Suetonius sensed this was typical of so many claims made by seers and soothsayers who enjoy a bit each way as insurance against the risks of their predictions.
Regardless, he and the more phlegmatic members of the group decided to take advantage of this first day of the Festival. The day sorrowfully mourns the death of the god Osiris. Three days later the Festival celebrates his spiritual rebirth or resurrection into Isis's arms. For a thousand years gloom and doom had been followed by joy and uplift, much to the cheer of the populace and the profit of the various priests or priestesses.
With a retinue of litter bearers to beat their path, Suetonius's gentlemen-of-quality joined the throng of mourners in the dusty streets of Hermopolis. Crowds swirled all round. Chanters and musicians lamented loudly in the lanes and temple forecourts. The air was alive with wailing voices, the scintillance of cymbals, and the shimmering rattle of systra. Dancers garbed in mourner's white beat their breasts and cried in grief to Mother Isis as they mimed their ritual search for her husband Osiris's dismembered body. Their hair was strewn with ashes, fabrics were rent, ritual objects were waved.
This year was an Isia of particularly serious supplication to the goddess because of the dismal rise of the Nile's flooding. Since July the river's waters had not swollen to the necessary levels to fully deluge the surrounding flatlands. This was a second year it had risen poorly. A bad harvest was assured for those farmers on higher ground. All were dependent on the flood's black silts to nourish the soil and its crops.
Naturally, the Imperial plantations close to the river were well nurtured. Yet the native Egyptians at the outlying fields wondered what offence had been committed to deserve the punishment of famine by the gods.
Egypt depends on the Nile for its agricultural survival. The two annual harvests would be affected. Deficiency induces famine. Social disturbances may erupt.
Even the city of Rome, far across the Middle Sea, depends on the Nile to nurture the crops. These provide the grain to feed the city's unemployed, impoverished, trouble-making plebs. The governing classes may afford to eat well, but Africa's grain is the underlying buttress of Imperial influence in the decrepit alleys and smelly lanes of the Subura at Rome's center teeming with its denizens. And Hadrian, the Senate, the Legions, and Prefect Turbo too know this well.
The charmless, dun-colored cluster of flat-roofed hovels of Hermopolis clustered around the weathered temples at the western bank of the Nile lies two hundred leagues upstream of the Middle Egypt capital of Memphis. This ancient city is the locale of the stupendous Pyramids and its implacable Sphinx.
Caesar Hadrian's ragtag flotilla of boats, barques, and barges of varying types and sizes had meandered the Nile for weeks past taking in all the famous sights. The flotilla was accompanied on land by hundreds of his staff, his guests, a Legion cohort, and his Guard corps.
The emperor's spectacular river barque, The Dionysus, accommodated his wife Vibia Sabina and her personal household, while the remainder of the travelers sailed in hired river craft in the great flotilla's wake. Many of his Household traveled with the mule-train of supplies which followed the cortege on land for a whole mile. Soldiers marched the journey in full pack and weaponry. They were usually accompanied on horseback by Hadrian, Antinous, a dozen Companions of the Hunt, and other officers of Caesar's glittering cavalcade.
At places where the Household intends to linger for a few days an expansive portable city of tents, marquees, and pavilions is erected to provide luxury accommodations for his retinue and its camp followers. This mobile palace travels ahead and is erected at carefully chosen landscaped sites.
The hundred marquees are policed by Caesar's personal Horse Guard, the civic Praetorian Guard, and much of a military Legion within a low stockade. The center of the complex being a many-chambered palace in itself, it is graced with silken drapes, fluttering banners, extravagant rugs and furs, travel furnishings from across the Empire, all set on shiny removable marble tiles. Food and water are bullock-driven ahead, with the entire entourage self-sufficient in food, wine, slaves, and potable water. The river provides bathing water.
Suetonius and his five learned scholars had spent the late-October morning playing tourist at the ancient temple precincts of Hermopolis. After several hours of touring, the six decided to refresh themselves at the Baths of Tiberius at the Forum in the city. They bathed, steamed, and took an olive-oil massage while twittering a gossipy conversation suited to senior courtiers.
After having been strigiled clean and well kneaded by his body servant, Suetonius took the precaution of ensuring he was sweetly perfumed and garbed in a fresh summer-weight toga. He was now ready to sample the stock at The House of the Blue Lotuses.
After the morning's hectic jostle with crowds, he was eager to find solace for the call of his groin while enjoying some pleasurable female conversation. After well-mannered farewells to his companions he retired to the House accompanied by a personal slave, five litter-carriers, and a hired much-scarred former-gladiator named Macro to clear his path and protect his person.
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus is a Roman knight of Umbria at the north of Italy, and a former private secretary to Imperator Caesar Hadrian. He has now reached an age where carefully husbanded wealth plus fame as an historical archivist provides the necessary comforts and interests of life.
He was currently researching his latest book, Lives of Famous Whores. This is a work which will certainly find a ready market among the Empire's book copiers. For this reason he had been keen to sample the wares of the many providers of courtesan services which abound in Egypt, especially at Alexandria and nearby Canopus. This offered an opportunity to explore the history of the leading exponents of these arts and their special techniques.
Mind you, Suetonius has long accessed the services of courtesans across the Empire. He can name you each of a hundred of the better houses and their locales, along with their unusual specialties, prices, and possible risks.
For this reason Suetonius had retired to The House of the Blue Lotuses, the best in Middle Egypt he was advised.
"Good sir, my master, a leading councilor of the Greek community at Alexandria, has ensured our stock is exemplary," Cadmus opened his sales spiel.
"And expensive..!" Suetonius contributed jovially from within the burning herb's enveloping fug.
"My master has acquired several of the leading girls of Alexandria, but has also bought fresh purchases from the slave emporia at the Isle of Delos in the Aegean," the steward continued.
"The newest ones are very young and come from exotic places across the Empire. They include some racy Germans with flaxen hair and sluttish habits, a delicate peach-cheeked Briton of very white skin and a shy manner, a pair of Parthian identical twins for dual pleasure, and some fresh professionals from the island of Samos."
Suetonius acknowledged how Samos off the Ionian coast was a major exporter of well-trained girls, along with its knitted lace, deep-sea sponges, sweet wines, olives, and other luxuries.
"If it is to your taste, fine sir, my master has acquired two guaranteed virgins as well as three handsome youths from around the Middle Sea. This includes a white skinned, white haired, pink-eyed albino novelty from Crete."
Cadmus was exultant about the quality of his produce.
The virgins and the youths didn't interest Suetonius. It was likely the 'guaranteed virgins' had not been so for quite some time, but clever surgical arts assisted the illusion. Also for Suetonius they were far too inept to be mixing with men of mature experience. Loose folds of sagging ashen skin, wispy hair pasted across long-balded pates, a few missing teeth, and demanding sexual expectations were prone to distress them. Besides, he recalled, such girls were entirely without conversation. Amusing conversation was at a premium among sex entertainers. It drew good prices.
Separately, the young men rarely enjoyed being ravaged by their clients. They bite their lips in discomfort, and in the provinces are likely to be still untrained in simple intest
inal hygiene.
But Suetonius kept the albino slave in mind to mention to Hadrian's master of diversions, Geta the Dacian, to whom he owed a favor or two. Perhaps the albino might meet the emperor's taste, despite Hadrian's known aversion to sex worker slaves.
In the recent words of the philosopher Plutarch, an emperor does not stoop to importune a slave who will have absolutely no rights in the matter, regardless of their admirable looks or unique sexual skills.
Besides, Caesar's long companionship with his Favorite of the past five years, the sweet-natured young man Antinous of Bithynia, had seen him desist from the excesses of his predecessors. This is despite many earlier Caesars being prone to an exuberant intemperance in such things.
Hadrian had a reputation in much earlier life for pursuing beauties. Nevertheless though Suetonius could recall the names of several elite males who had succumbed to Hadrian's seduction, he could not recall any of a member of the opposite gender. An interesting omission he thought, unless Hadrian's marital status precluded such dalliances?
The historian's own taste had contracted over time into an unfashionable focus on women young enough to be his grand-daughter's age. That is, if he had actually bred any children or grandchildren. This included a taste for voluptuous fleshiness in lasses capable of maintaining a breezy conversation. Such qualities recalled his favorite slave-concubine Priscilla, he realized, may the gods bless her long departed soul.
Priscilla died after being his companion for five years. She joined her ancestors while giving birth to a child who may, or may not, have been his. The child too died. Mortality is a constant companion to us all, we know, yet one whose presence inevitably interrupts unexpectedly.
Cadmus, the House steward, ushered his Roman client beyond the open public atrium of the establishment into a secluded chamber to select his choice of the newer stock.
"Fine sir, please enjoy the comforts of our premiere salon," he encouraged with much Egyptian-style groveling. "We reserve this parlor for only our most important clients."
Suetonius absorbed its distinctive decors with interest.
The chamber was comfortably appointed with cushions and drapes and a reclining couch of quality with a large divan to one side. Witty but tasteful wall paintings portrayed copulating couples or multiples in a variety of elaborately ingenious combinations. They were accompanied by allegories of the Gods in similarly lascivious, comedic entanglements, merrily looking down upon their earthbound mortals.
These amusing images with their prodigiously erect phalluses and tortuous contortions conveyed an optimistic tone to the room. They endorsed a cheerful, spicy view of life happily beyond the influence of the Evil Eye or other demonic presence.
The room was redolent with the intense fragrance of bowls of blue lotus blooms, with dried fruits, dates, honey-cakes, and nuts displayed for a client's enjoyment.
Suetonius's servant unclasped the outer garments of his toga and stripped him to the underlying tunic. He poured a goblet of wine for his master and retired to the doorway to await instruction.
Cadmus sent his girls into the suite one by one. Each regaled Suetonius with a jolly smile or a sensual leer. They flashed their bodies from beneath their skimpy outerwear with a spin and a turn, highlighting their best bodily feature. They displayed their genitals forward to arouse his sensuality and check for signs of eczemas, blisters, or infestation.
Each wore a House identification slate chalked with their name and place of origin, plus their price. Charges vary according to age, beauty, or special services. Several of the girls had uneven teeth, thin chicken legs, or flat busts, probably reflecting their poor diet since childhood and the poverty of their mothers' similar calling. These influence price. Others were exemplary even by Rome's standards where the cream of the Empire's courtesans flourish.
One dark haired beauty immediately took Suetonius's fancy. Her well-formed limbs, shapely bosom, and intelligently-twinkling eyes caught his attention.
"What is your name, girl?" he asked, hazily reading the name inscribed on her board.
"Surisca, my lord. I am Surisca of Antioch," she responded in a cheery teasing trill.
Suetonius recognized she was from Syria because she spoke Greek with the accent of those whose native tongue is Aramaic, the common language of the farther East. The Syri was probably in her late teens, yet looked older from the rigors of her profession. Her board announced she was a dancer and flautist, hints her gifts included athletic activities and oral skills.
Her long hair bound high in a Syriac headband possessed a well-combed sheen. Her teeth seemed evenly lined, and her limbs were healthily straight but fulsomely feminine. There were no eczemas or signs of lice at her mount of Venus. She also wore less face-paint than some of the other girls, which was a definite attraction for him in a sex-worker. Only the faded henna-dye patterns stenciled onto her hands, arms, and forehead told of her ethnicity and implied her mode of livelihood.
She greeted the Roman with a shy deference he found disarming. She whirled and teetered on tip-toe to prominently display her bodily wares. Suetonius preferred her lively approach rather than the lascivious insolence tediously affected by the other girls. In fact Surisca vaguely reminded him of his late concubine Priscilla, which was a pleasing recollection. So he called for the steward and clapped hands on the price, which was trivial.
The steward departed. This left his servant standing discreetly by the door awaiting further instruction. Macro stood guard outside to maintain vigilance against intruders.
Surisca began her contract with Suetonius by taking a cue from the sultry music echoing throbbingly from the main salon beyond his chamber. She performed a distracted, sensually arousing dance before him. This was her sex worker's preliminary routine for a client, leisurely displaying her fleshy showcase of goods and erotic possibilities.
Loosening her hair so it tumbled down her back in a flood of shiny waves, and letting fall all her Damascene veils to the floor, she cheekily tossed her more private vestments into his face with a chuckle and grin. They exuded the scents of roses and the female creature.
Then Surisca slowly undulated and writhed before him in subtle shifting moves matching the echoes of the music, moving ever closer to him with each phrase of its melody. Her body surged and flowed with the rhythms, her full bosom and pink nipples were invitingly prominent, while her shapely configurations revealed every nook and cranny of her flesh, every pore of her skin, every fold of her femininity, just as she intended. The shy smile had now become a remote sensuality as her eyes locked dreamily onto the older man's attention in alluring, if professional, calculation.
Despite the leaden effects of the inhalant's fumes and being over three times Surisca's age, Suetonius felt his blood race into his genitals, incite his lust, and firm his member for action. Well, almost. With very little effort nubile Surisca had aroused the older man with her simple arts, searching eyes, and fleshly rounded curves. He began to melt in readiness for enveloping her in his arms and penetrating that Doorway to Eternity which the female Other holds in perpetual mastery over mere mortals such as he.
As Surisca drew closer to him in rhythmic distraction he could detect the redolence of myrrh and frankincense oil on her skin, while her breath was fragrant with musk and mint. The mixed scents, the impact of the heady inhalant, and the leisurely throb of the music induced a swooning delight.
Of course Surisca had other intentions prior to satisfying Suetonius's increasingly urgent impulses. Like the experienced working girl she was, she intended to prolong his pleasures and titillate his body's nine orifices with other arts of touch, mouth, tongue, and breath. Delay was delicious. Exquisite tension was thrilling excitement. She blew whispers into his ear, she nibbled and sucked at his navel, she fondled and licked his nipples. She explored hidden places of his physique that he himself might not choose to, and she did it with bravado.
He responded clumsily with the vapor's leaden, ineffectual, distraction.
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bsp; She toyed with his genitals with abandon and stroked his struggling member with delicacy. She knew inherently she had touched some remote part of his psyche and provoked some distant memory of a past liaison. She played with him and his memories in a manner which brought him a marvelously pleasing satisfaction. Yes, she was certainly professional.
But it was to be not to be for long -
The chamber door burst open with a tumult of voices. Both the steward and Suetonius's manservant tumbled into the chamber genuflecting and groveling profusely before him. Macro, the gladiator, stood with his back to the room with his gladius sword unsheathed at the ready, awaiting Suetonius's signal for action.
Surisca clutched up her garments to flee to a corner to cower at the sudden intrusion.
At the door stood a tall senior officer of the Praetorian Guard, the emperor's security police, plus several lesser officers. The Praetorian, spectacularly regaled in his muscular leathern breastplate, ceremonial swathes and tassels, plus a crested helmet with its heroic horse-hair brush typical of the Guard, stepped forward with military precision. He disdainfully brushed the gladiator aside. He snapped the honor-and-hail arm-salute at the bare-arsed Roman senior flustering messily on the divan before him.
"Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus? Equestrian knight and former private secretary to the Imperial Court? Hail!" the Praetorian declaimed.
Suetonius stumbled to his feet and clutched his private parts behind his tunic with as much dignity as his clouded state, unsteady gait, and distressed arousal could marshal.
Damn! he thought, things were just getting really interesting!
"I am he," he mouthed in his best legal-argument voice trained in earlier years at the Bar of Rome. He had only the faintest nervous tremor in his vowels. "All hail, Praetorian!"
"On the instruction of Imperator Caesar Publius Aelius Hadrian, I convey to you an Imperial Summons."
A Forbidden History.The Hadrian enigma Page 2