A play in one act (unfinished)

Act 1 (of 1)

Scene 1(of 1)

The atrium in the Curia Julia (Senate House) in ancient Rome in the time of Emperor Baractacus. Two senators, Durbinus and Macanius are sitting on a bench conversing.

Senator Macanius: Good day to you, senator, you are looking especially well.

Senator Durbinus: Thank you, dear colleague, I am indeed well, and who would not be given the happy proclamation of our new emperor Baractacus, who, as you know is from my very own province.

Macanius: Humbug! That man has radical intentions and will set about to destroy the great republic of Rome; a republic that was established through the military power of our brave Caesars. Look at what happened only last week when the great general Petrarcus was humiliated by Baractacus in front of the whole Empire; just because he took his scribe as a mistress; I ask you, I wager that not one man in this senate is without a mistress. I understand that he is not a senator and had a highly sensitive position and therefore was needed to be seen as whiter than white. So he had a minor lapse of judgment, but surely not enough to be brought to his knees. But for this, one day he himself might have been proclaimed emperor of Rome.

Durbinus; Maybe so, respected senator, but what damage has been done to Rome? There are hundreds of fine generals waiting to take his place; one thing that this empire is not short of is generals. I suppose that this has come about because Rome is constantly engaged in war in one part of the world or other.

Macanius: That is so, dear friend, but the wars are absolutely necessary to ensure Rome’s rightful place in the world. We are the center of philosophy, culture and art and the barbarians in the world beyond resent this and are always seeking ways to take us down. Thus we need a great army with copious resources to uphold our national security. We must be strong in order to secure our continued existence.

Durbinus: Yes, that is an argument that we heard much of from the former emperor Giorgian Secundus who, with his henchmen started two wars against nations far in the orient and sent thousands of our prime citizens to their deaths. It seems that when we are blessed with emperors of your political stripe we find that the taxes of the people are always used to procure more soldiers and more armaments, instead of being used to improve the health and wellbeing of our citizenry.

Macanius: There you go again with your plaintive song about the people and their wellbeing; it makes me want to puke. Without a strong military your people and the rest of us would be overrun by the barbarian hordes; then they would see how well off they are now by paying their taxes and supporting the military-industrial complex.

Durbinus: Listening to you brings to mind the old joke about the elephant powder, do you remember that one?

Macanius: I don’t think so, remind me.

Durbinus: Well, I was out walking by the Tiberius the other day and I saw a man in the distance who was bending over and appeared to be waving his hand around, sort of gesticulating at the ground. As I neared him, I realized that he was sprinkling some kind of powder on the sidewalk. I was curious so I asked him what he was doing and he replied that he was sprinkling the elephant powder. I expressed surprise and asked him what the elephant powder was for, to which he replied that it was to keep the elephants away. Now I was very confused as I had never seen an elephant in Rome, especially along the banks of the Tiberius and so I raised this point to him, to which he replied, “See, it’s working.” So I liken your military might to this man’s elephant powder.

Macanius: Now I know that you are crazy; you do not deserve protection from the screaming hordes. Think of your wives and children and grandchildren and how life would be for them under barbarian rule.

Durbinus: Well, since Rome has persistently looted and pillaged from those same barbarians over decades and sucked them dry of their resources, I imagine if they come tomorrow they would do some pillaging and looting and even raping, a sort of reparations. But they are humans, after all, and eventually they would settle down and life would come to a new equilibrium, I am sure.

Macanius: You are impossible, esteemed colleague; will you never listen to reason?  But to change the subject, thinking of the Petrarcus affair, what do you know of that woman-what’s her name-who initiated the events that led to his downfall and has been the center of attention of late?

Durbinus; I think that this is an intriguing story which will prove to have the legs of a division of legionnaires; I believe that there is a lot more to be revealed. I understand that this lady has a commodious villa in the vicinity of the large military encampment at Tampina, some leagues to the south of our eternal city. She has a reputation of being a generous host at parties that she throws at her home. Many of her invitees are senior princeps, generals and members of the Praetorian Guard, including Petrarcus and the one billed as his successor, Alenianus. It has been hinted that this Alenianus is very much in the favor of the lady Gilkelia to the extent of exchanging a dozen or more scrolls with her every week. I think that the members of the scurrilomedia are smelling smoke and are assiduously seeking the fire.  By the way, it seems that the Lady Gilkelia hails from a country at the eastern end of the Mare Internum, somewhere near to Judaea where that trouble-making rabble-rouser started up his act some years back. Incidentally, I think that the governor Pontius made a big error by allowing the locals to crucify him. That elevated him to martyrdom among his followers and they have been milking it ever since to great effect.

Macanius: I was not aware of her origins; but I do believe that ladies of that region are often very captivating. Anyway, honored colleague, you and I are very much in accord on this, and I have been thinking deeply about it of late and a question has raised itself in my mind and I will ask it to you. If you were a woman with fine posture and an engaging personality who suddenly took it into your head to set up a Pleasure Palace, where would be one of the best locations to establish such a place? Think of this as a purely theoretical concept, my dear friend.

Durbinus: Hmm, let me see, since I would be providing pleasure for men, then it would make sense to locate it where there is a large concentration of customers, viz., men.

Macanius: Exactly and where would you find such a place where many men are clustered?

Durbinus: Hmm, I am not sure, perhaps the Senate? Wait, wait, I have it; I think the most likely place would be in close vicinity to an army encampment.

Macanius: That is exactly what I have been thinking. And to my surprise I learned yesterday that the Villa Gilkelia is no more than a couple of leagues from the gates of one of the largest such installations in the Empire, at Tampina, known as Castra Madillia and it is where thousands of our finest legionnaires are ensconced, either being trained for missions at the edges of the empire, or having returned thereto from foreign parts. Many of these worthies are far from their homes, which could be anywhere in the Empire, thus they are lonely and deprived of conjugal rights and therefore ripe for the attention of ladies at a Pleasure Palace. Yes, dear colleague, I think that we are in agreement that the most suitable place for installing a house of pleasure would be at the gates of a military encampment, such as Castra Madillia. I must hasten to say, dear colleague, that because Castra Madillia and Villa Gilkelia are in such close proximity does not mean that they have the kind of connection alluded to above; that would indeed be a stretch of Aristotelian logic, but it certainly makes one ponder.

Durbinus: Well, I do not think that pleasure palaces are outside the law, are they? It would be a sorry state of affairs if Rome were to outlaw such places as prurient. It seems to me that our brave soldiers, especially the higher-ranking ones, being forced to be away from their families and without feminine succor when they are away in foreign lands, need to have an outlet for their masculine drives when they return home, or before they go out on dangerous missions, whatever the case maybe. As I see it, Pleasure Palaces serve a national security purpose by refreshing the vitality of our fighting men.

Macanius: I find myself in complete accord with your sentiments, honored friend, and my only lingering concern is about whether or not monies are being sequestered away from the tax collector. What I suggest is that you and I go to this camp on a senatorial fact-finding mission to ascertain whether such a Pleasure Palace exists and if so what its tax status is.

Durbinus; I am in complete concurrence, dear friend, let us inform our servants and slaves to prepare for the journey. As I have been thinking about this notion, it has occurred to me that perhaps we should write a law requiring all military camps in the empire to have one or more Pleasure Palaces embedded into their structure for the refreshment of their fighting men. There are hundreds of such camps across the Empire and if we institutionalize Pleasure Palaces in all of them; it would be a profuse new stream of tax revenue.

Macanius: Let us then away to Tampina!