Geta continued as Strabon fluttered his stylus across another tablet.
"The Festival's revel occurred at the Acropolis citadel and its nearby Areopagus ridge at sunset. I wasn't to share in the boy's company at the time, but I learned of the following events from various sources later. It was a decisive night. And it was a well-lubricated one. Wine flowed readily. Athena's great metropolis glittered with lamplights as the sun set over the Bay of Salamis. Antinous and Lysias had never before seen a city ornamented with such a profusion of lamps, torches, braziers, lanterns, sanctuary lights, and piazza bonfires. Viewed from Caesar's open-air enclosure along the rocky spine of the Areopagus, the descending rows of roofs and dusty lanes sweeping down both sides of the ridge were a stirring sight for them.
At this first komos of the Great Dionysia all the wilder young men of the city with their less-inhibited womenfolk partied amid this fantasy of lights. Serving staff and young slaves dispensed roasted meats, breads, and wine plentifully as a pleasing haze of scorched flesh and burning pine needles drifted across the crowd.
For the Dionysia the city's merrymakers searched out arranged assignations or enticed newfound intimacies from among the surging throng. Facemasks in gaudy designs of Dionysus, Pan, or satyrs, with elaborately painted faces and ingenious hairstyles blurred the identities of the roisterers. In many cases the elaborate costumes blurred their gender as well. At the annual revel of Dionysus anonymity combined with drunkenness was the approved ceremonial praise for the randy god, coupled with sexual ambiguity.
This opening festival of the new season gives Athenians and foreigners alike the opportunity to rage with Dionysian folly after the torpid months of winter. The city's citizens mix together regardless of status, wealth, or nationality. Social limits are put aside for a night.
Instead, a radical democracy of lust rules the streets. Consequently only very adventurous Athenians attend the public komos of the Great Dionysia. For five hundred years its wild, orgiastic frenzy has been legend across the Aegean, and not always approved.
Brazier flames sparked-and-gutted above the steeply ramped Sacred Way leading to the Acropolis precinct. The high fluted pillars supporting the massive pediment of the Parthenon glowed warmly above the firelight into the night sky. Pericles' ancient temple to Athena Parthenos and to the city of Athens itself shone magnificently in the evening's deepening dark.
Of the seventeen thousand spectators at the Theater performance most had retired to their family hearths by nightfall. Those remaining, mainly young unmarried adventurers or demimonde wastrels, wandered the peripatos road from the Theater to the entrance ramp of the citadel or the Areopagus ridge. There they found opportunities to party and more.
Hadrian, as President of the Dionysia, endowed the night's festivities from his own purse. Yet because he was engaged in the obligations of diplomacy with mature-age city councilors, ambassadors, and other notables, he was separated from his young companions for the evening.
He delegated the younger Herodes Atticus to entertain the two young Bithynians until his imperial duties were completed. This may have suited Herodes well, considering he had had his eye cast over the strapping physique and modest manner of Antinous's schoolchum, Lysias. Herodes, Antinous, and Lysias meandered together among the revelers to enjoy the rowdy display of Athenians letting their hair down.
The two visitors had never before enjoyed so cheerful a public riot of such opulence. Revelers milled around in tipsy chit-chat groups, or prowled shady nooks-and-crannies with salacious intent, while bands of musicians strolled the paths winding between the shrines and chapels straddling the ridge.
Bursts of laughter, shrieks of delight, cries of profanity, and merry banter echoed across the crowd. Flute girls and young dancer boys garbed in spring foliage tripped, pranced, and skylarked between the wanderers to earn an occasional coin for their antics.
Groups of friends who had been cheered by Dionysus's gift to humanity, the season's first pressing of the vine, were forming merry dance circles to sway, leap, and step in mutual unison to the drums, cymbals, and pipes of wandering musicians. Occasional women of carefree manners, or vivacious hetaerae in high spirits and spectacularly distinctive attire, along with common sex-workers in shamelessly revealing gauzes to invite custom, dared to join an exuberant men's dance circle and cavort to the lilting rhythms.
Others withdrew into the shadows with newfound companions for sessions of raunchy sport amid gales of laughter or the delectable moans of sensual delight. Flesh met flesh, kisses hungered for new mouths, hands searched over willing limbs, and pleasures were shared.
Antinous, Lysias, and Herodes hunkered together upon a low rocky slab to imbibe in the seductive atmosphere and gaze up to the ramparts of the ancient citadel looming skywards before them. Swigs from a corralled skin of wine and gnaws at legs of game intruded intermittently on their rambling conversation.
The Bithynians' faces were elegantly veiled by silver stripes painted across their eye lines by Thais at their Melite villa when they had retired to replace their torn tunics and freshen up. She had also dusted any exposed skin and limbs with splashes of silver glitter highlighting the animal grace of their physiques, while their shag-cut manes of hair were studded with shreds of glittering silver foil. These glitzy touches transformed each of the boys into an elysian Apollo Incarnate in festive party mode.
Herodes, already a bearded adult with the lean body and bearing of a militia commander, wore a molded leather actor's mask bearing the features of Ares, the god of war who protects young soldiers. It was slanted rakishly across his head. Despite being a senator of Rome he didn't affect a formal toga but wore a simple Greek tunic and polished leather cuirass slung with an embroidered himation mantle. His garb was simple if military, but Lysias considered it very striking.
The three took deep draughts from the shared wineskin's nozzle.
'So this is the famous city of Socrates, Sophocles, Plato, Aristotle, and many other thinkers of fame," Antinous mused tipsily to his companions while waving a half-chewed chicken leg at the skyline laid before them. Between downing gulps of wine he added, "This is the birthplace of all our better ideals.'
Herodes smiled knowingly at the young man's rosy view of the city.
'Ah, not only thinkers, Antinous. Don't forget Athens is also a city of punishers-and-straighteners. Remember the severe law-makers Solon, Dracon, Peisistratos, Pericles, and so on," Herodes contributed. "Perhaps they had a greater impact on Athens and the Greeks than the philosophers ever had?'
'But what about of your renowned lovebirds?' Lysias added in a wine-cheery vein. 'Remember Aristogiton and his eromenos Harmodius, your famously-smitten tyrant killers? Or Socrates and his young beauty Alcibiades; or Pausanius and Agathon; Cratinus and Aristodemus, and others whose names I forget?'
Antinous had to add his drachma's worth.
'Even Great Alexander and his companion Prince Hephaestion were here at one point. Arrian's recent book reminds us so. But only HHades knows how many playwrights, poets, athletes, soldiers, and whoever, found love in this place,' he muttered as yet another swig from the shared bladder dribbled russet drops down his chin.
Herodes took up the theme.
'But don't forget the Romans, you narrow-minded Hellenes. Julius Caesar, Caesar Augustus, Caesar Nero, and many others. Several of the emperors have loved this city, and found love too in this city in their time,' the sturdy officer- amp;-gentleman reminded his companions. His eyes settled lazily upon the darker of the two youths.
'And it seems even today it can be so, as we saw this afternoon,' he added as he drew his gaze back to Antinous. The fair-haired member of the trio blushed briefly.
Herodes continued.
'I'd say this city has a well-deserved reputation as a City of Love.'
Herodes' focus returned to the beefier of the two lads who was casually chewing at a hare's haunch. His gaze lay upon Lysias a few moments too long.
Lysias at last perceived Herodes' attention for what it was, and swiftly averted his eyes from the man's direct view. He was not used to being a centre of attention when in the company of his imposing school pal. Meanwhile Antinous's imagination had taken flight elsewhere.
'Our tutors tell us this legendary fortress before us here, this Acropolis rock, has weathered a thousand years of brute force inflicted by Persians, Spartans, Alexander's Macedonians, other Greeks on the rampage, Athens' own warring factions, and finally Rome as well,' Antinous continued in a surge of Hellenic romanticism. 'The blood spilled on these stones over time would nourish a world conquering army.'
'You Bithynians are obsessed with history, aren't you?' Herodes whimsied. 'Is this all your tutors drum into your heads in the provinces? Do they teach you about the world today? About Rome and its might?
Do they teach you of Rome's architects and builders, of its grand public works, its roads, its aqueducts, its baths? Do they teach you how grain from Africa and Egypt is controlled and warehoused so no one in the Empire starves and the price is stable? Do they teach you how the seas are now clear of pirates? How the law is common everywhere, up to a point? How the currency preserves its value? How we are taxed so the machinery of society is greased for smooth operation? Or is it all Homeric heroism and bone-crushing war for you?'
'We admire Rome and its achievements but we are also taught the meaning of arete,' Antinous affirmed while Lysias nodded approvingly in scholarly agreement. 'Yet much of our understanding of Greek virtue derives from the debates of the citizens of this very city, we are told.'
'Tell me, Bithynians, does your arete include how to love too? Or do your lessons only teach about past events, dead warriors, and dry theories?' Herodes asked with a dose of whimsy. 'Athens is as much about love, passion, and living life, as it is of noble honor.'
'In what way then, Lucius Herodes Atticus, is love expressed in Athens?' Lysias waggishly submitted to this authority on all things Athenian. Wine was beginning to shape the conversation.
Herodes sized-up the strapping athlete before him to discern the probable subtext of the question. It was no disinterested enquiry, he guessed. Antinous too perceived in his friend an underlying, if transparent motive. Herodes replied with a teasing smile.
'Athens is a culture of love, my well-formed suntanned kouros from a far shore. Among our elites,' he explained, 'a citizen's marriage enters him to the private realm of family life beyond the public arena. The special love that grows in a man for his betrothed wife as they produce their children and get to know each other may someday overcome the many years which separates them in age. The home and hearth becomes the secure, sanctified space which blesses a man with many sons who assure a city's honor and survival in war.
At Athens the family hearth is secluded from public view to ensure prudence and fidelity among our womenfolk. A modest, faithful, and demure wife with disciplined daughters are a great boon to a citizen, Athenians believe. Childbearing, spinning, sewing, and the arts of the kitchen are a woman's role. A man may even grow to find his contracted wife becomes his special friend in the course of their conjugal relations. Some even say they love their wives. I've known couples who display this truth openly.
Yet in the public domain of life away from his hearth where a man spends his days in the company of other men, an Athenian seeks the close companionship of like-minded friends to enhance his life. Augmenting the satisfactions of his wife's body, a lusty man may pursue sex and excitement with his slaves, or a hired hetaera mistress or two, or sex workers of assorted types. These may satisfy the urges of the groin, if not always the heart. These people will usually be companions of low status, they're not of his class. And they're strictly fleeting relationships by definition, aren't they?
Adultery with another citizen's wife or daughter is forbidden to him here at risk of an avenger's death. Instead, a man of the elites is either likely to take up a female concubine or he might prefer to share the company of a younger man,' Herodes proposed. His eyes drifted meaningfully to Lysias lazing nearby picking the last strands of flesh from a hare's haunch.
'A younger man may find such a relationship instructive. He too might be seeking worthy companionship or introduction into the society of well-born adults?' Herodes continued. 'The two will have similar backgrounds, values, sports interests, military skills, and might even share compatible sexual urges at their respective times of life.'
His eyes remained fixed on Lysias.
'If entered into with mutual respect this companionship is no offence against honor, it is not adultery, it produces no illicit progeny, and carries no issues of property or inheritance. Instead, it consolidates a man's relationships with the wider community. It can provide great satisfaction to both parties, except to those who are utterly immune to its appeal. I am told many are.'
Antinous glanced cautiously across to Lysias to realize his friend's eyes were firmly glued to his hare's chewed bones in resolute avoidance of eye contact. Antinous smiled at Lysias's discomfort at being a target of seduction. Herodes continued.
'Love, as you call it, will be expressed between them in carnal ways, very definitely. After all, both will be hot-blooded randy males. It's to be expected. This has long been the custom here at Athens and elsewhere across the Middle Sea. We have a long heritage of philosophy, verse, and art about such love. The recent arise of the ethereal spiritual love of the philosophers or ascetics can wait until a later period of life.
When his own contracted wife matures to a betrothal age, the youth will then marry to create his own household and consolidate his fortune. This pattern of events is the consequence of the Athenian view of love among the elites,' Herodes concluded as he reached for the goatskin of wine once more.
Lysias had been transfixed by this explanation while he was still contemplating the implications of 'my well-formed suntanned kouros'.
But Antinous now took the bull by the horns while the 'tanned kouros' glued his eyes to the hare's haunch.
'Forgive my impudence, Senator, but do Romans at Rome follow this pattern of masculine relationships too? Or is this strictly a Greek way?' he ventured. 'We are told Romans shun these customs.'
'In the few years I spent at Rome I'd say they follow precisely the same customs,' Herodes replied. 'Some old fogies from earlier times like Cicero, Seneca, or Musonius Rufus were critical of the customs, but do not deny it too is a Roman tradition.
Instead they claim that sex is only justified when it's for making babies. They say the delights of sex are not for our personal pleasure or for improving one's own or another's mind, let alone for nurturing friendships. I do not know from where they derive these objections, but their influence has been strong among the new puritanical cults, if no one else.
Yet it's known neither Cicero nor Seneca practiced what they preached. Moralizers are prone to this hypocrisy. In Athens we advise the young to have as many lovers as they can entice. Success in love is admired and envied. It's a sign of the gods' beneficence or the Fates' fortune. Go for it, we say!, as long as you hurt no one.'
'Does the emperor hold to this philosophy, Herodes?' Antinous asked cautiously.
'Antinous, I am the son of the Prefect of the Free Ports of the Eastern Empire and a senator of Rome. It is not appropriate for me to share private information about the emperor's person with you, it may be interpreted as an indiscretion or even an insult. But I am permitted to reveal how I too was once close to Caesar. I too was very briefly one of the several people who shared Caesar's company and pleasure. But that was some years ago before the Roman Favorite came onto the scene. Since those days I sense Caesar has become restrained in his exuberance.'
'Is the Roman Favorite the one known as Senator Commodus, sir?' Antinous asked.
'He is. But as you saw today, there appears to be some friction between them.'
'What is his status today in the eyes of Caesar?'
Herodes baulked at the query, but replied nevertheless.
'Privately, I believe someday Commodus will inherit the Imperium. He will be the next Caesar,' the Athenian uttered softly with barely suppressed regret. 'There's much argument about this matter in Rome, which it is not politic for us to discuss, Antinous.'
'Does Caesar love Commodus?' Antinous dared extend this line of questioning.
'Love? Hmm, it's not for me to speculate on such things. I'm unsure of the answer anyhow. In fact I sense Caesar has now become a solitary in his role as Princeps,' Herodes mused. 'To be emperor isolates a man. A ruler has no true friend, Antinous, he must be wary of all those around him. Intrigue and venality follow Caesar like his shadow.
At an earlier time the youthful Commodus brought sparkle into Caesar's busy life. The fellow can be amusing, witty, and given to wildness. But he's also notorious in his sexual exploits. He rubs them in, before Caesar's own eyes. They once shared these exploits together, I am told, but in the past few years Hadrian has retired from such diversions. He is simply too busy attending to government. You should note the fact of his solitude, Antinous. It might be important for you.'
'How so, my lord?'
'I would not dare to venture opinions on your status in Caesar's eyes,' Herodes said. 'But you have asked, so in honesty I should respond. You bring to Caesar something he sorely misses, my friend. His own youth perhaps. And his lack of a son. Yet as a man, he too needs love. Maybe these are all related phenomena? You, Antinous, express the vigor of youth's latent promise by your very being. Caesar admires vigor, energy, and intelligence.
Hadrian is infinitely sensitive and creative, Antinous. His skills with verse, his knowledge of the sciences, with engineering, with architecture, with inventive approaches to life, are very considerable. He is a great architect, did you know? Better than his own hirelings.
His solutions to the structural problems of the great dome in rebuilding The Pantheon at Rome have amazed his own architects. It is a building of exceptional elegance, equal to our own Parthenon, yet he's modestly assigned its provenance to its original builder, Marcus Agrippa, of a century ago. I think this may be because he suspects Caesar Augustus, his hero and model as Imperator, and Marcus Agrippa had been lovers in their youth. His gesture acknowledges that friendship, some say.
Hadrian is constructing a grand palace complex in the cool hills of Tibur beyond Rome. All the most inventive architectural innovations possible are being erected at the site. It will reflect all the styles of architecture depicted across the Empire. It will be the Empire in miniature.
Hadrian knows more about philosophy, mathematics, art, architecture, rhetoric, even the medical sciences and astrology, than do the leading professionals in their respective fields. He argues with them all the time. Of course he is also a formidable strategist, military commander, and leader of men. Yet he possesses a fickle temper. He can be mercurial.
Nevertheless he is unique, Antinous. His greatness is a wonder. Yet this extraordinary ruler has seen reason to endow you with his favor. This is a rare honor to be treasured, my friend, but also a token in his eyes of your own quality. You should be flattered.'
Herodes paused as the three men observed the cheery mayhem raging drunkenly all about them. Antinous proceeded deeper into his enquiries. Wine had encouraged seriousness not joviality.
'Perhaps you will advise me, Senator? Are younger ones ever permitted the dominant role with a maturer partner in your Athenian custom?' he asked cautiously. His manner was innocently frank; wine was speaking. 'We at Bithynia see no impediment to it, yet Romans do I am told.'
The Achaean noble sucked a deep intake of air.
'It has been known,' he responded ambiguously. 'But usually occurs out of sight in private.'
'Is there dishonor in it,' Antinous probed, 'for either party?' He recalled his father's sober advice of only a month earlier.
'Well, such an imbalanced relationship would draw the attention of others, I'd hazard, if it was visible,' the Athenian replied, 'and it could open the issue of the submissive partner being considered a cinaedus or malthakos regardless of how noble they may be. Yet what partners enact in their private chamber is their own affair, most would say.'
It was time for Lysias to pose a question.
'You are saying, my lord, that he who willingly accepts the submissive role is called a cinaedus, a pervert, or malthakos, soft, feminized, weak?'
Herodes was silent for a few moments. He probably realized his response could affect his potential appeal to the Bithynian. He replied carefully.
'Athenians have noted how even though a man may take the submissive role in his sexual exploits, it doesn't mean he is regarded as a cinaedus. It's his deference to his partner at that particular moment, that's all. He might respond differently on other occasions. Thoughtless people make too much of these things, especially among those obsessive sectarians deriving from Palaestina.
Besides, sex is reciprocal between people here, just as in Bithynia. A lover should ensure his partner enjoys each occasion of pleasure as much as he himself. It's a two-way thing. And each role has its satisfactions. Only prudes condemn such reciprocity.'
Herodes eyed the blond young man before him with a more intense scrutiny.
'You surely realize too, Antinous, how to be close to Caesar demands a very specific sacrifice?'
'What may that be, sir?'
'To be Caesar's friend, to be Caesar's eromenos, Antinous, means to know no other partner,' he said. 'The playfulness of the Athenians or the Bithynians is denied to such a luminary. You will be Caesar's partner exclusively. Rome's emperor does not share his intimates with others.'
Antinous mulled over this thought.
'If it is Great Caesar's choosing, I am entirely at his disposal, sir. I will be proud to walk in the footsteps of such a man.'
Herodes diplomatically shifted the subject. It was Lysias's turn.
'And you, my handsome kouros? What are your priorities, I wonder?'
Lysias balked before the question, but decided to be honest with his suitor.
'I am a second son, Herodes, needful to search for my life's opportunities and its destiny. These are my priorities.'
Antinous interrupted the discussion. He sensed his company might not be necessary for a while.
'Friends, I might leave you two to explore these deep things between you while I venture to view the heart of this mighty citadel before us,' he proposed. 'I am eager to visit this center of all things Athenian. It's been in my dreams all my life. Now here I am! Amazing!'
'Let's do it together then, Antinous. Caesar has commanded I entertain you and watch over you until he completes his duties,' Herodes volunteered sociably.
'No, I think you two have much to discuss together privately. You don't need my presence just now. I'll explore the Acropolis for a while and return to you soon. Athena's great temple awaits me. Allow me an hour. I wish to offer prayers to the spirit of this place.'
He gulped down extra swigs from the wine nozzle and wiped dribbles off his chin.
'Antinous, if you must explore, stay within sight of the guards of the City Militia. There are many undesirables and drunken fools about tonight. Some may be predators or robbers,' Herodes warned.
Antinous nodded farewell, wrapped his mantle close against the cool night air, and strode off to the sloping ramp approaching the Acropolis where dozens of revelers milled in noisy, boozy, carefree disarray.
Herodes turned to Lysias and, correctly intuiting the gesture would be welcome, lazily laid one hand on the loincloth-bound mound lying at the Bithynian's crutch. He leaned close to his ear to whisper secret words. Lysias was startled by the intimacy of his gestures, yet remained unresponsive if hopeful.
'Give me advice, kouros, on the correct way to seduce a handsome Bithynian ephebe so it pleases him greatly?' the Athenian breathed into his ear.
Lysias desperately searched his imagination for an appropriate response which might convey both reticence and encouragement simultaneously.
'Just take him,' he replied eventually. 'But respect his arete too. He is no cinaedus.'
'Then we should find somewhere secluded to disrobe together, my well-formed kouros, despite the chill of the night. It's time for your body's heat to meet mine, Bithynian.'
Lysias flinched at his admirer's forwardness.
'I want to hold you close to excite you,' Herodes teased. "I want you to feel my breath on your neck. I want you to feel my flesh press against yours. I want to lick you clean of your body's sweat and your mind's restraint. I want to open your defenses to my ambush. I want to be savage with you, kouros.'
Herodes blew cockily into his ear as he allowed his beard's trim bristles graze Lysias's jaw. His fist lingered thrillingly at the young man's lap pressing audaciously into his groin.
'Allow me to awaken my horny Bithynian's love juices, kouros. Let me clasp his body, seize his hips, hold firm his butt, fondle his equipment, stir his vital parts, and feel his bloodstream race. I want to enter his mouth and taste his sweet saliva. I want to hold his hardening manhood in my palm and feel his body melt willingly under my persuasions.
I want my kouros to deliver himself up to me entirely. I will enter deep into him to penetrate his hidden heart. Does this sound agreeable, my handsome beauty from a distant shore? Is your secret hunger excited at my battle plan?'
Lysias grunted an ambivalent approval while his crutch responded with concrete affirmation. He was exhilarated. Someone was propositioning him for once, not his charismatic friend. This was indeed a new experience. His inner spirit soared. He turned with a stupid grin to his libidinous enquirer.
'Sure. Certainly. Yes. I respond. But where?' he mumbled. 'There's no privacy here. Yet we must be here for Antinous when he returns.'
From the corner of his eye Herodes perceived something which caught his immediate attention. Three caped men disguised behind elegant Dionysian masks, one revealing the folds of a toga beneath his cape, had mounted the entrance ramp to the Acropolis citadel. They were following close after Antinous as he approached the precinct's gateway.
Herodes realized the three were moving behind him at a discreet distance, possibly to avoid recognition. He detected one of the men was bearing a short-sword concealed bumpily beneath his cape, a weapon banned at the public revel of Dionysus.
'Kouros, perhaps we should find a sheltered place within the Acropolis precinct,' Herodes beckoned. 'There are many hidden cul-de-sacs between the shrines to exploit. I'll show you. Follow me, my dark jewel, you'll soon feel my body's urgency.'
He grasped Lysias vigorously by one arm and slapped him cheerfully across his behind as they hurried towards the citadel.
Antinous looked high into the gloom towards the lofty effigy of the armored female warrior looming before him. Her helmet's crest almost touched the high star-scattered vaulting of the 'chamber of the maiden', the Parthenon. The monument was almost twenty-five feet high.
In the inner cella of the pillared hall this towering manifestation of the patron deity of Athens, Athena Parthenos, looked down upon her devotees. She was embellished in flesh of white ivory draped with ankle-length robes of beaten gold. With her upright spear held firm in one hand, her shield at her feet embossed with Greeks fighting forces of Amazons, with a prominent sphinx-head and griffins protruding from her helmet, plus the Gorgon Medusa emblazoned on her breastplate, she impressed upon Athenians how their patron goddess epitomized the eternal fight of civilization against the dark forces of irrationality and chaos.
Basins of flame before the stupendous effigy on this night of the Great Dionysia cast a guttering glow over the treasures arrayed across the marbled floor before her. Gold and silver ritual objects, fine weapons and armors, thrones of ivory and precious stones, all the rich dedications of generations of votaries of her cult sparkled and glimmered among the painted dark blues and gilt bronze of surrounding friezes and metopes.
An ornate security fence protected Athena's treasures from the sacrilege of thievery, while guards of the City Militia hovered motionless with spears to watch over the occasional stumbling partygoers wandering into the cella from the roistering outside. But Antinous found himself alone by the ornate fence looking into the shadowy dimness above. An impromptu prayer arose within him.
'Athena Parthenos, virgin half sister to Apollo, my Healer of Heaven and cult champion, receive from me my plea for protection in your domains. I have no worthy offering other than my youth and my honor. Protect me on my journey into the fellowship of the great Caesar of the Romans, Hadrian. Praise be to Caesar! Instruct me carefully in your arts of civilization and virtue. Guide my tongue, my hand, and my eye to express your gifts of arete. Imbue me with skill, finesse, and subtlety. Guide me in your ancient path of victory against disorder as you have the Greeks of old. Make me a worthy eromenos to my destiny's erastes, at cost of my body, my heart, or even my life. Praise, Praise, Praise! Athena Parthenos!'
Antinous genuflected to one knee in the traditional manner and performed the proper obeisance gestures. He then withdrew to the citadel precinct outside the temple.
To the east of the plateau beyond the Parthenon, beyond an ancient outdoor sacrificial altar and other statues, stood the demure Temple of Rome and Augustus. Its domed modesty was where the cult of the emperor had been increasingly honored since Rome's defeat and impoverishment of Athens after Sulla's conquest two hundred ago. But now under Hadrian Athens was being restored to new glory as the second city of the Empire.
Antinous kept clear of the gaggles of frolicking revelers. Instead, passing an occasional ambiguously-gendered, cross-dress wanton lurking in a pediment's shadows and beckoning with mischievous eyes, or a party-person confirming their Dionysian riotousness by vomiting noisily into a drain's recess, he wandered in delight across the plateau. He played the eternal tourist exploring its monuments, chapels, shrines, altars, and temple facades. He ambled happily to the quiet of the rotunda chapel of the temple of the Imperial cult.
This austere, delicate Temple stood in imposing solitude at the far end of the citadel keep. Life-sized statues of recent emperors stood impassively by the entrance vestibule, while within the small interior chamber a simple stone sacrificial altar scrubbed clean of smoky fats sat beneath the soft glow of suspended votive lamps.
Once inside the Temple, Antinous cast his eyes over the symbols of Rome's heritage proclaimed in bronze and marble for the edification of the city's citizens. Only a small bowl of wispy incense relieved the funereal silence of the chamber with its bronze imperial inhabitants. Antinous contemplated their frozen countenances in thoughtful silence.
A voice intruded.
'You wish to desecrate this holy sanctuary, foreigner?'
The voice intoned its complaint in Latin-inflected Greek.
Antinous spun on his booted heel towards its source. A man in a fulsome cape which covered a Roman toga and who wore an obscuring party mask across his face was confronting him from the shrine's solitary entrance. Two other men in masks stood nearby.
'You show disrespect for your betters, foreigner,' the figure announced menacingly.
'No, you are mistaken, good sir,' Antinous responded. 'I am very respectful of this sanctuary, sir. I admire and celebrate the Caesars, despite being of Greek origin.'
The figure at the doorway moved forward and lifted the mask from his face. Antinous realized immediately it was Lucius Ceionius Commodus, the Roman Favorite who had departed the Theater Of Dionysus earlier the same day in a fit of temperamental pique.
'Despite being Greek? You speak with a forked tongue, foreigner. Take him, citizens!'
Without pause the two men leapt forward and grasped Antinous by the arms and head. They held him firmly against the cold stone of the altar.
'So what have we here, then? An alien youth of no consequence, with a face painted like a Kerameikos harlot, loitering-with-intent in Rome's sacred house of remembrance of the Divine Caesars. What are you, boy, a slave whore from the sewers of Kerameikos? Do you seek to ply your gutter trade in this holy place?' the Roman with fine pale skin and glitter-scattered hair demanded. The other two men sniggered from behind their masks.
'No, sir, you know who I am. You surely recognize me? I am a guest of Caesar at the Great Dionysia. I am freeborn Antinous of Bithynia, son of Telemachus of Claudiopolis of the equestrian class,' he called as he writhed beneath the firm grip of the masked men.
Commodus smiled disdainfully at the struggling figure before him. He reached to the side of one of his aide's capes and drew a Roman gladius short-sword from its scabbard. Its buffed iron shone beneath the lamps' glow. Its finely ground tip and blade edges gleamed piercingly.
'Foreigners should know their place in the world, whoreboy. They should not step beyond the limits of their class,' Commodus arraigned at his captive. 'They are menials. They are inferiors. They are rural vulgarities intruding into the world of fine manners and well bred values. Their impudence and gall is deserving of correction, foreigner. They enter into realms beyond their understanding and so deserves stern retribution. Their bodies require a visible reminder of their sortie into domains beyond their understanding. Their flesh calls for a permanent memento of their folly.'
Commodus raised the sword and waved its honed blade in too-close proximity to Antinous's frame and face. Antinous tugged his head back abruptly from the hovering razor.
'You are a transparent opportunist who aspires to enter into the society of great Caesar, is that not so? I have heard of you whispered in Court gossip. You're the newest contender for the role of catamite to Caesar, true? You're a toyboy, a wastrel offering your body and anus to the passing amusement of the Princeps. The presence of such menials in this sacred place is a profanity deserving of immediate penalty,' the patrician sneered.
'Turn the harlot around!' Commodus instructed his companions.
Taking Antinous by the scruff of his mane and locking his arms, they forcibly revolved him and pinioned his jaw to the altar's bleached stone. Commodus reached with the sword's tip and delicately lifted the hem of his tunic to expose the young man's securely clothed rump beneath. Antinous struggled fruitlessly under his oppressors' crushing weights.
'It's whispered, hustler, that you've been positioned at Court for Caesar's delectation by covert forces aiming to shift the balance of politics of the Imperium in some treasonous faction's favor. They say you're a stratagem or gameplan for deviously cornering Caesar's influence?
Who is your patron, whore? Who set you up? Tell me! Do you represent the long arm of Senate discontents reaching far into Asia? Do the Legates at Ephesus or Antioch use you for persuasive ways to shore-up their claim to the succession someday? Or have the tentacles of that monstrous creature at Rome, Praetorian Prefect Turbo, set you up to spy? Perhaps it's merely Vibia Sabina herself has recruited you to punish her husband in some witty, wily feminine way? Which?!"
Commodus was warming to his subject.
'It seems our foreign prostitute deserves his posterior's flesh to be incised with a memento of his intransigence to help loosen his tongue, to take as a keepsake of this night to remember for evermore?'
Commodus waved the iron blade's tip ever closer to the young man's hindquarters.
'Clear the slut's tail!' he commanded one of the masked men, who stripped the cloths from Antinous's hips. His slender pelvis and dimpled butt was exposed to view.
'I have done you no harm, my lord!' Antinous called aloud. 'I am no prostitute or spy. On Apollo's honor I've committed no offence I know of! You assault an innocent freeborn subject, sir!'
'Yet you possess a whore's pretensions! Your true offence is in your very existence,' he continued. 'It's your existence that requires concrete conclusion. You take liberties with the honor and favor of the Imperium. You deserve the ultimate penalty. You merit being cast to wild dogs or large cats in the arena. I as a representative of The Senate am empowered to act as magistrate upon such offence, and pass judgment -- '
Commodus idly circumscribed the gladius blade in the direction of the lad's exposed rump, aiming erratically as though preparing to strike.
'Not if you wish to commit violent assault and sacrilege yourself, Commodus!' a new voice called from the temple entrance. 'Drop that weapon and release the boy! You have no jurisdiction here, Roman senator or not!'
Commodus and the two masked men spun around to see at the door Herodes Atticus, Lysias, and three guardsmen of the City Militia with pikes poised for instant action.
'This is a consecrated temple of the Imperial Cult within the sacred precinct of the Acropolis,' Herodes declared. 'Neither weapons nor sacrilege are permitted in this precinct. This freeborn youth has done you no harm. He has committed no offence. As a commander of the City Militia and a councilor of Achaea, I charge you with public disorder and breaking the peace, Lucius Ceionius Commodus. You have assaulted a special guest of the emperor who is under civic protection. You wield a weapon where weapons are forbidden. You dishonor the memory of the several Caesars about you in this holy place. And you insult the councils, laws, and hospitality of the city of Athens. At least one of these violations will be a capital offence!' Herodes snapped. 'So drop the sword now!'
Commodus responded haughtily in kind.
'I am a citizen and senator of Rome. Do not speak injudiciously in my presence, Greek!' the patrician declaimed with lofty derision.
Herodes and his team moved forward with the long pilum shafts reaching close to the caped trio.
'You forget I too am a citizen and senator of Rome, Commodus,' Herodes responded calmly, 'endowed personally by Caesar, not acquired by purchase. As a commander of the Athens Militia I posses the jurisdiction to take punitive action wherever necessary.
If you harm Caesar's guest one whit I will fulfill my duty to a matching degree. This sacred place is under the rule of the law of Athens, not travelers from Rome! Release the young man unharmed, discard your weapon, or suffer lethal force. I will spill the blood of any coward who attacks an unarmed man without reason!'
The three militia guardsmen had maneuvered their long blades within reach of the assailants. The trio of Romans wavered.
Commodus signaled to his companions to unhand Antinous. He was about to flamboyantly tumble his blade to the paving stones with smirking bravado when he suddenly spun around. With lightning speed his sword flashed out at Antinous, its blade whispering close by his face. A slim hairline incision two inches in length opened across Antinous's cheek. It welled scarlet.
Lysias raced to his friend's assistance as Antinous lurched away from his persecutors to greater safety, grasping his loincloths about him as he moved.
Herodes grabbed a spear from one of his militia companions to resoundingly whack its metal-studded hardwood shaft across Commodus's back. The impact knocked the gladius from his hand and brought him tumbling against the altar block with a sharp cry. He clawed at his spine and fell to the flagstones in an ignominious flurry of toga wools and dust.
Now three glinting spear points were hovering menacingly within inches of the senator's face. The smirking bravado had vanished.
Herodes raised the sword from the flagstones and waved it languidly in the direction of the Roman.
'We are done here, Senator Lucius Ceionius Commodus. You have exhausted your credit in this city,' the Athenian declared as the patrician stumbled painfully to his feet.
'You insult Rome, Greek!' Commodus declaimed as he gathered his toga around him. 'You will hear more of this! Make way for your betters, foreigners!' He prepared to flounce out of the shrine.
Herodes stretched his arm in the Senator's path across the door portal. Commodus was halted in mid-flight, the sword's point now waving close to his face, not Antinous's.
Herodes spoke quietly.
'This event tonight will be duly recorded by a magistrate of the City Watch, Senator, and its recording documents witnessed by those present. As a councilor of this city I will ensure the deposition remains secured in perpetuity. I will not take you into custody on this occasion; its embarrassments would disturb the tranquility of Caesar's pleasures at our Dionysia.
But be rest assured, Commodus, the charges will remain alive on file. I doubt you or your pleasant companions will be welcome to Athens at any future time because my father, the Prefect of the Free Ports of the East, will object to such troublemakers receiving passage. We are law abiding in this city. You are not welcome here. I suggest you depart Athens promptly and return to Italy, or else these charges will be enacted upon you within twenty-four hours. They will be to your eternal dishonor in the eyes of all Athenians, especially including Great Caesar.'
Commodus smirked thinly and swept grandly away with a pained stumble as he clutched at his back. He sneered at Antinous as he passed through the door into the night beyond.
Lysias was attending to Antinous's wound while the injured youth fumbled with adjusting his attire. Herodes closely inspected the sliver of red flesh across his cheek.
'The wound is superficial but it needs proper attention, Antinous,' Herodes observed. 'It pains me this should happen to you in such an exalted place. We will withdraw immediately to my villa nearby where my own physician can attend to the lesion. I will send a message to Caesar that you have been indisposed, and where to locate you later if he should desire.'
Antinous took his two friends by the forearms and looked into their eyes.
'Why has this happened, Herodes? What have I done to deserve such an attack? I don't even know this man Commodus!' Antinous implored. Herodes responded immediately.
'Welcome to imperial politics, Antinous of Bithynia. Your journey into its shadows has just begun.'
"So, Geta, you say Senator Commodus is a candidate for being a serious enemy to Antinous? You say he might even be involved in the death of the youth by some nefarious means?"
Clarus as usual was blunt.
Geta looked blankly to the four faces facing him as the river raced in a continuous rush in the background and morning insects buzzed around. The day's warmth expanded rapidly.
"At least, gentlemen, I can identify someone who might have reason to do Antinous harm. Have you achieved such yourselves?" Geta queried. Suetonius ignored the query.
"So, what transpired after the Bithynian had been assaulted?" he asked. "How did Hadrian respond?"
Geta was specific in his recollections.
"I will try to recall the events as I believe they occurred, gentlemen. I myself witnessed much of the action. It was a challenging situation. We who were close to Hadrian protected him from the reality of his former paramour's waspish nature. Antinous too had resolved to avoid blame or retribution, which tells us something about the lad's nature and generosity of spirit."
Geta sipped his wine thoughtfully and returned to his testimony.
"Who did this thing, Antinous?' Caesar asked with concern. 'Did Herodes kill him where he stood?'
Hadrian had lifted the dressing attached to the Bithynian's cheek and peered at the wound beneath.
'No. They were merely drunken ruffians,' Antinous said. 'They were in high-spirits at the festival, I suppose,' he explained.
'How many were they?' Caesar continued.
'There were three of them, my lord, masked for the festival.'
'Where? In my enclosure, or in a public space? Did these assailants offend my hospitality?' the emperor garbed in the Tyrian purple tunic asked threateningly. He was still crowned with a corona of woven grape vines. He fumbled at the fibula on his shoulder to release the cloak and drop it to the floor, and tossed the corona like a child's quoit onto a chair's upright.
One of the two Horse Guards accompanying him performed the unmilitary duty of collecting the fallen robe and laid it over a chair while a household servant scurried to offer assistance.
'It was public space. I was scouting the Acropolis plateau by myself. I've never seen such a beautiful space before in my life. It is remarkable, Caesar. I'd been making my obeisance to Athena Parthenos in her cella of the Parthenon. I then spied the Temple of Rome and Augustus a little further on. The three attacked me within the Temple's sanctuary,' Antinous explained.
'At a temple to all things Roman, including my own ancestors! So Herodes had been wisely following behind you, had he? I'd obliged him earlier to watch over you two neophytes. The Dionysia has been known to get out of hand in this city. So, did he arrest the hooligans?'
'No, sir.'
'Herodes has the authority of the City Watch at his command, he can prosecute uncivil behavior and inflict immediate punishment by his own judgment,' Caesar continued. 'For their insult to someone under my protection I'll demand the ultimate penalty. But how did the ruffians manage to damage you as they have? Was this an intentional mutilation?'
'My lord, it was foolish of me to wander unaccompanied on such an occasion,' the young man tried to remonstrate. 'I'll know better in future. I'm lucky they didn't do me greater damage, really.'
Antinous had been resting upon a couch after the revel in Herodes' villa's andron. Herodes had delivered the two Bithynians to his villa a few blocks from their own house at Melite, and a similar distance from the palatial villa of the Imperial Household of Caesar himself.
Herodes had summoned his family's personal physician, a highly regarded Judaean trained at Pergamum, who had carefully cleansed and anointed Antinous's wound with special unguents, and applied a clean dressing adhered with purified mastic. He said the wound was not deep enough to require stitches, much to everyone's relief. In addition to the risk of corruption, which even simple wounds can induce, stitches would have left a permanent scar across his face.
After ensuring Antinous was comfortable, and after sharing wine, Herodes had asked Antinous if he objected to Lysias staying overnight with him at the villa. Lysias would sleep in the men's quarters with Herodes, and Antinous could bunk down on a couch in the andron, the villa's meeting chamber.
Antinous had no problem with the arrangement, especially as Lysias was obviously agog with his unexpected opportunity. Herodes had thought of everything.
'I've sent a messenger to Hadrian's chamberlain and the Dacian, Geta, telling them where you can be found. I mentioned your misadventure, though I haven't mentioned who the offender was. I think tonight you should sleep here and not risk the drunkards or desperates of Athens,' Herodes counseled. 'I'm sure Caesar will send for you when your presence is required. Meanwhile, Lysias and I will retire to our own pleasures, hopefully with his friend's blessing?'
Lysias looked towards Antinous in a faintly pained, querulous way, as eager hounds do when seeking a favor. The carnal intentions of the couple were obvious, yet Lysias seemed compelled to seek some tacit acknowledgement from his friend that this was acceptable behavior. Antinous simply nodded with an amused smile. He thought maybe, at last, Lysias would be properly deflowered or achieve whatever else was his body's desire.
In fact he privately considered his friend's choice of partner to be a highly worthy one. Herodes was older by five or six years, but his behavior was readily approachable by the usual lofty standards of city notables or senators. By the standards of a desirable erastes, such an accomplished companion was optimum. The man possessed confidence and charm coupled with a fine physical presence.
After more wine and small talk into the night, the two departed for their sleeping quarters with much tipsy shoulder-hugging and slap-happy body-contact. Herodes certainly had a predilection towards Lysias's butt, Antinous observed. A manservant scurried after them to provide rugs and chamber comforts for a late night sojourn.
Antinous made himself comfortable on a couch and tried to ignore the smarting sting across his left cheek. The villa fell into silence as its lamps burned low. Occasional bursts of laughter and whoops of joy echoed remotely in the night Was it through the thick walls of the men's sleeping quarters, Antinous wondered?
An hour or two later the clatter of horses' hooves on the courtyard paving stones and some gruff talk at the entrance portal was followed by booming knocks at the iron-reinforced, bolted doors. It announced the arrival of Caesar and his attendants. A steward unbarred the doors as Hadrian silenced his Horse Guard companions to late night quiet.
'I shall summon my master, Great Excellency,' the steward of slaves enquired with much nervous bowing. 'He would wish to personally welcome you to his home.'
'No, let him sleep, man. I am informed the Bithynian named Antinous is on these premises?' Hadrian declared.
'Yes he is, my lord. He is within, in the andron chamber,' the steward hesitantly indicated. 'He too might be sleeping. Shall I summon him to you, my lord?'
'No.'
The emperor tossed his riding gloves and a voluminous fur mantle over a bust of an antique philosopher as he spied Antinous across the atrium's space standing by a warming brazier at the andron doorway. Even in March Athens can be cold at night.
He strode through the foyer followed by his guards and walked up to the young man raised on a step or two above the foyer's mosaic floor. Antinous promptly began the body actions of the obligatory obeisance ritual's genuflections. Hadrian halted the action mid-performance by grasping his arm in one hand.
'Bring wine and cups,' he commanded the steward. 'Four! Ensure it's good wine!'
A slave pattered off into the interior of the villa while the chief steward discreetly stood to one side. The two Horse Guards took their ease some distance away, their helmets under their arms but with their hands at permanent readiness on their sword hilts.
Caesar stepped up into the andron for a closer search of the dressing attached to Antinous's cheek. He began his interrogation of the wound's origin and its inflictor.
When the servant returned with the refreshments, Caesar poured four cups and offered one to each Guard.
'Scorilo, Godron, your chores are complete for the night, you are now off-duty. Let us salute the day's achievements, but acknowledge its deficits too,' he declared as he offered the fourth cup to Antinous. All four raised their cups in cheer and drank deep. 'To Dionysus!' the Guards muttered.
'I heard of your injury, lad, so I came as soon as I completed my obligations. Show it to me.'
He gingerly raised and peeped beneath the mastic-held dressing. Antinous suppressed a wince as the emperor's fingers nudged the tender flesh nearby.
'You've been fortunate I think,' Caesar offered from his long experience of inspecting many a wound, from the slightest surface scratch to the most abject butchery. 'It's shallow, an incision not a score, so it will heal quickly if the physician keeps it closed and clean. He knows his trade, that physician of the Herodes family. But the slice will leave a definite scar on your features, Antinous. It's a shame to see such pristine flesh marred by an everyday reality. Is this your first war wound, lad? I'm certain it won't be your last.'
Antinous already knew how Hadrian carried a dozen wounds of varying magnitudes on his frame, including a visible scar across his forehead which was never depicted on the many life-sized statues of him in public squares.
Caesar's proximity to Antinous drew their eyes together. A silent message passed between them. Caesar coughed mildly and drew back. He turned to the two Horse Guards swallowing their wine.
'You are dismissed for the night, men. Scorilo, ensure an exchange of watch covers this villa in the usual way, I'll be staying here overnight,' he instructed. 'On your return to the Household villa inform Geta and the Chamberlain of my intention. Tell Geta to collect me here at first light. No later, Scorilo. It's a busy schedule tomorrow.'
Antinous gulped. This was unexpected. Was he prepared for an overnight assignation? It had been some hours since he last washed and spruced. After an evening's Dionysian partying was he sweet smelling enough for an impromptu encounter? Especially, he contemplated, one likely to negotiate the physical terms of a liaison which could confirm or refute its viability?
He recalled he still owed a bodily debt to Hadrian, and perhaps now was the time that debt would be called in? This was a daunting prospect.
The two guardsmen saluted and withdrew. Herodes' steward became apprehensive.
'My Lord, you will be sleeping at this house tonight?!' he asked in escalating panic. 'We are not prepared to a suitable standard for such a great honor! My master will be dismayed, great sir!'
'Yes, I'll be sleeping here. I've slept in far less comfortable places, I assure you. Bring cushions, rugs, and lamps. More wine too. And some fruit.'
'Certainly, Excellency!'
'And then go back to your bed and give us some privacy, fellow.'
After a few moments of frenetic activity delivering the necessities, the steward drew together the four hinged leaves of the cedar shutters of the andron.
Hadrian and Antinous were alone at last.
'You told me earlier today you are now mine? Explain yourself.'
'It is so, Caesar, if it is your wish,' Antinous replied nervously, bowing his head politely. 'It was as I promised five months ago at Nicomedia. I keep my promises.'
'Yes, you held to your oath, Ant. I am impressed. Take note, I will call you 'Ant' when we are together, as I am told your intimates do,' Caesar proposed. 'Tell me about your relationship with Lysias of Bithynia. Are you lovers? Are you an erastes and eromenos?'
'No, no, my lord! By Apollo, we are good friends, childhood friends. We know each other well and respect each other. We were raised together, and our fathers were friends before us,' Antinous explained.
'Do you sleep together or have sex together?' Caesar asked.
Antinous thought this an odd query well beyond personal familiarity.
'We've slept side-by-side, body-to-body together very often since childhood during sleepovers and on hunts or militia bivouacs, like most boys do. Just as we wrestle body-to-body at the palaestra. These things occur between friends. But it's only recently that we've sported together once or twice, and then only to give quick relief to our urges. But in matters of Eros our tastes are dissimilar. To start with, I don't think either of us finds our own generation appealing, as most of our friends do,' Antinous explained.
'Tell me, Ant, what do you mean by 'you are mine'? What is it you want? What is your motive in submitting to my gestures at Nicomedia? Were you simply obeying my command? Do I intimidate you? Are you afraid of me as Caesar? Explain yourself. There are those in my retinue who suspect you,' Caesar declared. 'They say I should whip you to reveal your true motives.'
'What do I want? If you forgive me sir, I wish to deliver myself entirely into your intimate regard. Do you intimidate me? No, you have shown me a generosity which dispels all such fear. It is as you explained in the moonlight at Nicomedia. I will conform to your will as your eromenos, sir, your student of life. I hope to spend my final education in your company and under your patronage and tutelage, sir, just as you yourself proposed on that remarkable night.'
Hadrian eyed the sturdy meirakion before him with hesitancy. Antinous continued.
'May I speak freely, sir? I've never known a man of such substance before, my lord. Not only as Great Caesar, which is remarkable enough, but as a man who understands the nature of the world and men's ways so completely. I am overjoyed to be shown respect and friendliness by such a noble presence, my lord,' Antinous uttered breathily. 'I am amazed at my good fortune. I am certain I am not worthy of it.'
'But in what way are you mine?' Caesar persisted in cool precision.
'What little I am, sir, is entirely yours,' Antinous responded, 'in body, heart, and spirit. I wish to engage fully with your person in all its dimensions, wherever they lead, within my status. My arete is yours to mold.
If it's a respectful companion, a page, a squire, or your cupbearer you seek, I am eager to comply. I am yours to forge.
If it's Eros you desire, sir, my being and my body are entirely at your disposal. Your gesture to me of sexual satisfaction at Nicomedia was as a lightning bolt to me that night. I had never been so intoxicated in another's company previously, my lord. I was powerfully turned on by the occasion. Is this a fault or failing?
However, sir, if it's a lover you seek, as you told me under the cloudy stars that night, then you should know how I too am seeking a companion in life. I too crave closeness with someone special in my eyes. It amazes me how the one person in the world whose very presence stirs my emotions so dramatically appears to return a similar favor to me.
I cannot say I know what love is, sir, but I find I am swept with sensations of which I have no previous understanding. I ache with needs I have no control over. Do I speak out of order, sir? Is this childish talk unworthy of an eromenos?'
'Indeed, you speak with remarkable lucidity. Your command of ideas is excellent, Ant. But I still wonder at your motives, or those of others behind you.'
Antinous's voice lowered.
'Sir, the day of the Hunt when you knifed the boar which threatened my safety and then patiently unfurled my fingers from the impaled lance, was a day of revelation to me,' Antinous murmured softly. 'No one before in my life has taken the trouble to combat such a threat on my behalf, and then follow with equally gracious attention to my fears and excitement.
You might not believe it to be true, sir, but I ejaculated spontaneously beneath my tunic as you unwound my hands from the lance's shaft. I came excitedly without control, my bloodstream was so surging, so enthralled. My tunic was stained, though I managed to hide it from everyone I hope.
Later unexpectedly that same night when again you aroused my horniness beneath the moonlight, I felt myself falling headlong into an abyss of excitement. It was a driven urge I had not experienced previously. Am I being irrational, my lord? Is this foolishness? Does this offend? My body's sensations are seriously in debt to your goodwill and touch.'
Hadrian smiled calmly.
'Did the physician provide you a nostrum to ingest, Ant?' he asked. 'Your tongue is loosened charmingly.'
Antinous shook his head.
'No, my lord, only wine. I always speak from the heart, or else I don't speak at all.'
Hadrian was moved to act. There had been enough talk.
'I am told, Ant, how it is traditional for an erastes to confirm his homage to an eromenos by gifting a token of his intentions? A weapon or other small gesture is the custom I'm told.'
'You have already supplied fine gifts in the form of treasures and our Latin tutor, Thais of Cyrene,' Antinous reminded his company. 'These have been extremely adequate tokens, sir, without par.'
'That's so, Ant. However I'm reliably informed it's also the custom to offer a catch of game, such as a hare or wild fowl, as proof of an erastes' skills as a provider. It's usually something edible or life sustaining, a leftover from ancient trials of proof. Is this true?'
'So I've been told too,' Antinous responded, wondering where this quirky conversation might be leading as no crowing cock or wild game was in sight.
Hadrian took a small cloth purse from his belt. He stripped off the leather tie and emptied its contents into his hand. A single object fell onto his palm.
It was an elegantly carved intaglio signet ring of deep blue lapis lazuli in a setting of silver. Delicately engraved into the vivid azure stone was a cockerel, a farmyard rooster with a high cock's comb. Yet this bird was depicted with a human body and legs represented by two twisting snakes. It had words inscribed around it in an archaic script.
'I have been carrying this jewel for two years now. It was found for me in my domains at Antioch where the most precious magical amulets and talismans circulate from across the East and Egypt. This ancient find is a rare blue stone named lapis lazuli carried from a distant land named Bactria. It has been carved on both sides with special charms and blessed by Magi of the East at rituals invoking exotic gods. It is supercharged with magical spells for the wearer's protection and eternal life.
I acquired this ring with its mysterious cockerel to offer at the appropriate occasion as my erastes' token to my chosen companion, in place of a living cockerel. Unlike a live fowl, this ring offers unique protection against illness, misadventure, and even death, it is claimed. This surely is the most one human can offer to another – health, safety, and eternity? My chosen companion is to wear it always.'
Hadrian took Antinous's left hand and pressed the slender band onto his index finger.
Antinous held the delicate treasure before his eyes to inspect its beautiful color and its strange markings. It was certainly an object of distinction to his perception, but it was also a token of extraordinary significance.
'How does the cockerel provide these boons, my lord?' he asked. 'What is the magic?'
Hadrian again took the young man's hand and raised the ring to their eye level.
'This cockerel is the symbol of the god Abrasax from the East. His origin lies in ancient Babylon,' Hadrian explained. 'The cockerel is a creature which hails the advent of the day, at sunrise. He represents Phoebus, The Radiant One, just as Apollo too is described as Phoebus, shining like the sun. He is the deity of light set in a world of darkness. Beneath the cockerel's head is a man's body encased in a sturdy breastplate as protection against evil, while in one hand he clasps a whip to protect wisdom against ignorance, and in the other a shield to project his omnipotent power.
His legs of snakes tell us of Eternity, the faculty to shed their skins to renew their being.
In the Greek science of geometria, the method of calculating the numerical value of the letters of the alphabet making up a word, his name Abrasax achieves the number 365. This indicates his enclosure in the annual solar cycle. You can see the inscription AEON indicating his 365 eons emanating from his function as First Cause, one for each day of the year.
I am told this makes Abrasax the Pantheus, the total god of all manifestations, the One God. Other secret signs are carved on the reverse to enhance its power. The full complement of its mystical characters are said to provide protection and eternal life to the wearer.
It is this unique treasure I give to you, Antinous of Bithynia, to wear as a gesture from your erastes in place of an edible cockerel. I give you eternal life.'
Antinous was immediately swept deeper into his abyss of intense longing. He beheld the compact blue ring upon his finger and marveled at its provenance and purported wonders. This was truly a divine science, he thought.
'Who was, or were, the previous owners of this marvel, my lord?' he asked.
'I don't know, Ant, but I am told that Alexander the Great, our mutual hero, once wore this magical gem,' Caesar replied.
'But Alexander is dead, my lord. And at a very early age too. It didn't work for him, did it?'
'Ah, but yes it did, Ant. Death he brought upon himself, either by drink or disease, though some claim he was poisoned. Yet you must concede how Alexander became divine in our eyes and his fame lives eternally,' the emperor rationalized with a grin. 'The ring's magic may work in ways which are a mystery and an enigma to we mortals. Who knows? Egypt and Babylon possess secrets we are yet to understand. I hope you will acknowledge the nature of the gift, son of Apollo, and my good intentions in bestowing it. It is my special mark upon you.'
'I am humbled, my lord, by your gesture,' Antinous offered quite sincerely.
'Yes, we must discuss that too. In truth, Ant, you need not be so humble in my presence. You are not my slave, servant, or staff member, Antinous. You possess no military rank to submit to.
You are a freeborn independent entity with your own mind, body, and virtue. You are Greek, Ant. I do not own you, despite appearances. Independent thinking is one of your race's attractions. So you and I must now find a less formal way to respond to each other or else our time together will be wasted in interminable deference to my eminence.
So you need not call me 'Caesar' or 'My Lord, all the time,' Hadrian instructed with brisk clarity. 'And nor need you bow and scrape at every exchange. The entire world says 'Caesar'-this and 'Caesar'-that to me, which is proper and correct before me as Imperator or Princeps. But when you and I are alone together, or we are with our very closest intimates, we must relate less formally. I need to relax sometimes, too.
You are entitled to use the name 'Hadrian' to me, and desist from too much kowtowing. Respect, yes, always Ant, I am a man. But excessive etiquette, no. Our time is too precious.
The nomen Hadrian is acceptable between us. It's less distancing than unending honorifics. My days are made up of interminable accolades and fawning petitions. I tire of it sometimes. So I expect my closest intimates to have a more relaxed manner in my presence. That is, unless I command otherwise.'
Antinous attempted an understanding, but with some uncertainty.
'We must get to know each other, Ant. I am no ogre. I am not a tyrant. I am Princeps to the world, yes, but I am also a fellow man. I am not dead, burned, and deified among my predecessors quite yet, though my day will come.
Nevertheless, there still remain definite rules between us,' Hadrian elaborated. 'Put simply, in our personal space we are entitled to relate in a personal, familiar way. I am a man like any other, even as your erastes. Yet in my official capacity as Caesar we must conform to due protocol. It boils down to being personal when in our own company but suitably formal in public. In one I am your personal friend 'Hadrian', in the other I am 'Lord'," he said. "These are the consequences of my station. Understand?'
'Yes sir,' Antinous responded cautiously. 'I think I do.'
'No, it's Hadrian, Ant. The titles of sir, sire, My Lord, Caesar, or other terms of honor are to be reserved for your duty role. I tire of everyone bobbing up and down, kissing my hem, saluting, or falling to their knee at every opportunity.'
'Duty role? I beg your meaning… Hadrian?'
'You and your friend Lysias will be entered into my Household as Companions of the Hunt. You will be attached to the schedule of the Master of the Hunt, Salvius Julianus. You know him from Nicomedia. He will act as your supervisor of duty assignments and so on, especially for my recreation. It gives you proper duties in my retinue which you will enjoy, and attaches you both to the Chamberlain's schedule of finances.
You and your young friend will be awarded an endowment suited to your needs. The stipend assigns funds, services, protection, and accommodations in my travels for you and your attendants to a suitable standard. This includes your Latin tutor from Cyrenaica and stewards. Meanwhile, as a Companion of the Hunt, you'll find the Hunt Master Julianus will teach you a great deal about hunting, including of larger beasts, as I will myself. This is your duty role.'
'I see, Hadrian.'
'Your primary duty is to enjoy the supervision of the hunt under Julianus. This will keep you both out of mischief. You'll find your duties give you access to good horses, horsemanship training, weapons and security training, and the company of selected sons of notables from around the Empire.
You and your staff will join me when I tour to visit the Legions. You will accompany me when I attend public audiences and Court celebrations. You will sleep with me when occasions permit, though you will be assigned your own apartments as well. My Household, my contubernium, are a lively crowd, if given to too much gossip, frivolity, love affairs, and wine, but you will probably enjoy their company. Any other questions?'
'Not that I can think of at this time, Hadrian.'
'Fine. Then pour some wine for us both and take your clothes off. I want to see your shape again after all these months. Your physical line pleases me. Then you can undress me too.'
Antinous hesitated before responding. His brain raced. After several moments' pause he made his advance.
'The wine is already poured, Hadrian. The servant filled the cups before he left. Help yourself. But I wish to view you unclothed too, and all of you this time. If I'm not to mimic a servant or even a slave, why don't we undress each other? I'll undress you; you undress me. Then we'll both witness the other's physical shape.'
Hadrian was taken aback for an instant, but smiled at the ploy.
Antinous gamely reached for his erastes' hand and drew it to the swelling package rising at his crutch. Caesar's unresisting hand was obliging, even willing.
The meirakion's audacity immobilized him momentarily. That is, until he was tugged firmly at his shoulder to press his bearded jaw down towards Antinous's groin. There was only an amused resistance by the master of the Empire.
'I said I am yours, Hadrian. All this is yours too, with more to follow,' Antinous whispered breathily close to his ear.
He felt the clothbound flesh of the young man's firming member press provocatively against his face and jaw. He too sensed his blood race to his genitals despite Antinous's challenge to his Roman machismo.
By inciting irrumene, where the mouth engages in a supposedly impure act which impugns the masculinity of a vir by its receptive nature, Antinous was being incendiary. Hadrian amusedly declined this invitation to fellate his partner, but possibly as a secondary afterthought.
Then a rush to strip tunics and undercloths away from bared flesh, limbs, and organs was unleashed. Revealed entirely in their bare humanity, the pair now stood eyeing each other's sinewy condition beneath the flickering lamplight.
One was of a sleek, rangy muscularity, the other of powerful weathered toughness. One possessed the finely-honed contours of a practiced athlete; the other showed the well-knit tissues of a seasoned fighter, hunter, and working soldier. Erections announced their mutual admiration.
Antinous took a fresh initiative. Impulse drove his heart. He moved close to Hadrian's side where hip touched hip and flesh touched flesh. He drew the emperor's arm around his waist, and tilted back to invite a face-to-face response. Hadrian took the invitation and grasped his jaw in one hardened palm to hungrily devour the Bithynian's mouth, lips, tongue, and saliva. Antinous happily assented to the aggressive urgency.
He felt himself yielding to the grasping hands and arms, the tightly pressing torso, the intimately provocative pelvic thrust, and the fierce probing by a searching tongue. He then responded to these gestures equally fervently.
In a flurry of discarded clothes, linens, leathers, buckles, and boots the two collapsed in an intertwined coupling to the stony tesserae of the mosaic floor. Their limbs interlocked in alternating strategies of domination, submission, and rude intimacy above the floor's mosaic design of Greek hoplites at battle with scantily-clad Amazons.
Antinous was now enveloped in an increasing wildness. His bodily resistance to his grappling combatant was waning. This was no concession of defeat; it was his recognition of the exhilaration of close proximity to someone thrilling. He vividly imagined he was melting inexorably into the other's flesh as they bound tightly together. He was besieged by the rough caresses and wet urgency of Hadrian's mouth, felt the brush of trim bristles graze his jaw, and inhaled the salty aroma of a day's sweat. Yet he gave as well as he received.
While wrapped together in abject intimacy he discerned the rigid shaft at his partner's groin searching the nooks-and-crannies of his limbs to locate a susceptible portal into his interior being. Its determination in sliding ever closer to its intended target was tenacious. He felt his pursuer's lust press relentlessly forward towards its goal.
The driven urgency was so unashamedly flattering, his resistance willfully relaxed to open his defenses to the incursion. It was a gift to his companion's previous generosities with a dash of prurient curiousity.
Hadrian's resolve pressed his arms and limbs apart to hold him firm to the mosaic tiles. The militant strategist maneuvered a forward assault at the intended target. The younger man threw caution to the winds as he opened his heart and body to the incursion. What the heck, he thought.
A myriad mixed feelings, thoughts, needs, fears, and bodily sensations swept Antinous as he realized his body was happily succumbing to a very intimate corporeal invasion. His partner held him firm by a feigned wrestler's hold whose determined power maneuvered him to utter vulnerability. Yet it was a consensual vulnerability which happily savored its own helplessness.
Hadrian spat several times onto his palm and applied the lubricious balm to his member. Antinous emitted a surprised gasp as the penetrating organ found its target and eased into its intended berth. Yet the zealous invasion was a careful, benevolent assault.
Antinous was overcome with contradictory feelings of victory and submission, joy and discomfort, honor and shame, as Hadrian engulfed him in a carnal embrace. He also realized he had succumbed to the driven power of another man's lust, while equally recognizing he was strangely untroubled by it.
After tense moments of wary expectation the Bithynian gradually perceived a spreading sensation of elation coupled with inner serenity suffusing his organism. An entirely unfamiliar feeling of bodily wholeness was aroused and acknowledged by his perception. He had to concede he felt pretty good.
Antinous hadn't experienced such a novel sensation since the time several years earlier when he first stumbled upon the cascading sensuality of self-induced orgasm. But no brief, excited spasms at the hand of his more lurid fantasies bore comparison with this new experience. Its glow pervaded his entire being, head to foot, as he subsided into a mysterious rapture emanating from the dark inner world at his body's center. It thrilled his mind, it enlivened his muscles, and it pleasured his organs. It induced whimpering, toe-curling contentment.
The feeling automatically cemented a convergence with his all-engulfing companion. Their face-to-face, eye-to-eye proximity invoked an enclosing cocoon of radical intimacy. While Hadrian's rhythmic bodily action undulated above him, Antinous's natural inner solitude acknowledged how he was now accompanied in his sense-of-exile by a like-minded fellow explorer.
Hadrian's searching eyes hovered above him to monitor the minutiae of his sensory responses. The younger man's entire organism radiated waves of exquisite delight from his inner core. Hadrian sported patiently, teasingly, adventurously, with these sensations to fine-tune their playfulness.
He manipulated himself this way and that, slowly entering and withdrawing in leisurely alternation, slowly pressing ever deeper or holding still in steadfast confirmation. He toyed deliberately with the febrile responses of tissue, muscles, nerve end, interior node, and the conscious psyche too, to exact maximized gratification. Both parties smiled knowingly to each other's responses.
Hadrian lifted the young man's frame high for greater penetrative power, or doubled him over to bring himself into closer eye-to-eye intimacy, all the while playing his physicality with inventive pleasurings. Antinous was consumed by an animal relish which compelled him to emit plaintive squeaks of sublime delight. His habitual, protective, impassive guard was being demolished as a newfound openness to personal connection was rebuilt on its foundations.
In the process he began to appreciate facets of his father's revelations of a few months earlier. This intense closeness to a person for whom he held such high regard created an unanticipated concord within him. Hadrian was engaged upon an active, radical intimacy far more deeply personal than anything Antinous had ever practiced upon himself. Now two decades of emotional curbing, restraint, discretion, and conscious personal distance were being crumbled away in a rush of acute physical sensation. Antinous felt Hadrian and he had melded into a single human organism.
Is this, he wondered, what Achilles and Patrocles, or Alexander and Hephaestion, had experienced? Is this what they call love?
His friendly tormentor's rhythmic pacing increased in tempo and ferocity. The pulsing rise and fall of the interlocked bodies grew in ardor and heat. Beady sweats on glistening surfaces shone wetly beneath the chamber's flickering lamps. Muscles distended, limbs became malleable, bodies entwined aggressively. Antinous heard himself sigh his companion's name again and again. His companion reciprocated.
Eventually and inevitably, the torrid fervor burst in a shower of exclamations, gasps, shudders, and cries of delighted anguish. The two collapsed across the mosaic tiles in a pile of exhausted energies and spent body moistures.
Antinous felt becalmed in a manner unlike any previous occasion of his life. His abyss of solitude had dissolved into memory.
Minutes passed in silence before one retrieved a wine cup to share between them. They sipped alternating draughts.
'You learn quickly, Ant,' Hadrian rasped breathily.
Antinous raised himself on one elbow to eye his sweaty, naked companion lying outstretched beside him. He smiled his most ingratiating, calculating, charmer's smile. It was loaded with intent.
'Yes, I do Hadrian. But it's your turn now,' he murmured softly.
The maturer man baulked. He looked to his companion questioningly.
'A ride there for a ride back,' was the immediate response.
'Are you sure you have a sufficient lion-heart to do it? And so soon, Ant?'
'Yes I do, Hadrian. Turn over.'
Hadrian's lazy smile widened into a knowing, if faintly insecure grin.
'You do learn quickly,' he said.
Antinous good-humouredly grasped his companion's pelvis at the hips and mock-pressed him to roll over onto his belly. It was time for the assailant's driven fury to be turned back onto itself."
Geta fell silent once more to sip his wine. His eyes returned to Surisca more often than seemed necessary, Suetonius sensed, as he conveyed his testimony to the group of listeners in the morning sunlight. He began his account again.
"You may wonder how I know all these intimate details, gentlemen – and Lady Surisca. I learned most of them from Herodes' steward who kept watch outside the shuttered andron so Caesar's needs would be immediately provided if demanded. He kept an eye on things through a join in the shutter leaves, but has kept his tongue to himself ever since, except with me. I learned of the others from Antinous himself over wine in later conversations.
But I was now to personally witness the next development in this occasion. Should I continue with my tale, gentlemen?"
"Do so, Geta."
"The clatter of horse hooves on flagstones followed by muffled whispers at the house portal told the two dozing bodies dawn had arrived. As first light peeped through the andron window Antinous awoke to hear Herodes' villa's great door being unbolted to allow entry to arrivals.
Military-booted footsteps approached the andron across the atrium's tiles towards the chamber's shutters. A soft knock upon its cedars announced callers were waiting.
'Come!' Hadrian called.
Servants pressed the panels apart to reveal two Horse Guards and myself standing to attention outside. Scorilo, Godron, and I absorbed the scene before us with keen interest.
A potent charge of the musky scents of body sweat, wine dregs, stale incense, and the miasma of hard sex exuded from the space. Sex has its own special sweet aura, and it steeped the andron like a charged storm cloud.
Cushions and blankets lay across an impromptu bed arrangement with other pillows scattered across the floor. Assorted tunics, cloaks, belts, and boots were littered elsewhere, while crumpled toweling with dank stains were flung carelessly over chair backs. A small urn holding a deeply-scored emollient had rolled to one side across the floor.
Hadrian sat upright at the edge of the double-couch arrangement bare to our view but holding a corner of a rug across his privates. He scratched his head and rubbed early morning eyes.
Antinous lay lengthwise along the couch behind Caesar propped lazily on one elbow to casually eye the intruders. His sun-bleached mane was in wild disarray. Only a small cotton compress attached to his left cheek covered his buck-naked frame. My eyes were drawn to the pale-straw lightness of his underarm fluff and pubic hair. A hickey adorned his frontal upper throat.
The guards and I instantly recognized the vestiges of the energetic activities which had been enacted in that place. The tell-tale debris of the night's couplings was self-explanatory.
'Caesar, it is dawn. I am instructed to attend you,' I announced, my eyes scanning the room, its detritus, and its implications before settling upon the finely drawn figure of the naked ephebe lying behind the emperor. His free hand idled lazily at Caesar's crutch.
'And good morning to you too, Antinous of Bithynia,' I added diplomatically.
He responded with a languorous nod, his jaw resting on his clenched fist and no attempt to cover his nudity.
Palaestra nudity is a given in the life of young men of the elite classes in Greece. Nakedness possesses shame only in the eyes of our older Romans, some colder clime barbarians, and certain weird religious eccentrics. But in Athens it is a commonplace.
'I hope you slept well, my lords, after the night's festivities?' I offered very politely. Antinous probably realized I had elevated him into the ranks of a lord. I guess he wondered whether 'festivities' referred to the Dionysia revel or the bedchamber antics?
I was to learn much later how the night's engagement had been a revelatory experience for Antinous. The intensity of their mutual passion and the fierce aggression it incited had astonished both parties. I gather neither was especially vexed by this fact though.
'Call the servants, Geta, I must dress,' Hadrian commanded. 'I'll wash at the Household.'
I clapped my hands and two of Herodes' servants came scuttling to the chamber. They immediately set about retrieving the emperor's clothes and re-dressing him.
'I bring news, Caesar.' I took my opportunity as Hadrian was being clothed. 'Senator Lucius Ceionius Commodus and his companions departed the Household villa before dawn to reach Piraeus and sail on the earliest tide to Corinth.'
I sensed both Antinous and Hadrian prick up their ears.
'Commodus's steward said his party must return immediately to Rome from Corinth,' I added, 'because he had received news his mother had taken ill, so they left early to hire passage.'
'Has he left a note?' Hadrian asked.
'Not that I'm aware of, Caesar. He was eager to depart at some speed.'
Hadrian was silent as the servants arranged his dress to a suitable degree of comportment. Meanwhile Antinous contemplated the effectiveness of Herodes' handling of Commodus.
But not at that time knowing these details, I took an initiative.
'Will Caesar wish to pursue his friend by sea or overland? The Praetorian horse network could speedily deliver Caesar to Corinth, before his vessel arrived or at least before he could negotiate a further passage to Italy?'
Hadrian was silent again as his laced boots were drawn on. When he turned his back while being buckled I noticed two distinct bruises at the back of his neck above his right shoulder. They were already pale purple and told of an infliction of passion on the emperor's flesh.
I think my eyes and eyebrows fluttered slightly at the sight of the love bites when I calculated the direction of their reception. They would have been applied from directly behind. This possessed a significance about the nature of the act underway during their imposition. My eyes may have widened in astonishment at this realization, I guess.
Antinous detected my fluster from his recumbent position on the bed. Our gazes crossed fleetingly, but I flicked away in embarrassment. Antinous was smiling to himself. It was an enigmatic smile suggesting triumph. It communicated notions I had not anticipated about Caesar, nor for that matter about Antinous.
'No, Geta, I won't follow Commodus,' Hadrian resolved. 'I've tired of the young man's impetuosity. Perhaps it's time he returned to Rome. We'll see him later in the year.
In the meantime, Geta, I've told Antinous how he and his companions will enter the Imperial contubernium, our living arrangements for the Household. Both they and their attendants will accompany us on our forthcoming tour of Achaea. We will be visiting historical sites, making awards, visiting troops, hunting a little, and so on across the Peloponnese this summer before we sail to Italy.
Antinous is likely to sleep in my chamber regularly, but he and his household are to have their own independent apartments wherever we travel. Is that clear?'
'It is indeed, Caesar!' I declared.
My wide-eyed gaze returned to Antinous. I suppose it conveyed an unspoken message akin to awe at the lad's extraordinary accomplishment. He responded with a serene, knowing grin. He exuded the cool confidence of an arena's victor, and he let me know it. Decurion Scorilo of the Horse Guard too would have comprehended the circumstances from his own perspectives.
Antinous's arrival in Caesar's sphere now cemented many of the questions of what my own role was to be in Caesar's life. I had spent my lifetime under Hadrian's aegis, so perhaps it was time my own ambitions should at last find a satisfactory resolution too?
'Leave us for a moment,' Hadrian commanded, as he shooed the servants and the guards beyond the andron's closing doors. Only I stayed in attendance.
Hadrian kneeled over the twin couches to lift Antinous's chin within close reach by a single fingertip. Their eyes were only an inch or two apart. He smiled at the sleepy Bithynian.
'We enjoyed ourselves through the night, didn't we Ant?' the emperor charmed as he leaned closer. Noting Antinous's gesture of one hand modestly cupping his genitals, I perceived he had sensed his bloodstream stir to life once again.
'We did, Hadrian,' was his reply, unexpectedly using the special nomen in my presence. This was new from his lips and told me something they each perceived about their relationship.
'We'll do those things again tonight, my strong-willed Lion-heart.'
'Yes, we will Hadrian. And much more too I expect."
"Lion-heart? So what are we to read into this account, Dacian?" Clarus demanded.
"You must use your imaginations, gentlemen," Geta responded, still with his eyes firmly settled upon the Syrian courtesan.
"All I see is an opportunist using his wiles upon our Princeps?" Clarus opined. "Yet Caesar takes what he wants from the engagement."
Suetonius took the reins of the interview to shift the perspective away from matters which troubled Clarus.
"A further question, Dacian, tell us here honestly, plainly, between us only, are you suggesting there are things about Hadrian's relationship with Antinous we should know? Are there facets of their five years together which could compel recent events, in your view? We must know all. Think hard about it, Dacian."
"I don't know what you mean, Special Inspector? I've told you all I know," the Dacian uttered believably. "It's enough, I'd say."
"Then, Dacian, tell us where were you yourself on the night of Antinous's death?"
Geta smiled thinly.
"My lords, I was engaged in providing services to Caesar in the company of the Western Favorite throughout the entire evening, and slept in close proximity to Caesar's chamber after," the courtier replied.
"All night and morning? With witnesses?" Suetonius demanded.
"All night and morning. With witnesses. I must leave you now."
Suetonius and Clarus looked to each other in silent foreboding after he departed.
Surisca spoke up in a quiet voice. "Masters, may I offer some words?"
"Only if you have something worthy to contribute, woman," Clarus huffed. Suetonius nodded approval to the veiled figure seated some distance behind him.
"Masters, Geta the Dacian spoke of Pachrates. I too have witnessed this priest perform his magical arts."
All eyes around the bench beneath the morning sunlight turned towards her.
"I too have seen this famous magician transform living animals into other beasts, and restore life to the recently killed," she said. "The famous Priest Pachrates has performed this magic in public on many occasions.
I have been contracted to dance and play the flute at temple celebrations for the faithful in the city of Memphis downstream from this place, so I was among those who were backstage at his performances in his temple courtyard. His devotees watched from one side of the platform while I and others engaged in the day's celebrations awaited behind the platform.
His people try to keep it secret, but the animals he transforms are simply substituted by an ingenious mechanism which his assistant priests manipulate while his audience is distracted by shifting curtains, cymbal crescendos, and flashing lights. His is a clever magic which substitutes one thing for another out-of-sight while people are distracted by activity.
I have also seen him behead a living creature on his stage and apparently return the creature to life. I saw him kill a mangy dog, scavenger vermin whose death no one complains, and then with a flourish of curtains and magical words with beating drums, it was replaced with a live dog of similar age, coloring, and markings. To the innocent eye it seems he has revived the dead and replaced the severed head. His audience did not see the headless carcass being thrown to one side and replaced with a living dog whose matched color patches were painted on.
I submit that the fellow beheaded before Caesar's and Antinous's eyes may have been the condemned brother or even an identical twin of a similar looking fellow.
Pachrates' priests probably purchased the two condemned men from the authorities of the arena at Cyrene or Leptis Magna. All his sorcery is trickery. There is no wonder to it once you know its secrets, but he is clever in performing it."
Surisca demurely sat back in her chair.
"But Caesar and Antinous were moved by his display?" Clarus complained. "Caesar is no fool! He can't be deceived about such things!"
Surisca drew her head scarf across her face to reply.
"If the spectator is in an accommodating mood and wishes to see magic, inexplicable magic will be seen. Such illusions can be persuasive to those who don't know the guile of Egyptian sorcerers who play on human needs."
"It's true many at Court are enticed by feats of magic and magical charms," Suetonius soothed. "Remember, both the astrologer Aristobulus and the Governor's mistress, Anna Perenna, do a fine trade in providing charms, potions, and spells to the Household. Hadrian too is known to respect these arts."
It was Clarus's time to speak directly to Surisca to raise an undiplomatic matter.
"Syrian, did I perceive you and the Dacian are known to each other?" the magistrate asked.
Surisca looked across to Suetonius for permission to speak. The biographer nodded, just as keen to hear her response as Clarus.
"I confess we do, master. But briefly," the Syri disclosed apprehensively. "Your Dacian courtier was a client some months ago at Palaestina. I was contracted to the newly built spa at Shuni, outside Caesarea in Judea, where the wealthy retire for their pleasures. I and many other girls were hired as dancers and entertainers to engage in water frolics and sex games among the thermal spring pools of Shuni.
The Imperial Household travelling from Antioch to Egypt through Palaestina resided for some weeks at Caesarea, as you know, so the Dacian came to Shuni for rest-and-recreation. He engaged my services for a whole week. Geta and I enjoyed our time together in playfulness."
Suetonius looked at Surisca with some dismay. He wondered whether he had any right to feel cuckolded by this revelation.
"And that's it? Nothing more? A business relationship?" Clarus added imperiously.
"My lord, this is my profession. I receive many clients. If not, I and my assistants would soon starve. But it's true I found your Dacian colleague to be very appealing company at Shuni," Surisca offered wistfully.
"Did you fall in love with Geta, young lady?" Suetonius searched a little too keenly.
Surisca looked to her questioner with a quizzical expression.
"I'm not sure what love is, master. But if it's to feel needed and secure in the company of another person then, yes, I did find the Dacian appealing," the young Syri reminisced. "Besides, he is very handsome in my eyes. And he makes love well."
"Love? Needed? What's this nonsense we're talking of?" Clarus protested. "We have serious matters of life and death to contemplate, Special Inspector Suetonius Tranquillus."
"Friends, morning is advancing and Lysias hasn't returned to us as he promised," Suetonius resolved bitterly. "He's now overdue by an hour. I had faith he would appear of his own volition at the appointed time. I am disappointed in him and his so-called arete. Unless misadventure has befallen the lad, a warrant will instruct the Guard to search for him and apprehend him. Meanwhile the slave Thais of Cyrene too will be sought on our behalf.
However, if our interview subjects will not come to us then we will go to them. Clarus, Strabon, guards, Surisca, follow me! First on our list will be Caesar's advocates of wonders!"
"Advocates of wonders?!" Clarus exclaimed uncertainly. "Who are they?!"