Here we turn briefly\u00a0to Atretes. He\u2019s getting angry at Julia. Because of course he is. Because everything Julia touches goes wrong. Hadassah has come to fetch Atretes to Julia, for sex, of course. Atretes goes, but he is not pleased.<\/p>\n
Where had Julia arranged for them to meet this time? In an inn? In the storage chambers of her brother\u2019s villa? At a feast, where they could steal a few minutes together in a private room? His mouth tightened.<\/p>\n
Each time she summoned him in this manner, another piece of his pride was chipped away. Only when he had her in his arms, begging for him to love her, did he feel his pride return. Yet later, in his cell, when he had nothing to do with his time but think, he hated himself.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Oy.<\/p>\n
We could slave read this as the inner thoughts\u00a0of a slave trying to work out where his agency begins and where it ends\u2014how to navigate within a society where his status is both exalted (as a gladiator) and circumscribed (as a slave). We could read it as the inner musings of a captive trying to work out his feelings toward citizens of the enemy nation that enslaved him. And these things absolutely are in play. But I don\u2019t think we\u2019re meant to read it in these ways alone. Atretes is a man, after all, and Rivers is writing in a sexist tradition.<\/p>\n
Rivers tells us that Atretes is slated to participate in an elimination match of twelve pairs. Based on what I read in Mary Beard\u2019s book about the coliseum, this seems a bit excessive. Of the twenty-four gladiators, only one will be left alive, and that one will be freed. That is a colossal<\/em> waste of money. Atretes, of course, is hoping to be that one gladiator who lives and is freed, and because this is fiction, we know he will be.<\/p>\nAtretes decided if he lived through the match and gained his freedom, he would never be brought to Julia again. Julia would come to him! He\u2019d buy a villa on Kuretes Street and send a servant to bring her, just as she now sent Hadassah to bring him.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
He\u2019ll show her!<\/em><\/p>\nThis is such unhealthy thinking. I still haven\u2019t worked out how much\u00a0of it is meant to come from Atretes\u2019 status as captive in an enemy nation and how much is meant to show his virulent manliness.<\/p>\n
Six months ago, there would have been no question in his mind what he would do [when he was freed]. He wouldn\u2019t even have thought of remaining in Ephesus. But now there was Julia.<\/p>\n
Atretes thought of the rude longhouses of his people and compared them to the marble halls of luxury in which Julia had been reared, and he wondered what to do. As his woman, she\u2019d have a prominent position of respect in the community, but could she adjust to life such as he had known?<\/p>\n
Would she be willing to adjust?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
This whole thing would make so much more sense if we\u2019d been shown a believable relationship between Julia and Atretes \u2026 or any relationship at all. That Atretes would even consider the question of whether Julia would be willing to leave her family, money, status, and everything she has ever known to travel to \u201cbarbarian\u201d Germany with him shows that he does not actually know Julia.<\/p>\n
And that Atretes would even consider changing his plans for Julia shows that we do not know him<\/em>. It doesn\u2019t feel\u00a0believable, after everything we\u2019ve seen Atretes say and do. Atretes ultimately decides that he will stay in Ephesus and buy a villa and take Julia there to wife\u2014and again, this does not mesh with anything we have seen of Atretes thus far. I needed to see<\/em> this change, and I didn\u2019t.<\/p>\nAs he glowers, Hadassah takes Atretes to Calabah\u2019s villa. Calabah made sure to\u00a0be nearby when they arrived\u00a0so she would\u00a0get a glimpse of Atretes.\u00a0Remember, Calabah\u00a0doesn\u2019t approve of Julia\u2019s dalliance with Atretes. Calabah calls Julia to tell her Atretes has arrived. She used\u00a0\u201ca tone so\u00a0saturated with contempt that hot blood rushed\u201d into Atretes\u2019 face, and now we have a problem. A serious problem.<\/p>\n
When Calabah tells Atretes that Julia says she isn\u2019t ready to see him yet, Atretes gets angry. Really<\/em> angry.<\/p>\nAtretes glared after [Calabah] with black fury, then exploded into action. He banged the door open and saw Julia sitting at a vanity table covered with vials of makeup and perfume. Two maids were fussing with her hair, both of whom froze at his entrance. \u201cOut,\u201d he said, jerking his head toward the door. They\u00a0fled\u00a0past him like mice escaping to their holes.<\/p>\n
Julia sat staring at him with dismay. \u201cI wanted to look absolutely perfect before\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n
Atretes pulled her to her feet and yanked her into his arms. When she opened her mouth to protest, he covered it with his own. Her hair came loose beneath his fingers, and pearled pins dropped and scattered on the floor.<\/p>\n
Julia struggled. \u201cYou\u2019re ruining my hair,\u201d she gasped when he allowed her an instant to catch her breath.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you think I care about your hair?\u201d he asked roughly. \u201cExcept to do this.\u201d He dug his hands into hit, clenching it in his fists as he kissed her again.<\/p>\n
She pushed at him. \u201cYou\u2019re hurting me. Stop it!\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
This. Is. Abuse.<\/p>\n
Ack, Julia. Julia, Julia, Julia. The thing is, it isn\u2019t just the three unrelated men in her life who have abused her (first Claudius, then Caius, now Atretes). It\u2019s also\u2014increasingly, and as we shall see in a moment\u2014her brother Marcus. Every man in her life but\u00a0Decimus has shown themselves willing to slap her around, and Decimus has been weekend by a disease of some sort.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m curious. Is this what Rivers thinks men are like outside of evangelicalism? Or is this what she thinks men were like in Ancient Rome? I doubt it is the latter; this doesn\u2019t read like a treatise on abuse rife in a patriarchal society. It reads more like the former\u2014like this is simply what men are like outside of the careful restraining confines of evangelical religion. Except that that\u2019s not how it works. And yet, this book does not have a single man in it who is not abusive. Not one. (Save Decimus, but only perhaps.)<\/p>\n
Of course, Rivers\u00a0adds some back and forth that seems designed to reduce Julia\u2019s status as victim. Julia can\u2019t be an abuse victim, Rivers seems to suggest, because she yells back, and says mean things too. It\u2019s a fight. It goes both ways. Julia is\u00a0just as angry as Atretes is. And yet, only one party is dangerous, violent, and physical, and it\u2019s not Julia.<\/p>\n
When he let her go abruptly, she withdrew angrily, touching at her hair and then turning on him in anger. \u201cDo you know how long I had to sit there while they\u00a0worked\u00a0on it just so I would look beautiful for you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWear it down then,\u201d he said through his teeth. \u201cLike the women they send to my cell.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her eyes flashed. \u201cYou\u2019re comparing me me to a common whore?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAre you forgetting how we met?\u201d he said, still fuming that she had commanded that he wait in the hallway. Who did she think he was?\u00a0What<\/em>\u00a0did she think he was?<\/p>\nHer own temper was roused. \u201cMaybe we should wait for another time when you\u2019re in a better mood!\u201d she said, turning away. She waved her hand as though to dismiss him from her presence.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Instead of going, Atretes grabs her and forces himself on her; when he lets go several minutes later she is \u201cpliant and trembling, clinging to him.\u201d He has made him want her, as Marcus has done so many times to Hadassah. Now that she wants him, he\u00a0declares that she\u2019s right, another time would be better, and he lets her go and turns to leave. Julia freaks out and begs him to stay.\u00a0Finally, Atretes orders\u00a0Julia not to ever make him wait again, and they make\u00a0love.<\/p>\n
As he gets ready to leave, Atretes tells Julia he won\u2019t come to her like this again. Julia begs. She tries to explain why they have to hide their affair, why she can\u2019t go to him at the ludus, or meet him somewhere else openly. She says her father and brother will\u00a0\u201cmarry me off to some richly men at the far ends of the\u00a0Empire\u201d if they find\u00a0out. \u201cThey did so once before!\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
And once again we encounter this problem\u2014the options available to Julia are\u00a0constrained by the ways her parents and brother have shown themselves willing to treat her. She can\u2019t carry on her affair with Atretes openly (as Rivers suggests so many other women of her class do, women like Arria and Octavia) because her father and brother would force her into another unwanted marriage if she did.<\/p>\n
Atretes persists, raising a new possibility.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd if I were free?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Atretes\u00a0implicitly\u00a0floating the idea\u00a0that they might marry, if he were to win his freedom. Julia says the possibility that he might win his freedom is so\u00a0remote\u00a0she has never thought\u00a0about it.\u00a0Atretes doesn\u2019t tell her about the elimination match. Great at communication, this one. Instead Atretes\u00a0tells Julia\u00a0not to call for him for a while because \u201cI always forego women before I fight in the games.\u201d At that, Julia becomes worried and distraught at the thought of him in the arena\u00a0and asks him when he\u2019s going to fight, but Atretes leaves her, still panicking, without answers.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll be the first to agree that Julia is not perfect. She\u2019s absolutely not. But consider everything\u00a0Rivers has put her through at this point. She was married at 14 or 15 to a man over three times her age, forced to leave her family, her home, and everything she knows to move to his country estate where he isolated her, and then punished her by ignoring her when she turned out not to be a reincarnation of his dead wife. When he died tragically, her parents and brother blamed her<\/em> for it.<\/p>\nThen, back at home in Rome, she met Calabah through a mutual friend. Calabah set\u00a0Caius, whom she knew was an abusive drunk philanderer gambler, to pursue and woo her.\u00a0She married Caius, and was blissfully happy for a short period, until he started gambling away all of her money and beating her. When an\u00a0attempt to strike back at him failed, he threatened to kill<\/em> her.\u00a0Trying to save her life, she poisoned him.<\/p>\nAnd now this. Julia comes into her own in Ephesus, hosting her brother\u2019s party and building connections with the best families in town. And now the gladiator she takes up a dalliance with (a practice\u00a0Rivers suggests was common) turns out to be controlling, manipulative, and physically abusive. And yet\u00a0somehow she can\u2019t extricate herself.<\/p>\n
You know what? I\u2019d be more concerned about Julia\u2019s imperfections if she hadn\u2019t been dealt such a shit hand. If Rivers would stop torturing her for once, I might agree that yes, Julia is selfish, and yes, Julia is vain, and whatever else Rivers wants us to think. But instead, I can\u2019t get past the shit Rivers has put\u00a0through to get to a point where I can even be critical.<\/p>\n
I have a <\/b>Patreon<\/b><\/a>! Please support my writing!<\/b><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You know what? I’d be more concerned about Julia’s imperfections if she hadn’t been dealt such a shit hand. If Rivers would stop torturing her for once, I might agree that yes, Julia is selfish, and yes, Julia is vain, and whatever else Rivers wants us to think. But instead, I can’t get past the shit Rivers has put through to get to a point where I can even be critical.<\/p>\n
Click through to read more!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":845,"featured_media":34626,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[630],"class_list":["post-34619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-voice-in-the-wind"],"yoast_head":"\n
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