But the height of horror was reached during a stay in Palmyra, where the Arab merchant, Meles Agrippa, entertained us for three weeks in the lap of splendid and barbaric luxury. One day in the midst of the drinking, this Meles, who was a high official in the Mithraic cult but who took somewhat lightly his priestly duties, proposed to Antinous that he share in the blood baptism. The youth knew that I had formerly been inducted in a ceremony of the same kind; he offered himself with fervor as a candidate. I saw no reason to object to this fantasy; only a minimum of purificatory rites and abstinence was required. I agreed to serve myself as sponsor, together with Marcus Ulpius Castoras, my secretary for the Arabian language. We descended into the sacred cave at the appointed hour; the Bithynian lay down to receive the bloody aspersion. But when I saw his body, streaked with red, emerging from the ditch, his hair matted with sticky mud and his face spattered with stains which could not be washed away but had to be left to wear off themselves, I felt only disgust and abhorrence for all such subterranean and sinister cults. Some days later I forbade access to the black Mithraeum for all troops stationed at Emesa.
Warnings there were: like Mark Antony before his last battle I heard receding into the night the music of the change of guard as the protecting gods withdrew. … I heard, but paid no heed. My assurance was like that of a horseman whom some talisman protects from every fall. At Samosata an assembly of lesser kings of the Orient was held under my auspices; during the mountain hunts, Abgar himself, king of Osroëne, taught me the art of falconry; great beats engineered like scenes on a stage drove whole herds of antelope into nets of purple. Antinous was given two panthers for this chase; he had to pull back with all his strength to hold them in as they strained at their heavy yoke of gold. Under cover of all these splendors negotiations were concluded; the bargaining invariably ended in my favor; I continued to be the player who wins at every throw.
The winter was passed in that palace of Antioch where in other days I had besought soothsayers to enlighten me as to the future. But from now on the future had nothing to bring me, nothing at least which could count as a gift. My harvests were in; life’s heady wine filled the vats to overflowing. I had ceased to control my own destiny, it is true, but the disciplines so carefully worked out in earlier years seemed now to me no more than the first stage of a man’s vocation; they were like those chains which a dancer makes himself wear in order to leap the higher after casting them off. On certain points austerity was still the rule: I continued to forbid the serving of wine before the second watch at night; I remembered the sight of Trajan’s trembling hand on those same tables of polished wood. But there are other forms of inebriation. Though no shadow was cast on my days, whether death, defeat, or that subtle undoing which is self-inflicted, or age (which nevertheless would surely come), yet I was hurrying, as if each one of those hours was the most beautiful, but also the last of all.
My frequent sojourns in Asia Minor had put me in touch with a small group of scholars seriously concerned with the study of magic arts. Each century has its particular daring: the boldest minds of our time, weary of a philosophy which grows more and more academic, are venturing to explore those frontiers forbidden to mankind. In Tyre, Philo of Byblus had revealed to me certain secrets of ancient Phoenician magic; he continued in my suite to Antioch. There Numenius was giving a new interpretation to Plato’s myths on the nature of the soul; his theories remained somewhat timid, but they would have led far a hardier intelligence than his own. His disciples could summon spirits; for us that was a game like many another. Strange faces which seemed made of the very marrow of my dreams appeared to me in the smoke of the incense, then wavered and dissolved, leaving me only the feeling that they resembled some known, living visage. All that was no more, perhaps, than a mere juggler’s trick, but in this case the juggler knew his trade.
I went back to the study of anatomy, barely approached in my youth, but now it was no longer a question of sober consideration of the body’s structure. I was seized with curiosity to investigate those intermediate regions where the soul and the flesh intermingle, where dream echoes reality, or sometimes even precedes it, where life and death exchange attributes and masks. My physician Hermogenes disapproved of such experiments, but nevertheless he acquainted me with a few practitioners who worked along these lines. I tried with them to find the exact seat of the soul and the bonds which attach it to the body, and to measure the time which it takes to detach itself. Some animals were sacrificed to this research. The surgeon Satyr us took me into his hospital to witness death agonies. We speculated together: is the soul only the supreme development of the body, the fragile evidence of the pain and pleasure of existing? Is it, on the contrary, more ancient than the body, which is modeled on its image and which serves it momentarily, more or less well, as instrument? Can it be called back inside the flesh, re-establishing with the body that close union and mutual combustion which we name life? If souls possess an identity of their own, can they be interchanged, going from one being to another like a segment of fruit or the sip of wine which two lovers exchange in a kiss? Every philosopher changes his opinion about these things some twenty times a year; in my case skepticism contended with desire to know, and enthusiasm with irony. But I felt convinced that our brain allows only the merest residue of facts to filter through to us: I began to be more and more interested in the obscure world of sensation, dark as night, but where blinding suns mysteriously flash and revolve.
Near this same period Phlegon, who was a collector of ghost stories, told us one evening the tale of The Bride of Corinth, vouching for its authenticity. That adventure, wherein love brings a soul back to earth and temporarily grants it a body, moved each one of us, though at different depths. Several tried to set up a similar experiment: Satyrus attempted to evoke his master Aspasius, with whom he had made one of those pacts (never kept) according to which those who die promise to give information to the living. Antinous made me a promise of the same nature, which I took lightly, having no reason to believe that the boy would not survive me. Philo sought to bring back his dead wife. I permitted the names of my father and my mother to be pronounced, but a certain delicacy kept me from evoking Plotina. Not one of these attempts succeeded. But some strange doors had been opened.
A few days before the departure from Antioch I went to offer sacrifice, as in other years, on the summit of Mount Casius. The ascent was made by night; just as for Aetna, I took with me only a small number of friends used to climbing. My purpose was not simply to accomplish a propitiatory rite in that very sacred sanctuary; I wished to see from its height the phenomenon of dawn, that daily miracle which I never have contemplated without some secret cry of joy. At the topmost point the sun brightens the copper ornaments of the temple and the faces smile in full light while Asia’s plains and the sea are still plunged in darkness; for the briefest moment the man who prays on that peak is sole beneficiary of the morning.
Everything was prepared for a sacrifice; we climbed with horses at first, then on foot, along perilous paths bordered with broom and shrubs which we knew at night by their pungent perfumes. The air was heavy; that spring was as burning as summer elsewhere. For the first time while ascending a mountain I had trouble breathing; I was obliged to lean for a moment on the shoulder of my young favorite. We were a hundred steps from the summit when a storm broke which Hermogenes had expected for some time, for he was expert in meteorology. The priests came out to receive us under flashes of lightning; the small band, drenched to the skin, crowded around the altar laid for the sacrifice. Just as it was to take place a thunderbolt burst above us and killed both the victim and the attendant with knife in hand. When the first moment of horror had passed, Hermogenes bent with a physician’s curiosity over the stricken pair; Chabrias and the high priest cried out in admiration that the man and fawn thus sacrificed by this divine sword were uniting with the eternity of my Genius; that these lives, by substitution, were prolonging mine. Antinous gripping fast to my arm was trembl
ing, not from terror, as I then supposed, but under the impact of a thought which I was to understand only later on. In his dread of degradation, that is to say, of growing old, he must have promised himself long ago to die at the first sign of decline, or even before. I have come to think now that that promise, which so many of us have made to ourselves but without holding to it, went far back for him, to the period of Nicomedia and the encounter at the edge of the spring. It explained his indolence, his ardor in pleasure, his sadness, and his total indifference to all future. But it was still essential that this departure should have no air of revolt, and should contain no complaint. The lightning of Mount Casius had revealed to him a way out: death could become a last form of service, a final gift, and the only one which seemed left for him to give. The illumination of dawn was as nothing compared with the smile which arose on that overwhelmed countenance.
Some days later I saw that same smile again, but more hidden, and ambiguously veiled: at supper, Polemo, who dabbled in chiromancy, wished to examine the hand of the youth, that palm which alarmed even me by its astonishing fall of stars. But the boy withdrew it and closed it gently, almost chastely. He intended to keep the secret of his game, and that of his end.
We made a stop at Jerusalem. There I took occasion to study the plan for a new capital which I proposed to construct on the site of the Jewish city laid low by Titus. Good administration in Judaea and increasing commerce with the Orient showed the need for developing a great metropolis at this intersection of routes. I had in mind the usual Roman capital: Aelia Capitolina would have its temples, its markets, its public baths, and its sanctuary of the Roman Venus. My recent absorption in passionate and tender cults led me to choose a grotto on Mount Moriah as best suited for celebrating the rites of Adonis. These projects roused indignation in the Jewish masses: the wretched creatures actually preferred their ruins to a city which would afford them the chance of gain, of knowledge, and of pleasure. When our workmen approached those crumbling walls with pickaxes they were attacked by the mob. I went ahead notwithstanding: Fidus Aquila, who was soon to employ his genius for planning in the construction of Antinoöpolis, took up the work at Jerusalem. I refused to see in those heaps of rubble the rapid growth of hatred.
A month later we arrived at Pelusium. I arranged to restore the tomb of Pompey there: the deeper I delved into affairs of the Orient the more I admired the political genius of that vanquished opponent of the great Julius. Pompey, in endeavoring to bring order to this uncertain world of Asia, sometimes seemed to me to have worked more effectively for Rome than Caesar himself. That reconstruction was one of my last offerings to History’s dead; I was soon to be forced to busy myself with other tombs.
Our arrival in Alexandria was kept discreetly quiet. The triumphal entry was postponed until the empress should come. Though she traveled little she had been persuaded to pass the winter in the milder climate of Egypt; Lucius, but poorly recovered from a persistent cough, was to try the same remedy. A small fleet of vessels was assembled for a voyage on the Nile with a program comprising official inspections, festivals, and banquets which promised to be as tiring as those of a season at the Palatine. I myself had organized all that: the luxury and display of a court were not without political value in this ancient country accustomed to royal pomp.
But I had therefore the more desire to devote these few days which would precede the arrival of my guests to hunting. In Palmyra, Meles Agrippa had arranged some parties for us in the desert, but we had not gone far enough to see lions. Two years earlier Africa had provided the chance for some marvelous wild animal hunts; Antinous, then too young and inexperienced, had had no permission to take a significant part. In that respect I lacked courage for him in a way that I should not have dreamed for myself. Yielding, as always, I promised him now the chief role in this lion hunt. The time had passed for treating him as a child, and I was proud of his young strength.
We set off for the oasis of Ammon, some days’ journey from Alexandria, that same place where long ago Alexander had learned from the priests of his divine birth. The natives were reporting a particularly dangerous animal in the area which often attacked men as well as beasts. At night around the camp fire we gaily compared our exploits-to-be with those of Hercules. But the first days brought us only a few gazelles. Then we decided to take up a position, the two of us, near a sandy pool all overgrown with rushes. The lion was supposed to come there at dusk to drink. The negroes were instructed to drive him toward us with the noise of conch horns, cymbals, and cries; the rest of our escort had been left some distance away. The air was heavy and still; there was no need even to consider the direction of the wind. We could hardly have passed the tenth hour of the day, for Antinous called my attention to the red water lilies still wide open on the pond. Suddenly the royal beast appeared in a turmoil of trampled reeds and turned his handsome head toward us, one of the most godlike faces that danger can assume. Placed somewhat behind I had no time to restrain the boy; he imprudently spurred his horse and hurled first his spear and then his two javelins, with skill, but from too close range. Pierced in the neck, the animal fell to earth, lashing the ground with his tail; the whirl of sand kept us from distinguishing more than a reddening, confused mass. At last the lion regained his feet and mustered his strength to spring upon horse and rider, now disarmed. I had foreseen this danger; happily Antinous’ mount did not stir: our horses had been admirably trained for this sort of game. I interposed my horse, exposing the right flank; I was used to such action and it was not very difficult for me to dispatch the beast, already mortally stricken. He collapsed for the second time; the muzzle rolled in the mire and a stream of dark blood ran into the water. The mighty cat, color of the desert, of honey, of the sun itself, expired with a majesty greater than man’s. Antinous leaped down from his horse, which was covered with foam and trembling still; our companions rejoined us and the negroes dragged the immense prey back to the camp.
A feast was improvised; lying flat on his stomach before a platter of copper, the youth handed us our portions of lamb roasted beneath the coals. In his honor we drank palm wine. His exultation mounted like song. Perhaps he exaggerated the significance of the aid which I had given him, forgetting that I would have done as much for any hunter in danger; we felt, nevertheless, that we had gone back into that heroic world where lovers die for each other. Pride and gratitude alternated in his joy like the strophes of an ode. The blacks did wonders: soon under the starry sky the skin was swinging suspended on two stakes at the entrance of my tent. Despite the aromatics applied to it, its wild odor haunted us all night long. The next morning, after a meal of fruits, we left the camp; at the moment of departure we caught sight of what was left of the royal beast of the day before: by that time it was only a red carcass in a ditch, surmounted by a cloud of flies.
Some days later we returned to Alexandria. The poet Pancrates arranged a special entertainment for me at the Museum; in a music room was assembled a collection of fine and rare instruments. Old Dorian lyres, heavier and more complicated than ours today, stood side by side with curved citharas of Persia and Egypt; there were Phrygian pipes shrill as eunuchs’ voices, and delicate Indian flutes, the name of which I do not know. For a long time an Ethiopian beat upon some African drums. Then a woman played a triangular harp of melancholy tone; her cool beauty would have won me had I not already decided to simplify my life by reducing it to what was for me the essential. My favorite musician, Mesomedes of Crete, used the water organ to accompany the recitation of his poem The Sphinx, a disturbing, undulating work, as elusive as the sand before the wind. The concert hall gave on an inner court where some water lilies were growing in the fountain’s basin; they lay wide open in the almost furious heat of a late August afternoon. During an interlude, Pancrates urged us to inspect more closely these flowers of rare type, red as blood, which bloomed only at the end of summer. At once we recognized our scarlet lilies of the oasis of Ammon; Pancrates was suddenly fired by the thought of the wo
unded beast expiring among the flowers. He proposed to me that he versify this episode of our hunt; the lion’s blood would be represented as tinting the lilies. The formula is not new: I nevertheless gave him the commission. This Pancrates, who was completely the court poet, improvised on the spot a few pleasant verses in Antinous’ honor: the rose, the hyacinth, and the celandine were valued less in his hexameters than those scarlet cups which would hereafter bear the name of the chosen one. A slave was ordered to wade into the water to gather an armful of the blossoms. The youth accustomed to homage gravely accepted the wax-like flowers with the limp, snaky stems; the petals closed like eyelids when night fell.
In the midst of these pleasures the empress arrived. The long crossing had told on her: she was growing frail without ceasing to be hard. Her political associations no longer caused me annoyance, as in the period when she had foolishly encouraged Suetonius; she now had only inoffensive women writers about her. The confidante of the moment was a certain Julia Balbilla, whose Greek verse was fairly good. The empress and her suite established themselves in the Lyceum, from which they rarely went out. Lucius, on the contrary, was as always avid for all delights, including alike those of the mind and of the eye.
At twenty-six he had lost almost nothing of that arresting beauty which aroused acclamations from the youth in the streets of Rome. He was still absurd, ironic, and gay. His caprices of other days had now turned to manias: he made no move without his head cook; his gardeners composed astonishing flower plantings for him even aboard ship; he took his bed with him wherever he went, modeled on his own design of four mattresses stuffed with four special kinds of aromatics, on top of which he lay surrounded by his young mistresses like so many cushions. His pages, painted, powdered, and attired like Zephyrs and Eros, complied as well as they could with mad whims which were sometimes cruel: I had to intervene to keep the young Boreas, whose slenderness Lucius admired, from letting himself die of hunger. All that was more exasperating than charming. We visited together everything to be visited in Alexandria: the Lighthouse, the Mausoleum of Alexander and that of Mark Antony, where Cleopatra triumphs eternally over Octavia, the temples, the workshops and factories, and even the quarter of the embalmers. From a reputable sculptor I purchased an entire lot of Venuses, Dianas, and Hermes for Italica, my native city, which I had in mind to modernize and adorn. The priest of the temple of Serapis offered me a service of opaline glass, but I sent it to Servianus, with whom, out of regard for my sister Paulina, I tried to keep passable relations, at least at a distance. Great building projects took shape in the course of all these somewhat tedious rounds.
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