A Forbidden History.The Hadrian enigma

by George Gardiner

  Surisca rose and delicately helped herself to the foods. She was hungry, though the professional entertainer in her saw her select tidbits and morsels arranged on a platter accompanied by a knife, which she brought to Suetonius. She then poured the Fayum in a 50/50 watered mix into cups for each of them.

  Suetonius thought silently to himself, oh yes, my impulsive demand is going to work quite well. The others probably wondered why they hadn't thought of it themselves.

  They each knew it was unusual for a woman to be in the company of strangers unaccompanied by a protector, husband, brother, or eldest son. Women of the elites across the East, and very often at Rome too, are secluded within the home and only appear in public in the company of male guardians.

  Yet considering Surisca's trade including being a foreign non-citizen, this fact did not apply in this circumstance. Due to the Special Inspector's interest, perhaps she automatically assumed a role as an 'honorary male' for the immediate duration.

  She had barely uttered a word thus far. But when she did respond to her benefactor's queries, the quality of her voice was a surprise. Unlike the shrill, mischievous harlot he recalled from the House of the Blue Lotuses, Suetonius realized she unexpectedly possessed a much lower vocal register which communicated an extremely level-headed quality. This raised Suetonius's pulse another beat or two.

  The earlier harlot's voice could well have been a merchandising ploy from a sex worker's grab-bag of seductive tools. Suetonius appreciated he was in the company of more than an expensive trollop who you wouldn't trust with your purse.

  But attention now returned to Lysias.

  "Lysias, we are to question you on aspects of your relationship with the deceased, Antinous. Your personal testimony will be recorded for report to Lord Caesar," Clarus opened the formal interviews. "Please remember we possess the authority of an inquisitional Court, so you are obliged to tell the complete truth on these matters at penalty of severe imposition."

  Macedo and Vestinus had departed the chamber and left the central team to their chores. This lightened the atmosphere no end. Clarus initiated the interview.

  "You will begin with an oath of truth, then state your full name and origins, your status in relationship to the Imperial Household, and then describe under what circumstances you met and know of the deceased. On completion of these details, you will await further questions."

  Lysias had uneasily taken his seat in the centre of the chamber. He looked towards the eager faces confronting him. He began hesitantly.

  "In the name of Apollo Alexikakos, son of Zeus, healer of heaven, and Apollo Kourotrophos, protector of youth; as well as Artemis, who Romans call Diana, twin sister of Apollo, protector of hunters, I swear fidelity to the truth.

  As a clan servant of these deities at the cult in Bithynia, may my oath be true, and may their arrows strike me down if I speak untruth."

  Lysias began, sitting to his full height before the group while fingering the bulla locket around his neck. Suetonius assumed the bulla contained prayers or a talisman.

  "I am Lysias of Bithynia, son of Lysander of Claudiopolis, born at my father's house at Nicomedia in March of the eighth year of the rule of Caesar Trajan. I turned age twenty-four this year. I travel with Caesar's retinue by invitation under the protection of Antinous of Bithynia, companion to Caesar. I have known Antinous since childhood."

  Lysias paused for the next question. Suetonius took the reins.

  "Because Antinous cannot speak for himself, tell us what you know of the deceased's origins too," Suetonius asked. A dewy drop was appearing at the ephebe's eye.

  "Antinous, son of Telemachus of Claudiopolis, was born eight months after me at Mantinium, upland from Claudiopolis near the border, in the ninth year of Caesar Trajan's rule. He too would turn twenty-four, if he was alive, next month.

  Since entering the older age-class of meirakia youths five years ago, we were registered as Companions of the Hunt with the Imperial Household."

  "Tell us, Lysias, how did you two fellows come to be enrolled in Caesar's retinue?"

  "We were both appointed by Great Caesar when Antinous fell under Caesar's eye during his tour of Bithynia," Lysias explained. "Caesar proposed to Antinous's father, Telemachus. He wished to fulfill the role of erastes to Antinous under the terms of the custom of the Hellenes. Both father and son acceded to the request. I was present at this very consultation and heard it discussed between the family members. Antinous has remained Caesar's eromenos until very recent times. At least that's how Antinous saw it."

  "What were the circumstances in which you both fell under Caesar's eye? How did this happen?"

  "It is a lengthy story, my lords. It would take time," Lysias offered.

  "We have a little time, young man," Suetonius reassured. "It is important to hear about the nature of your relationship with the deceased. We need to know the details so we can take a bearing on the issues involved. Everything, Lysias, everything."

  Lysias thoughtfully sipped his mug of wine and looked moodily to the floor tiles.

  "I can recall the very first time we two discussed the issue of being an eromenos," he said. "After qualifying for the meirakion age-class where we train with the heavier, more dangerous weapons of the palaestra, we must consider how to locate an experienced trainer. A trainer must teach us effective fighting skills and practice long hours with us. It's very time consuming.

  Antinous and I talked about such things between ourselves when we journeyed on hunting expeditions. Antinous was a keen hunter. Five years ago we always shared experiences, we were inseparable friends. The eromenos issue arose during one particular hunt in the Pontine Ranges to track a herd of horses we had been told were running wild…"

  The Greek gathered his thoughts to recall the occasion. He spoke with a shimmering emotion. The group of listeners sat in quiet attention.

  "It was the fall of that year. In Bithynia winter descends quickly. We and our mountain ponies were ranging the lower slopes of the Pontine Ranges. We had spent two days searching for the herd — ."

  CHAPTER 7

  "Antinous braced his pony Tiny cautiously," Lysias recollected. "He pressed his calf and thigh muscles, gripped the horse's bony flank with both knees through the backcloth, and gently tapped its neck with the loose end of the reins. The pony moved forward slowly. Antinous then carefully lifted his hips and butt from Tiny's spine to take a peep over the edge of the ridge ahead of him.

  His eyes revealed what both of our ears had sensed. There they were, fourteen of them, all quietly grazing. The Imperial Post courier had reported accurately of the number and type of horses, though the pack had moved a mile or so since the courier's sighting. It had taken two full days for us to find them.

  Antinous beckoned back towards me following close behind. He held a finger across his lips to hush an urge to make voice, and then point-marked towards the gentle slope falling away beneath the ridge.

  I approached carefully on my pony, Blaze, drawing to Antinous's side. I looked over the ridge at the grassy slope below. We soothed Tiny's and Blaze's tension with calming strokes and whispers.

  'Great Zeus!' I heard myself hiss. 'It's a whole herd!'

  'Fourteen of them,' Antinous whispered. 'Running feral. Mostly Turkomans. Small grays. The two foals and their mares look healthy still, but they haven't faced a winter yet. They'll be a good catch if we can corral them before the snows arrive.'

  'Where are they from? Their crests are cropped, so they're domesticated.'

  'Their tails are docked too in the barbarian style, see,' Antinous pointed. 'Maybe they've escaped from a brigand's hideaway, possibly after a run-in with a Militia? Or perhaps they've wandered off from a roaming tribe of Alans nomads and crossed the border into our territory? The Alans were too afraid to come after them or the Legions would crucify them. I can't see any of our usual branding or ear nips, and I certainly don't recognize the stock from trading meets, do you? So they're not local.'

  I agreed. 'Bu
t where are we, what's their position? We'll have to note where we are, to come back for them. There's too many for us to capture.'

  Antinous considered the options.

  'It'll take six riders with hounds to round them up and rope them one by one. We're about a mile due west of the trapper's hut in the valley under the south side of Vulcan's Peak. The grazing is good, so they'll move on very slowly. They can't go higher into the range, the grazing runs out and there's no water.

  We'll have to come back within a few days with our best riders to round them up, or they'll melt away. The two foals and the colts would make good breeding stock. Father says we need fresh blood badly, we inter-breed too often. If the colts can be ridden they'll give good service. The mule looks like it has farm work to spare. If not, it's meat and leather time for them all. They're a good find, Lys. We're very lucky.'

  We slowly backed our steeds away from the grazing herd's sight. With our broad-brimmed sunhats strapped to our backs over woolen mantles and tunics torn short for riding, we were full of youthful health and spunk. We willingly displayed our muscled forearms, thighs, and trim torsos in our recent status as meirakia grown youths. We were proud athletes moving rapidly into full manhood. We were both very aware of our developing powers and our bodies. I especially was sensitive to these things.

  Our fiercer weapons were stoked across our horse's backcloth while quivers of arrows and carry-bags were looped around each pony's neck within reach. Only hip daggers offered emergency defense against the possibility of a roaming bandit or an unseasonable wolf in the lower ranges of the Pontine Mountains. But we were trained to handle such risks.

  Carefully drawing our ponies back, we returned to the woodland track behind us.

  'It's getting late,' Antinous said. 'Sunset is in an hour. It's time to hunt us some hare or fowl and find a protected camp site. There was a creek back-a-bit with a clearing nearby. That'll do for the night. We don't want to alarm the herd with fire light, or they'll haul off.'

  'Well, what'd you think of the news, Lys?!' Antinous called to me as he swung off Tiny's back.

  I once again perceived how my friend made the leap off his pony's spine with light-speed energy and grace. I could discern the animal power and tight body coordination of his rapidly evolving physicality. It was an athleticism which already drew nodding respect from our peers and elders at the palaestra. It drew similar regard from me too.

  I had watched my blond-haired, pale skinned friend grow from childhood pal into a sleek, sinewy youth in the space of a few years. It was accompanied by a growth in personal confidence and a broadening of a very appealing, impertinent toothy grin. We had shared the same deity, the same clan and caste, the same tutors, the same peer group, and the same life adventures as each other since before we could even remember. Antinous was an extension of myself. I was perhaps more conscious of his body than I was of my own.

  'What news?' I asked, pretending not to know where the conversation was heading. Antinous was buzzing with boyish enthusiasm again after the serious business of identifying the valuable cache of ownerless horseflesh open to a profitable grab. My less outgoing nature secretly admired my friend's liveliness.

  I was already tethering my pony to a tree while holding a fat range eagle chick impaled on an arrow tucked under one arm. Of hares there were none to be seen; so a new season's eagle chick pierced at its cliff-face crag was to be the day's fireside meal. It was a chicken large enough to feed four.

  'Lord Arrian's trading steward has told Father how Caesar and the Imperial party will be arriving next week! At last! They've told the councilors at Polis to organize the celebration events, and to do it well!'

  'What sort of events, Ant?' I responded using the abbreviated familiar name common among our generation. I raised my chiton tunic to relieve an urgently pressed bladder in a steaming stream against the tree trunk. The day's scouting for the wild ponies had delayed a well-needed piss. But now the herd had been sighted grazing within two-day's reach of our hometown, Claudiopolis. With their position noted, it was time to relax and enjoy our hunting trek's return home journey.

  Antinous and I regularly mounted hunts into the ranges around Claudiopolis — "Polis" being the local nickname for our town protected on its hilltop in the secure walled Roman manner. We brought back rabbits, hares, other wild rodents, young boars, assorted fowl, river fish, any fruit or berry visibly edible, plus the occasional orphaned bear to nurture, to the fireside hearths of our family compounds.

  'You know what I mean, Lys — a welcome celebration for the Emperor, grand speeches, the sacrifice of a steer to the Gods,' Antinous spelled out, "with a public feast, dances for Apollo, music competitions, youth athletics at the palaestra, all that sort of thing. Everything we do well in the provinces, they say. Even freeborn girls will be allowed to attend events, with suitable guardians.'

  Antinous was now also relieving himself against the tree trunk.

  'But Polis has been preparing for all that for months now,' I reminded us. 'We had the tour's probable dates a year ago.'

  Hadrian has been travelling with his Household for two years, so the Province Legate had sent scouts ahead to inform us long ago. The Household had departed Antioch four months earlier, all four hundred of them plus most of a Legion. We were one of the last provinces in his tour of the Empire, with only the Troas and mainland Greece to follow.

  'So who told you that?' Antinous queried as we prepared a campfire of rocks and dry branches for the night's warmth.

  I glanced over my younger friend covered in brush dust, pine needles, and the slick of the day's sweaty exertions. It was difficult not to notice, however, how my school chum's slender musculature had advanced yet another step in shapely power since such issues last crossed my mind, which was often. Antinous didn't have my beefiness, but he had a fine rangy physical line which grew more sculpted with each passing month.

  'Arrian himself told us. He stayed overnight with us at the compound a few weeks ago on his way back to Nicomedia from his border inspection,' I confirmed.

  But Antinous couldn't let that piece of one-upmanship pass by unchallenged.

  'Yes, I know, he stayed with Father at our compound on his way out,' Antinous replied. 'He checks the border barbarians every few months. He's worried about the increasing incursion of the Alans tribes. They're searching for places to settle, and there are a lot of them.

  I like Arrian. He's very direct and no-nonsense about things. That's probably his military training. He likes me too, I guess. He was keen to congratulate Father and my Elder Brother on our public duty in repairing the old Baths of Claudius and its palaestra training yard. At last we younger ones at Polis have a palaestra worthy of the pain of the practice.

  Arrian said Caesar has offered to do the opening ceremony while he's here, which everyone immediately accepted. It's a great honor for Father. It might even be worth the huge cost to the family.'

  Despite the autumn chill, we stripped off our sweated tunics and splashed around in the bracing mountain waters of a rivulet tumbling down the slope by our bivouac site. We noisily body-washed after several days' soiling. We scrubbed all over with handfuls of wet sand and scoured each other's hard-to-reach parts for thorough cleanliness.

  'Arrian is now a citizen of Rome, you know?' I continued as we splashed. 'He says they're gradually adding Greeks to the citizen roll under Hadrian's influence, but only if you earn it. Caesar is said to honor Greek life and Greek ways. Even some of his equestrian- class advisors at Rome are said to be Hellenes now. The times are changing, Ant.'

  'But Romans still don't trust us, Father says privately. At war we are only allowed to fight as auxiliaries or as expendable front line fodder, while the Legions remain firmly Roman,' Antinous mused aloud as he rinsed the sands off his skin's glistening surfaces.

  I have to admit how being so close to my friend in his natural state is inclined to introduce a sensual glow to my being. Like most of the guys I know, we find bodily exposure induc
es an unexpected surge of energy — erotic energy. It is a very pleasing sensation. In fact I sensed my private parts were displaying signs of arousal, just as they did during close body contact sports at the palaestra. More than once I have found I have developed a discernable erection while tussling at close quarters with a wrestling partner or while watching others compete. Many of the boys do. It's natural, I guess.

  Antinous had long realized I was prone to being aroused when we tangled as wrestlers. This wasn't too surprising to lads at a time of life when our groins sought urgent, irrepressible, self-relief several times a day. Antinous laughed at my heightened state of enthusiasm amid the rivulet's chill that evening. He flicked water at my crotch to dampen my fun. He only ceased laughing when he realized he too was displaying similar signs.

  'Local gossip says Lord Arrian might have been an intimate friend of Hadrian's long ago, even his lover perhaps, in Caesar's wilder days before becoming emperor," I confided. "He might even have been his eromenos at the time of the Dacian Wars. That's the rumor anyway. But that was very long ago.'

  I spoke hesitantly as we toweled ourselves with our loincloths by the warming campfire. These are sensitive matters for young men to discuss between them at their time of life. By then the eagle chick had been plucked and gutted, and was roasting on struts above the campfire's flicker.

  'Nowadays they remain just good friends, it's said. In private they're social equals who share similar tastes and experiences. That often happens between an eromenos and his erastes, doesn't it?' I concluded knowingly.

  I had raised the issue which all youths of the Bithynian upper classes must address through their maturing years. Until our full beard is evident are we supposed to remain celibate until our wedding day, or are we to sow youthful oats? But how, where, and with who?

  In lieu of the availability of girls of our own class, whose virginity is securely protected from all males until matrimony, are we to depend on the erotic services of expensive hetaerae consorts, or importune our household slaves, or common sex workers, or other women or males of available inclination? Alternatively, were we to take a more senior guy as our erastes mentor, weapons trainer, social network guide, companion, and sex partner?