Perpetua: A Bride, A Martyr, A Passion

Sophie and I walked arm in arm down the via, heading for the edge of Carthage. Most of the traffic opposed us, the majority on their way to the forum on the Bysra Hill. Although the disease among wheat had eased, the peasants had not recovered. It would take several months before the faces that passed us began to fill out again with a new harvest, and their hungry cheekbones and sunken eyes look satisfied. They were coming in now from the countryside to sell what they did have. Sophie and I held tight to each other, dodging this way and that, weaving between colorful burdens of ripe produce and the barefoot children driving the asses on which they sat. I spied a small opening ahead and pulled Sophie into it.

“Oh, Sophie!” I panted, “We’re never going to get there.” Along the road came the sound of a crier, loud above the already deafening din, and the rich litter which soon came into view passed easily through the parted pedestrians. It was gone in a moment, and the crowd had flooded back in its wake. I probably know the people in there, I realized fleetingly. “I should have brought the litter. Did you see how fast they were going?”

“That’s all right. This is good for us.” Sophie let her eyes wander around the indentation we sheltered in. “I haven’t been here in a long time,” she mused.

“Where is here? I haven’t seen anything but the road since we left.” I tucked a straying lock of hair behind my ear.

“The amphitheater.”

My ease left, replaced by a shiver. My back was tired, yes, but it was resting against harsh stones. I straightened.

“Neither have I.”

“Did you go to the shows often?” Sophie usually did not ask about my pre-conversion lifestyle.

“I did some, with friends. Claudia. Father doesn’t like it, so I never went until my years of study were done.” I touched its wall. “I was so excited the first time. I remember the ride here, and the smell of the vendors’ stands, and, and the sick feeling I had at the end.”

“I’ve never actually watched. I could not bring myself to.”

“It’s addicting,” I admitted. “As terrible as I felt, I wanted to go back. And I did.”

Her eye sought mine with a new curiosity. “What attracted you?”

“Its reality.” She looked puzzled. The stones themselves were pushing cold into me, crystallizing my bones. I grabbed her arm. “Let’s leave.” We slipped back out into the street and began pushing our way along. How could I explain to someone who’d never experienced the scene? “I think some people enjoy the blood itself. They can watch murder and torture in safety. Plus, it’s sponsored by the government. So there’s no fault to them.”

She understood what I was saying. “That’s when humans find it easy to be under authority. When that authority sanctions something we want but know deep down is wrong.”

“Yes. I know girls who enjoy the games because their hearts are bitter, vicious, and they get to watch those feelings being played out.” Claudia’s squarish face floated into view. She would be horrified if she knew my thoughts. I quickly brushed the image aside. “But I, I suppose I never had an inner anger to express. Did you know I had a little brother who died? Dinocrates.” Her hand stole to mine. “I wasn’t even angry then.” My voice lowered. “Only afraid, and sad. But I went to the amphitheater because it was true. Real people, real blood, real pain.” She was silent, and I hastened to explain. “I wasn’t bloodthirsty. But I’d studied for so long … all the life I’d experienced was in my head and my books. Friendship, pain, joy, death, heroism, pathos. I’d never seen it in real life. But the games are real. I really saw a gladiator alive one moment and forever dead the next. He wasn’t Achilles, dying in my mind.” My voice pled the last few words.

“Did you like what you saw?”

“No. I never liked it.” We finally reached the smaller street where Eunius’ widow lived, and the crowd thinned once we’d turned the corner. I released my tight hold on Sophie’s arm. “I saw Christians martyred, although I didn’t quite know what was going on at the time.” Sophie read my sorrow easily. “Remembering the apostle Paul is the only thing that comforts me now, when I think about how I just watched, just let it happen …”

“Although you couldn’t have stopped it if you’d wanted.”

“I know,” I nodded, “but I agreed with it at the time, you see?” It was her turn to nod. “And so did he. Paul was the one who turned them in, accused them to the court, and watched at the executions. But God forgave him.”

“And used him mightily later.”

“What scares me though are those words: ‘For I will show him how many things he must suffer.’”

“For My name’s sake’!” her addition was vehement. “Perpetua! You are not going to suffer because you were bad before you were saved. We were all evil, and still would be if not for Jesus.”

“But I am going to suffer?”

She answered surely. “I hope so.”

I wasn’t given a chance to stand and be shocked, as Sophie immediately pulled me up the stairs of the flats we stood before, bounding with an energy younger than mine. The further up we went, the narrower the stairs became, until the walls were so close we needed no hand rail for balance. In spite of the petite stature I was constantly aware of, I had to duck my head at the top of the steps. Our view opened into a low, dark garret. One tiny flame lit the room, although sunlight filtered here and there through ill-repaired roof-boards. I thought of the winter rains, not yet over. My robe seemed more necessary up here than in the street, where the heat of activity kept me warm. Sophie was already greeting an old woman who had remained seated when we’d entered. I assumed she was the widow Risa.

“This is our sister, Perpetua.” She introduced me. We settled down on what was available—the widow’s bed, which laid directly on the floor. It was less a mattress than a collection of two or three thin mats. There was no furniture but the chair she sat in, no chest which could have held a change of clothing. Several bowls and utensils were neatly stacked next to the small fireplace, and what looked to be a sack of wheat leaned against the wall. The room smelled musty, like unwashed fabric, although it appeared to be kept very tidy.

“Isn’t that true, Perpetua?” Sophie poked me.

I came back to the present, not very elegantly. “What?”

“That it was no trouble to come here.”

“We wanted to, Risa,” I assured.

Sophie turned her concern back to the wrinkled woman. “We brought you some things.” She opened the bag she’d lugged all the way from her domus.

“Ah, God is good.” Risa took the fresh vegetables and fruit as Sophonisbe handed them. There were only a few, for fear they would rot before one person could eat them. Another sack of wheat and a small amphora of oil completed the stack on Risa’s lap. She peeled an orange and tried to pass me a wedge.

“Oh no!” I protested, holding up flattened palms, “it’s for you.” Another poke tickled my ribs, so I took it from her still outstretched hands. “Oh, all right. Thank you.” I eyed Sophie between bites. She was telling Risa about my recent conversion.

“…and suffering popped up again in our conversation today. Risa, I think I have shocked my young friend, although she is too well-bred to let on.” I should have known the subject wasn’t dropped.

“What have you done, Sophonisbe?” her old eyes twinkled. They were playing a game with me, goading me in.

“I told her I hoped she would suffer.”

The old woman’s mouth opened in an amused laugh. The sporadic teeth spotting its interior certainly did not lead me to expect the wit I soon identified with those lips. Nor the agile mind behind.

“And Perpetua,” she turned her crooked smile on me, “you haven’t taken it as a compliment, have you?”

“A compliment, Risa?” What could she mean?

“Yes. A compliment. Just like if your girlfriend said to you: ‘I hope you travel across the sea, and do a good deed for the Captain, and get introduced to the financier, and be asked to a banquet, and fall flat on your face in front of the royal table, and become the next emperor’s queen.’” I giggled, and snickered, and ended by laughing out loud on that floor-bound mattress with Sophie shaking beside me. Risa was easy to understand.

“No,” I finally managed, “I didn’t take it like that.”

“Well why not?” She queried, almost as if I’d affronted her.

“It didn’t occur to me it might be a compliment.”

“Everything Sophonisbe says is a compliment.” Her eyes blinked, smoothness tucked into the crinkled skin around. “But I demand to know, what do you think suffering is?” The laughing moment had passed, and my mind squirmed uncomfortably.

“It, it’s what Jesus did on the cross.”

“Yes,” she drawled slowly, like Father, finding a way to commend my effort in spite of a wrong answer. “But did He come to save us from it?” Her fingers were tapping her knee. My hands sweated as if I were standing under a school examination once again. Amo, amas, amat, amamos, amatis, amant. I love, he loves … “Now in Greek!”

“No. No, He didn’t.”

Sophie patted me. “Risa’s not trying to make you uncomfortable, Perpetua.” She smiled at the widow, who blinked again.

“Child, I’m sorry. Your grandmother would not be happy with me.”

“Did you know her?” I stuttered.

She looked shrewdly at my face, lingering over my eyes and hair. “What was her name?”

“My grandmother? Aria.”

“You look like her.”

Something jumped and fell inside me at the same moment.

“She was such a meek beauty. She used to be quite a fireball, to hear her talk. We went to the same house church.”

I gasped. Grandmother was a Christian! Thus Father’s reluctance to talk about her? Or did he even know?

“Tell me about her,” I begged.

“Aria was partial to psalms. Always seemed to be singing …” We spent the next hour picking the widow’s memory, until she seemed to tire. But I had to ask one last question.

“And how did she die?”

I had managed to surprise this one, whom nothing surprised.

“You don’t know?”

When I shook my head, she seemed to retreat.

“That is a question, then, to ask your father. If he lives.”

Sophie spoke in the lull that followed. “We must go.” As we rose, I saw Risa shiver in her light clothing. Perhaps it was more than the temperature that brought cold to her body, but I took my robe off, uncovering the multicolored amictus I’d kept hidden underneath, and placed it in her hands. She protested.

“I have more at home, Risa.” I kissed her goodbye. “May I visit again?”

“Anytime, Child.”

Sophie and I carefully made our way back down the steep stairs.

The wind ripped across my flimsy dress when we emerged on the street. Goose bumps rose, and Sophie grabbed my hand.

“Let us walk fast; you will not be so cold.”

This time we were walking with the crowd, although it had thinned substantially since earlier morning. My uncovered dress spoke my rank, but I was not afraid of any acquaintances noticing me. Most noblewomen would not venture out of their houses for an hour yet.

I’ve been given so much, Lord. What do You require of me? How many times had I asked that same question? What had He called my grandmother to? What made Risa so proud and sorrowful all at once upon the mention of Aria?

“You see, suffering is not so bad.” Sophie ended my long contemplation.

“You are cold for Christ’s sake, but it is not terrible.”

“Is that what you meant, though? Things like this?”

“No,” she admitted. We were passing the amphitheater again. She gestured to its highest spike. “Things like that.” I wasn’t repulsed, in fact, an odd spark of warmth stirred in my stomach and caught my throat. I laughed at my own romantic intensity, only partially dismissing it. Could I ever really be a martyr, Lord?

“Promise me you’ll come, then.”

The thick-haired head shook in surprise. “I can’t promise that.” Her face reminded me of Tumi’s, confronted for the first time by a pool of water to bathe in, his eyes blinked shut in surprise and fear and joy all mixed when the spray splashed up from his own waving baby hands and wet his face. Something unexpected had happened, and she was not quite sure what it was. We passed the remainder of the huge structure in silence.

“You never told me what happened with that young man who threatened you.”

“He went to Rome.”

“Ah, I wondered. You haven’t been avoiding your old friends.”

“Saturninus found out several weeks later, when he started at the university. Apuleius and his whole family went. Indefinitely. His father has a new position.”

Her hand tightened around mine.

“I’m actually glad, Sophie, for that experience. I think it helped me to grow up, spiritually.” Her eyebrows inquired. “There is nothing like weakness and danger to bring me into constant communion with God.”

“That’s true,” she agreed quietly, to the stone wall and potted flowers we crowded up against, making way for another litter to pass. “Loneliness as well.”

What could I say? I stared at the white curtains hanging partially closed around the litter’s occupant. The crush against me was delightfully tight. I could have stood using no strength. It reminded me of a moment at the shore in my youth, when the wind up the bluff was so strong I stood on its edge and leaned toward the cliff and the sea, releasing every muscle. The invisible held me straight as surely as a strong masonry wall, and when I tumbled, it was not into the roaring sea before me, but the arms of my father behind.

The litter was opposite us when a heavily jeweled hand pulled aside its curtain and the noble woman inside absently scanned the crowd watching her. Suddenly, it was Julia’s eyes, catching mine where I stood pressed between the crowd and the wall, and holding them for a split second before I was lost in the bounce of her litter.

“Oh no.” I groaned softly.

Her invitation came the next day, and I soon found myself stepping from my own litter into her magnificent domus. That familiar entrance pool reminded me of all the luxuries wealth and beauty lent. Her home was a temple to water, as was almost every Roman town. It defied the dry land surrounding Carthage. Fountains were everywhere, fed by the giant cisterns of the city. I dipped my hand under the water, moving my fingers through its wet pressure and imagining its long journey across the plain after leaving Zeugitanus and Hadrian’s spectacular Temple of the Waters there. The enormous aqueduct was my favorite sight when we traveled toward Venetiae. In some places it reached over seventy feet tall.

“I invited you to bathe, Perpetua, but you don’t have to take it in my little entrance pool!” Julia came toward me with arms held out in greeting. I pulled my hand out and shook the drops off.

“I couldn’t resist, Julia. This pool attracts me so.” Julia’s urban villa, Charites, was so enormous it had one door for guests entering, and one for leaving, each with their own magnificent hall and fountains and mosaics. She led me inside, and I wondered at the knot in my stomach. The last time I’d been here, it was without the Spirit of God, and I’d been at ease. Now He was with me, yet I feared. I should have brought Selina, but Julia had insisted she would supply an ornatrix for after our bath.

“I never see you at the public baths, or the theater anymore,” she complained. “Where have you been keeping yourself?”

“I prefer our private bath to the public ones, although it is nothing like yours.”

“My facilities are wonderful, I know,” she sighed petulantly, “but sometimes I go to the thermae¹ just for the company. It’s the best place to hear the gossip. You must be frightfully out of touch.”

“I saw Lupus recently at the Odeon²,” I volunteered hopefully.

“Yes, he told me. But why do you not attend the theater?”

“I haven’t heard of anything of interest there recently.” What did God think of evasion and half-told truth?

“You prefer music?” She was thoughtful, playing with her gold embroidered scarf. “Oh, I know!” The excitement of her idea flashed across the room frightfully. “They are reviving Laureolus. A troupe from Rome has come. We shall go tonight!” My stomach dropped.

“Laureolus? I’m not sure I’ll like that onstage.”

“Oh Perpetua, why not?”

“I’ve already read it.”

“Yes, but that can’t compare with seeing it all happen. And you know,” she lowered her voice, about to bite into something secret and delicious, “the death scene employs a condemned criminal.” Her tongue wet her lips. My heart beat heavily and slow, so slow.

“I’ll have to pass. Real blood. It makes me queasy. You wouldn’t want your guest losing her cena on the patron below us!” I tried to laugh it away. Spirit! Help me!

“I suppose not.” She was disappointed. “Shall we bathe?”

I followed her through several large rooms, elegantly furnished, until we reached the thermal complex. Her bath was constructed like a miniature of Trajan’s in Rome, although without the art galleries, promenades, shops, libraries, and brothels. Still, it housed an exercise ground, steam room, rubdown center, swimming pool, and more, all designed with elegance in mind. Several attendants were waiting in the small apodyteria³ to help us disrobe. At the Antonine baths, one usually played a game of sport before beginning to cleanse, but neither Julia nor I were interested in that. It took longer for me to disrobe than her, as I wore several tunics underneath my amictus. When we were nude, we slipped into the sudatoria⁴. Sweat soon began to drip down my face and body, lulling me to relax in the steamy heat of the room. I held my contentment like a treasure, resting my back and head against the hot wall, and let Julia mock me.

“You’ll be one of those wives who horrify their husbands by leaving on several tunics and a corset when you sleep!”

“I like wearing several. It keeps me warm,” I mumbled, staying too hazy to mind, “and smoothes my dress.”

Even her high-pitched laugh didn’t intrude on my relaxed state. “Most women would rather not look so ‘smooth,’ as you call it.”

“Most men would agree with them,” I countered.

“Oh, let the men have their fun.” Her hand waved absently. “Did you know, until that prude Hadrian, the baths were mixed?”

“None of these separate-hours-for-the-men-and-women delicacies, my dear. Just plain, simple bathing.”

And probably a lot more. She had finally jarred me back, and it was a good thing she was not a thought-reader. Julia disgusted me. I know I blushed, imagining bathing in the same room with Lupus, or Andrew. Happily, my face was already too red to show it. “I am hot. Are you ready?” I wiped my eyes, pushing sweat away from them. The salty liquid stung.

“Sometimes I come in here three times a day,” she sighed as we moved into the caldarium⁵, almost as hot as the sudatoria. Our attendants were waiting for us there, and we stood while they sprinkled hot water from the labrum⁶ over our sweating bodies and scraped them down with the strigil. I closed my eyes, enjoying the feel of cleanliness left behind its motion. I felt Julia watching me, envying the differences between a young body and an older one marked by pregnancy and years. She took meticulous care with her appearance, but her baths and makeup and exercises could not stop time. Lupus had been born in her early womanhood, and her body bounced back quickly, but the beginnings of several siblings for him had been rejected, she confided, out of care for her shape. How many other noble women murdered their own to feed their vanity and that of their husbands? When we were dried, we walked back to the tepidarium⁷, where the medium temperatures cooled us gradually. As we rested, I examined the scenes painted along its walls. Julia had commissioned an artist to represent the baths in Rome. Female wrestlers, smeared with ceroma, an oil and wax mixture, and covered only with dust, were frozen, locked in each other’s grip. Three men played Trigon with a colorful ball, a slave standing by to supply a new one from a full bag, should the one in play be dropped. The murals walked through the whole process of bathing.

“Definitely pre-Hadrian,” I commented upon reaching the apodyteria scene. There was nothing in the room for me to look at instead, so I watched Julia.

“Have you been to Rome, my dear?”

“The next time we go, I shall ask Aelius to take you. Apuleius is there, you know.” She glanced mischievously at me. “I heard that he took quite a fancy to you.”

If hearts could ever stop and wait, mine did then.

“Where did you hear such a rumor?” I asked. She would not say.

“I have my ways.”

I decided she was bluffing, and let my heartbeat resume.

“We must run for the cold bath now,” she teased, leading the way out of the room, “or you will soon be as hot as the thermae’s furnaces.”

The frigidarium⁸ boasted a large sunken pool, lined with a sparkling mosaic of sea nymphs and gods in their underwater kingdoms. I quickly dove in, plunging as deep as I could underneath the clear, cool water. She joined me, but I indulged in immersing and swimming. I had been looking forward to this all day. Our home only housed the dry bath we had experienced till now. I had not enjoyed such a deep pool of water since I stopped public bathing. Tertullian, for all his modesty, had nothing against the baths, but my wealth gave me a private sanctuary where I didn’t have to endure the open brothel doors and rabid gossip of a foray into the Antonine complex. Julia began to speak when I emerged for air, but I pretended I hadn’t heard and dove again. The liquid covered my ears and muffled her voice. She gave up on the idea of communication with me and soon left the pool, her masseur laying her down on a flat couch at the head of the room. She watched me as he worked, and I swam to the edge and hung there, only my head and arms visible above the ground.

“Thank you for inviting me, Julia. This pool is quite a treat. It makes me long for Venetiae even more.”

“You have a cold pool at your country villa?”

“Yes,” I said, leaning my head back in the water to wet my hair. It was heavy and loose.

“You must have a massage from this slave before you dress,” she didn’t look ready to give him up though, as he worked her muscles, leaving nothing sacred. “You have never felt anything like his hands.” The accompanying sigh was too luxurious, his motions too sensuous.

I floated on my back, staring at the ceiling. But instantly I knew I couldn’t stay. The masseur disgusted me. The walls of this room were unmuraled, expecting the occasional splashes of water, but around the ceiling was a painted border of mini scenes. I strained my eyes; they were small and far away, but familiar. Yes, I’d seen all these before: the many positions of love. But I was a different person, and what interested me then repulsed me now.

“I am finished.” I called, and pulled myself up out of the pool.

“Oh, you must have a massage.” She cried half-heartedly.

“Perhaps not today.” I grabbed the towel my waiting attendant held and left the room, hearing Julia assure me hazily that she would follow in a moment. Her second ornatix brought me to a private room where perfumes and my clothing awaited. When I was redressed and adorned, more to her liking than to mine, I joined Julia in an interior sitting room. She was not ready to converse. The room looked out on a private courtyard, from which family sleeping chambers were entered.

“Oh, I am all floppy and relaxed,” she murmured, lying lazily on a reclining couch. “I stayed too long with the masseur.”

“Then it is good I didn’t have a massage,” I laughed, wanting to redeem my hasty departure in her eyes, “I have things to do tonight.” But I froze as soon as it’d left my mouth.

“Oh, really? What?” She was too interested.

“Nothing, nothing particularly special, I mean.” My mind stumbled around for an explanation.

“Really, I want to know. What is it that you do, since it is nothing I do.”

“Just a small, um, discussion group.”

“What do you discuss?” She cried, “You must tell me!”

“Life in general, I suppose.”

“Oh,” she leaned back again. “Life. That needs discussing. And what do you conclude?”

My heart leapt for a moment. Was it possible? Could I ever speak to Julia, the perverted, selfish soul, so petulantly requesting my most precious thoughts? Julia, who would have stayed even longer with the masseur were I not a guest today? Julia, who valued her figure above her children’s lives? “Julia, I, it’s hard to say what we conclude. We search for truth, and faith.”

“That sounds like you, Perpetua. Still the virgin.” She giggled. “I can help you with that anytime you want.”

“Thanks,” I said flatly. The Spirit was not urging me further. Why did she continue to seek my friendship? Her son was my age. Perhaps she wanted to feel younger.

“I know!” Her fingers snapped. “You’ve been initiated into some mystery religion, and are not allowed to tell me. How exciting. Now,” her mind flickered over the list of groups she was familiar with. “It is not something as mainstream as Isis, or you would have told me …”

My heart beat wildly. “No. I am not in a mystery cult.”

“Well, you seem a bit different than last time we talked, young lady.” As if I must explain my soul to her. As if she had some eternal right to know my intimate thoughts.

“I’ve grown up quite a bit in the past nine months, I suppose.” I responded.

“Why?” she asked. Once again, I didn’t know how to answer.

“Well, I had an experience that sobered me.”

“As if you weren’t already sober enough! Gracious! What could have possibly happened?” she pushed. I could find nothing to tell but the truth. Abbreviated.

“Do you remember warning me about molchomor?” She nodded in response. “A nephew of one of my servants, a little boy I’d played with, became a victim.” It sounded so bare that way. Why had I told her?

“Oh.” She didn’t probe any further, and soon changed the subject to fashions and shows. Julia was not one to consider the deeper or unpleasant parts of life.

That evening at Sophie’s house, I could not help but compare the future proconsul’s wife, in all her riches and luxury, to the widow Risa, whose gaunt, wrinkled face was only twenty or so years older. They didn’t even exist in the same world. Julia’s smooth skin and carefully painted eyes couldn’t compete with the beauty of righteousness whose roots sprung deep from Risa’s soul.