James Davidson

In all of ancient literature there’s nothing quite like the Satyricon, a fragmentary autobiography of one Encolpius, who appears and disappears according to the hazards of textual survival. On our first sighting he’s making a speech about the decadence of modern education, then he’s somewhere else and a cloak has been stolen; more interference, another error, a randy priestess intent on revenge: ‘Both of us swore by all the religion in us that so dreadful a secret would die with us.’ We’ve lost it again, then light at the end of the tunnel: a game of catch, a long, late afternoon in a town near Naples, the dinner-party of Trimalchio, rich and technicoloured, darkness descends, a dreadful night, boyfriend goes off with best friend, a lecture in a gallery of paintings, boyfriend’s back, now they’re on a ship, so is a sworn enemy, a storm, a wreck, a city in Southern Italy, legacy-hunters, imposture, impotence, a priestess of Priapus, a cannibalistic will, an ending: ‘And when Numantia fell to Scipio, mothers were found cradling in their arms the half-eaten bodies of their own children.’

Summer 165 AD. I dreamed of Athena with her aegis, in the form of the statue in Athens made by Phidias, and just as massive and beautiful. The aegis, moreover, was giving off a perfume, as sweet as could be, a perfume like wax … It immediately occurred to me to have an enema of Attic honey.

Two thousand seven hundred and thirty years ago, somewhere on the west coast of Turkey, not far perhaps from Izmir, you are attending a feast. Although some of your neighbours are still noisily tucking in, the entertainment is due to begin. You have been looking forward to this. Your host claims to have secured the talents of the best singer in the world. Your cousin heard him in Chios three years ago and has been talking of nothing else ever since. The word is that for tonight, and the next few nights, he will be telling the tale of Troy. To fill so many evenings he will have to start right at the beginning, with another banquet, the nuptial feast of Peleus and Thetis. He will give lavish descriptions of all the wedding presents sent by the gods, a flattering or ironic commentary on the current festivities, but at some point in his song, a golden apple will appear on one of the tables, delivered by an uninvited guest. Athena will fight for it with Hera and Aphrodite, and before too long Paris, their adjudicator, will be seducing Helen and Agamemnon will be sacrificing his daughter to secure a favourable wind for Troy. There will follow long accounts of battles and heroic deeds, perhaps something on the untimely death of Thetis’ son, Achilles, Odysseus’ victory in the dispute over his arms, and the madness and suicide of Telamonian Ajax, the embittered loser. The bard will doubtless finish in the middle of next week, with the Wooden Horse and graphic descriptions of pillage and mayhem when the proud city falls. You are especially looking forward to the bit where Cassandra gets raped by the lesser Ajax at the altar of Athena and the other bit where Pyrrhus, son of Thetis’ son, flings little Astyanax, scion of Hector’s house, like a gammadion from the top of the city walls.

The story of Jason sounds like an over-excited pitch to a Hollywood producer, a tale full of sex and violence with a doomed romance at its heart and plenty of opportunity for exotic locations and special FX. A wicked usurper sends his nephew to Colchis on the far side of the Black Sea, a mysterious kingdom in the former Soviet Union famous for its pheasants and autumn crocus. His mission impossible is to steal a golden fleece from under the watchful gaze of a giant snake. He gathers together a band of useful heroes to help him and invents the boat, even persuading Hercules to come aboard the newfangled contraption. Their route is full of hazards: six-armed giants, deadly feather-shooting birds, rocks that crash like cymbals, and women – the man-starved women of Lemnos who milk the Argonauts for sperm like lily-sucking bees, and the water-nymphs who like the look of Hylas, Hercules’ boyfriend, and reach out from beyond his reflection to make sure he is never seen again. By the time they get to Colchis, the Argonauts are in need of a bit of luck, and luckily the King’s daughter, Medea, forms an unsuitable attachment with Jason, betraying her father and her fatherland for the sake of a crush. Jason and his crew are pursued all the way up the Danube and into the Adriatic, but Medea comes to the rescue again, at last finding a use for Apsyrtus, the baby brother with whom she embarked just in case. By the time the Colchians have picked up his pieces, the Argonauts are well away.’

At a party once in Highbury I opened a door, stepping into what I thought might be a bathroom and found myself in an olive grove. Two other guests had found it before me. The smoke from their cigarettes hung around the branches, like an emanation from the leaves. I would have liked to spend some time there, but it was clear I had interrupted a private conversation and the roof was small; a minute or two was the most I could manage of casual lingering. I said something about how warm it was and went back inside.