Antinous scanned his grooms and steward for an explanatory response.
‘The young lady was escorted to our tent by two of Caesar’s soldiers,’ his steward said. ‘They departed just before you arrived. She is unaccompanied.’
Antinous glanced at me questioningly but then took the sword belt with its attached scabbard and dagger in his hands and unsheathed the well-wrought polished blade. The gleam of quality metal and fine craftsmanship shone beneath the lamp-light while the white enameled inlays and silver decoration announced its costliness. Antinous looked to me as we both immediately recognized its origin and owner.
‘It’s the blade which killed the boar today. It’s Caesar’s.’
Antinous developed a growing blush as its implication dawned on both of us at the same time. ‘A small hunting kill, a fine weapon, or a drinking vessel’, the classic definition of admissible suitor’s gifts to an eromenos which did not imply bribery, let alone prostitution.
‘My master has instructed me to say you will understand what this gift represents,’ the petite birdlike woman confirmed in wide-eyed innocence.
The nutty russet of her skin, her straight line of white teeth shining from a beaming face, her whiter-than-white eyeballs with their piercingly dark pupils, the painted kohl around her eyes, and the slenderness of her figure told us this pretty creature was a foreigner of neither Hellene nor Asia Minor origin. Yet her spoken Greek was without accent.
Antinous nodded acknowledgement and took the scroll and sack of coins in curiosity. He broke the scroll’s clay seal and unwound the papyrus. Glancing to me and the others from time to time, he began to softly enunciate the message within.
‘Antinous of Bithynia, son of Telemachus of Claudiopolis, greetings! I, Imperator Caesar Publius Aelius Hadrianus, as a token of my friendship, regard, and affection, bestow your person with this gift of a finely wrought sword of best Syracuse workmanship. This sword was once the property of King Nikomedes IV of Bithynia, being a part of the treasure endowed by his estate to the SPQR at the time of Caesar Augustus. You will recall this sword’s efficacy in our Imperial Hunt this day, and comprehend its intended message as a gesture of my regard. Respect the beauty and quality of this rare artifact just as I respect the equivalent character of its human recipient.
Accompanying this gift is an endowment of a specially selected slave acquired at market at the Isle of Delos, the holy abode of our divine Apollo, for your personal service. THAIS is her name. She is fifteen years of age, and a native of Cyrene at Roman Africa. She is trained in all domestic duties, household stewardship, finances, is a body servant or lady’s companion, and is a dancer and singer of talent.
However, more importantly, she is also schooled in Palatine Latin, Koine Greek, plus Syrian Aramaic to a high standard for your continuing language instruction. She reads and writes in all three scripts. This bestowal of ownership with its documents is supported with a purse of coins to pay for upkeep of her services for at least a year. Future annual upkeep is subject to your continuing demand of her services. Yours in friendship, etc.”
Antinous and I stared with amazement at this gift of living flesh standing demurely before us. Antinous peeped into the pouch. His eyes widened as he poured the contents of the purse onto the cloth before him.
A pile of coins of deep yellow gold lay before him, to the audible gasp of the surrounding household attendants. There was enough gold in the pouch to purchase several slaves of quality and provide their upkeep for years. Antinous didn’t think anyone of the group, including him, had ever before seen so much gold in one place.
The assembly looked to the human acquisition before them in wonderment. She looked back to Antinous with an open expression of disingenuous delight and a brightly twinkling smile.
‘Hello Master. My name is Thais,’ she volunteered without permission, ‘I am trained as an educated servant for a master or mistress of quality. I was born of a slave mother at Cyrene, capital of Cyrenaica in Africa, and raised in the household of the Imperial Prefect of the province at Cyrene and Ptolemais. My mother was Lais of Canopus, the concubine favorite of the Prefect. I am competent in the duties necessary for managing a household of quality such as the Prefect’s two palaces in Cyrenaica.
At age fifteen on my maturity I was sold in the specialist slave emporium at Delos in the Aegean Sea. I was offered by my master, the Prefect, on the understanding I was to be sold only to masters or mistresses of honor, and not to traders in virgins or courtesans. I am told my price was subsidized by my master to ensure a select placement. However, due to my language skills and proficiencies in the service of the Prefect and his wife, I was acquired by the Imperial Administration on behalf of the emperor’s Household, possibly on the Prefect’s recommendation.’
Thais paused to observe and assess her audience’s reactions. She then continued.
‘Among my duties, I am intended as a live-in tutor of spoken languages and of courtly comportment. I am an instructor in manners in the Imperial mode to special students assigned by the Imperial Administration. I am charged by my former master that you, Antinous of Bithynia, are to receive my services,’ the delicately boned waif with the hugely bright eyes and winning, if presumptuous, manner announced with lively enthusiasm.
Antinous and I shared a querulous expression and then burst into laughter.
‘Well,’ said Antinous after studied consideration, ‘I see. Welcome to our service, Slave Thais of Cyrene. Make yourself useful to my steward and ourselves until such a time as I confirm your acquisition with the elders of my household.’
‘I am desirous, Master, of performing well in your service,’ she responded with a courteous, if slightly too obsequious, genuflection. Her response was spoken in pure Latin. It possessed an exacting pronunciation redolent of a native speaker of the patrician class. No Bithynian intonation was evident.
‘May I take the liberty of offering this first lesson in conversational Latin, master?’ Thais said with a tinkling laugh.
It was uttered with a lively gaiety which brought a smile to everyone’s lips despite her faintly patronizing tone and a worrying lack of proper servility. It seemed Slave Thais had learned the habits and lifestyles of her masters too well at the Prefect’s palace at Cyrene.
Antinous and I realized at last it had been a most unusual day and night.
CHAPTER 12
“So does it end there?” Clarus asked, yawning. It was now very late and the seniors of the group were inclined to catch some sleep. Only Surisca and Lysias seemed fully awake.
“No, not at all, my lord,” Lysias uttered brightly. “There was then the matter of Ant’s father learning of Caesar’s desire to be erastes to his son.”
“I see. So?” Suetonius asked, “What did his father have to say about it?”
The group settled back in their seats to continue hearing the testimony. Lysias again sipped wine before returning to his reminiscences.
“As his best friend, I accompanied Antinous to his family villa at Polis. The interview was held in the portico atrium where the men of the family meet for consultation. Antinous was obliged to formally seek paternal permission from his Father for the proposal.”
“And ---?” the Special Inspector enquired. “What did his father say?”
“I sensed some ambivalence in Telemachus, so the occasion proved to be very memorable.
‘My son, Antinous,’ Telemachus opened in his rasping voice, ‘the time has come for you to go out into the world to complete your education and weapons training now you have entered the older age-class of a meirakion warrior.’
This wiry old soldier with gray skin, grayer hair, and dulled eyes announced it in a breathy voice. He carried his left arm as a crook; his muscles stiffened due to a war wound long ago. His speech too was slightly afflicted. Telemachus was probably much younger than his visible years conveyed, but some war infirmity had aged him prematurely. He had served Rome well in the many campaigns of his youth.
I, wi
th Antinous’s elder brother and the senior steward of the House, stood impassively before their paterfamilias seated upright in his high chair in the atrium court. I was always a welcome guest at Ant’s home, always.
‘As the head of our House I, with your elder brother here as well as your deceased mother too I’m sure -- if she were here, bless her shade! -- with your extended family across Bithynia, your community, your tutors, and many others of good will, all encourage you on your journey. We will watch your progress from afar, and make regular sacrifice to Apollo and to his virgin sister Artemis to defend you from harm.
My son Antinous, you have received from us the blessings of a provident upbringing, proper discipline and tutoring, plus the foundation of a healthy body. You have been inducted into the code of honor which guides Hellenes to noble deeds to bring glory to our House, and brings dishonor, defeat, and death to our enemies.
You have displayed your worth as a member of our family, clan, and to our city council. You display the courage and martial skills expected of a future member of the town’s militia, where you are likely to receive a commission on return from your studies.
You must now complete your education and advance to full adulthood. Someday soon you will sacrifice your first beard cuttings to Zeus as proof of your maturity. It will then be time for you to assume the joys and obligations of matrimony. In this too we will offer our supports, and we trust you will breed sons to project our seed, our arete, into the distant future to deliver our lineage to future generations. You must be the master of your own fate in this matter.
Lysias too, on behalf of your deceased father Lysander, I offer the same advice to you. Your mother has asked me advise you.
You both are now to go out into the world to drink of life at the font of Hellene culture at Athens. Letters of introduction and financial arrangements have been completed through the offices of Bithynia’s proxenos ambassador at Athens by Arrian of Nicomedia.
Provision has been made for your and Lysias’s education under the tutorship of the Academy of Secundus of Athens, whose school is renown. Accommodations at Athens and membership of the Kynosarges Gymnasium have been negotiated on your behalf.
You have received awards of scholarships to the College of Imperial Administration, generously endowed by your admirer Imperator Caesar Hadrian. Praise be to Caesar! This gesture in honoring you both is a token of your worthiness in the eyes of others. It is a remarkable boon. This now brings me to a matter of very great consequence.
A private letter conveyed to me by Caesar’s Proconsul to Asia, Serenius Granianus, has enquired if I as your Father offer my authority for your special engagement, Antinous, with the Imperial Household in the station of Friend to Caesar until your maturity.
The role of ‘Friend’ is outlined under the terms of the traditional Erastes/Eromenos relationship of the Hellenes. It is for your further education in Greek and Roman customs, in the Latin language, courtly manners, and the procedures of Roman Law. It is for mastering the hunt and the prosecution of warfare, while sharing the companionable society of distinguished men of the Imperium. It means you would enter within the Imperial Household under the emperor’s protection for its duration. You are entitled to include friends such as Lysias within your personal household under Caesar’s patronage.
This is an extraordinary honor for a young man’s advancement. Are you aware, my son, of the munificence of this endowment to a Greek of non-Roman origin? Also, son, are you aware of the implications of the role as eromenos to such a noble supplicant?
I am obliged to respond promptly to the Proconsul with my opinion. But importantly, my son, do you yourself accept these terms? You must think upon this and respond to me here today prior to my permission. I will be guided by your desires.’
Telemachus paused for breath, took a sip of wine from a chalice, and observed his son’s response with keen intent. The previously dulled, ageing eyes glinted with the intelligence and confidence of the man at an earlier period of life. Antinous took his time to reply in the hushed chamber.
‘Father, I believe I do,’ Antinous responded cautiously. ‘My tutors and companions have long prepared me for the prospect of a role as an eromenos. Among my friends, including Lysias here, we have discussed such matters often since childhood. But I had not expected a suitor to be one as noble as Great Caesar.’
I noticed Telemachus shifting uneasily in his seat.
‘To receive the favor of the emperor is a remarkable boon,’ Telemachus continued, ‘but it has obligations to be carefully weighed. In addition to your exposure to the uppermost echelon of Roman life, the role of ‘Friend’ in Caesar’s private contubernium possesses remarkable opportunities. However, it also has equally remarkable obligations.
Do you appreciate the extent of the demands to be made upon you by Caesar as your erastes, Antinous? I do not wish to give my permission to you unless it is your firm desire to become a Friend of Caesar and to freely accept such a notable mentor.’
The older man scrutinized his son with some intensity, I recall. He continued his queries.
‘I am your father, Antinous. You are the fruit of my seed and, along with your elder brother, carry the seed of this House and our line into the future. I wish to ensure your well-being, son, with your personal confirmation of this proposal if it suits your temper.
It may surprise you to learn how in recent times I have received two submissions from suitors of quality for the honor of being erastes to you. Though they were newly-bearded, unmarried young fellows of the land-owning class a few years older than you who are probably known to you from the palaestra yard, I nevertheless rejected their proposals. They were petitioners of an unsatisfactory quality for my son. I did this even without discussing them with you.
However, Antinous, a proposal from Caesar seems an exemplary opportunity to your benefit, and one in which I have difficulty detecting fault. Do you agree?’
There was a thoughtful pause.
‘I am proud and flattered, Father,’ Antinous uttered with not a little calculation, “that Caesar has taken an interest in my character and welfare. My single day’s exposure to his company at Nicomedia proved our Princeps to be a most generous gentleman. He was very attentive to those of us there, and to me especially, with openness I found disarming in so great a noble.
Nevertheless I request your opinion, Father, of his proposal and your advice on what you expect of me? I request your instruction about the terms of this relationship, as a father expects of a dutiful son.’
Telemachus again shifted uneasily in his seat.
‘You and your friend Lysias are very young men, Antinous, barely out of childhood though already of a military age,” he said. “At your age I was already serving as a junior officer with the Greek auxiliaries to Trajan’s legions at Dacia.
Over the coming few years both you and Lysias will mature towards man’s complete status. You will learn what it is to be a man who takes initiatives in life, who possesses focused drive and consummates his ambition by effective action in a warrior’s way. It is the dynamism of being male, both physically and spiritually. It is training in a way of life which separates us of the Hellene elites from the craven races beyond the Black Sea and our borders. They are slaves to their masters.’
As he continued his brow darkened. Telemachus drew himself forward towards the four men standing before him.
‘Among the Hellenes the optimum virtue is arête, the pursuit of excellence. In Homer or Socrates or Aristotle it is arête which infuses the Greek view of life. Arete is goodness, arete is achievement, arête is manly excellence, arête is when our actions rise above the conflicts of life and we achieve high honor. Arete propels our Olympic Games. Arete drives Greeks to Victory! Arete is life! The spirit of arête is the most important facet of the training of youths to full manhood,’ the ageing soldier and farmer proclaimed with intensifying emotion.
‘In days long ago our forefathers told that a man’s masculine power, his ar
ête, is carried in his life fluids. His living blood, sweat, and semen convey the masculine energies. Especially, they said, his semen, which is the source of his regenerative powers. Semen propels the seed of life of a man, and conveys within it a man’s domination of his world. Our physicians say a man’s semen, when sown into the body of a woman, nurtures and ripens and grows in her nourishing moistures until it blooms and fruits into a newborn child. Preferably a son.
Likewise, those ancients said, when it is planted in the body of a youth it nurtures and grows spiritually. The arête ripens into masculine traits worthy of participating in the society of mature men, for deeds of courage, honor and decisiveness.
The ancients said a student, an eromenos, partakes of his trainer’s - the erastes’ - male energy by ritually absorbing his vital spirit and vital fluid. By intimately relating to his erastes over time, the eromenos is imbued with the erastes’ gift of the power to pursue excellence, to achieve victory, to be a leader of his people, and also in the breeding of straight-limbed sons. He learns how to act like a man in the competitive arena of life.
In return the younger man shares his friendship and his body’s perfection with his erastes in both spiritual and physical ways. This has long been the way of the Hellene elites, my son. It has a noble pedigree over many generations.’
His listeners were deathly silent.
Antinous fumbled for an appropriate response. He was made apprehensive by such a candid exposition of the eromenos’ role.
‘I think I understand, sir, and I salute the heritage,’ he waffled. ‘But, Father, I humbly seek your advice on an aspect of this matter which concerns me and remains barely spoken among my tutors and peers. It is a clouded matter. It is this. Women and even young girls who have attained menarche are said to enjoy and delight in the reception of the male seed from a worthy partner, their husband. We are told their bodies are created to desire their husband’s dominion and penetration so as to nurture his seed into living offspring, our sons.
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