The Hadrian Enigma - A Forbidden History (21 page)

‘
I don’t know. I’ll have to wait and see.’

CHAPTER 10

L
ysias continued his testimony before his hearers. They were entranced by his tale.

“
We bunked down that night in our assigned marquee on clean straw still dressed in our wine-splashed symposium garb. Antinous and I made sure we slept under separate cloaks so as not to generate gossip among the servants. Personally, I wanted to hug him close in anticipation of the remarkable times we would be having some day soon at the Palatine College in Rome.

Except for the peeps of pleasure emitted by Thaletas lying with his girl flautist, or the muffled moans from the councilor’s son from Nicomedia with his militia officer, we fell to sleep quickly. It had been a long, exciting day.

I was awakened by whispered voices and accompanying shuffling. Without shifting from beneath my cloak facing away from the source of the disturbance, I sensed I heard Antinous rise in the darkness from his bedding accompanied by some other person.

Perhaps, I thought, Antinous was heading for the latrine to relieve himself, except he was heading in the wrong direction for that. After a moment or two I sluggishly turned to face the direction of the action only to witness his cloaked outline and another hooded figure disappearing into the night through the marquee flaps.

From the stature of the other person with his beard revealed fleetingly in the moonlight I realized the other person was Geta, Caesar’s assistant.

I thought this was a curious turn of events, especially as I didn’t expect Antinous to be especially interested in Geta. He wasn’t his ‘type’, I’d gathered from conversations over the years. Not that Antinous’s ‘type’ was ever clearly articulated. So I too quietly arose and, wrapping myself in my cloak, followed both figures a dozen paces distant out of the tent into the chill night air. Antinous and Geta were bustling speedily towards the Imperial Marquee and its gardened amphitheater.

Though darkness prevailed, the occasional bright moonlight and some sporadic torches lit the camp’s paths. However no sentinels or duty-guards were apparent, which struck me as odd in an Imperial encampment.

Nevertheless I followed the two figures at sufficient distance not to be detected. I lingered in passing shadows and took refuge beside tent walls or the plinth of a statue. But both figures were businesslike in their speed towards the Marquee.

At the site of the evening’s symposium where the couches and much of the paraphernalia of the celebration remained in place beneath the moon’s gray pallor, the two figures halted to exchange words. Because of the concave of the arena before the draperies of the Imperial complex, I could catch reflected snatches of their voices.

I felt ashamed to be so sneakily eavesdropping on my dear friend in this manner, it was not our style of friendship. But I was intrigued by the situation and its clandestine nature. I wondered what, by Hades, was going on?

At the end of their journey two Horse Guards were slumped snoozing at their watch by the Marquee’s entrance, which I was certain was a serious military offence deserving of penalty. They were slumped close to a single brazier casting barely enough light to illume a cupboard. Geta halted Antinous at the Marquee’s entrance. Neither had noticed their follower, me, slipping furtively through the shadows.

‘
Wait here, Bithynian, until further notice,’ Geta instructed in a hushed voice which resonated across the amphitheater. He then slapped each guard smartly around the head with his studded glove to waken them, and the three figures disappeared together into the Marquee’s dark interior.

From where I had taken refuge I could readily observe Antinous standing silently by one of the stripped dining couches facing the tents. His tall slim figure was shrouded by his cloak wrapped around his body and swathed over his head against the chill. He was bathed in drifting silvery moonlight as clouds raced the autumn sky.

Several minutes elapsed. Standing in solitude patiently before the Marquee, Antinous was motionless. Slowly it dawned on me another figure had silently appeared from the dimness within the Marquee into the moonlight’s haze at the entrance. Even in the dismal glow I could recognize by height, stature, comportment, and beard it was Caesar.

He too was swathed in a cloak to ward off the cool night air. He had no guards or other retinue. Moments elapsed as the two figures stood silently facing each other.

‘
You came, lad, after all?’ Caesar eventually asked. He strolled towards my friend. ‘I thought my invitation might frighten the heart out of you and deter you? You have courage, young man.’

The words reached me in muffled but adequately audible tones.

After a formal bow of deference, Antinous deliberated for some moments uncertain of what might be an appropriate response to the query. He shuffled where he stood.

Hadrian unfurled his cloak to reveal he was standing in a rough woolen legionnaire’s sleeping tunic which hung loosely from his upper torso displaying the spare, campaign-hardened tissues of a professional soldier.

For a man somewhere in his forties, the emperor presented an image in the moonlight which did honor to his decades as a Commander of the Legions, the
Imperator,
the officer who shared in his troop’s training, their engineering fieldwork, road building, stockade construction, crude diet, and other military disciplines. Despite the occasional mild cough, his bodily stature and sheer physical presence were strikingly worthy of the appellation
Caesar
.

‘
You asked that I should come, my lord,’ Antinous responded politely. ‘I did not think I had reason to be afraid. Should I be, sir?’

His voice was quite unthreatened by his circumstance. By Zeus, I had to admire his confidence!

‘
Afraid? Do you wish to be afraid, lad?’ Caesar responded with a teasing grin. ‘It was a personal request, my boy, a friendly invitation, not your Caesar’s command. Yet I must admit I would have been disappointed by your absence,’ Hadrian uttered candidly. ‘I too know how an emperor can seem intimidating to a young fellow from my own predecessor Trajan’s days.”

Antinous was unsure what to reply.

‘
If Caesar invites, surely it is a citizen’s duty to respond?’ he offered diplomatically. But then he dared to shift into a presumptive tone.

‘
Besides, if I hadn’t come I wouldn’t have had this opportunity to share in Caesar’s company so intimately, my lord. Would I?’

I perceived Caesar was somewhat taken aback by this courteous response. Antinous continued in a similar vein.

‘
I cannot deny I am, to be honest, excited by this opportunity, my lord,’ he added with a touch of studied bravado. They stood silently together for a few moments.

‘
Let me look at you in better light, lad. Come closer,’ Hadrian summoned as he reached to back-flip Antinous’s full-body mantle from the top of his head onto his shoulders. My friend was still wearing the embroidered tunic beneath his cloak he wore at the symposium, with the wilted boar’s ears pinned by a 
fibula
to his upper chest while strands of laurel wreath and wild grass remained stuck in his hair.

Moonlight fell sharply across his features displaying in relief the sculpted cheekbones, broad forehead, and the thick mane of shag-cut locks which hung down his nape. I again had to admit to myself Antinous was indeed a good-looking guy.

‘
Ah, yes,’ Hadrian sighed, scanning my friend’s face approvingly. ‘Yes. Perfect. Quite perfect. When I perceive so perfect a creature I wonder if such perfection can be mine.’

I pondered how it was that Hadrian possessed a persona which projected in public an aura of absolute command while in private his character displayed a gentility and geniality not anticipated in so illustrious a Roman. Nevertheless his talk of ‘mine’ and of possession struck me as speech about the material ownership of a prize stallion, a hunting hound, or a fine suit of arms, not a person. I imagine both Antinous and I simultaneously perceived this comment to possess a sense of enslavement, a concept utterly fearful to the mind and honor of a freeborn Greek.

The risk of enslavement by victorious enemies has always been a daunting possibility among the warring Greeks of antiquity, and its residual fear lingered among Greeks across the Empire. Defeat always meant slavery or death. Death was often the preferred choice.

My friend painfully searched for an appropriate mode of response. He took a daring tack.

‘
It flatters me, sir, that you find me so agreeable,’ he offered. ‘I am pleased that the most honorable of nobles should consider me worthy of their company, my lord. But what could lead you to think that this ‘
perfect creature’
, as you call me, does not find its admirer an even more engaging, even more magnificent entity? It is I, sir, who detect a superior perfection before me.’

I could detect a hint of not-unexpected quavering in his voice. Yet Caesar seemed faintly amused by his calculated diplomacy. I myself would have been absolutely transfixed with fear or awe if I found myself in such a challenging predicament. Caesar is not simply another man, another mere mortal, is he?

Antinous may be a strongly self-possessed fellow but he was not readily familiar with midnight chats under the moonlight with the emperor of the known world. Caesar’s single raised finger can mean life, death, glory, or absolute ignominy. Antinous was testing this prospect precipitously.

‘
My boy, for all you know I could be a cruel tyrant who has his way with attractive people at will,’ Caesar hinted menacingly. ‘Many of my predecessors have done so, and even I myself have been known to enjoy an occasional opportunity in earlier times. I could simply enroll you into my traveling
gynaeceum
of both sexes for my more basic pleasures at my leisure,’ the emperor brazenly proposed. ‘Not that I actually possess such a seraglio, unlike several others in my retinue.’

‘
My lord, if this was Caesar’s will,’ Antinous declared with a conspiratorial smile, ‘I am sure I would not be standing before you here in fearful anticipation. I would probably already be inducted for duty. Possibly flat on my belly, if that is the usual
modus operandi
of these things?’

‘
You seem to already be familiar with such activities, my boy? Should I do so, then?’ Hadrian teased, suppressing half a smile at the wryness of his young subject in guiding the conversation in such risqué directions. Listening from a distance, I was alarmed at my buddy’s boldness.

‘
Would that be a proposition, my lord?’ Antinous ventured further, cheekily matching the quip and upping the ante. ‘If so, I must feign a respectful fear for my honor.’

Despite the flippancy of the response, I could detect a tremor in Antinous’s voice which belied the jocularity. I doubted Hadrian had missed it either. Then Antinous took a less provocative tone.

‘
But in truth, sir, I am not at all familiar with those activities. I possess little personal experience of love or sex worth talking of, and certainly none at all of any real notoriety. My schooling commends me to the path of marriage, or alternatively to the style of Patrocles’ legendary friendship with his devoted
eromenos
Achilles, at least as described by ancient Aeschylus. But my schooling also abhors the fierce abduction by Olympian Zeus of the Trojan prince Ganymede, who Romans call
Catamitus
. One is a willing engagement, sir, embedded in honor and mutuality, the latter is enforced,’ Antinous added. ‘It is mere rape. I am no compliant Ganymede or
Catamitus
I hope, my lord, and nor do I willingly invite rape.’

Surprised, Caesar smoothed the rising intensity of this exchange.

‘
Antinous, my friend, relax. Cool down. Take it easy. I am not going to impose anything upon you wouldn’t wish yourself,’ he reassured. ‘I do not tyrannize my companions. So come over here,’ he added, taking Antinous by the shoulders in a sociable way and guiding him to the nearest of the dining couches to take seat. The two had moved into a space of clear moonlight which made my observation all the more easier.

Even though Hadrian sat on the lip of the couch, Antinous stood stiffly at military attention in the formal
hoplite
pose of his training. He was facing Hadrian in deference to age, status, or
arete
and the ingrained habits of the military.

‘
You have spirit, lad. But it is not the wild spirit of the reckless, I detect. You are also tempered by humor and some charm. The humor has natural confidence and a quick wit. It is my will to get to know you, Antinous of Bithynia,’ Caesar declared plainly.

‘
I need someone of spirit in my life again, my boy. I need a young man’s vitality at my side for a refreshment of my vision. I need the optimism of the young to reinvigorate my veins, instilled in me through the energy of the companionship of a respectable
ephebe
of good character and personable appeal.

I desire such a person to be in my life again to restore to me values and virtues which differ substantially from our prosaic Roman ones, let alone the cynicism of politics or the venality of my Court.

Your Bithynian enthusiasms for your antique Hellene culture - several of my retinue claim it’s an
antiquated
Hellene culture - and your uninhibited engagement with its pedagogical tradition inspires you towards values of great formative power,’ he announced with obvious ardor.