The Hadrian Enigma - A Forbidden History (31 page)

Clarus interrupted again.

“
Would this be grounds for suicide by the boy?”

“
Suicide from despair? It might be,” the Dacian murmured weakly. “But I think Antinous is much hardier than that. Besides, Antinous may have had other issues to address.”

“
Surely, with Antinous out of the way, claimants to the succession can consolidate their influence on Caesar to enhance their chances?” Suetonius proposed.

“
It is possible, my lords. There are many possibilities,” Geta muddied the discussion.

“
Are you suggesting Antinous was murdered to get him out of the way so
the Western
Favorite
could consolidate adoption?” Suetonius probed.

“
Many things are possible, my lord,” Geta replied evasively. “But I must not slander my fellow courtiers. They too may one day be my
patrons
and protectors.”

“
What else could influence the death of the young Bithynian, Geta of Dacia?”

“
If we are being so candid, my lords, perhaps you should consider the influence of the Egyptian priest known as Pachrates,” Geta responded. “He possesses a hold over both the emperor and Antinous.”

“
A
hold
? What do you mean?”

“
Well, at Alexandria and then again at Memphis on this river journey, this priest gave displays of magic and wizardry which impressed them both. Egypt contains many mysteries. The priest Pachrates is said to be its greatest exponent of sorcery. I have seen him do things I cannot explain,” Geta intimated in too-breathless a reverential hush.

“
What sort of things, Dacian? Magical tricks and illusions?” Suetonius proposed.

Geta leaned forward conspiratorially.

“
I have witnessed marvelous things. I have seen him and his assistants transform a wild cheetah on a leash into a bridled horse in flashes of fire and thunder. Both were living creatures who moved, spat, snarled, or snorted --- they were no illusion, my friends.

Most of all, I have seen his assistants behead a condemned criminal, who bled across the stones of the courtyard just as in an arena. Then with a race of curtains, much drumming, colored smoke, and cries of magical formulae, he restored the same beheaded man to life again. He was returned to life all in one piece. It was an extraordinary achievement!

Pachrates has spells for all occasions and purposes. Egypt is in his thrall, and much of Egypt is willing to pay well for his services,” the Dacian enthused. “Our own astrologer Aristobulus and the mystical poet Julia Balbilla are attracted by the priest’s skills. I believe even the empress, Julia Vibia Sabina, follows his arts.”

“
Doesn’t the
Augusta
Sabina follow the cult of the Roman priestess Anna Perenna, the wife of Governor Titianus? At least so I’ve been told?” Clarus asked. “Surely she prefers Roman magic to foreign sorcery?”

Geta was startled by the comment.

“
Anna Perenna? The Grandmother of Time? Is this who you mean?” he asked.

“
Grandmother of Time
? More like
Queen of the Witches
!” Clarus challenged.

“
She’s the woman the Prefect Governor Titianus treats as a wife, though she’s not his wife,” Geta confirmed. “She travels with the Governor on his barque
The Alexandros
which follows close behind the empress’s
Dionysus
. Anna Perenna has her own chamber aboard his vessel, I am told. Yet as a priestess she is well regarded by the women of the Court. She has panaceas for all manner of women’s matters. But this is the science of an apothecary, not a sorceress or witch ---”

“
I assume she’s a master poisoner too?” Clarus added. “In what way does the Egyptian magician or this Roman priestess reflect upon the death of the Bithynian, Dacian?”

Geta thought carefully before responding.

“
It’s to do with Caesar’s condition. Many are worried at it. It’s his cough.”

“
His cough? We have been told it is not improving?”

“
Worse, it grows. I have seen days when Caesar coughs up light sprays of blood. He complains his chest is on fire. His features become ruddy and inflamed. He lies down for long periods to alleviate its severity. The physicians are reluctant to treat him. They sense the matter is serious and do not wish to be attached to so exalted a medical failure. We are not to discuss it in public. It impinges on issues of the State, and that’s forbidden,” Geta murmured as the group subsided into thoughtfulness..

“
How do this priest or the priestess fit into this matter?” Suetonius asked.

“
Well, if Pachrates and his like can bring beheaded criminals back to life and rejoin them into a single piece again, perhaps this priest of Amun can cure an emperor’s cough?”

“
Oh,” the biographer returned, “you mean Priest Pachrates should perform his magic upon Caesar? Cure his coughing sickness?”

“
Of course. At least that’s what some people have been asking,” Geta surmised, “especially Antinous some weeks ago at Memphis. However I’ve observed how Pachrates can talk up many things, but he carefully talks down his skill with cures. He always seemed to have a good reason for avoiding the subject in Caesar’s and Antinous’s company --- even when the boy put it plainly to him recently.

Antinous wears an Abrasax jewel on his finger. It was a special gift from Hadrian. Abrasax is a deity of infinity and eternal life, they say, capable of great magic. Antinous wanted Pachrates to use the ring, which was said to belong to Basileus Alexandros long ago, to restore Hadrian to full health.

Pachrates claimed he only knew the magic of Amun, not of other gods. He doesn’t know the magic of Abrasax. So he slipped out from under again.”

Suetonius filed the matter of the Abrasax ring to his mental notes. Where was the ring? It was not seen upon the cadaver in Caesar’s sleeping quarters, and nor was it upon the corpse on the embalmer’s table. Where was the blue jewel? Had it been stolen?

“
So why should we explore this avenue of investigation, Geta?” Suetonius asked.

“
Because Pachrates knows something he’s not telling us. I don’t know what it is, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t have something to do with Antinous’s death. That’s all,” the Dacian rounded off. “But I must leave you now and rejoin Caesar.”

He finalized his interview with the authority of someone with far more important issues to address.

“
No, Dacian, you may not!” Clarus intoned with his magistrate’s authority. “We have other matters to discuss with you. You claim
the Western Favorite
is an enemy of the dead youth?”

“
Yes,” Geta murmured quietly, “but you must tread with care on the matter.”

“
Why? What has transpired between them which makes them enemies? Speak plainly to us. We want to know.”

The Dacian rested impatiently back onto the table’s edge and glanced furtively between Surisca and his interrogators. He was not happy at this turn of events.

“
It is a nettlesome story, gentlemen. It occurred four years ago when the Household was passing through Athens. It was after a long tour of the Empire. Antinous had been introduced to Caesar briefly at Bithynia, where they found each other’s company highly agreeable. Antinous and his chum Lysias, accompanied by their Latin instructor Thais of Cyrene, traveled to Achaea to complete their education at Athens.

As usual I was travelling with Caesar’s Household, so I was a witness to the events which transpired, or heard of them from others. Later I heard greater detail from Antinous or Lysias themselves over shared wine. I also garnered some private details from slaves who report to me. I follow such things closely on Caesar’s behalf.

Athens was Caesar’s priority destination for that tour. He had been appointed President of the spring festival of the Great Dionysia, events which bring Hadrian great satisfaction. Their arrival at Athens was to be a pleasure to both Caesar and the Bithynian, so the sojourn was highly anticipated by all, including me. It proved to be an important, if unexpected, conjunction of personalities.

Antinous and his party had sailed from Nicomedia accompanying a shipload of his family’s commercial cargo. They travelled on Senator Arrian’s huge sea-freighter
The Bithynian
. The seven day journey of island-hopping across the Aegean Sea had tested the youths’ sea-worthiness. They later told me so over many jugs of wine. ”

“
Fine, but tell us how it involves
the Western Favorite
…” Suetonius interjected. “Is there something we should know for our investigation?”

CHAPTER 16

“
A
s it was told to me by the two lads, on that sea journey’s seventh day Arrian’s freighter roiled past the temple-topped promontory of Cape Sunium south of Athens and slew across the Bay of Salamis towards the city. Antinous’s party was sailing to Piraeus, Athens’ major harbor. This approach reveals the distant metropolis as a strip of structures glistening brightly in the sunlight.

From the deck of their ship plowing through the Aegean chop it seemed to Antinous, Lysias, and Thais how their destination was the knobby line of white buildings lining the coastline. As
The Bithynian
drew closer, this mere sliver transformed into a spectacle of high-pillared temples and shrines in stone and marble, lofty castellated defensive towers, or meandering walls and courtyards, warehouses, private villas, and tenements. Our two provincials had never seen such a panoply of urban structures before. Athens is far larger than Nicomedia.

Equally impressive were the number of vessels and fishing craft thronging the city’s two harbors. An occasional sturdy Roman war trireme braced the sea too, with their rows of oars sweeping in rhythmic unison attacking the waves. A hundred other vessels were anchored at the shore’s moorings. All this was very new to them.

However, as
The Bithynian
’s captain pointed out, the buildings they had been viewing were merely Athens’ waterfront suburb of Piraeus. The metropolis itself was several miles inland from the port. Later, this then proved to be an even more spectacular vision. After a lifetime’s ambition they were at last to arrive at the very heart of their Hellene world, the city of Athens.

Once berthed, they transferred their personal baggage to an oxen wagon and trundled inland to the great city awaiting them. It was the most exciting event of their lives, they said.

As they drew closer to its walls and gates, the city’s presence proclaimed itself by impacting on their nostrils. As any large city is prone, the comforting odors of potter’s kilns, baker’s ovens, and a multitude of family hearths melded contrastingly with the fetid sweetness of sewer residues, tanner’s or fuller’s soaks, public latrines, plus the fragrance of the conical pines of Achaea. All joined to proclaim the city’s human, animal, and industrial immensity. Perhaps a quarter of a million people live in this legendary city, they realized. Athens was truly a large metropolis.

To strangers, this ripeness of atmosphere is matched by a similarly earthy visual display. Garish effigies of the randy god Priapus adorn cottages and villas. His prodigiously erect
phallus
protects against the Evil Eye and threatens a likely rude fate for unwanted trespassers. Wittily obscene graffiti, crude insults, and lewd limericks litter all vacant wall spaces with droll texts, comic scenes, and bawdy pictures. Their jovial vulgarity offers few concessions to a polite sensibility. Athens conveys the impression, they realized, of being a city happily ruled by rampant sex in its many differing varieties or configurations. Each was more comical than the last, aiming to ward off malign spiritual influences while providing pleasing gaiety to the heart.

On their journey through the lanes to the Agora market-place their wagon trundled past a forest of statues of Olympian gods, ancient philosophers, hardy warriors, or victorious athletes frozen dramatically in mid-action. Wall niches holding devotional figures, shrines, chapels, sanctuaries, and pillared temples graced street corners and lane intersections. The debris of candle stubs, exhausted lamps, and crumbled shards inscribed with petitions to the Fates attested to the piety of the citizens in praising their gods and their heroes.

Antinous spied the side-by-side statues of the city’s much admired tyrant-killers Harmodius and Aristogiton, an
eromenos
and his
erastes
of six centuries earlier, as the wagon ambled through the Agora gateway. These ancient bronzes had been abducted to Rome by the city’s conqueror Sulla two hundred years ago, but had been recently restored to the Agora on Hadrian’s command. Hadrian’s respect for all things Greek earned him the favor of the city’s voluble population.

First impressions can be persuasive. Antinous and Lysias, guided by Thais’s perceptive eye, noted how Athenians dressed themselves with more refinement than Bithynians. Except for the rabble of slaves who throng the narrow lanes, mature Athenian citizens and their matrons wore finer jewelry and fancier fabrics in brighter dyes or weaves than worn by elders at Bithynia. Even the men of Athens seemed to be fashion conscious. Respectable women, however, were fully veiled from view behind gauzes.

There were far more women in the streets going about their business than one would see at Nicomedia, let alone in conservative regional Claudiopolis. Some seemed to be without a male guardian or a watchful slave, and were garbed in a less veiled manner than other citizens.