A Forbidden History.The Hadrian enigma

by George Gardiner

  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 plays with the lion cub no more it is time for the cub to locate its own pride."

  The weak pun on 'pride' might have been intentional, if artless, Suetonius thought. All three of the group grasped its basic message, though there was no way to know if it was in Antinous's own hand or another's.

  "Strabon, keep this wax-pad safe and away from heat until we can identify the writer," Suetonius instructed. The scribe wrapped the tablets in a cloth and placed it securely within his shoulder basket of tools and pads.

  Clarus then turned to one of the other entrance portals. He heard a sound beyond. The others followed as he tentatively moved through another vestibule outside Antinous's bedchamber. A further smaller bedchamber extended beyond the vestibule.

  They entered hesitantly. Lying close to the tented wall in the shadows lay a curled figure. It had its back to the visitors. The figure was quietly heaving, huddled against the felts.

  Strabon raised the chamber's single lamp and played its light onto the bundle of fabric. The bundle realized there was company present and slowly turned towards them, wiping its eyes as it did so. Once again they had intruded into the private space of someone displaying eyes red from weeping.

  It was Lysias of Bithynia, the school-chum friend of Antinous.

  Lysias was already a man. At twenty-four years of age he displayed manhood's razored bristles, a sturdy athlete's body, pronounced bone structure, and bright intelligent eyes showing the benefit of well-nourished ancestors. Nevertheless, where many men his age were already senior officers in the Legions slaughtering barbarians at the frontiers or hunting down and crucifying gangs of Judaean bandits in Palaestina, here was this sturdy youth lying curled against a tent wall with his eyes red from weeping.

  "Come, come, come, lad," Suetonius called, half in rebuke, half in sympathy, "this is no way for a man of honor to act. Lysias of Bithynia, I believe?"

/>   They awaited a response. After a few moments the figure turned towards them, wiping his eyes as he shuffled upright. The fellow stumbled clumsily to his feet.

  "Lysias, son of Lysander of Claudiopolis at Bithynia-Pontus. I travel under the patronage of Antinous, son of Telemachus of Claudiopolis, who is the special companion of Caesar Hadrian. I am a freeborn member of the landholding class of Bithynia and a captain of the Claudiopolis Militia. At your service."

  He spoke Latin with only a hint of a Greek accent, the audible outcome of a good education at both Nicomedia and at Athens.

  "Your tears, I assume, are for your former patron Antinous?" Clarus probed, perhaps somewhat unnecessarily. Lysias's lip trembled.

  "Yes," he said simply.

  "We are Senator Septicius Clarus, a magistrate to the Imperial Household, while I am Suetonius Tranquillus, Special Inspector into the death of Antinous. It is our duty under the seal of Caesar to investigate the circumstances of the Bithynian's death."

  "On behalf of Caesar?!" the youth declaimed daringly. "You mean Lord Caesar does not know?!"

  Clarus and Suetonius were startled by the provocation.

  "Caesar has delegated this enquiry to us. We are obliged to interview you on the matter, as we are to interview all those involved with the deceased who might know something of the manner and reason for the youth's death. We possess the authority of law and its instruments of interrogation."

  Clarus was hinting not so delicately at the range of options open to their investigation, without actually mentioning the fiercest possibility. Suetonius coughed politely, to distract them from any mood of threat which might arise. Not formally being a citizen of Rome, Lysias was potentially subject to the more brutal forms of interrogation.

  Suetonius interceded. "I understand you are — you were — boyhood friends together?"

  "Antinous and I have known each other since early childhood; we have known each other all our lives. We are friends."

  Lysias uttered this claim with its special emphasis on friends in a loaded manner. Suetonius mentally filed this comment for later exploration.

  Glancing around the chamber, he realized how Antinous's apartments were probably not the place to interview Lysias.

  "Gentlemen, I think we should retire to Secretary Vestinus' chambers to conduct this interview, don't you think?"

  He looked at Clarus with an eyebrow raised. "Besides, there'll be food and wine to enjoy," he added. "We are keen, Lysias, to learn more about your remarkable friend Antinous. I'm sure you will know many things about the youth which may assist us in determining the manner of the lad's death?"

  He was interested to learn more about the dead youth's relationships and activities and where Caesar fitted-in to that. Separately, what was the precise nature of their relationship? Was Lysias an alternative lover of Antinous?

  Suetonius thought something provocative might be a useful opener.

  "Tell us, did Antinous sleep with others in this bedroom?"

  Strabon lurched urgently to his writing tools and began fluttering a stylus across a notepad's wax surface.

  "No, not at all," the young Greek responded firmly. "Antinous sleeps in this bed with none other than Caesar. He was Caesar's Companion. That was their compact. When Caesar was disposed elsewhere, Antinous slept here alone. And I can assure you it was not because he was without petitioners. Half the Court and even the eunuchs seemed eager to hop into bed with him."

  Suetonius was surprised to learn of this fidelity.

  "Did you sleep close by last night, Lysias, the night of Antinous's drowning?" Clarus asked. "Or did you sleep elsewhere?"

  Lysias paused thoughtfully. His eyes flashed momentary pain.

  "I remained on my bed next to this chamber all night."

  "Then you will know what times Antinous came and went through the night or morning? You will know something of his movements?" Clarus contributed.

  Lysias paused again to consider his response. Strabon's stylus paused its fluttering.

  "Antinous did not sleep in his chamber at all last night," Lysias said at last with increasing emotion.

  Clarus, Strabon, and Suetonius looked questioningly to each other. So Antinous had been elsewhere throughout the entire night?

  "Where then, Lysias, do you think Antinous had been?" Suetonius asked.

  "Elsewhere, I would assume," he offered obliquely.

  "Elsewhere? With Caesar?"

  "I do not know," was the simple reply.

  Clarus cut across this line of questioning. Anything of proximity to Caesar made him uncomfortable. Caesar was not under investigation.

  "It's time to return to our assigned apartments," Clarus demanded. "And it's time to take a formal record from this young man."

  "Join us, Lysias of Bithynia. We wish to take testimony from you."

  CHAPTER 6

  Secretary Vestinus's tents were buzzing with activity and ablaze with light.

  Chamberlain Alcibiades had returned with two slaves for the investigative team's service. Vestinus had assigned a further top-notch scribe to support Strabon in the wax-pad transcription chores, while the Praetorian Tribune Macedo had delegated the Alexandrian Centurion Quintus Urbicus to be an investigative agent to the team, accompanied by two troops.

  Urbicus's translation skill had already proven useful with the fishermen. He seemed a sharp fellow suited to Suetonius's temper.

  Standing in the background behind the two guards under Macedo's command was a further figure draped in a hooded travelling cloak and carrying a large carpetbag. When the figure dropped back its head cowl it revealed a mound of auburn hair dressed in the high woven style worn by ladies of fashion. Suetonius realized it was Surisca, the young entertainer from the House of the Blue Lotuses. His heart leapt a beat. His pulse raced. His groin stirred.

  "The woman Surisca of Antioch," announced Macedo. "Delivered as demanded after considerable effort. It needed a team of twenty Guards and six ferrymen to traverse the Nile at night with flares, torches, and special skills to collect this female from her place of employ, negotiate a fee, and repeat the journey back to this encampment, at very considerable expense and danger to all."

  He was rubbing it in, probably justifiably.

  "My officers had to buy out the fee for her client tonight, and a double fee for each day until we return her to her contractor, plus a large inconvenience fee. She wasn't cheap."

  Macedo announced this in Latin. He was certain Latin would not be her first language so it might pass her by. From the restraint expressed across her features, Suetonius suspected she clearly understood his words.

  Surisca stood regally at the doorway to the rooms. She wore her bearing with unexpected dignity. She glanced around at the elegant luxury of this itinerant, fabric-built metropolis. Her eyes settled upon Suetonius across the chamber and, on recognizing him from only that very afternoon, smiled in a sweetly shy way that one wouldn't usually expect of an entertainer. Perhaps she had no idea who her purchaser had been, and was relieved to see a familiar face.

  She was taller than Suetonius remembered and wasn't painted with her bordello colors. Her hair was held high by a Syriac headband and combs, but still folding down her back. She wore simple vestments more suited to the Forum than her whore-house duties, and with her ample bosom taped fulsomely in the Syrian way she looked more her real age of the high teens.

  Her earlier skimpy costume, face paints, and tart's frivolous manner had added five years to her appearance at Hermopolis. Without the professional decors she presented a wholesomely healthy look, Suetonius mused. She was both more natural and more appealing to him at the same time. He spied Clarus, Vestinus, and Urbicus giving her a good looking over, and could sense their unspoken approval, perhaps even envy.

  "Surisca, my dear!" he called as warmly as possible in Greek amid this nest of Latins, sounding as though the two had known each other for decades. "Welcome to the Imperial Household!"

  He tried to offer reassurance in
these unfamiliar surroundings. She would have no idea of what was expected of her in this all-male environment of people far above her class. Perhaps she thought she was going to have to perform sexually for a whole gang of Roman party-goers, or worse?

  "I said this afternoon I would be seeing you soon, but I had no idea it would this soon. Please come and be seated among us. Are you thirsty or hungry? Would you enjoy some refreshments?"

  Surisca entered the chamber hesitantly and accepted the invitation to take a seat.

  For a sex worker to be seated among her class superiors and receive their hospitality was a marvel in itself. This was indeed an unexpected turn of events for a woman of her trade. She lifted back her demure headscarf and dropped it to her shoulders to reveal the full sheen of her auburn locks. Such a public display of a woman's hair before strangers was a novelty in itself.

  Suetonius waved at the two service-slaves to find something to eat and drink, and they quickly disappeared into the complex. It was then that he identified a familiar waft of the faint fragrance of myrrh or frankincense oils emanating from her skin. These had impinged on his mood so effectively earlier that afternoon.

  "You have been contracted, my dear, to give my companions here and myself advice on the customs of the local inhabitants and to help translate for us. We also hope you may provide some other guidance as we embark upon an urgent project on behalf of Great Caesar," the biographer explained. "It will take several days to complete. But, as my personal assistant, you will endeavor to stay close to me throughout. You will sleep in my bedroom for the period too, if you understand my meaning?"

  Instead of expressing surprise, Surisca visibly relaxed. The final notion and Suetonius's politeness had reassured her how she hadn't been hired to be available to all-comers without limit, as can occur at men's drinking parties. Yet Suetonius wasn't deceiving anyone, either.

  The staff arrived with dried fruits, cheese, nuts, and bean-mash pastes with fried bread to dip. Honey pastries and crushed almond halva followed. They were laid on a low table for self-service as required. The wine from Vestinus's larder was now a simple local Fayum wine of drinkable quality.