by Ben Pastor
“I must say I tend to exclude the emperor from the list of suspects. Take the other incident that happened during the trip, the episode Pancrates speaks of in his poem: the lion hunt. After all, on that occasion the lion did attack Antinous’s horse. The emperor need do nothing had he wished for an accident.”
“Well, Commander, he did do nothing, at first.”
“But then he killed the lion, saving Antinous’s life.”
Paratus must have felt the sudden unevenness of the paving stones, because he sought Aelius’s elbow ever so lightly. “All right, then. Did such an act make the Boy beholden to the emperor for his existence?”
“Everyone is, to an extent.”
“None of that court talk.” Impatiently Paratus recovered from a misstep in a puddle. “Did it? Did it mean Hadrian owned that life, now, and could do as he pleased with it—even terminate it, if needed?”
Aelius was struck by the words. The next puddle, he stepped into without even noticing it. “Or did it mean that Antinous’s life was in any case forfeited through such a narrow escape, therefore, it was as if he were dead already? He could then give himself up voluntarily to the nether gods, or Fate, or whatever, in order to benefit the emperor.”
“Exactly. Think of Alcestis, giving up her life for Admetus. Think of Orpheus, attempting to rescue Eurydice. Think of Demeter seeking her daughter in hell, or Isis resurrecting her husband. The conceptual world is full of these myths.”
It was heady stuff. Aelius wished for the ever-nearer entrance to the barracks to recede, not to interrupt the conversation. “Yes, and I saw them illustrated on the floors of the imperial barge, but what do they mean? Why would the emperor seek some kind of rebirth? No one can be resurrected, especially if he isn’t even dead yet. The deified Hadrian went on for another eight years.”
“Yes. One year for each of the eight great gods of Egypt.” Paratus stopped, and Aelius with him. “Try to reason—if we can call it reasoning—like those who believe in horoscopes. Would the emperor have lasted that long had the Boy not given himself up for him? Even Cassius Dio suggests—” He waved to chase the thought. “No. No. This is nonsensical esoteric talk, and we will never enter the minds of men so long gone enough to understand their innermost beliefs. Are we close to the barracks now?”
“Quite close, but not enough to be overheard by anyone.”
“Good. Quickly, let’s go back to motives that require no stretch of the imagination. Envy, jealousy, despondency, grudge, vengeance—those are the rules of engagement in most suicides and murders.”
“What about the accident theory?”
“An accident is just that. What is there to say? After all, when natural death was concerned, the emperor did not go to such great lengths to celebrate the defunct. A state funeral, a memorial temple as due to ladies of the family, that’s all. Even after his chosen heir died, I’m not aware there were cities founded, shrines built or priesthoods endowed. Let’s go.” Mildly prompting Aelius by the elbow, Paratus resumed his walk. “I’m anxious to try my hand at circumventing the prohibition to dig up the obelisk.”
At the entrance of the barracks, they had to wait for the guard to summon the officer of the day. The afternoon had cooled considerably on the hillside, with a pleasant feeling of washed weariness in the air.
“Before I go,” Aelius said, “I meant to tell you that tomorrow I will collect Onofrius and travel to the deified Hadrian’s villa in Tibur. It is high time I visited it. Did you find out anything about him, by the way?”
Paratus shrugged. “Not much, but enough. Onofrius is a nobody. No one wants him, neither the Egyptians nor the Christians. He can only be trusted as far as he can be thrown. It’s true that he sat in for Soter’s secretary, but that was last year. If he’s on someone’s payroll—other than yours—he’ll betray himself by starting to spend money.”
15 August, Tuesday (22 Mesore)
Notes by Aelius Spartianus:
I have come to the great villa at last. The wall around the property, flanking the road that enters Tibur farther ahead, was designed to be fully manned once. One reads that up to one thousand soldiers were posted around it, though now the booths and stations are empty, except for those at the sides of the monumental entrance.
The day was a near perfect day of sun and clouds, rapidly taking one another’s place because of high winds. I came to this place as a long-sought island, although it makes no sense to me that I should feel this way. I cannot say that the site looks familiar to me, never having been here, and the authors’ descriptions—first among all that of the deified Hadrian himself, who succinctly yet exhaustively described the construction and role of the villa—hardly prepare one for the chaotic order of this residence. Not being altogether certain of my ability to do justice to it through written words, I told Onofrius (whom I set loose to survey Egyptian inscriptions with the proviso that he doesn’t get in my way) to go to the Tibur archives and secure a copy of the villa’s plan.
The ensemble, numbering hundreds of rooms, courts, and other spaces, is articulated upon three axes, so that the visitor finds himself changing direction nearly unbeknown to him, by following a colonnade that suddenly opens up into a long inner court; perpendicular to the colonnade through a fugue of small halls or marble pools. The effect is of being suddenly redirected, losing one’s original path. Thus the effect is of a labyrinth, even though there is no objective center anywhere. It is a constellation of palaces, baths, and service buildings on several stories, and terraced gardens alternate with artificial valleys in such a way that occasionally the sky is only visible above in narrow ribbons or squares.
Statues of Antinous are everywhere, one feels watched by him continuously, but in a friendly way. The scent of overgrown boxwood and myrtle under the midday sun is heady, especially around the theater. Sycamores, cypresses, and dwarf palms abound. Oleanders have become a forest; what were once grassy knolls are reduced to much depleted patches of weeds. Old rosebushes still thrive here and there along the promenades, and around the smaller shrines empty pots probably used to contain anemones, as in the Gardens of Adonis.
The hounds that freely roam the villa, I am told, descend from the many packs the deified Hadrian kept on these grounds once. They are a handsome lot of short-eared, longheaded, curly-tailed slender dogs, mostly black and white, which the locals call Gyptii, the name being—as I believe—a corruption of the original term “Aegyptii.”
Most furniture has been long ago removed from the lofty halls and bedrooms; some of it is stored in Tibur in warehouses under lock and key, sealed by the providence of His Divinity’s representatives here. Other pieces, including sculptures, were removed to the imperial villa at Praeneste (where I hope to go next), others were, according to accounting still kept on the premises, transported to the City in Palatio by the princes who followed the deified Hadrian, specifically Commodus, Caracalla, and Helagabalus.
The superintendent lives in the city, up the hillside, as I understand, in a small estate not far from the villa they call Quintiliolum, facing the Anio waterfalls. He had been informed of my arrival, so he came speedily enough, for a civilian. When I expanded on the reasons for my visit, and my intention to stop for a few days, at once he offered me quarters in his house, and when I thanked him but declined, he made so bold as to insist by adding that he has four daughters. As if soldiers of some rank were not used to being invited by parents anxious to marry off their girls. It tickled me that he tried, though, because it’s really rather provincial.
In order not to offend (I will ask him for favors soon, so I might as well gain his undivided interest), I finally agreed to have dinner at his place at least twice during my stay. I retained the right to choose the evenings, as there will be times when I do not wish to interrupt my observations in order to change and ride to his house. The girls might be pretty for all that. Apparently he has educated them, and their mother was one of the beauties of her day, and “of pure Sabine stock.” The sort of gir
ls Romulus and his men cajoled into being kidnapped!
The residence ceremonial halls are all but empty. Not only the furniture, but hangings, drapes, and, in some cases, the doors have been taken away. One can tell from the way some floors are laid out that carpets were meant to cover them, and those have gone as well. Such is the height of the ceilings that one’s steps rumble and echo, back and forth sounding from wall to wall. Niches that once held books are void, gathering dust. Fixtures such as lamps are still in place, and to all appearances functioning. I aim to find out tonight. The windows are generally intact, and where one or two panes have fallen out or been broken, parchment has been fitted neatly in their place.
I was informed that the waterworks still function well, although they only get turned on twice a year, in the summer to give a thorough run-through to all the fountains, and in winter, to make sure the pipes haven’t burst somewhere along the complex system of underground conduits. Spigots and spouts must number in the hundreds, and there are two large thermal baths. All but the largest outdoor pools are kept empty and reasonably clean, although it must be a job to lift up leaves, topsoil, and twigs that rapidly accumulate in the basins.
The larger open pools are instead in a deplorable state, full as rain allows, for which I scolded the superintendent. My intention—really—is to force him to open up all the spigots again and allow water to run through the villa, although the seasonal opening has already taken place in early July. The water in the open pools is static and malodorous, given the vegetable deposit at the bottom, algaelike plants, and so on. They provide a breeding place for mosquitoes and water spiders as well, and I’ve seen frogs and water turtles jump in or lazily swim on the green surface.
Especially deplorable are the conditions of the most magnificent of the villa’s sections, at least to my eyes and at this stage of my investigation. The area is the so-called Canopus, a narrow artificial valley lined with shrubs and flowers, in the middle of which lies a long pool (the superintendent calls it a “Euripus,” but the term is erroneous, since such fountains have maneuverable sluices that create a flux and reflux, as in the natural body of water by that name. This is rather what is termed a “Nile” (see Pliny the Younger’s description), and I can’t imagine how anyone could mistake it. The whole valley reproduces a Nilotic landscape so clearly that I was stunned upon first looking at it, as though at once I had been transported again to Alexandria or had never left.
As I said, the state of the Canopus is sad, a fact all the more vexing since it is obviously the villa’s monument meant by the deified Hadrian to celebrate the Boy. Portrait statues of him, gigantic, perfect copies of the one I saw in the temple at Antinoopolis, flank the large conchlike pavilion at the head of the long pool, set into the, crotch of the hill. I will describe elsewhere the sparkling depths and marvelous architecture of the pavilion, but must first explain why this Nile must have once closely resembled its namesake.
Even with some of the ornamental statues pushed off their pedestals and into the marshy length of the pool, I could immediately “read” it geographically, recognizing how the images, of Bes-like grotesque sileni on the right side of the onlooker stand for the ancient site of Besa, near which Antinous met his fate. Facing these figures stands a statue of Hermes, to signify Hermopolis, across from Besa; a water-spouting crocodile marks down from Hermes the site of Crocodilopolis, below which a marble Apollo represents the city of Apollinopolis Magna, and so forth. Near the sileni, funerary-basket-bearing maiden figures once held up a fragile and elegant marble entablature, perhaps meant for climbing vines. This has now all but collapsed due to the forcible knocking down of the statues.
I was so angry and insistent about hearing the reasons for such an outrage that the superintendent promised to fetch me a decrepit servant who claims to have been present when it was done. Tomorrow I plan to find out from him. Meanwhile, directly confronted on why he has not set the statues right, the superintendent replied that an extant imperial order originated their removal. By which Caesar? I asked, and was not surprised to hear the name of that monster, Helagabalus. I will follow up on the veracity of this pretended order in Rome, as it must be stored in the archives somewhere.
With a detailed plan of the villa in hand, Aelius decided to spend the night there. The superintendent did all he could to dissuade him, mostly because he’d have to supply the minimum necessary to furnish an appropriate bedroom. As for Onofrius, he would not hear of staying, blathering some tale—which of course he claimed not to believe by faith—about demons hiding in the villa ever since “the widow and her sons were martyred here by Hadrian Caesar.”
Aelius looked up from the plan. “What kind of nonsense is that?”
“It’s not nonsense. The Acts specify she was the sister of Eugenius, a city employee in Tibur when Telesphorus was pope. She was drowned and her seven sons were killed here, in front of the temple of Hercules: I’m not a Christian, mind you, but I’m not spending the dark hours where there are demons.”
“Balderdash!” Aelius laughed. “The temple of Hercules is in the city of Tibur, not here.”
“Makes no difference, Commander. Remember while we were approaching from Rome, when I pointed out to you that place along the road called Septem Fratres? Remember I didn’t want to look? That’s where they’re buried. The whole place is spooked.”
“Well, I’m staying.”
The shadows had begun to lengthen under the cypresses and sycamores when a bed, linen, and a few implements were brought to the building once meant for officers of the guard. The superintendent returned personally with dinner ready and a set of keys to the few buildings usually kept locked. He insisted on leaving servants (“There are only a few of the field slaves way out at the edges of the property, a mile off, they’d never hear you if you called”), and threw up his hands when Aelius said, “Why should I call?”
Water was turned on in the back latrine and bath at the end of the hall, on which ten doorless rooms opened, each with three alcoves. Separate water rooms and tanks were concealed throughout the complex, and when—unseen and unheard—a serf turned the spigot somewhere in the higher grounds, it was like a magic trick. With a rust-red surge, like blood from a wound, water gushed into the bathing pool and turned clear nearly at once. Cold to the touch, it swept up a few leaves from the pool’s bottom and rapidly filled it; nearby fountains and drains awakened and sang. Aelius could only imagine the entire villa once plashing and rippling from its countless water mouths. He chose the tenth room in the officers’ quarters, and had the servants move from the nearby residence a multiwick lantern so that he could sit up to study the villa’s plan. Then he was finally left alone to work and think.
Well into the night, convinced to have the general layout of the villa well in mind, he took the keys and set off for the western belvedere tower. Moonlight and a starry sky would hardly suffice in the maze of dark buildings, and a hand lantern would do little to help. Starting out was easy, a left turn immediately out of his room and out of the officers’ quarters onto a paved court. Here, the tall walls of the residence and a crowd of roofs created the first uncertainty; gaping to the side, a deeper darkness pointed to one of the fountain courts, likely the narrow one on which the libraries opened. It was best to venture under the residence’s portico, and follow the shady row of columns along its west side. Confidently, Aelius turned left at the corner and took the short side, finding the door, and a third garden court. Here, he made the mistake of choosing a short flight of stairs down, finding himself inside the ring of walls of the island residence. A sealed miniature villa at the center of a round canal, surrounded by circular darkness where his steps awoke dull echoes. Water in the canal was low, but shone like a metal belt. Through a fugue of spaces on his right, the blackness was broken by moonlight through windows or raining checkered from trellises. From room to room Aelius went, out into a stadium-like garden of overgrown bushes, static pools. To his ears came plunks of frogs in the water, small sounds o
f animals furtively sharing his space. He recognized the arcaded dining hall by the black-red-white cross pattern of the marble floor. Then out again, briefly, through another archway, to the main vestibule with its niches and female statues gleaming like girls awakened on their doorsteps. Outside once more. Dogs called from distant farms; a rustle of leaves, creaking of doors at the slightest gust of wind; hundreds of rooms like a deserted city or an abandoned army camp. If the ghost of Antinous did not haunt this place, it was unlikely that Christians ever would.
The complexity of the plan, seeming at first random or at best the result of many changes of mind, was beginning to make sense to Aelius. Not that he knew—yet—what the villa’s design might signify; but his night wandering, born of a biographer’s curiosity for Hadrian’s mind, already took another meaning. Why was he expecting a hallway here, and an isolated building there, finding both? It wasn’t just the map as drawn on charts or the pattern. It could be—he could not tell, yet, but the villa was a labyrinth and a key.
Past the cupolas of the large baths, Aelius climbed with more assuredness beyond the little Egypt of Canopus, to the high ground. Oleanders, myrtle, and clumps of fat lilies strangled the foot of the ramp to the west belvedere tower, which was locked. Here, as if on cue, the wind blew out his lamp, and he had to finger and try key after key in the hole before finding the right one. Above him, as in his dream, the tower blocked out the stars and seemed to lean over. In his nightmare, the high structure fell burning onto itself. Aelius unlocked the door and hastened in, groping to find the stairs, up and up to a doorway that led outside to a solid, round colonnade and to a firm terrace higher yet, where the night sky ran at him from such immensity, he nearly stumbled back.
