The Hadrian Enigma - A Forbidden History (23 page)

Antinous remained stiffly upright in the pale moonlight, rigid with wonderment if not sheer visceral terror. I am sure he had no idea his nocturnal meeting would lead to such a daunting proposition. He was now standing almost knee-to-knee to Hadrian.

Caesar continued.

‘
I, Caesar, am
Princeps
, the First Citizen. I command the Empire’s citizens. I shape the world’s future. I make nations create themselves anew. I endow the Empire with tax money and public works to encourage it to become better than it has ever been. I have consolidated the borders with the barbarian races so the
Pax Romana
prevails to our benefit and our wealth grows unhindered by war or rebellion.

I bring Roman civilization to every corner of the Middle Sea and beyond. Rome brings law and order, we punish robbers and pirates, we guarantee the food supply despite famine, we build useful roads, aqueducts, public facilities, bath houses, sanitation, ensure clean water, provide games and festivals, protect safe travel and trade, and even secure justice for foreigners, debtors, widows, or slaves as well as Romans. I am the bringer of justice and the giver of justice.

To be engaged with me as Caesar is to be engaged with the mightiest of men in action of great honor. No Zeus with his Ganymede, no Apollo with his Hyacinth, no Patrocles with his Achilles, no Socrates with his Alcibiades, no Hephaestion with his Alexander, has ever been an
erastes
of the quality of your Caesar. I am the ultimate
erastes
to his chosen
eromenos
, Antinous
.
All this I offer you, and I offer you alone.

I could woo you with baubles and trinkets, fine clothes and perfumes, palaces, slaves, weapons, or a magnificent horse or two. They say everyone has their price. But I would think less of you if you conceded easily in this way. My informants tell me you would think less of me too.

No, I want your full-hearted commitment without coercion. I wish you of your own free will to accept my proposal, to invite me into your life as your
erastes
under the terms of the custom. I wish you to announce fearlessly to me :
Yes Caesar, I am yours!
Nothing less.

If the answer is
No
, for reasons of your own or your father’s, then I will send you safely on your way with sufficient reward to thank you for your attentiveness. This, Antinous, is my submission.’

Hadrian shut-up at last and waited for a reply. I am sure Antinous and I were both convinced Caesar rarely patiently awaits a response from his subjects, yet here in the moonlit calm of a deserted garden amphitheater outside Nicomedia he did so. Eventually Antinous found the presence of mind with a sufficiently emotion-rasped voice to speak.

‘
Forgive me, sir,’ I heard him say in a challenge which alarmed me, ‘but I am certainly no prostitute. I am proudly born of a clan and a father who would disown me immediately, my lord, if it was believed I had sold my body for money or possessions or position. My honor among my peers would be permanently impugned. For the remainder of my days I’d be labeled as someone whose body, mind, and tongue are purchasable. I’d be denied society by my peers or a future role in our governing councils. This would be as death to me, my lord, and my father would be in his rights to kill me for it, as some do.

Yet your proposal has appeal, sir, I must confess. I am dismayed but truly flattered to be deemed so worthy. It leads me to ask: why me, sir? I am just a country boy, and there are finer lads in Bithynia with smoother talk or whiter skins who are equipped with a courtier’s wit or are expert in the boudoir’s special practices. I am not trained in the wiles of the Court, my lord, let alone the arts and speech of love or sex.’

I recall Antinous paused uneasily for a while to measure Caesar’s response to his hesitancy. Hadrian replied in low tones I could barely hear.

‘
Antinous, I could offer you or your father a great deal of money or property, but yes, that would be prostitution. I’m fairly sure that such a transaction is probably outside the code of your caste, yes?

As you probably realize, Antinous, I can take my pick of the most excellent slaves of all types available at market, and then some. I can buy whatever fits my desires, or simply seize that which is un-buyable. I am Caesar, after all. Yet I am a law abiding Caesar.

Importuning a slave is beneath me, no matter how beautiful or desirable. It is an abuse inflicted by mediocrities. As Plutarch has recently written, a wise ruler does not solicit people who ultimately have no choice in the matter. My rule as Caesar has seen the codification of the legal rights of slaves for their safety and justice, so I must be consistent in these things.

My goal instead is to engage with a freeborn companion; a 
willing
freeborn companion; a friend of good family, of a suitable class, of intelligence, of an appropriate education and potential, and of great natural beauty, yet who is not Roman. It is my duty as the protector of the law and an exponent of the law.

I have been searching for this person for more than two years, but I’ve found only one or two who are even barely equipped for the role.

For example, you have seen Glaucon of Syria? He was the sweet-voiced singer of ancient love songs at the symposium tonight. He is the son of a leading Syri aristocrat at Damascus who aspires to Roman citizenship and entering the Senate, so he is cultivating my favor expensively. It is clear the father has thrown his son at me as a down payment on his project.

Glaucon is quite appealing in a sensual, even feminine, sort of way and is most congenial in his sexual accomplishments, I assure you. I have reason to know.

But he is not a person to be at my side as my consort at Court, at a military parade, at a religious sacrifice, in the company of rugged soldiers, on a Legion bivouac, at audience in the presence of my wife Sabina, or before the baying
plebs
at Rome’s amphitheaters. He is not someone whose very presence adds
gravitas
to my official comportment beyond his feline beauty, of which one tires quickly. An emperor requires the companionship of someone who possesses visible
substance
, someone who displays self-evident
quality
, not merely delicate bones, a silver voice, a slim waist, wears silk well, or offers eager orifices to my amusement. He also does not inspire delight in my heart as you do.’

Hadrian paused to measure the impact of his words on his young confidante. They were strikingly, brutally candid, if ultimately flattering.

‘
But tell me now, Antinous, what do you yourself seek in your life?’ he asked.

From my hiding place I wondered how my pal would respond.

‘
Sir, I do not know how to reply,’ I heard Antinous utter in dismay. ‘As a second son I am obliged to make my own way in the world. I am ruled by honor and my search for my contribution to my community, my elders, and my peers. As typified by the condemned gladiators of the arena, I wish my death to be noble, heroic, fearless, an event worthy of my life’s living.

I am on a quest for my life’s meaning, sir. My Father tells me I must take the actions necessary to fulfill my quest, they will not arrive of their own volition. I seek opportunities for engagement which fulfill this quest.

Yet in honesty, Caesar, I do not know if I possess the gifts you seek. I am unsure of what you expect of me. I might disappoint you, particularly among your courtiers or in your bedroom. I do not know if I possess
gravitas
before my seniors, or can perform inventive sexual novelties. I am entirely inexperienced in these things and am protective of my
arete
.

Fear of shame and the pursuit of honor are my guardians. So it’s my hope and desire that until the day of my betrothal my Father will permit me to enter schooling at Athens. This will be prior to taking up your gesture of a scholarship to the Palatine College at Rome.

At Athens I aspire to learn something more of life, of philosophy or rhetoric, to read the classics, to study the new sciences, to hear the debates of today’s thinkers, to take initiation into the Mysteries, to attend the
gymnasia
and
palaestrae
to refine my body or improve my technique with weapons and sports. Perhaps, too, to experience love or lust with a worthy companion, whoever he or she may be.

But I do not feel I am equipped to provide you with the satisfactions of a proper
eromenos,
especially an
eromenos
worthy of Great Caesar.’

He fell silent with his eyes downcast in shame.

‘
Antinous, lad, all this and more may happen. Do not be at a loss,’ Hadrian interceded. ‘You are young, so another year’s education in a major centre of culture like Athens will do you no harm. Your body has entered manhood so extra training in armor, or casting javelin and discus, or refining riding on proper-sized chargers, will help you achieve it swiftly. You are well on your way. But I must add, the guidance of an experienced cavalry officer and exponent of hunting who is also familiar with the ways of love can complete it. That, Antinous, would be my contribution.

I am sure your father will be pleased with your decision if you decide to become my companion. You only have to ask him.’

Both Antinous and I immediately intuited Hadrian might already know of Telemachus’s response. Hadrian may have made separate contact.

‘
I am grateful for your patience, sir,’ Antinous responded hesitantly, beginning to find his tongue at last. ‘Yet I must confess I possess only limited experience of sex. My body makes demands of me I myself cannot fulfill, let alone provide readily to another.

Surely there are many other freeborn youths in Bithynia who already know the arts of love, who are experienced as an
eromenos,
and who are familiar with a courtesan’s skills or a slave’s duties? I’m sure they may satisfy your desires with greater accomplishment than I ever could? I fear I’m not equipped with the aptitudes you require, my lord.’

Antinous assumed that shy downcast-looking gesture which was quite familiar to me when he was insecure in a situation. Caesar now grew more assertive.

‘
Let us test that aptitude, young man. Step closer, Antinous,’ Hadrian instructed.

Antinous hesitantly moved a half-step nearer the couch.

‘
This will be the extent of my demand upon you at first,’ he added, ‘the rest may prove equally as engaging some later day.’

Hadrian leaned forward and tenderly brushed my friend’s lips with a kiss. Antinous was startled but did not withdraw. Caesar’s fingertip gently raised his chin to search into his eyes while the other hand reached down towards his groin. Patiently, calmly, deliberately, Hadrian, the ruler of the known world with thirty Legions at his beck-and-call plus twenty-thousand slaves, reached to the lower hem of my friend’s tunic lying tucked behind his furled cloak. Ant reacted with a reflex shift of body weight but didn’t overtly respond to the provocation. In fact his body was surprisingly impassive, I thought.

Hadrian lifted the tunic’s hem away from his groin with one hand, and then gently, purposefully, teasingly, searched with the other into the binding folds of the loin-clothed mound lying close against Ant’s crotch.

My recollections of my friend’s threshold of sexual arousal indicated an immediate response by his generative organ; after all each of us was at the age where self-relief was a thrice-daily necessity to satisfy the demands of hyperactive genitalia and their wantonly lurid fantasies. We used to joke about it. Our organs certainly had a mind of their own which simply ignored our better judgment.

Hadrian obviously understood these things. Silently fussing about for a moment he playfully withdrew Antinous’s already firmed member from behind the folds of the flannel. Antinous flexed bolt upright in astonishment while remaining available to Caesar’s touch. Even at my distance from the scene I recognized how Antinous was fully aroused in a manner familiar to me. He had firmed despite the chill air.

He breathing was accelerating. I sensed he was powerfully turned on by his extraordinary predicament. Antinous has a comfortably sized organ, though nothing to gloat over as some owners do when on display in the public baths. Yet his erection is nothing to be ashamed of either. Perhaps he was no roadside priapic Herm with its extravagant
phallus
to defend a house from intruders by its sheer enormity, yet he was adequately built for pleasing action.

He stood motionless before Caesar, immovable, stricken, mesmerized, thrilled, but goose-fleshed. His erection and his scrotum were exposed from beneath his tunic in heightened arousal. His mouth gaped open, galvanized in amazement.

Hadrian calmly spat into one hand a few times and then applied his saliva to Antinous’s package projecting from its foreskin. He worked the spittle into every nerve-end and sensory nodule of his member while his other hand methodically fondled the testicles. Both received intense, languid, voluptuous attention. Due to my friend’s pelvic thrust projecting from beneath his tunic, I guessed Hadrian might have been fingering his anus with his other hand.

Shifting closer to look intently into Antinous’s eyes, Caesar savored his intoxicated responses as he kneaded and stroked his parts. I thought I detected half a smile wash across Hadrian’s face; a smile which combined teasing whimsy with some form of victory. It was entirely without sleazy prurience; it was quite
generous
in its intent. It was affectionate, even loving. Yet it was knowing.