The Water Thief

by Ben Pastor

  As he stepped out, the cobbler tried to reach for him and was held back by the soldier guarding him. “I am a wretched man,” he cried out, “why can’t you help me? You come from court, it costs you nothing to give the order that I be tried!”

  Just outside the door, with Tralles curiously looking over from his desk, Aelius read where his clerk pointed on the ledger. He said nothing just then, but shortly was back in the room, and in his chair at an angle from Tralles’s desk. “Cobbler, the court records say that under your old name you used to be a deacon in the Christian congregation of the Matidianum district of the metropolis. Is this true?”

  There was no answer, but Aelius was not done talking. “The records further indicate that a year ago you collaborated fully with the government by surrendering cult-related books. You were a witness for the prosecution, and also turned in Church revenues.” The accused squirmed, mumbled something under his breath, but that was all. “You volunteered,” Aelius specified, “no one prompted you. And now, with a self-abasing name, living in a different district, you expect the government to help you silence your guilty conscience. Well, the government is not in that business. Do not presume to waste the government’s time. You may be sure the judge will dismiss the case, and you with it.”

  “I wouldn’t go as far as that,” Tralles whispered in Aelius’s ear. “What difference does it make? We can ask the judge to go ahead and make it speedy.”

  “No.”

  The cobbler began to weep. When Aelius left the office for good, with a wave of farewell to Tralles and no acknowledgment of the cobbler, again he tried to break out of the soldier’s hold. “But you can’t keep me from going to trial! You can’t! You can’t!”

  When in doubt,” Diocletian had once remarked during a speech, “go to the baths.” Which is what Aelius, having sent ahead a servant with his writing kit, did after leaving Tralles’s office. Not to his own, or the dingy army baths where he’d have to relate to Tralles’s colleagues, who suspected special envoys and would not share with him any worthwhile information. The small but elegant city baths on Philopator Street, toward the Eastern Gate that led to the horse track, had been the travelers’ baths eight years ago, but now were, as Aelius found out within minutes, the homosexual meeting place in the metropolis. Still, he had come, and he might as well remain, all the more since they’d been built by the deified Hadrian— which of course gave him a plausible reason to be here to do research.

  The marbles and tall columns, the eccentric spaces lit by invisible windows recessed in vaults that split into sails, edged by jutting cornices, gave an impression of intermittent semiobscurity and broken light that disturbed and fascinated the eyes. Water darted around reflections like fireflies on the walls, and wet marble tiles, mirrorlike, catapulted the ceiling onto the floor, so that one felt altogether lost in the illusory space, and only sinking into the pool with one’s eyes closed restored one’s balance somewhat.

  By the public mail, the night before he’d sent a second letter to Diocletian, reporting on the state of affairs such as he’d found it and could judge for now, and attaching specific examples as needed. This time, in hopes to expedite delivery, he’d secured the services of a land courier once the letter should reach southern Greece by sea. It was in Hadrian’s baths, having declined multiple offers of massage and more private encounters, scrupulously keeping his undershorts on the whole time, that Aelius began a third letter, and reread some of the notes he’d put in longhand after his conversation with the priests days before.

  Notes taken by Aelius Spartianus while inspecting the deified Hadrian’s imperial barge in the collection room of the temple of Antinous:

  On the main deck, a fine mosaic (of the type architects call “grub-shaped,” opus vermiculatum), representing the upper course of the Nile, that is, from Philae southward. A well-appointed barge is seen plying the waters, with Ivory Island at the lower edge (forefront), shown as a platform with two elephants facing in opposite directions. There’s an obelisk between them, which I don’t recall seeing there, so it makes me wonder whether one existed at that time, or perhaps the artist never saw the real place and derived it from descriptions alone. On the barge are figures in Roman garb, which I assume to be representative of the imperial party. The deified Hadrian is seen with a group of men with the appearance of rhetoricians or philosophers. Ladies are sitting under an awning, one of whom being more richly dressed and slightly larger in size, I surmise to be Empress Sabina. Two young men are at the sides of the emperor, one of them—I venture to say—being Antinous, with incipient sideburns like Alexander is represented in some of his portraits; the other young man might be Alcibiades Junior, who I know was on board, or another age-appropriate companion selected for the Boy.

  In the barge’s dining quarters, the floor decoration is divided into eight squares, each representing a couple of companion or father-son figures. From left to right, top to bottom, I identified: Achilles and Patroclus, Euryalus and Nisus, Castor and Pollux, Priamus and Hector, Romulus and Remus, Odysseus and Philoctetes, Hermes and Dyonisus, Horus and Osiris.

  In the ladies’ quarters are three medallions at the center of a perfectly white mosaic, at the corners of which are medallions with the four seasons. The three central medallions represent: Orpheus and Eurydice, Hades and Persephone, and Admetus and Alcestis.

  In Antinous’s quarters, the majority of the mosaic is a complex pattern of vines, birds, and insects, like an intricate arbor, at the center of which is a square framed by lotus blossoms. Within the square, is a Romanized rendition of Horus striding on two crocodiles, with Egyptian characters on the right side, which I do not profess to understand at all. The priests in the temple say it reads, “Sobek gives no sound, of him above the rest fear is uncontrollable: and yet Thou hast power over him,” and that they have this interpretation in writing from the days of the deified Hadrian’s visit. They insist the words refer to the Boy, identified as Horus, having been spared by crocodiles.

  The least identifiable—not in terms of clarity, but as regards its direct or implied meaning—is the small mosaic near the prow of the imperial barge. It reads like a heavenly chart, showing Orion, recognizable by those stars Ptolemy indicates as “splendida quae est in humero dextro et est subrufa”—the reddish one on Orion’s shoulder—and the shining one at the tip of his left foot: “splendida quae est in extremitate pedis sinistri communis cum aqua.” There are also the constellations Lepus, Argo Navis, and Canis Major (with the brilliant star marking the Dog’s mouth, which Ptolemy calls “quae in ore fulgentissima est, et vocatur Sirius”). What significance these particular groups of stars might have held for Hadrian or Antinous, must remain for now a matter of conjecture. Do they indicate a prophecy, or a horoscope? They matter, somehow, but there are no other indicators on the flooring itself—and even the priests are mum or know nothing about it.

  Scenes of farewell, he thought, of departure and return, of salvation, or sacrifice. He wondered whether it was a coincidence. They were stock scenes one saw a bit everywhere, but had they been placed on the barge’s deck by the emperor, and, if so, before or after the fateful trip? Were they a commentary by later rulers, who were known to have maintained and added to the collection? The, sky, chart mosaic especially intrigued him, all the more since the astronomer Ptolemy was active in Egypt in Hadrian’s day. He’d have to inquire as to which month of the year that combination of constellation shone in the heavens.

  Like triplets, three identical statues of Antinous occupied the trilobed end of the well-lit room where Aelius sat, their nakedness enhanced by gilding. It might be worthwhile pursuing the lead of Sorenus’s friends, he thought, watching how the sunlight streamed directly into a round pool until everything—oculus in the vault, shaft, water—blazed like gold, and the space around seemed dark in comparison.

  25 Payni (20 June, XII Kalends of July, Tuesday)

  It was Harpocratio who presented him to the homosexual community of Antinoopolis. It congr
egated every third Tuesday of the month in the Hadrianeum district, on Berenice Street, a place bordered by elegant barber shops and wig-makers, perfume stalls and shoe stores, with daintily kept flats in rows of well-maintained houses. The community was surprisingly mixed, music teachers, tattooed sailors, physicians, traders, burly fishmongers, and playwrights, and having its monthly luncheon in the private, vast hall in the back of a corner bookstore. The shop seemed small, as if squeezed into the corner of the city block, but the banquet hall opening immediately past its rear door occupied the better half of the block itself. Harpocratio accompanied Aelius to introduce him and explain things, as he said, to avoid misunderstandings. About fifty men of various ages were standing around, chatting, for all the world like any other business meeting of merchants, but for the finicky attention to clothing, the scent of perfumed oil, and the sidelong glances coming the newcomers’ way.

  “And who is he?” Someone asked, pointing to Aelius behind the cupped hand, not so under his breath as not to be overheard. “Will you look at him?”

  “Nice, nice.”

  “I’ve never seen him before.”

  “Wasn’t he at the baths the other day?”

  “I told you uniforms look good on tall men.”

  “Looks straight to me; I bet he’s straight.”

  “I hope not.” And so on.

  The wearing of the uniform had been Harpocratio’s idea, to impress just how much Aelius was here on official business. Heading for a table where drinks were being served, “Anything that has to do with antiquity as it relates to us,” he said, “you may ask Theo, the spice merchant. He’s widely read in the classics and in religion, and though not known to the army as such, his sister Thermuthis is, as she kept the best brothel in town during the Rebellion.”

  Thermuthis’s name was legend in the ranks. In terms of personal comforts, she was to the army what Serenus Dio had been as regards other provisions. Aelius remembered her well. A red-haired, handsome woman of Berber ancestry, she’d bedded them all in her fancy quarters behind Heqet’s temple, and rented girls out to them when she’d gotten weary of these northern officers who flocked to her because of the color of her hair. Anubina was one of her younger girls, and Aelius had been easy to convince to switch.

  Theo had none of her good looks, but he was a big, engaging fellow. Bald as a priest, he dutifully drank to the emperor’s health, and that of his coregents, knowing that Aelius would appreciate that. He then invited him to a separate small table set in a recess of the wall, where the chatter of guests was less distracting. Aelius summarized his intent, added a few details, and began by showing a sheet of paper, on which he’d copied the comments on the margins found in Pudens’s book. “In a used text, I saw this passage scribbled alongside Cassius Dio’s account of Antinous’s death. What can you tell me about it?”

  In the dim light, Theo squinted to read the words. “It’s from one of the accounts of the Christ’s life,” he pronounced after a moment. “It refers to new religion versus old religion, but in this context, well, let me think. An old man and a young one—the risks of such a relationship, I want to say. The possible supremacy of the elder.” He placed the paper on the table and smoothed it with his fingers. “Naturally Cassius Dio had his biases, and in my opinion he’d have been better off trusting what the deified Hadrian had to say about the incident, seeing that he was there and the historian wasn’t even born yet.”

  Aelius knew he was on to something. Encouraged, he said, “The priests told me that Antinous is buried here in the metropolis, but I would like confirmation. Harpocratio thinks you, or someone among you, might be able to tell me what really happened to the body.”

  Theo rolled his eyes. “So, that’s how it is. Any reason not to trust what they told you at the temple?”

  “Not really. But one should always double-check one’s sources.”

  “ ‘Not really’ is not the same as ‘not at all.’ ”

  “That’s true.” It was clear that Aelius wouldn’t say more than that. Theo surveyed him from across the table, fingering a hefty gold ring he wore on his left hand. The ring seemed too wide, and he turned it to make the bezel face up. Noticing how Aelius’s attention migrated to the stone intaglio, he placed his hand in full view. “One thousand years old, Commander. If you’re ever in the market for old jewelry, I can point you in the right direction.”

  Aelius smiled. “The only jewelry I ever wore was the lead signet when I enlisted. I think soldiers are better off bare-handed. What about Antinous’s body?”

  “Well,” Theo said, putting the ring back on, “surely the deified Hadrian wouldn’t be leaving his beloved behind in Egypt, or anywhere else where he was not.”

  “I thought of that. Except that the deified Hadrian continued his travels right after the Boy died, and for years to come before returning to Rome.”

  “Dead lovers are easier to convince to come along than live ones.”

  “But the cult was started here, the priesthood originated here.”

  Impatiently Theo waved off the girl-faced servant bringing finger foods. “I thought you wanted information, Aelius Spartianus. Do you know about this, or do you want to find out? Because if you want to find out you have to listen.”

  “I want to find out from the start. From when the accident happened.”

  “That’s more like it. But we can’t talk here, there’s going to be far too much noise when lunch starts. How about a walk?”

  From the Hadrianeum district one could, following Berenice Street clear across downtown, reach a paved promenade that overlooked the Nile and the lower tip of the southernmost island. A small wharf for leisure boats was busy in this early afternoon, but would soon close for the season as the flood approached. Seen even from here, past the tangle of snapping awnings of stalls and sails, the water ran north visibly murkier than even the day before, carrying willow branches on its froth. “I hope all this green water doesn’t mean there’s drought past the cataracts,” observed Theo. “Wholesale prices of pepper and cumin go up even when there’s just talk of a drought. I say, willows upriver break easily even when there’s no dearth of rain.” From a boy vendor, he bought two kuroi cakes, handing one to Aelius. “Start at the head,” he said, “there’s more wine in the paste.”

  Aelius put his cake away for the time being, conscious of the gravitas expected of his rank. Theo rightly took it as an indirect goad for him to resume the narrative started in the hall. “So,” he spoke after taking a bite, “right after the Boy died—there’s no written record, so don’t look for it, but we have ways of committing to memory what matters to us one way or another—there was a frantic search for the body. All along, the Roman navy had been beating the river in advance of the imperial party in order to minimize the presence of crocodiles, but they are devious creatures, and fear was high that he’d been devoured all or in part.” Another bite took the feet off the mummy-shaped cake. “Have you ever seen a body half-eaten by a crocodile?”

  “I have.”

  “Then you know what it means, how horrific it is. We’re once more confronting that sad reality now that our dear colleague Serenus was taken from our midst. Anyway, it was close to ten hours before Antinous’s remains were discovered. It was about halfway between the place where the travelers had briefly anchored for dinner on the evening before the death, and the place where morning found them, when the Boy’s disappearance was discovered. It’s a lovely spot, you ought to go there. There’s a sandbar now that slows the current down considerably, though surely there was none then, and the current was swift along that bank. But the papyrus grove must have been there even then, with its herons and other wild birds, because the name of the spot—again, don’t look for it on maps, it’s not marked, was and is called by the locals Benu Grove. The body lay half in the water and half on the sandy bank, as though the Boy had nearly come to safety, or were affirming his own status of half-man, half-god. He was intact, thank God, not even the fish had nibbled at him
.” Having disposed of the cake, Theo said something about reaching the duck pond ahead, and feeding the ducks. “I can see the scene. His beautiful braid had come undone and looked like water plants, and his whole body was just like marble. The deified Hadrian pulled him out to dry land himself, though the Boy was tall and muscular, and—dead—must have weighed much. There are things that cannot be said, so I will say nothing about the grief that accompanied the discovery. The empress was there, too, by the way, just a bit up from the bank in her litter, and she was weeping. Pandates wrote a distich about her tears being shed and resembling pearls or something, a very tasteless little exercise, but it’s telling that she would be crying over him.”

  “—Or her husband’s grief.”

  Theo gave him a dry look. “I doubt that. Anyway, there was the matter of the heat and the waterlogged body, and what would shortly happen to it. The choice was either to mummify it, as tradition requires around here, and that would take seventy days at least, or cremate it. Inhumation was not considered, as it would abandon the Boy to the most disgusting of decays.”

  “What did the emperor decide then?”

  “Well, first of all, a marker was placed on the spot where the body was discovered. It’s out of the north gate, I’ll give you directions. You might have to hunt for it because of the rank growth of plants, but it’s still there. I saw it as a youngster, because it was a place where we often went to bathe.”

  “It is not a grave site, though.”

  “Some say his braid was cut and buried there. You might want to consider it a partial burial, a glorified cenotaph. Not a grave site.”

  Aelius made a mental note about traveling there and checking the place out. “What about the body itself?”

  Now that they had walked past the line of stalls, the scenario opened on the riverside. Across the Nile, Hermopolis shone with its temples and public buildings, like a flowerbed across the bridge; on this side, carved from local limestone about a hundred years earlier, an hexagonal basin created an artificial pond out of river water. Lotus rimmed it, and a colony of ducks squabbled and kept other water fowl away from it. They were a new colony, since the previous one had been killed for food during the Rebellion. Theo said, sitting on a bench that overlooked the pond, “What the priests told you is true so far. The deified Hadrian did order that he should be mummified. After all, he was to remain in Egypt, the emperor, for months to come, and there was ample time to ensure the operation was carried out according to the best funerary traditions. The organs were removed shortly after discovery, of course, and it was with Antinous’s heart—against all tradition, to be sure, for Isis’s invocation goes, ‘Your heart is however your own. It will stay in its place for all times,’—that the deified Hadrian traveled south to Ptolemais and Thebes. It was kept in the liver jar, bearing as a cover the human head of Imseti, which is under the protection of Isis. The other three jars containing the organs were left in care of the priests, and by the sixth day after the Boy’s death, when Antinoopolis was officially founded, these were the holy relics and prime reason for the construction of the temple. I am sure you were shown the jars.”