Antinous and his party had sailed from Nicomedia accompanying a shipload of his family’s commercial cargo. They travelled on Senator Arrian’s huge sea-freighter The Bithynian. The seven day journey of island-hopping across the Aegean Sea had tested the youths’ sea-worthiness. They later told me so over many jugs of wine. ”
“Fine, but tell us how it involves the Western Favorite…” Suetonius interjected. “Is there something we should know for our investigation?”
CHAPTER 16
“As it was told to me by the two lads, on that sea journey’s seventh day Arrian’s freighter roiled past the temple-topped promontory of Cape Sunium south of Athens and slew across the Bay of Salamis towards the city. Antinous’s party was sailing to Piraeus, Athens’ major harbor. This approach reveals the distant metropolis as a strip of structures glistening brightly in the sunlight.
From the deck of their ship plowing through the Aegean chop it seemed to Antinous, Lysias, and Thais how their destination was the knobby line of white buildings lining the coastline. As The Bithynian drew closer, this mere sliver transformed into a spectacle of high-pillared temples and shrines in stone and marble, lofty castellated defensive towers, or meandering walls and courtyards, warehouses, private villas, and tenements. Our two provincials had never seen such a panoply of urban structures before. Athens is far larger than Nicomedia.
Equally impressive were the number of vessels and fishing craft thronging the city’s two harbors. An occasional sturdy Roman war trireme braced the sea too, with their rows of oars sweeping in rhythmic unison attacking the waves. A hundred other vessels were anchored at the shore’s moorings. All this was very new to them.
However, as The Bithynian’s captain pointed out, the buildings they had been viewing were merely Athens’ waterfront suburb of Piraeus. The metropolis itself was several miles inland from the port. Later, this then proved to be an even more spectacular vision. After a lifetime’s ambition they were at last to arrive at the very heart of their Hellene world, the city of Athens.
Once berthed, they transferred their personal baggage to an oxen wagon and trundled inland to the great city awaiting them. It was the most exciting event of their lives, they said.
As they drew closer to its walls and gates, the city’s presence proclaimed itself by impacting on their nostrils. As any large city is prone, the comforting odors of potter’s kilns, baker’s ovens, and a multitude of family hearths melded contrastingly with the fetid sweetness of sewer residues, tanner’s or fuller’s soaks, public latrines, plus the fragrance of the conical pines of Achaea. All joined to proclaim the city’s human, animal, and industrial immensity. Perhaps a quarter of a million people live in this legendary city, they realized. Athens was truly a large metropolis.
To strangers, this ripeness of atmosphere is matched by a similarly earthy visual display. Garish effigies of the randy god Priapus adorn cottages and villas. His prodigiously erect phallus protects against the Evil Eye and threatens a likely rude fate for unwanted trespassers. Wittily obscene graffiti, crude insults, and lewd limericks litter all vacant wall spaces with droll texts, comic scenes, and bawdy pictures. Their jovial vulgarity offers few concessions to a polite sensibility. Athens conveys the impression, they realized, of being a city happily ruled by rampant sex in its many differing varieties or configurations. Each was more comical than the last, aiming to ward off malign spiritual influences while providing pleasing gaiety to the heart.
On their journey through the lanes to the Agora market-place their wagon trundled past a forest of statues of Olympian gods, ancient philosophers, hardy warriors, or victorious athletes frozen dramatically in mid-action. Wall niches holding devotional figures, shrines, chapels, sanctuaries, and pillared temples graced street corners and lane intersections. The debris of candle stubs, exhausted lamps, and crumbled shards inscribed with petitions to the Fates attested to the piety of the citizens in praising their gods and their heroes.
Antinous spied the side-by-side statues of the city’s much admired tyrant-killers Harmodius and Aristogiton, an eromenos and his erastes of six centuries earlier, as the wagon ambled through the Agora gateway. These ancient bronzes had been abducted to Rome by the city’s conqueror Sulla two hundred years ago, but had been recently restored to the Agora on Hadrian’s command. Hadrian’s respect for all things Greek earned him the favor of the city’s voluble population.
First impressions can be persuasive. Antinous and Lysias, guided by Thais’s perceptive eye, noted how Athenians dressed themselves with more refinement than Bithynians. Except for the rabble of slaves who throng the narrow lanes, mature Athenian citizens and their matrons wore finer jewelry and fancier fabrics in brighter dyes or weaves than worn by elders at Bithynia. Even the men of Athens seemed to be fashion conscious. Respectable women, however, were fully veiled from view behind gauzes.
There were far more women in the streets going about their business than one would see at Nicomedia, let alone in conservative regional Claudiopolis. Some seemed to be without a male guardian or a watchful slave, and were garbed in a less veiled manner than other citizens.
Unaccompanied females in public are perceived a provocation at Claudiopolis. It could lead to damaged reputation, public insult, or worse. Athens seemed more relaxed with its women.
The trio even spied a few young girls of marriageable age among the throng without hair coverings to proclaim their maidenly modesty. Perhaps they were foreigners, courtesans, or common street harlots? It seemed the women of Athens were less secluded and more open to public life than their equals in the provinces, yet they also noted how women of the elites traveled in well-guarded litters carefully screened from prying eyes.
Younger males were dressed in the regular Greek chiton tunic and himation swathe, but the fabrics looked of an unusually finer weave and pleating. Even in cool March their wools or linens seemed to be weighted for summer.
They observed, too, how men wore tunics tailored to expose greater areas of body flesh. These were shorter at the thigh and tighter at the hip than would be consider decorous at Polis, and showed more of the limbs or chest line. Their hair, too, was trimmed shorter than the tousled mops and long coils worn by meirakia young men such as Antinous and Lysias at Bithynia. Their overall presentation seemed aimed to accent their comeliness.
The lads raised an eyebrow at the many men who wore jewelry of varied richness similar to their womenfolk. Rings, bracelets, armbands, earrings, neck chains and decorative collars were common. These were thought decadent at Claudiopolis. It may proclaim the demeanor of a cinaedus at Bithynia, one who seeks to attract admirers.
Quite a few such people are visible in Athens. Many younger men even painted underlines of kohl around their eyes to enhance their appearance, or powdered their faces to display a fairer complexion. Antinous and Lysias were uncertain of the seemliness of such touches, so Thais did not encourage them.
It became evident many upper-class youths were splashed with expensive perfumes from the East, which too would be unseemly in Bithynia’s hinterland. Other young Athenians walked hand-in-hand with glamorously-attired ladies who were evidently not their wives but hired concubines or courtesans. Nicomedia, of course, also displays this custom due to the large numbers of sex workers who service transient sailors from around the Middle Sea.
Some Athenian youths walked similarly with male friends, possibly indicating an amorous liaison or at least an eromenos/erastes relationship, but this was so at Bithynia too.
Foreign visitors to Athens register their arrival with their national proxenos to record the purpose of their journey for the civil authorities. The current proxenos for Bithynia was Tiberius Claudius Atticus Herodes, known to all as Herodes Atticus. Besides being Athens’ richest man, he was a major customer of Bithynian produce at Achaea.
However the actual welcoming officer was Herodes Atticus’s eldest son, an Athenian whose name was Lucius but who too was known as Herodes Atticus.
Herodes the Younger
was a striking looking and well-dressed Athenian in his mid-twenties. The group of three saw how he noted the arriving party with inordinate interest. Lysias told me some time later he sensed Herodes’ eyes sizing him up intently, and he wondered at the time at his motive.
At the proxenos’ office they recognized Senator Arrian with a retinue of clients, stewards, and guards. Arrian strode briskly to them as their details were being recorded by the younger Herodes.
‘Welcome to Athens, masters Antinous and Lysias. On behalf of Imperator Caesar Hadrian --- and myself too, of course --- I extend greetings to you. We ourselves have been at Athens for the past week,” he said. “The springtime festivities here are very lively.’
The boys bowed respectfully in acknowledgement and saluted. Arrian continued.
‘And besides his personal welcome, Caesar has extended an invitation to you. You are to attend Caesar’s entourage at the opening ceremony of the Festival of the Great Dionysia tomorrow, the tenth day of the month of Elaphebolion. Tomorrow’s event honors seven hundred years of Athenian drama.
The day’s itinerary includes a ceremonial procession of citizens through the city to the Temple of Dionysus on the slope of the Acropolis. After a rite of sacrifice before the image of the god, a performance of a play from the classic repertoire is to be sung at the nearby Theater of Dionysus. Thousands of the city’s citizens will attend.
This will be followed in the evening by a public banquet and masked revel for all Athenians, at Caesar’s expense. Each of these events is to include you both,’ Arrian said with some pleasure at watching the youths’ faces light up at such an attractive invitation.
‘It will be our great honor to attend, my lord,’ Antinous offered cheerily.
‘Good. Then I will take my leave now,’ Arrian continued, ‘but I also wish you to join me again for private discussion this very afternoon. You are available, yes?’
This extra invitation was extended with a faintly conspiratorial air. It sounded more like a command than a invitation, the boys told me later.
‘I have matters to discuss with you of some sensitivity. I bathe daily in Athens at Hadrian’s New Baths erected beside the construction site of the Temple of Olympian Zeus,’ Arrian said. ‘I retire to the Baths each afternoon for cleansing, exercise, and reflection. Occasionally Hadrian and I do so together. It’s a necessary luxury in the summer climate here. Join me today at three hours after high sun to clean up after your long journey. Mention my name at the entrance hall and you’ll be guided to my private tepidarium so we can talk in peace.
Before the lads had time to bow or salute Arrian had swept away followed by his retinue.
‘We will attend you there at three, sir!’ Antinous called after the disappearing figure.
Thais took razor-sharp shears from the kitchen stores to hack-chop the boys’ tousled heads of hair into manes of a more fashionable length. The two wished to have a similar style to the local ephebes they had seen in the streets of Athens, yet still retain a length which indicated their meirakion young adult status.
Antinous and Lysias saw how the color had returned to Thais’s complexion after the sea journey, indicating she was feeling much improved in health. The rolling, swaying, lurching sea journey had taken its toll on the Cyrene’s usual affability. Antinous’s attentions to her during her five indisposed days had made her sea nausea bearable. But now that she was on steady land again she had returned to her usual good temper.
Once settled into their hired villa in the upper-class ward of Melite close by the Acropolis slope, the two asked Thais to trim their hair prior to the bath-house appointment with Arrian. Thais has a definite gift for anything to do with fashion, so the youngsters felt quite up-to-date and cosmopolitan by the time she had shag-cut their coiling manes into a more-controlled Athenian style. Gone were the rustic locks of provincial youths. Both boys squeaked with delight when they checked their reflection on the stilled surface of the villa’s courtyard fish pond.
It was then time to find their way through the city’s narrow lanes around the eastern edge of the Acropolis slopes to locate Hadrian’s Baths in the new Roman quarter of the city. An opportunity to bathe at a proper bath-house, sweat in a hot room, receive a strigil’s oiled cleansing, take a massage, dunk in further pools, and become thoroughly refreshed was indeed a civilized comfort. At the same time the enigma of Arrian’s summons might become evident.”
Geta rested for a few moments to take a sip of wine. His audience of investigators was growing impatient.
“What is the importance of all this in identifying enemies of Antinous, Dacian?” Clarus interjected. “Do we need to know the minutiae of their daily toilet too?”
“Allow me to reveal what I know, gentlemen. It comes from diverse sources of value,” Geta explained. “It will interest you, I am sure.” He continued his testimony.
“The older man of the three slung another dipper of water across his head and shoulders. Its splashes sprayed across all three figures seated around the marbled well of the bathhouse sodatorium.
‘Welcome, gentlemen, to your engagement in life,’ Arrian declared to his two young companions. He was attired in naught but his single senator’s ring on one finger.
Senator Lucius Flavius Arrianus Xenophon, as he is known at Rome, leaned languidly on the water-splashed marbles to relax in the chamber’s muggy heat. The gloom of the bath-house cavern was sliced by a thin shaft of sunlight streaking through the simmering haze from a high window’s grille. A fug of steam infused with the odors of woody oils and fiery coals perfumed the air. In his private chamber at the best appointed baths in all the East, the Bithynian noble’s pores sweated copiously. So too did that of his companions.
Seated on three sides of stepped slabs of porphyry, the naked men exuded rivulets of moisture across their bodies. Both boys acknowledged to themselves how this nobleman is an appealing figure of a fellow, despite his thinning head of hair and deepening facial creases. For a man in his early forties whose career is regarded as being as much a practicing historian, a major trading entrepreneur, and civic councilor, as well as a commander of the military and a senator of Rome, his muscle tone was in fine shape.
Arrian looked over the two naked youths beside him in the manner of an athlete before a wrestling match or perhaps a gladiator confronting an untested combatant.
‘You realize, Antinous, your being here is no accident? You have been on a path to this city and this present company for many months before you yourself knew of its possibility.’
Antinous and Lysias listened in attentive silence. They sweated profusely and splashed themselves with ladles of extra water while wondering where this bath-house conversation was likely to lead.
‘You, my young friend, have been carefully selected from a variety of candidates to enter the life of our Caesar. Ultimately of course it was he, Caesar, who made the final choice, but there were many forces at work to direct his attentions to someone like you. Hadrian has been studiously assessing people across his Empire, and of course he has surveyed the possibilities at Rome itself.
Your journey to this place and your association with the Imperial Household began several years ago, well before we even knew of your existence. It began with perceptions which friends of Caesar from the Greek East decided may be crucial to the survival of Roman Asia as an entity under Rome’s beneficence,’ Arrian offered.
‘Roman Asia and Greece are the homelands of the peoples we know as Hellenes. Greece is not just a blood line, it is a state of mind shared across the wider Middle Sea by all peoples under the influence of Hellenic culture.
Since his accession nine years ago as Princeps, Caesar Hadrian has stabilized the Empire’s boundaries, withdrawn from military adventures outside those boundaries, and laid the groundwork for the husbanding of wealth within the Empire. Some of this wealth will pay for the Legions who protect all the peoples of the Empire against invasion by barbarians, the remainder will be invested in Empire infrastructure and
services.
Nevertheless, my Bithynian friends, I and many other nobles of Roman Asia are deeply concerned about the future of our eastern provinces. To the north and east of the Black Sea there are vast tribes of nomads of varying races who are shifting westwards from the Caucuses to our very borders.
They are tribes such as the Sarmatae, the Vandali, the Alans, or the Scythians, who repeatedly test our defenses and our patience. They may very soon threaten our security. These are not merely groups of herders wandering in search of seasonal pasture or thieving booty, they are migrations of whole races onto the fringe of our world.
The Senate at Rome does not yet fully perceives the extent of this threat. They do not engage in strategies to prepare for an inevitable response. But I have seen the invaders with my own eyes. That is why we are here today, we three.’
The two young men sat motionless, enthralled by this soldier’s analysis of threats unknown to their experience. Arrian continued.
‘We, the leading citizens of Roman Asia, pursue two things to secure our safety and our future in this dangerous, shifting world,’ he propounded. ‘We need sturdier defenses across our eastern frontiers to stop the barbarians, and we need sufficient fighters in place to annihilate them if they breach our borders. This will be a huge cost to Rome which our taxes and wealth can barely accommodate.’
Arrian paused to splash another dipper over his frame.
‘To achieve these goals we need Caesar’s and his Senate’s continuing regard for our Hellene culture and our ways. It will require wealth, arms, manpower, and the will.
At this time Rome’s surplus wealth is channeled to protect the north of the Empire at Germania. Also, much wealth is frittered away in providing frivolous pleasures to the city of Rome itself with its many unemployed plebs. This ratio must shift.
The Hadrian Enigma - A Forbidden History Page 23