solution to life's problems. Martellus had long thought the Judeans simple-minded to pay homage to an invisible God as the Romans worshipped the sun and the moon and the wind and their Emperors. But at this moment, he realized that the gods of Rome were spiteful, flawed, and in the case of the deified leopard Domitian, evil.
"Do not be afraid, my... friend. Even as death comes, I sense that... you are innocent. If you tell them that... everyone will know." Know what? The lion was too exhausted to speak any longer and in what could only be described as a miracle, fell soundly asleep in the disgusting cell the two shared. Here in the midst of this foetor and decay, there was one individual, clinging on to life and the hope of a better world to come. And in spite of Martellus' own shortcomings and flaws, his tendency to move based on passion rather than reason, there was reason to be courageous, reason that his death, much like his life would make some meaningful difference. Hours passed in that awful place and yet the wolf continued growing in courage, remembering of how as a soldier he swore that if it would protect the Empire from wicked men, the wolf would forfeit his own life. The words of Eliezer, son of Yehuda, a captured Judean felon had given this disgraced Senator the bravery to die for what he believed in.
"You mangy curs!" the guard said, "the time has come for you to die in the arena. You will be a spectacle for this city I hope."
Indeed the time had come for Martellus to give his greatest contribution to the city...