Child of the Sun

by Kyle Onstott

  “But, oh, my Zoticus, you cannot leave me.”

  “ ’Twill do no good, little Lupus.” He walked to the table of polished wood and poured wine from a gold flagon into a gem-encrusted goblet. “Now I can only drink to forget my troubles.” He gulped down the wine and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “It was nice of you to remember me with the dozen amphorae of Falernian. Not only is it the most delicious wine I have ever tasted, but it showed me that you were still thinking about me. I’ve finished ten of the dozen already. One drink seems to call for another.” He filled the goblet again but Antoninus took it from him.

  “Yes, it is the finest wine in all the Empire. Each amphora costs more than its weight in gold, Zoticus, but I wanted you to have it to console you in my absence. I felt that you of all people deserved it and so I had it sent to you, but drink no more now. This recent failure of yours is serious. Do you realize what it means to our relationship?”

  “I do, little Lupus, I do. It has worried me more than all else. Now that I cannot serve you as a husband, I am worthless to you. Dismiss me, Antoninus, and let me go. You will not miss me, you have a new love, but tell me, little Lupus, is he more of a man than I am?”

  “More of a man than you are today but less of a man than you were a month ago. Do not blame me, Zoticus for loving him. It is a strange feeling I have for him, different from what I ever felt for you. When you touched me every nerve and muscle ached for you. But when he touches me there is nothing but a strange, delightful peace. Let us not talk of him now, let us talk of you.”

  “Do you intend to banish me, little Lupus?”

  “Not banishment, Zoticus, never that! Listen! My father—not Caracalla, but the husband of my mother, was Varius Marcellus. He was a wealthy man, here in Rome, and while we lived here when I was a child, we had a magnificent villa on the Campania, more palace than farm. I have not had an opportunity to revisit it since we returned to Rome but I remember it and all its delights. It supports some six hundred slaves. This, Zoticus, is yours and with it the rank of Eques, if you will but retire there, ready however, at any moment to attend my call to return to Rome. Your stipend as concubinus, your rank as Pro-Consul to Bithynia and your taxes therefrom will be continued. Perhaps, leading the life of a country squire, you will be able to regain your vigor.”

  Zoticus sighed in gratitude. It was far better than he had ever hoped for. He put out his hand for the goblet of wine which Antonius had put on the table but Antoninus reached for it at the same time and his hand encountered it first. He raised it to his lips and would have drunk but it slipped from his hands and crashed to the floor. Zoticus picked up the flagon to pour another drink but found it empty.

  “I’ll call a slave and have it refilled. We’ll drink a toast to my new rank and my new position as a country knight.”

  “Never mind, dear Zoticus. I have not drunk wine these many weeks. I doubt if I shall ever want to drink it unwatered again. Hierocles does not believe in drunkenness.”

  Zoticus’s smile was almost a smirk. “A most admirable young man. And I suppose he is too pure minded to let you sleep in his arms at night.”

  “Not at all! In some things he even exceeds you, Zoticus, for he has a more fertile imagination, but as for sleeping in his arms, that is a pleasure yet to come. Both arms are now bandaged and still very tender.”

  “With both hands bandaged, he has been most fortunate to have you with him during his convalescence.”

  “And I most fortunate too. But enough. Before you leave for the Campania, I have business to talk over with you. A last favor you can do me.”

  “Then I am not to leave: today?”

  “Neither today nor tomorrow but the day after. You see, Zoticus, I am being married tomorrow.”

  “To Hierocles? Surely you do not wish the divorced husband to help you sacrifice to Hymen?”

  “Exactly that, but not in the way you mean. No, I am not being wed to Hierocles tomorrow. We shall wait until after my divorce. The Senate might frown upon two marriages.”

  “Your divorce from me?”

  “No, stupid man, not from you. You and I were married before Elah-ga-baal by old Zenotabalus. Nothing can break that tie. Tomorrow I am to be married to Julia Cornelia who douses herself in saffron water. It will be a big ceremony, with all the fat old senators and their wives, and my own family and half of Rome besides. There’ll be a big donative to everyone, but Maesa is arranging this one differently. Everyone will get a little ivory tablet with a number on it and the number will represent some sort of a prize like a new slave, a country villa, wine, cattle, money, many different things.”

  “Now what do you want of me?”

  “To take my place as a bridegroom.”

  “What, me to marry the Cornelia?”

  “No, no, no! I’ll marry the bitch. But after the wedding when we are conducted to the red-draped bed in the new apartments which Maesa has had decorated for us, you will be there, hidden in the ward room.”

  “Yes, go on!”

  “And when she is in bed, lo, you will appear and do the nasty job she will be expecting. Meanwhile I shall sit on the bed and watch you and her, particularly her. I want to know every little scream, every gasp, every twitching . . .”

  “So that when the bandages are removed from Hierocles’s hands, you can do likewise?”

  “How did you guess, wise Zoticus? But . . . remember this. You are to show her no mercy. When morning comes Cornelia will want but one thing—to return to her home and papa and never see a man again. She’ll flee from the palace like the frightened rabbit she is and then—why then, I shall have grounds to divorce her because she left me.”

  “Most cleverly devised,” Zoticus said, “but haven’t you forgotten one important thing? If I couldn’t arouse myself for you just now, nor any of the whores in the Suburra, or the priests of Elah-ga-baal, how then, little Lupus, will I be able to service the Cornelia so that she will never want another man again?”

  “Drink no more of the wine I sent you, Zoticus. Taste it not again today or tomorrow, and when tomorrow night comes and you climb into my bridal bed, you will see that all will be well.”

  Zoticus stood up quickly and flung Antoninus on the floor. “Why you . . .”

  Antoninus got up from the floor and smoothed the folds of his silk tunic. “Never again drink wine, Zoticus, that a wife who wishes to marry a new husband sends you.”

  Zoticus was relieved. His problems had been solved, and he was not the limp wretch he had thought himself to be. He gathered Antoninus in his arms and embraced him, but Antoninus slipped out of his grasp, the door closed behind him and Zoticus was alone. He clapped his hands and his slave entered.

  “Tell me, boy, how many amphorae of the wine that

  Caesar sent me now remain?”

  “But two, my lord and master.”

  “Then send them with the compliments of Aurelius Zoticus, Pro-Consul of Bithynia to the chariot driver Hierocles who now resides in the apartments of Caesar.”

  “To the chariot driver Hierocles? Yes, my lord and master.”

  “And mark them ‘For your Wedding Night’ and sign my name.”

  15

  Hierocles was both surprised and pleased when Zoticus’s slave arrived with the gift of wine. He had Cleander bring the two amphorae to his bed and hold them up before him that he might examine their dusty contours and the cobwebbed seals of green wax. He directed Zoticus’s slave to thank his master, but as soon as the boy had left, Hierocles told Cleander to remove the amphorae, saying that he might either keep them himself or give them away. Hierocles never drank anything but milk and honey-water.

  Cleander was overjoyed with such a rich gift and admitted that he would keep the amphorae and their precious contents for his own use. For the next few days he went about his duties with a worried expression on his face, and Hierocles overheard him telling Antoninus a most unusual experience— unusual at least for the concupiscent Cleander. Antoninus smi
led, realizing the reason for Zoticus’s sudden generosity, and his sage advice to Cleander was to give up wine, as he himself had already done.

  Hierocles had a brief glimpse of Zoticus on the mom of his departure, the day after the festivities that celebrated Antoninus’s wedding to Julia Cornelia. Zoticus and Antoninus had arrived back at the imperial apartments, after having spent the night sacrificing to Hymen on the nuptial bed. Hierocles could but admire his predecessor. Surely Antoninus could not be blamed for loving the fellow. He was indeed handsome in his suave, dark aquilinity and his reputation had been known even in the racing barracks. Even his name had become a part of the Roman argot. A man was described as being a regular Zoticus or not so much of a Zoticus.

  Cleander afterwards told Hierocles that Zoticus drove away from the pillared portico of the palace in a silver and tortoiseshell chariot, drawn by four perfectly matched Cappadocian horses, followed by six mule carts, piled high with heavy coffers and a train of some twenty slaves following on foot, bound for his villa in the Campania. Cleander also volunteered the information to Hierocles that later that same morning, a half-conscious, moaning Cornelia was carried out of the back door of the palace in a hired litter and taken to her father’s palace on the Palatine. Hierocles never saw the Antonine’s wife. She kept her title of Augusta for only eight days, whereupon she was divorced by Antoninus and stripped of her titles. She not only deserted him, he told the Senate, but she had a blemish on her body. After her brief and painful regnum, she never returned to the palace again.

  After the day and night that Antoninus had spent away from him, Hierocles had no further cause for complaint for every moment that Antoninus could steal from being Caesar he spent with Hierocles. The days passed in a procession of sunlit hours of games and laughter, and the nights were purple caverns of love. Neither tired of the other, although Hierocles was still hampered by his injured arms.

  Then, came the day when the priests of Asclepius removed the bandages, and the Greek physician examined the healed wrists. They were, he said, as good as new, except for the angry red scars which would soon be less prominent. That night was given over to a special celebration in Caesar’s apartments. It was a dinner for two, served by the now fully recovered Cleander and the menu was one of Antoninus’s own choosing—a first course of rare delicacies from the sea, swimming in garum, that special blue-green sauce the imperial chef had invented and which had become the envy of all Rome. Next, succulent oysters, raw and chilled with snow, with a sauce made of that rarest of spices, pepper, which, when combined with oysters was said to be a potent aphrodisiac. Followed then, the Empire’s greatest delicacy, sow’s teats, cooked in camel’s milk with Lybian truffles, and served with a delicate border of fattened dormice, baked in poppies, and glazed with honey. Antoninus would have delighted in mulsum, that cup composed of white wine, roses, absinthe, nard and honey, but Hierocles forbade it and Antoninus seemed content with the honey water, beaten with raw eggs and flavored with the juice of bitter oranges from Spain. To top off the feast, there was a decorated pasty from Neapolis, which opened to disclose a gift for Hierocles—a pair of massive gold bracelets set with onyx cameos, big as oyster shells, which bore twin profiles of Antoninus and Hierocles—with Hierocles in the foreground as befitted a Roman husband.

  The pasty from Neapolis and the cameos, which were a speciality of that southern city, reminded Hierocles of his mother who had been sold into slavery to a man in that city, and when he mentioned it to Antoninus, along with his thanks for the bracelets, he begged that Antoninus send imperial agents to Neapolis to find his mother, free her from slavery, and bring her back to Rome.

  Antoninus did not want to disappoint Hierocles, but h~ advised against such a course. His experience with his own relatives had proved that they were a necessary evil and to keep as far as possible away from them. He wished they were both in Neapolis or even farther and certainly if they were he would never send for them. He also feared that with Hierocles’s mother in Rome, he would have to share his lover’s affection with another, but Hierocles pleaded so abjectly and when denied, threatened with mounting temper to withhold his favors from Antoninus that very night. Faced with that awful probability, for Antoninus had been anticipating this night of all nights, Antoninus relented. He would have summoned Pluto from Hades, rather than lose this night with Hierocles.

  Consequently, at midnight, a detachment of the noble Praetorians was sent off to Neapolis, resentful of the fact that they were to find a slave, purchase her, outfit her as a Roman matron of a patrician house and bring her back to Rome. The Praetorians were angry but they had no choice—Caesar had commanded and they had to obey. With their leaving, Hierocles’s angry mood vanished and that night, for the first time, Antoninus slept in his arms, and never again, as long as he was Caesar of Rome, which is to say until the day he died, did he ever sleep anywhere else.

  And now, came the afternoon when Hierocles’s mother would arrive and Hierocles dressed himself in gold armor, a tunic of white silk, and a long cape of fine purple wool, heavily banded in gold, with a helmet crested with the white plumes of the ostrich. Once again, he stepped into a chariot but this time, he did not touch the reins; his own slave drove the horses. A company of Antoninus’s own guards, the agglomeration of Eubulus’s distant searches, followed him. Antoninus had decided not to be present at this reunion.

  Hierocles had only gone a few milliae along the Appian Way when he spied the company of Praetorians advancing, with his mother’s tall and commanding figure in the chariot. Both groups stopped, a chariot length apart, and Hierocles took the imperial salute, for, true to Antoninus’s word, he had been proclaimed Caesar Honoralibus by the Senate which entitled him to all the honors paid to Imperial Caesar himself. He descended from his chariot and walked over to that which contained his mother, offering her his hand and helped her alight.

  It was a happy meeting, there in the bright Roman sunshine of the Appian Way. Dulcilla, Hierocles’s mother, was a handsome woman, as she must needs to be to have birthed so fine a son, and the stola of fine linen, widely purple bordered, added to her beauty. She clasped Hierocles in her arms, kissed him, and tried to restrain her tears.

  “My son! I do not understand all that has happened, only this . . . we are here together once more and from what they tell me, I am not only free, but you are a freedman also.”

  “In one night, mater mea, I passed through all the stages that any Roman might have. I started as a slave, then I became a freedman, a Roman Eques, a senator, and I ended up by becoming Caesar.”

  “Caesar?” She looked up at him, her fingers on her lips, shocked with fear. “Marcus Aurelius Antoninus is Caesar. Hush, my son, or you will be overheard and arrested. You must not try to impersonate Caesar. It is death to do so. Oh be quiet, Hierocles, before the guards overhear you.”

  “The guards, mater mea?” Hierocles laughed and unclasped her. “The guards? Pfft! Are you familiar with the imperial salute, mother?”

  “Why yes. Once I went to the games with our master, dear old Marcus Savius, and I saw the soldiers give the salute to the Emperor Caracalla. Something about the right hand high in the air and the words Ave Caesar!”

  Hierocles nodded in agreement “Then watch this.” He turned to face the band of guards who were standing a respectful distance away at rigid attention. “Centurion,” he called, “attend me.”

  The centurion walked stiffly towards mother and son. When he was but a few feet from them, he stopped, raised his right hand and said in a loud voice, “Ave Caesar! How may I serve Your Imperial Majesty?”

  “My apologies, Centurion, I have changed my mind. You may retire.”

  Again the hand was lifted and the same words spoken. The centurion stepped back.

  “Well, mother,” Hierocles smiled to see his mother’s eyes bulging in surprise. “Do you believe that I am impersonating Caesar or that I am Caesar?”

  “I know not what to believe. I had thought the Antonine was Caesar.
”

  “And so he is, but, mother, I am Caesar’s husband.”

  Dulcilla stepped back, her face contorted with horror. “You are what?”

  “Caesar’s husband! Ay, look not so shocked, dear mother. The great Nero was married to his Pythagoras; Hadrian took Antoninus to wife. I am married to Caesar.”

  “Would that you had remained a slave! I’ve heard of this infamous Antonine and his evil ways. ’Tis common gossip even in the slave quarters, that he impersonates prostitutes in the lowest bordellos of the Suburra; that he has lain with a thousand soldiers in one night; that he is a depraved monster, steeped in nameless vices, perverted in all the unnatural things that men do with each other.”

  “Was, mother, not is,” Hierocles shook his head, “and like all common gossip, grossly exaggerated. This is Rome, mater mea, and today in Rome nearly every man has a Roman wife whom he neglects and a Greek concubinus whom he loves. I am more fortunate. I have a wife whom I love who is also my concubinus. Look about you mother! Why are you here? Why are you dressed as a Roman matron of consular rank? Where is the slave collar which you always wore around your neck and why has it been replaced with a necklace of pearls? You made the journey to Neapolis in a farm wagon, why do you return in an imperial chariot with a Praetorian guard of honor. And . . . why do you hear your son, who was a slave, addressed as Caesar? Because the little Antonine loves me, mother, and because I love him.”