The Hadrian Enigma - A Forbidden History (34 page)

The hollow cacophony slowly diminished to furtive murmurs as they arrived. Much whispering tinged with gasps of admiration were accompanied by eager eyes sweeping the arcades as the three took their cooling plunge in the main pool.

This, coupled with the opaque message of the previous conversation, caused Antinous and Lysias to begin to wonder what they had gotten themselves into.”

Geta paused momentarily as the team of investigators contemplated the implications of his story. Clarus was disconcerted by its revelations.

“
Things soon became more complicated,” Geta forwarded. “On the second day of the Great Dionysia, which I attended in my role as Caesar’s master of ceremonies, certain developments occurred.

On their arrival at Caesar’s villa at high sun, the two Bithynians were made welcome at the courtyard gate by the younger Herodes Atticus.

Herodes Junior had recently been awarded Roman senatorial rank and been appointed
quaestor
at the status level of
inter amicos
– a ‘friend of the emperor’ – a high honor for a Greek in his mid-twenties. Herodes invited the two youngsters to share in the company of his friends of a similar age awaiting the arrival of Hadrian and the officials of the Dionysia Festival from within the villa.

This mix of Greek and Roman young men seemed an agreeable group to the newcomers, even though they displayed standards of attire, comportment, and ornamentation at a level of wealth far beyond their own. Herodes explained how the entire assembly would soon be joining the public procession currently winding its way along the city’s Sacred Way to the Acropolis.

At last clarions sounded and the Imperial party appeared from within the villa. It was led by Hadrian accompanied by notables including Arrian and Athenian officials in ceremonial attire. I too was in this retinue in my usual role as Hadrian’s
factotum
.

Later I was told how Antinous and Lysias took special interest in the young patrician following close beside Hadrian. To their eyes he was a delicately chiseled, slender-waisted
ephebe
of pale complexion garbed in a fulsome Roman toga of blindingly white purity. It was striped with the scarlet blazon of a senator.

He wore a meticulously closely-trimmed beard of an unusually slender design. His head was a riot of voluminous curls dusted with sparkling glitter and skewered with elegant needles of silver filigree. He bore a diadem announcing his lofty status as a member of a noble family. His wrists and arms were adorned with bracelets of precious metals while bright jewels were affixed to each earlobe. Both hands displayed many antique rings on each finger and a prominent antique brooch adorned his shoulder. The fellow flourished hand gestures of great fluidity as he talked, accompanied by a jubilant manner with many calculated sardonic smiles and expressive eye gestures. His eyes were finely underlined in
kohl
accents which gave his features a distinctively feline appearance.

Even from their position some distance away in the courtyard the boys could detect the heady scent of an expensive Assyrian fragrance wafting from his direction. His age was somewhere in his twenties yet his bearing had the decidedly stately mode of a far older man. Members of the Roman
patrician
class definitely project an image of class superiority.

‘
My lord Herodes, please tell me who is that striking figure of a man behind Caesar?’ Antinous whispered behind one hand. The Athenian acknowledged his companion’s comment on the senator’s demeanor as being ‘striking’.

‘
Why, Antinous, it is Senator Commodus. He’s a close friend of Caesar,’ was the reply in a restrained whisper. ‘He arrived from Rome recently and is residing at Caesar’s villa.’

I suppose in the eyes of Antinous and Lysias the young senator was a revealing exponent of the current high-fashion at Rome. The senator displayed it with the studied, urbane, supercilious confidence seemingly ingrained in Rome’s patrician class.

Hadrian did not wear a toga nor his Imperator’s military cuirass, but was dressed in Greek attire. Both his tunic and mantle, however, were of an opulent Tyrian purple trimmed in finely embroidered golden eagles as befits an emperor who is to act as president of The Great Dionysia. He wore no other decorative devices other than a simple wreath of natural grapevines encircling his head. This was a leafy corona heralding spring, symbolic of the cult of Dionysius and the joyful fruits of the vine.

Taking his stand on steps above the courtyard with Arrian and Commodus behind him, Caesar patiently awaited the thirty-odd attendees in the yard to file past and make their proper obeisance. Both Antinous and Lysias followed the others by bending their knee to the yard’s gravel while bowing their head in unison and crying
Hail Caesar
!

Hadrian stepped forward and raised the two Bithynians to stand upright before him.

‘
Rise, young friends, and welcome. It’s a pleasure to see you again,’ he stated loudly so all could hear, while glancing back at Commodus with a nodded acknowledgement.

‘
Geta,’ he instructed me nearby, ‘ensure Antinous and Lysias of Bithynia share our company closely today. Make sure they and Senator Atticus accompany me close through the procession, and remain close throughout the day’s festivities. There’s much to discuss between us after all this time.’

I beckoned the three to one side so I could assign them a special position in the cortege.

Beyond the villa gateway a stream of Athenian citizens crowded the street accompanying a larger-than-life-sized wooden effigy of the god Dionysus held aloft by sturdy men. They were led by two youths who, traditionally, were ambiguously dressed in women’s attire. Arced boughs of vine leaves and springtime plants were being waved in the air while several huge, pronouncedly-erect wooden
phalluses
were trundled by teams of acolytes and choristers. Floral garlands symbolizing the arrival of spring adorned the cavalcade, while drummers and tambourine players beat-up a lively noise above the throng.

Spotless black bulls were led by priests of the cult bearing their sacrificial sledgehammer, knives, blood bowl, and flaying tools. Caesar’s party fell in behind the musicians as the entire swarm veered gaily towards the looming crag of the Acropolis a mile distant.

On arrival at the open-air Temple of Dionysus at the base of the steep slope beneath the Acropolis many of the women dispersed leaving the males to witness the ritual slaughter of the bulls with the portion-offerings to the god. The effigy of the deity, whose weathered timbers and faded paints told of having witnessed several hundred offerings of the annual Dionysia, was lifted carefully to the stage of the Theater of Dionysus nearby. The theater is a concave stone slab amphitheater rising up the slope of the hillside with a marbled semicircular stage fronting its base. Dionysus was placed prominently on the stage in view of the sixty ascending rows of stone ledges for seating an audience.

On this day at least seventeen thousand persons, of whom only a fraction were women or older children, were clustered together in its concave arc. Several score of Athens’ flamboyant
hetaerae
courtesans in attention-grabbing décolletage, extravagant hairstyles, and exotically inventive face paints, accompanied by their high-paying clients, were attending this first performance day of the year’s Dionysia week

The throng of spectators appreciate how this festival is one of the few occasions in the civic life of Athens where citizens, women, freedmen, foreigners, slaves, or even children are permitted to participate in judgment on performances by mass ovation. With many of the festival’s dramas possessing discernable parallels to current political life, the applause, jeers, or shrill catcalls could convey popular opinion to the city’s rulers with clarity. Century by century, Athens’ rulers had wisely listened to the massed ovation of the audience, or to any distinct lack of it.

The row closest to the stage is a line of marble thrones. The central chair is designated to the High Priest of Dionysus at Athens with Hadrian’s beside it as the year’s President. The remaining thrones seated other priests, the city’s Archon, councilors of the city, and senior members of Hadrian’s retinue.

Thirteen judges representing each of the city’s thirteen
deme
‘tribes’ sat at one wing to umpire each new competing play. The judging panel assessed the quality of the drama and the responses of the audience with equal measure.

Arrian too sat close by Hadrian, as did the elder Herodes Atticus. Elegant Commodus was not seated but stood behind Caesar’s shoulder in a close place of favor, while others arranged themselves in nearby positions. Horse Guards and Praetorians hovered discreetly at the end of each of the rows rising up the high amphitheatre, while the Athens Militia policed the upper rows.

I guided Antinous and Lysias to sit or stretch on the stones at the feet of the first row near to Caesar, an agreeably casual arrangement for young men held in high regard, fronting Herodes Junior’s chair. I myself stood beside Commodus behind Caesar’s presidential throne within earshot of the surrounding conversations.

The Bithynians youngsters were fascinated by the sartorial finesse and skittish manner of the young senator whose opalescent skin has rarely seen direct sunlight. His choice of a formal toga at an event where more relaxed dress predominated showed a degree of hubris. Commodus’s voguish persona sparkled and tinkled and effused amid the theater’s noisy swarm of earthy Greeks, his glittering twitter almost overwhelming Caesar’s imperial
gravitas
.

The
patrician
’s sprightly manner was visible to all sixty rows. It was the flashy banter and studied fluttering of a noble Roman dandy.

Perhaps, the two wondered with alarm, these were the Court manners and public style of educated gentlemen-of-quality at Rome? Yet they noticed how despite Caesar appearing to be amused and entertained by the bright young thing’s vivacity, he - our most lofty of Romans and ultimate arbiter of public taste - did not emulate the senator’s display. Nevertheless Commodus made himself the sparkling center of attention.

Suddenly Antinous had a useful idea. I observed he turned to comment laconically to his friend seated beside him on the paving at the rim of the stage floor.

‘
Don’t you feel it’s very hot here, Lys?’ I could hear at a distance.

‘
Hot?’ Lysias responded quizzically. ‘What do you mean? No, not especially, Ant.’

The spring sunshine of Athens was diffuse that day, but not especially intense now the rainy season had passed. Yet neither Lysias nor I sensed the sun was especially bothersome.

A ceremony of the endowment of weapons and armors to thirteen orphans was underway. The thirteen, each barely into their teen years and slight of build, displayed their upper torsos to the assembled spectators while the donations of armor were being fitted and strapped across their bird-boned frames. This display of bare skin had given Antinous food for thought.

‘
Yes, Lys, I think it is hot today. I need to cool down a little.’

Antinous began to untie the cloth bows at the arms, shoulders, and midriff of his tunic. The folds of the upper half of his
chiton
dropped away to reveal the full extent of his bare torso lying beneath the diagonal swathe of his
himation
mantle. Antinous’s broad shoulders, cut chest line, orbed abdomen, and tanned muscles were exposed to public view. It was a conspicuously buff vision.

In a city once renown for the athleticism of its young men with its long tradition of Olympic competition, plus its naked
palaestrae
training methods and cult of masculinity, Antinous’s nonchalant half-disrobing prompted a rustle of muttering across the assembly. A tide of whispers spread. It seemed Athenian youngsters, husbands, fathers, grandfathers, and devoted family men, as well as its more outward-going womenfolk, could still appreciate the contours of an
ephebe
at the peak of nature’s perfection.

Lysias immediately understood Antinous’s intent.

Using the pretext of the heat of the day he too took his cue to untie his tunic’s upper laces. His sturdy anatomy too was now on public display.

Both lads sensed how Caesar’s group spied these actions with interest, focusing especially on Antinous. Arrian observably suppressed a wry smile, while Herodes Junior found his eyes settling with enhanced interest upon Lysias.

The elder Herodes leaned to Arrian to comment quietly, while I was close enough to hear when Commodus asked something privately in Hadrian’s ear. The senator’s giddy manner had ceased its flightiness. Cool sobriety had taken hold.

Reclining side by side on the flagstones to indulge the exhibition of their physiques, Antinous leaned to Lysias to whisper. I can only imagine what he may have asked, but I assume it would be in the order of ---

‘
I wonder if this is the sort of thing Lord Arrian had in mind for us at the Baths yesterday? It seems to be working, Lys.’

Both youngsters sat in casual indifference to the attention generated among those around them, while people in the rows above craned their necks for a better view.

Antinous indirectly noticed an elderly man dressed in disheveled garb amble in veering paces from a doorway at the back of the theater’s stage. He teetered erratically through the lines of orphaned juniors buckling on their oversized armor and weaponry.

The man was a shaggy-haired, wild-eyed fellow with rickety legs and bony flesh. He was loosely garbed in a drab tunic and scrappy broad-brim sunhat tied behind his neck. He was holding a raised object in one hand while waving the other in emphatic gesticulation as he muttered incoherently at his surroundings. He moved unsteadily across the stage area as though he was a comic mime performing a special dance for the ceremony. Yet Antinous hadn’t noticed his participation earlier. For that matter, nor had I.