The Hadrian Enigma - A Forbidden History (47 page)

Antinous took this sizeable purse away with him to attend to his business privately. I can only imagine his withdrawal was to buy some larger purchase, pay a debt in gambling, or provide gifting to some person unknown,” Arrian offered. “However, upon learning of his death the following day, I too am keen to search for the reason for his drowning and the whereabouts of this treasure. I owe it to his family. I’m sure the second point will provide the answer to the first. Remember, Suetonius, the ancient jurist Cassius’s great query:
Cui
bono
, who benefits?”

“
Cui Bono?
It was Cicero’s adage as well. This mystery deepens, Senator,” Suetonius muttered. “Where is his treasure? Perhaps the treasure will lead us to a resolution of the death?”

“
I don’t believe he’s gambled the treasure, he was not a gambler. And I don’t think any fool would be unwise enough to extort money from Caesar’s
Favorite.
Their wealth would be short lived.”

“
Then where is it?” Clarus repeated. “We have another unknown to add to our mystery.”

Arrian reminisced a little.

“
Antinous seemed a lusty enough fellow to my eye, healthily bent upon the earthier pleasures of life as well as giving satisfaction to his chosen partner. And you must understand, gentleman, the boy was neither a 
cinaedus
nor a eunuch either, I can assure you. He enjoyed his pleasures.”

“
Were his habits
conventional
, would you say, Senator?” Suetonius pursued.

“
Do you mean, was he sexually conventional? Was he a 
vir
? I think I can vouch for his disposition, gentlemen. I have reason to know something of his tastes from observation.”

“
So, perhaps Antinous was the
King of the Lionhearted
?” Suetonius interjected dryly.

“
Perhaps, Suetonius, perhaps. Yet I am content with the
Lionheart
who currently wears the imperial purple. There are very many of us, gentlemen, who’d be pleased to see Hadrian extend his rule and his life into the distant future,” Arrian declared. “The Empire has rarely seen such a period of serenity.”

“
But what could Antinous do about it?” Clarus queried. “He was a mere toyboy, a source of pleasures.”

Arrian frowned.

“
Prior to the drowning the lad’s role as Hadrian’s
eromenos
had expired. It was over. And it must be seen to have ceased, by all. This is a public necessity for Caesar’s sake to avoid the accusation of being a 
cinaedus,
despite the residual affection the emperor has for the lad. He has brought great joy to Hadrian over the past five years, and I suppose this was reciprocal. But the days of his public display as consort are over.

So what does a young man who’s been the recipient of such favor do with his life?

At Alexandria when the
Western Favorite
made his appearance from Rome, I suggested to Antinous I would enjoy him entering my own staff at Cappadocia. He was smart, capable, well educated, had good contacts, and was experienced in Court procedure. He read and wrote well in the two major languages, with a smattering of others. He’d seen a great deal of the Empire and its peoples, he knew what life is like for them.

He also knew too how to handle himself in elite society with aplomb. He even treated slaves and women respectfully. He was admired by the Court and by the military.

Yet his response to my offer was evasive. In fact he started talking of
finding his true destiny
, of
emulating Alexander
, of living according to
Achilles’ short but glorious existence. I 
began to wonder what nonsense had gotten into the lad.”

“
Had his head been turned by the new cults among us? Had Antinous fallen under the
Chrestus
spell?” Clarus queried.

“
I doubt it, Clarus,” Arrian calmed his senatorial colleague, “but his sudden separation from Hadrian may have triggered a personal crisis.”

“
Has there been some devious conspiracy to ensure the
Favorite
is ‘retired’
from Caesar’s company for State reasons?” Suetonius queried provocatively. Arrian stiffened at the suggestion through clear cool eyes.

“
My good man, Hadrian’s choice of a successor is his own business. But it’s fair to say there are many forces at work to steer him in preferred directions. A great deal is at stake. At this point in time Hadrian is all we have standing between a carefully chosen successor or the chaos of civil war when he dies. Rome has been down that bloody path before.”

“
Would the supporters of Senator Commodus, the
Western Favorite,
go to any lengths to entrench their candidate, Senator,” Suetonius asked audaciously, “including eliminate the so-called
Eastern Favorite
from Caesar’s companionship?”

“
All things are possible, Special Inspector, all things,” Arrian offered quietly. “But Commodus may have his own issues to contend with.”

“
Well, what do you make of that?”

Clarus, Suetonius, Strabon, and Surisca had retired to a viewing platform on a hillock above the river. Below them the broad expanse of molten waters flowed to the north and far away Memphis, with the metropolis of Alexandria even farther.

The four looked out over the streaming waters dotted with fishermen’s coracles, light-loader boats, the local ferry
feluccas
, and small houseboats hired from towns and ports along the Nile’s length to accommodate the tour’s privileged travelers.

The high hulk of
The Dionysus
, Caesar’s specially-crafted fabrication of two laced river biremes to provide a platform for a structure above, was moored offshore in deeper water. It provided apartments and entertainment space for the empress, Vibia Sabina’s, retinue and her daily feasting soirees.

Anchored beyond
The Dionysus
to the north lay the Prefect Governor, Flavius Titianus’s, river barque
The Alexandros.
Its elegant gilded timbers and ornately carved décors provided Titianus and his companion, Anna Perenna, suitably exalted accommodations but in an appropriately scaled down way. Despite its antique age
The Alexandros
, like
The Dionysus
, provided evidence of Rome’s triumphant grandeur to awe Egypt’s peasantry.

Roped to moorings alongside the larger craft were the runabout vessels of the tour, single-sail gondolas maintained by several Imperial agencies. Two had sails emblazoned with the scarlet eagle and wreath of the Imperial Household.

Another displayed the blood-red double-scorpion insignia of the Praetorian Guard.

A fourth displayed the Prefect Governor’s cartouche of a golden Ptolemaic eight-pointed starburst, an insignia inherited from Cleopatra’s Ptolemy forebears.

“
Senator Arrian seemed ambivalent about Antinous’s passing,” Clarus offered. “I couldn’t detect whether he was saddened or simply disinterested in the boy’s death? Yet I’m told he was fond of the fellow.”

“
He told us enough, I think,” Suetonius resolved. “But what did you think of the shrouded figure fleeing ahead of us when we arrived? And who was it, I wonder?”

“
The woman with the pronounced perfume?” asked Clarus. “Who was she, do you think? A secret affair of the senator’s? Someone’s wife? Arrian does not travel with a wife.”

“
Who indeed?” Suetonius added, looking to Surisca. Surisca smiled enigmatically.

“
May I speak?” she asked politely. Suetonius looked to Clarus, who nodded grudging approval.

“
The perfume is known to me,” she said, “it was a blend of oils of lavender and wild marjoram. This tells us something, my lords.”

“
You recognized the perfume, my dear? What does it tell us?” Suetonius charmed.

“
It tells us the wearer was from Rome, my lords. I know the perfume well, as you might imagine. It is new, is highly prized, and very expensive. I’ve used it myself when I’m fortunate enough to be given a small gift of it by a wealthy admirer,” Surisca revealed.

“
Why does it tell us the wearer was Roman, Surisca?”.

“
Lavender blooms are only harvested near Massilia on the coast of Gaul, while the perfume’s heads of wild marjoram are from Florentia north of Rome. Nowhere in the East produces these blooms in sufficient quantity to make perfume,” Surisca explained, “it requires very great quantities of blooms. These two blooms are impregnated in oil, and then blended and have their scents fixed by a secret process. This is known only to an apothecary who owns a shop in the emporium arcade of Trajan’s New Forum at Rome.

Trajan’s arcade houses the Empire’s leading dealers in fashion silks, jewels, and perfumes. This particular blend of scents is the apothecary’s rarest product. Only the wealthiest, most fashionable people wear it.”

“
So, Surisca my dear, this woman was from Rome?” Suetonius enquired in a manner suggesting he already knew her likely response.

“
I am not familiar with the Roman women at this encampment, master. But I do not need to because I am sure this was not a woman.”

“
Not a woman!?” Clarus lurched.

“
No, my lords, the figure was the outline of a man,” she clarified, “he was wearing a toga beneath the cape, and these days men of fashion wear strong perfumes too.”

“
By Zeus
, who do we know at this godforsaken desert outpost who acquires products from Rome’s leading emporia and wears a perfume which impacts the nostrils of those on the other side of a room?” Clarus asked rhetorically.

“
Senator Lucius Ceionius Commodus!” several voices intoned together.

“
So what was Commodus doing in Arrian’s private chambers?” Suetonius added.

“
Well, they weren’t playing knucklebones,” Clarus said. “Are Commodus and Arrian
intimate
? Did Arrian’s boudoir debris tell us as much? But I thought Commodus was strictly Caesar’s intimate friend? And a long term one at that. Perhaps that’s why Arrian and Commodus weren’t keen to be discovered together? Hadrian would be offended.”

“
Are we putting too grand an interpretation upon our intrusion?” Suetonius offered. “They may have been simply talking politics, trade, or of Caesar’s mourning?”

“
Or does Commodus aspire to fill Antinous’s boots again?”

“
My friend Septicius,” Suetonius corrected him, “Commodus is now in his late-twenties. He is married at Rome to an equally noble
patrician
family with Imperial bloodlines. I am told his wife Avidia is currently pregnant with his child.”.

“
Yet what do we know about Commodus?” Clarus asked.

“
Well, gossip tells he was Hadrian’s lover at one time. Today he is a good looking fellow in his way. But in his late teens he was truly an elegant beauty, if somewhat feminine in his manner,” Suetonius recalled from his days as Hadrian’s secretary.

“
He’s also notorious for his sybaritic ways and love of luxury. I’ve heard he prefers to sleep amidst flower petals and Persian fragrances. It’s said he holds extravagant dinner parties with inventive, if somewhat eccentric, dishes. He has a serving staff of very young boys with Cupid’s wings attached to their shoulders to amuse his guests. He’s irrepressible, if perhaps also irresponsible. His wife Avidia already complains about his sleeping around, which he justifies with his joke
Pray allow me my indulgence with others because ‘wife’ is a term of respect, my dear, not of pleasure.
Overall, he is a mixed bag of values.”

“
And this is the man Caesar wishes the Senate and the Legions to accept as his successor!” Clarus exclaimed.

“
Strabon, I hope you recorded that quatrain which Arrian erased from your tablet,” Suetonius interjected. “Please read it back to us again.”

The scribe speedily rummaged through his wax tablets to retrieve the notepad recorded. He read aloud from his coded inscription.

“
I’ve notated Arrian’s reading of the translation as being –

“
Fine, Strabon,” Suetonius confirmed. “Tell me, gentlemen, who is
the king of the lionhearted
and who is the
man cub
or
lackey
? Identify who is doing the
toying
, and who is being
toyed with
? Who is this person who needs their pride restored? What hunter’s game is being played here, my friends, and who precisely are the hunter and the hunted?”

CHAPTER 20

A
tall slender woman swathed in fine silks with her shawl draped elegantly across her high-plaited hair to shade her against the midday sun trod gracefully in kidskin sandals from the riverside access jetty. She stepped with a securely confident gait up the sloping embankment path towards the waiting group of four.

She was accompanied a few paces behind by an officer of Caesar’s Horse Guard acting as her protector in public places, with a slave holding a parasol high. All three had journeyed in an Imperial gondola from
The Dionysus
moored offshore nearby.