The Hadrian Enigma - A Forbidden History (38 page)

Hadrian is constructing a grand palace complex in the cool hills of Tibur beyond Rome. All the most inventive architectural innovations possible are being erected at the site. It will reflect all the styles of architecture depicted across the Empire. It will be the Empire in miniature.

Hadrian knows more about philosophy, mathematics, art, architecture, rhetoric, even the medical sciences and astrology, than do the leading professionals in their respective fields. He argues with them all the time. Of course he is also a formidable strategist, military commander, and leader of men. Yet he possesses a fickle temper. He can be mercurial.

Nevertheless he is unique, Antinous. His greatness is a wonder. Yet this extraordinary ruler has seen reason to endow you with his favor. This is a rare honor to be treasured, my friend, but also a token in his eyes of your own quality. You should be flattered.’

Herodes paused as the three men observed the cheery mayhem raging drunkenly all about them. Antinous proceeded deeper into his enquiries. Wine had encouraged seriousness not joviality.

‘
Perhaps you will advise me, Senator? Are younger ones ever permitted the dominant role with a maturer partner in your Athenian custom?’ he asked cautiously. His manner was innocently frank; wine was speaking. ‘We at Bithynia see no impediment to it, yet Romans do I am told.’

The Achaean noble sucked a deep intake of air.

‘
It has been known,’ he responded ambiguously. ‘But usually occurs out of sight in private.’

‘
Is there dishonor in it,’ Antinous probed, ‘for either party?’ He recalled his father’s sober advice of only a month earlier.

‘
Well, such an imbalanced relationship would draw the attention of others, I’d hazard, if it was visible,’ the Athenian replied, ‘and it could open the issue of the submissive partner being considered a 
cinaedus
or
malthakos
regardless of how noble they may be. Yet what partners enact in their private chamber is their own affair, most would say.’

It was time for Lysias to pose a question.

‘
You are saying, my lord, that he who willingly accepts the submissive role is called a 
cinaedus
, a pervert, or
malthakos
, soft, feminized, weak?’

Herodes was silent for a few moments. He probably realized his response could affect his potential appeal to the Bithynian. He replied carefully.

‘
Athenians have noted how even though a man may take the submissive role in his sexual exploits, it doesn’t mean he is regarded as a 
cinaedus.
It’s his deference to his partner at that particular moment, that’s all. He might respond differently on other occasions. Thoughtless people make too much of these things, especially among those obsessive sectarians deriving from Palaestina.

Besides, sex is reciprocal between people here, just as in Bithynia. A lover should ensure his partner enjoys each occasion of pleasure as much as he himself. It’s a two-way thing. And each role has its satisfactions. Only prudes condemn such reciprocity.’

Herodes eyed the blond young man before him with a more intense scrutiny.

‘
You surely realize too, Antinous, how to be close to Caesar demands a very specific sacrifice?’

‘
What may that be, sir?’

‘
To be Caesar’s friend, to be Caesar’s
eromenos
, Antinous, means to know no other partner,’ he said. ‘The playfulness of the Athenians or the Bithynians is denied to such a luminary. You will be Caesar’s partner exclusively. Rome’s emperor does not share his intimates with others.’

Antinous mulled over this thought.

‘
If it is Great Caesar’s choosing, I am entirely at his disposal, sir. I will be proud to walk in the footsteps of such a man.’

Herodes diplomatically shifted the subject. It was Lysias’s turn.

‘
And you, my handsome
kouros
? What are your priorities, I wonder?’

Lysias balked before the question, but decided to be honest with his suitor.

‘
I am a second son, Herodes, needful to search for my life’s opportunities and its destiny. These are my priorities.’

Antinous interrupted the discussion. He sensed his company might not be necessary for a while.

‘
Friends, I might leave you two to explore these deep things between you while I venture to view the heart of this mighty citadel before us,’ he proposed. ‘I am eager to visit this center of all things Athenian. It’s been in my dreams all my life. Now here I am! Amazing!’

‘
Let’s do it together then, Antinous. Caesar has commanded I entertain you and watch over you until he completes his duties,’ Herodes volunteered sociably.

‘
No, I think you two have much to discuss together privately. You don’t need my presence just now. I’ll explore the Acropolis for a while and return to you soon. Athena’s great temple awaits me. Allow me an hour. I wish to offer prayers to the spirit of this place.’

He gulped down extra swigs from the wine nozzle and wiped dribbles off his chin.

‘
Antinous, if you must explore, stay within sight of the guards of the City Militia. There are many undesirables and drunken fools about tonight. Some may be predators or robbers,’ Herodes warned.

Antinous nodded farewell, wrapped his mantle close against the cool night air, and strode off to the sloping ramp approaching the Acropolis where dozens of revelers milled in noisy, boozy, carefree disarray.

Herodes turned to Lysias and, correctly intuiting the gesture would be welcome, lazily laid one hand on the loincloth-bound mound lying at the Bithynian’s crutch. He leaned close to his ear to whisper secret words. Lysias was startled by the intimacy of his gestures, yet remained unresponsive if hopeful.

‘
Give me advice,
kouros
, on the correct way to seduce a handsome Bithynian
ephebe
so it pleases him greatly?’ the Athenian breathed into his ear.

Lysias desperately searched his imagination for an appropriate response which might convey both reticence and encouragement simultaneously.

‘
Just take him,’ he replied eventually. ‘But respect his
arete
too. He is no
cinaedus.
’

‘
Then we should find somewhere secluded to disrobe together, my well-formed
kouros
, despite the chill of the night. It’s time for your body’s heat to meet mine, Bithynian.’

Lysias flinched at his admirer’s forwardness.

‘
I want to hold you close to excite you,’ Herodes teased. “I want you to feel my breath on your neck. I want you to feel my flesh press against yours. I want to lick you clean of your body’s sweat and your mind’s restraint. I want to open your defenses to my ambush. I want to be savage with you,
kouros
.’

Herodes blew cockily into his ear as he allowed his beard’s trim bristles graze Lysias’s jaw. His fist lingered thrillingly at the young man’s lap pressing audaciously into his groin.

‘
Allow me to awaken my horny Bithynian’s love juices,
kouros
. Let me clasp his body, seize his hips, hold firm his butt, fondle his equipment, stir his vital parts, and feel his bloodstream race. I want to enter his mouth and taste his sweet saliva. I want to hold his hardening manhood in my palm and feel his body melt willingly under my persuasions.

I want my
kouros
to deliver himself up to me entirely. I will
enter
deep into him to penetrate his hidden heart. Does this sound agreeable, my handsome beauty
from a distant shore? Is your secret hunger excited at my battle plan?’

Lysias grunted an ambivalent approval while his crutch responded with concrete affirmation. He was exhilarated. Someone was propositioning
him
for once, not his charismatic friend. This was indeed a new experience. His inner spirit soared. He turned with a stupid grin to his libidinous enquirer.

‘
Sure. Certainly. Yes. I respond. But where?’ he mumbled. ‘There’s no privacy here. Yet we must be here for Antinous when he returns.’

From the corner of his eye Herodes perceived something which caught his immediate attention. Three caped men disguised behind elegant Dionysian masks, one revealing the folds of a toga beneath his cape, had mounted the entrance ramp to the Acropolis citadel. They were following close after Antinous as he approached the precinct’s gateway.

Herodes realized the three were moving behind him at a discreet distance, possibly to avoid recognition. He detected one of the men was bearing a short-sword concealed bumpily beneath his cape, a weapon banned at the public revel of Dionysus.

‘
Kouros,
perhaps we should find a sheltered place within the Acropolis precinct,’ Herodes beckoned. ‘There are many hidden cul-de-sacs between the shrines to exploit. I’ll show you. Follow me, my dark jewel, you’ll soon feel my body’s urgency.’

He grasped Lysias vigorously by one arm and slapped him cheerfully across his behind as they hurried towards the citadel.

Antinous looked high into the gloom towards the lofty effigy of the armored female warrior looming before him. Her helmet’s crest almost touched the high star-scattered vaulting of the ‘chamber of the maiden’, the Parthenon. The monument was almost twenty-five feet high.

In the inner
cella
of the pillared hall this towering manifestation of the patron deity of Athens, Athena Parthenos, looked down upon her devotees. She was embellished in flesh of white ivory draped with ankle-length robes of beaten gold. With her upright spear held firm in one hand, her shield at her feet embossed with Greeks fighting forces of Amazons, with a prominent sphinx-head and griffins protruding from her helmet, plus the Gorgon Medusa emblazoned on her breastplate, she impressed upon Athenians how their patron goddess epitomized the eternal fight of civilization against the dark forces of irrationality and chaos.

Basins of flame before the stupendous effigy on this night of the Great Dionysia cast a guttering glow over the treasures arrayed across the marbled floor before her. Gold and silver ritual objects, fine weapons and armors, thrones of ivory and precious stones, all the rich dedications of generations of votaries of her cult sparkled and glimmered among the painted dark blues and gilt bronze of surrounding friezes and metopes.

An ornate security fence protected Athena’s treasures from the sacrilege of thievery, while guards of the City Militia hovered motionless with spears to watch over the occasional stumbling partygoers wandering into the
cella
from the roistering outside. But Antinous found himself alone by the ornate fence looking into the shadowy dimness above. An impromptu prayer arose within him.

‘
Athena Parthenos, virgin half sister to Apollo, my Healer of Heaven and cult champion, receive from me my plea for protection in your domains. I have no worthy offering other than my youth and my honor. Protect me on my journey into the fellowship of the great Caesar of the Romans, Hadrian.
Praise be to Caesar!
Instruct me carefully in your arts of civilization and virtue. Guide my tongue, my hand, and my eye to express your gifts of
arete
. Imbue me with skill, finesse, and subtlety. Guide me in your ancient path of victory against disorder as you have the Greeks of old. Make me a worthy
eromenos
to my destiny’s
erastes
, at cost of my body, my heart, or even my life.
Praise, Praise, Praise! Athena Parthenos!’

Antinous genuflected to one knee in the traditional manner and performed the proper obeisance gestures. He then withdrew to the citadel precinct outside the temple.

To the east of the plateau beyond the Parthenon, beyond an ancient outdoor sacrificial altar and other statues, stood the demure Temple of Rome and Augustus. Its domed modesty was where the cult of the emperor had been increasingly honored since Rome’s defeat and impoverishment of Athens after Sulla’s conquest two hundred ago. But now under Hadrian Athens was being restored to new glory as the second city of the Empire.

Antinous kept clear of the gaggles of frolicking revelers. Instead, passing an occasional ambiguously-gendered, cross-dress wanton lurking in a pediment’s shadows and beckoning with mischievous eyes, or a party-person confirming their Dionysian riotousness by vomiting noisily into a drain’s recess, he wandered in delight across the plateau. He played the eternal tourist exploring its monuments, chapels, shrines, altars, and temple facades. He ambled happily to the quiet of the rotunda chapel of the temple of the Imperial cult.

This austere, delicate Temple stood in imposing solitude at the far end of the citadel keep. Life-sized statues of recent emperors stood impassively by the entrance vestibule, while within the small interior chamber a simple stone sacrificial altar scrubbed clean of smoky fats sat beneath the soft glow of suspended votive lamps.

Once inside the Temple, Antinous cast his eyes over the symbols of Rome’s heritage proclaimed in bronze and marble for the edification of the city’s citizens. Only a small bowl of wispy incense relieved the funereal silence of the chamber with its bronze imperial inhabitants. Antinous contemplated their frozen countenances in thoughtful silence.

A voice intruded.

‘
You wish to desecrate this holy sanctuary, foreigner?’

The voice intoned its complaint in Latin-inflected Greek.