Senator Clarus led Suetonius and the scribe Strabon through a maze of tented passages in the labyrinthine complex. They passed Horse Guard or Praetorian sentries posted at intervals who simply nodded knowing recognition as they passed. Familiar faces wearing togas are sufficient password for some.
Eventually the trio arrived at a vestibule entrance bedecked in a particularly idiosyncratic way redolent of a students' quarters at a palaestra. The entrance was wittily marked with whimsical decorations of ratty, used, young men's loin-cloths tied in improbable patterns, a blazon of knitted Egyptian palm fronds supporting a mummified cat with an attached moustache, and two oversized priapic dildos of carved wood pointing to the entrance into quarters of special significance.
"We are here, I think," Clarus offered. They gingerly entered the chambers.
"Lysias of Bithynia? Thais of Cyrene? Staff? Anyone?" Clarus called, clapping his hands for prompt slave service. There was no response.
"Anybody home?"
The two toga-garbed Romans entered the large darkened space within, followed closely by their Greek scribe.
"Yes, this is where the Bithynian was accommodated, along with his friends and household. I was here once before in the company of Caesar to inspect the young man's grazes and scratches after his brush with a wounded lion outside Alexandria."
Lamps burned low in the night's gloom. Tired wisps of incense drifted from occasional bowls. Ripples of bell notes from a suspended wind chime tinkled lazily in the desert breeze. There was no sign of anyone, including the serving slaves of the household.
Clarus peered into each of three openings leading to further chambers. He turned and beckoned Suetonius and Strabon, pointing into one of the darkest spaces.
The two followed him into a larger space beyond a vestibule offering concealed privacy. It dawned on the three they were entering Antinous's personal sleeping quarters. They glanced to each other in wonder. They were setting foot in the intimate domain of the 'infamous catamite' himself, as puritan elders at Rome often decried.
This new chamber was the private boudoir of the tall, blond-maned, muscular figure who had graced the inner circle of Caesar Hadrian's retinue for almost five years. The presence of the Bithynian youth at the emperor's side, it had been noted, was more ubiquitous than that of the empress.
Many at Court quietly appreciated how Hadrian's impulsive and acerbic nature, his searching restlessness, or his intimidating capacity to dominate and control everything or everyone, seemed to be placated in the presence of his laid-back, easy-going paramour.
Nevertheless regardless of the Court's more spiteful wits, Antinous was not a substitute 'wife' in all things except law. This was despite the wide assumption his sexual role was likely to be a bottom by definition. A Caesar is by convention assertive. Yet even the most passive cinaedus may feign believable machismo in public.
Cinaedi behavior arouses the Roman prejudice against ambiguous sensuality, despite its widespread frequency across the Empire. Rather, Antinous was athletic, hardy, and masculine. Nevertheless there were those who crudely saw the lad as being the emperor's bugger-boy, catamite, or common toyboy. To many at Rome the relationship was founded on some very basic urges of a notorious earthiness. After all, what do they do?.
Hadrian's reputed short-term liaisons with a string of freeborn favorites, patrician's sons, and rising officers in the military had been legend. Yet these were never as legendary as the colorful exuberance of his predecessor, the much-adored Trajan.
The offence of committing stupra under the ancient law code of the Lex Scantinia can theoretically invite social censure, at least at the western end of the Empire if not in the east. But those ascetic attitudes withered generations ago. Today an irrepressible sexual playfulness prevails among the elites, much to the vexation of Rome's prim, if usually hypocritical, elders who slyly forget their own youthful indiscretions.
Suetonius's celebrated biographies of the first twelve Caesars showed how the pressing compulsions of sex consumed each one. Their appetites had been capricious without apology. They showed how sex makes fools of each of us, even lofty Imperators.
Yet today's absolute master of the civilized world restrains these impulses. The one man whose status can entice any maiden or youth, can outbid the market competition for any beauteous slave, can impose his will on any woman or man reliant on imperial patronage, or can afford to assemble a private seraglio of assorted slaves or concubines in the manner of several notables of his own Court, nevertheless limits himself to a single wife and a single young man as his consorts. Though others of his retinue ostentatiously maintain assorted slaves for their bodily entertainments, Hadrian is conspicuous in his restraint.
"Importuning a slave, freedman, or client -," Clarus announced, "- even if they're willing partners so as to advance their fortunes, appears to be beyond the role he perceives for himself as Rome's champion of social responsibility. He deigns it beneath an emperor, just as the philosopher Plutarch recently counseled. Plutarch sneers at those who impose upon a slave, who has no rights in the matter. Hadrian soberly presents himself to his subjects as an exponent of sexual right-mindedness rather than indulge himself without limit."
"Yet do not forget, Clarus my friend, how Caesar may also be in love with his companion. Restraint may have other origins than public probity," Suetonius added sagely, "it may be sensitive to his companion's deeper needs."
The three moved cautiously into Antinous's sleeping chamber. The tenting was open to the night sky and its blaze of stars. A solitary lamp was slowly exhausting its final drops of oil, casting long flickering shadows into the gloom. Stale incense hung in the air while another wind-chime tinkled randomly.
Filling much of the chamber was a low bed which could sleep five. It was draped in tribal Greek rugs. Crumpled cushions lay about. Empty goblets had fallen to their sides across the floor-tiles beside the bed, leaking droplets of russet stain onto the tiles.
Strabon noticed a wax-block notebook and writing stylus folded closed on a side table. He drew the other's attention to it. Clarus was nearest so he picked it up and opened its cover.
"Well, does it say anything?" Suetonius asked.
"It's in Greek. I think it's expressed in an archaic mode of Greek, not today's common Greek. It's being very historic or poetic. If I'm not wrong it translates as: 'WHEN THE KING OF LIONS