The Hadrian Enigma - A Forbidden History (73 page)

Governor Titianus announced he would comprehensively explore the origin of the conspiracy which culminated in the distasteful murder of Antinous, and determine if the incident connected to other disaffected members of the Court, Horse Guard, or Praetorians.

The barque chamber had been cleared of the remaining residues of her sacrificial victim, Antinous. These included the two
amphorae
of his putrefying blood and half-burned locks of hair. The ooze which had splashed over the temple flagstones was respectfully scraped up and interred in an embalmer’s canopic jar. Antinous’s bier soon carried nine jars of assorted viscera or bloody slimes.

But the remnants of desiccated organic matter, lizards, frogs, spiders, beetles, a stillborn fetus, exotic herbs, wild grasses, and evil-colored fungi, remained aboard
The Alexandros.
They were stocked in their racks and chests surrounding the two prisoners. Titianus anticipated his interrogation might uncover what further mischief his consort had been entertaining during the four years of their lusty, if tempestuous, relationship.

But this was not to be.

I was told by a reputed witness how under some pretext the devotee of Zalmoxis, Hagne, found a way to shift her manacled limbs to strike at a candelabrum which happened to be close nearby. She toppled its lamps and their oil splashily to the cabin’s floor. At least that’s the story we were given.

The splashed oil and nearby hangings caught fire instantly, with the flames skimming from drape to drape across the den in a cascading rush. The blaze latched onto the parched timbers and other flammable materials of the old Governor’s barque. It was soon sweeping around the chamber and taking grip of the vessel in a rapidly expanding conflagration.

Despite the efforts of staff trying to bucket water onto the flames,
The Alexandros
became engulfed in a raging firestorm. The gilded tinderbox confection became a searing inferno. Its few inhabitants at that time, male and female, scattered swiftly. Some leapt overboard into surrounding boats, a few hurtled less felicitously into the river’s rush. All escaped the inferno. The grand Alexandrine allegory and its two manacled prisoners were abandoned to their fiery fate.

We were told how at the advent of the fire the shrill jibes of the She Wolf, shrieking insults in the guttural rasps of her original dialect, cut through the snarl of flames. Her gales of victory laughter rose above the holocaust in defiant taunts.

I am also told no sound emanated from her brother’s lips. He journeyed to the Underworld of Zalmoxis without so much as an audible whimper.

After some moments the She Wolf’s vocal barbs transformed to less-exultant, high piercing screams of anguish and pain. Soon, only the crackle-and-snap of the consuming flames radiated across the river’s surface as the ornate craft burned spectacularly to the waterline beneath the hovering midday sun.

We four members of the investigating team recalled the words of the Oracle at Siwa, “
Fire
purifies
!” Nevertheless it seemed a remarkably convenient accident or turn of affairs, we each thought.

So, does my secret history have a happy ending? Well no, if you consider our loss of the well-favored Bithynian youth. Yet these events possessed their own satisfactions for some.

Titianus’s Iberian slave companion Sotira moved into tent chambers with the Governor within the encampment the very same day.

Vibia Sabina
Augusta
and her gentlewoman companion Julia Balbilla retired from social events during the remainder of the Nile tour. The revelations at the assembly in the temple had unsettled many at Court, including Hadrian’s wife.

Instead Balbilla, a classicist poet of note, commissioned stoneworkers to inscribe flattering verses to her Imperial patron on the granite plinths of ancient monuments along the route of the Household’s travels. She intends these public tributes in elegant verse to the
Augusta
to weather the long life of these monuments, perhaps as eternally as those to Antinous by her husband.

It seems devising ingenious ways to survive into eternity is an almost universal compulsion among us these days?

Curiously, later I learned at a distance how the Alexandrian Praetorian, the centurion Lucius Quintus Urbicus, didn’t face a court martial. He didn’t meet discipline and execution as might be expected. After all, to our view he was implicated somehow in the death of several people including that of Antinous himself. His role seemed as murderous as the Dacian brother and sister.

Instead I am told Urbicus has been quietly reassigned to the service of the Prefect of Praetorians, Quintus Marcius Turbo, at the grim Praetorium Fortress on Rome’s Quirinal Hill. I haven’t yet fathomed the implications of this unexpected gesture, but it seems to suggest a promotion?

Clarus simply raised an eyebrow charily when I mentioned it, but he diplomatically made no comment.

One wonders at the coincidence of so many of those of African origin involved in the matter, such as Urbicus, Titianus and, more remotely, Prefect Turbo himself. Did I, Clarus, and Surisca miss something?

My complete lack of success in engaging Surisca’s professional charms continued. After three days of ineptitude in exacting a Roman male’s customary prerogative with a woman, especially a woman well paid for the purpose, I finally desisted.
Fortuna
is telling me something? Several days in each other’s company had changed the nature of the relationship. I became fond of her.

Perhaps it had been the Three Fates’ way of telling me I should pursue other diversions so late in life than pursuing women young enough to be my granddaughter?

Instead, I endowed Surisca with half of my award of
sesterces
from Caesar. I did this because she contributed to our enquiry in ways far beyond her contracted fee. In fact, her perceptions had been pivotal to the crime’s resolution. Even Clarus agreed to this, if grudgingly.

At first Surisca was wary of receiving my pledge of the fifty thousand
sesterces
, possibly thinking I possessed some gross intention upon her person in exchange. Once she realized my gesture was genuine and without strings attached, she became the joyful grand-daughter I had never given birth to, but vaguely hankered for. The donation, I suggested to her, might be a useful adjunct to her funds in starting her perfumes manufacturing workshop.

Even further, Geta the Dacian also approached her with warm congratulations. However he had far better fortune with her charms than I. Their memory of their playful week together at Shuni earlier in the year had lingered and prospered. In fact the two decided to retire together to somewhere like Antioch, Damascus, or Massilia at Gaul, where the huge quantities of blooms necessary for steeping in oil to create intense perfumes were more readily harvested. Geta intends to make Surisca his mistress or concubine, though I suspect Surisca has other goals.

Geta sought Hadrian’s blessing for the liaison. Someday the two might marry in the traditional manner, though a woman of Surisca’s independent lifestyle and Geta’s noble heritage probably doesn’t require such fancy formality.

Lysias and Thais too may follow a similar path. Arrian recently offered Lysias the post he once had in mind for Antinous as an officer in his administration. As the newly-appointed Governor of Cappadocia, Arrian’s offer was a remarkable opportunity for Lysias to be attached to his new administration, especially one which has been delegated the control of two additional entire Legions, not one – the
Legio XV Apollinaris
and
Legio XII Fulminata
.

This was the very target Arrian had been pursuing for several years to defend our eastern frontier against the Alans barbarians. Arrian regarded Antinous and Lysias to be major contributors to this happy outcome. So perhaps one day Lysias too will return to Bithynia in a role as a senior officer of the Imperium.

Thais is definitely pregnant. It’s visible now. The birth is expected in early summer here in Alexandria. She will retain the child, if it is healthy. Though she has her own independent wealth, thanks to Antinous, she has accepted Lysias’s offer for her to come under the protection of his household at least until the child is secured sufficiently in maturity. They will see how things stand between them afterwards.

Lysias, of course, is as keen to see a healthy child delivered as is the mother. Both have an emotional connection to the child, in different ways. The Greek word
arete
comes to mind.

Yet it’s also possible Thais will accept Hadrian’s invitation to assume the role of a priestess of Antinous-Osiris.

At Hadrian’s vast palace complex at Tibur outside Rome,
the one where Antinous had contributed plans and designs for artificial lakes, grottos, and a youths’
palaestra
, Caesar’s architects are presently building an elegant shrine to the man based upon Hadrian’s special design. Perhaps Thais is the appropriate resident celebrant at this facility, he has suggested?

Already some very fine statues of the Bithynian are in place. These are works which idealize the lad’s features in the current fashion. They display a slight softness of muscle tone untypical of Antinous’s sturdy tissues, plus a demurely-sized penis to represent his youthful age. There are no scars on his cheek or wrist.

The likenesses are remarkably faithful to his memory, to my eye. Perhaps strikingly so. Among other things, they depict the human animal at its most elegant magnificence.

The artist Cronon of the Fayum is commissioned to supervise all reproductions of the Bithynian’s features on coins, medallions, tondos, upwards to busts and life-size statues. Cronon’s remarkably lifelike painted portraits of Antinous act as authorized guides for artisans across the Empire who have never seen the living fellow. The result is statuary of the fellow is appearing in great numbers across the Empire.

Thais will more greatly appreciate Hadrian’s offer when she realizes his Tibur
Villa’
s
shrine houses the ashes of the father of her child. That’s the rumor anyway.

It seems the public have been led to believe how the bodily remains of Antinous lie in state, carefully embalmed for eternal display, at the cult temple being erected in Antinoopolis at Middle Egypt. As with Alexander’s cadaver at Alexandria, Antinous will be the focal point of the city and its community, in perpetuity. It supplies the glue which holds the diverse social elements together while providing a draw card for pilgrims from around the Empire.

Already tales of miracles at the temple involving healing and childbirth, as well as success in love, are circulating. Antinous’s beauty has attracted a veritable stampede of adherents. Some rites and festivals are known to be carefree, if not downright uninhibited.

However, just between us, it is also whispered the recumbent figure on display behind the bronze grille within the rising structure is in fact an expertly carved effigy coated with a rare resin to replicate embalmed flesh. The model is toned in natural colors to seem believable, though it’s sufficiently protected not to be manhandled by visitors. That’s the gossip, anyway.

I am told on good authority Hadrian had the mortal remains and blood residues of the lad secretly retrieved from the embalmers and privately cremated under his aegis as
Pontifex Maximus
. They say it was a rite of extraordinary beauty. A pure white dove took flight from the pyre when the flames rose, indicating Antinous’s pristine spirit soared to the heavens above. Was this yet another
resurrection
among the reputed litany of resurrections?

Hadrian has retained the ashes and personally interred them within a compact Egyptian obelisk at his new shrine at Tibur. This chapel will be known as
The Antinoeion
. It is only a few paces from the private apartments once happily shared by Caesar and his beloved
eromenos
. Yet it took the needless death of his companion for Hadrian to awaken to his own heart and acknowledge the depth of his feelings for another man.

Hadrian wears the miniature blood-jewel figurine of Osiris retrieved from Antinous’s gut on a fine gold chain around his neck. It can sometimes be seen peeping out beneath folds of clothing as Caesar turns sharply to one side or leans forward at a certain angle.

Pachrates dramatically proclaimed this figurine was Antinous’s bloodstream and life energy – his
arete
? – transfigured into a talisman suffused with his youthful potency.

It is true Caesar seems to have recovered a great part of his health in recent times, to the joy of us all. Yet I wonder if the figurine was yet another of that theatrical wizard’s sleight-of-hand manipulations, just another oriental deceit?

On his left hand Hadrian wears the deep blue
Abrasax
stone. Its rich, dark hue with the finely engraved figure of the deity surrounded by arcane syllables seems striking upon someone who previously disdained jewelry. One wonders if the talisman will bring to Hadrian a similar future to the one delivered to its previous owners, Antinous or Basileus Alexandros? Fame eternal, yes, but at a high price.

I still await Hadrian’s pleasure at Clarus’s villa in Alexandria. It seems my offence at the Temple of Amun was that so much personal information about Caesar and Antinous was openly aired before the entire Household and its interminable gossip mill.

State secrets were made public; embarrassing personal minutiae were exposed to the view of all; the
erastes/eromenos
relationship was shown to have an unexpected polarity. For this I am charged again with
laesa majestas
, and my head may pay for it.