‘I want to hold you close to excite you,’ Herodes teased. “I want you to feel my breath on your neck. I want you to feel my flesh press against yours. I want to lick you clean of your body’s sweat and your mind’s restraint. I want to open your defenses to my ambush. I want to be savage with you, kouros.’
Herodes blew cockily into his ear as he allowed his beard’s trim bristles graze Lysias’s jaw. His fist lingered thrillingly at the young man’s lap pressing audaciously into his groin.
‘Allow me to awaken my horny Bithynian’s love juices, kouros. Let me clasp his body, seize his hips, hold firm his butt, fondle his equipment, stir his vital parts, and feel his bloodstream race. I want to enter his mouth and taste his sweet saliva. I want to hold his hardening manhood in my palm and feel his body melt willingly under my persuasions.
I want my kouros to deliver himself up to me entirely. I will enter deep into him to penetrate his hidden heart. Does this sound agreeable, my handsome beauty from a distant shore? Is your secret hunger excited at my battle plan?’
Lysias grunted an ambivalent approval while his crutch responded with concrete affirmation. He was exhilarated. Someone was propositioning him for once, not his charismatic friend. This was indeed a new experience. His inner spirit soared. He turned with a stupid grin to his libidinous enquirer.
‘Sure. Certainly. Yes. I respond. But where?’ he mumbled. ‘There’s no privacy here. Yet we must be here for Antinous when he returns.’
From the corner of his eye Herodes perceived something which caught his immediate attention. Three caped men disguised behind elegant Dionysian masks, one revealing the folds of a toga beneath his cape, had mounted the entrance ramp to the Acropolis citadel. They were following close after Antinous as he approached the precinct’s gateway.
Herodes realized the three were moving behind him at a discreet distance, possibly to avoid recognition. He detected one of the men was bearing a short-sword concealed bumpily beneath his cape, a weapon banned at the public revel of Dionysus.
‘Kouros, perhaps we should find a sheltered place within the Acropolis precinct,’ Herodes beckoned. ‘There are many hidden cul-de-sacs between the shrines to exploit. I’ll show you. Follow me, my dark jewel, you’ll soon feel my body’s urgency.’
He grasped Lysias vigorously by one arm and slapped him cheerfully across his behind as they hurried towards the citadel.
Antinous looked high into the gloom towards the lofty effigy of the armored female warrior looming before him. Her helmet’s crest almost touched the high star-scattered vaulting of the ‘chamber of the maiden’, the Parthenon. The monument was almost twenty-five feet high.
In the inner cella of the pillared hall this towering manifestation of the patron deity of Athens, Athena Parthenos, looked down upon her devotees. She was embellished in flesh of white ivory draped with ankle-length robes of beaten gold. With her upright spear held firm in one hand, her shield at her feet embossed with Greeks fighting forces of Amazons, with a prominent sphinx-head and griffins protruding from her helmet, plus the Gorgon Medusa emblazoned on her breastplate, she impressed upon Athenians how their patron goddess epitomized the eternal fight of civilization against the dark forces of irrationality and chaos.
Basins of flame before the stupendous effigy on this night of the Great Dionysia cast a guttering glow over the treasures arrayed across the marbled floor before her. Gold and silver ritual objects, fine weapons and armors, thrones of ivory and precious stones, all the rich dedications of generations of votaries of her cult sparkled and glimmered among the painted dark blues and gilt bronze of surrounding friezes and metopes.
An ornate security fence protected Athena’s treasures from the sacrilege of thievery, while guards of the City Militia hovered motionless with spears to watch over the occasional stumbling partygoers wandering into the cella from the roistering outside. But Antinous found himself alone by the ornate fence looking into the shadowy dimness above. An impromptu prayer arose within him.
‘Athena Parthenos, virgin half sister to Apollo, my Healer of Heaven and cult champion, receive from me my plea for protection in your domains. I have no worthy offering other than my youth and my honor. Protect me on my journey into the fellowship of the great Caesar of the Romans, Hadrian. Praise be to Caesar! Instruct me carefully in your arts of civilization and virtue. Guide my tongue, my hand, and my eye to express your gifts of arete. Imbue me with skill, finesse, and subtlety. Guide me in your ancient path of victory against disorder as you have the Greeks of old. Make me a worthy eromenos to my destiny’s erastes, at cost of my body, my heart, or even my life. Praise, Praise, Praise! Athena Parthenos!’
Antinous genuflected to one knee in the traditional manner and performed the proper obeisance gestures. He then withdrew to the citadel precinct outside the temple.
To the east of the plateau beyond the Parthenon, beyond an ancient outdoor sacrificial altar and other statues, stood the demure Temple of Rome and Augustus. Its domed modesty was where the cult of the emperor had been increasingly honored since Rome’s defeat and impoverishment of Athens after Sulla’s conquest two hundred ago. But now under Hadrian Athens was being restored to new glory as the second city of the Empire.
Antinous kept clear of the gaggles of frolicking revelers. Instead, passing an occasional ambiguously-gendered, cross-dress wanton lurking in a pediment’s shadows and beckoning with mischievous eyes, or a party-person confirming their Dionysian riotousness by vomiting noisily into a drain’s recess, he wandered in delight across the plateau. He played the eternal tourist exploring its monuments, chapels, shrines, altars, and temple facades. He ambled happily to the quiet of the rotunda chapel of the temple of the Imperial cult.
This austere, delicate Temple stood in imposing solitude at the far end of the citadel keep. Life-sized statues of recent emperors stood impassively by the entrance vestibule, while within the small interior chamber a simple stone sacrificial altar scrubbed clean of smoky fats sat beneath the soft glow of suspended votive lamps.
Once inside the Temple, Antinous cast his eyes over the symbols of Rome’s heritage proclaimed in bronze and marble for the edification of the city’s citizens. Only a small bowl of wispy incense relieved the funereal silence of the chamber with its bronze imperial inhabitants. Antinous contemplated their frozen countenances in thoughtful silence.
A voice intruded.
‘You wish to desecrate this holy sanctuary, foreigner?’
The voice intoned its complaint in Latin-inflected Greek.
Antinous spun on his booted heel towards its source. A man in a fulsome cape which covered a Roman toga and who wore an obscuring party mask across his face was confronting him from the shrine’s solitary entrance. Two other men in masks stood nearby.
‘You show disrespect for your betters, foreigner,’ the figure announced menacingly.
‘No, you are mistaken, good sir,’ Antinous responded. ‘I am very respectful of this sanctuary, sir. I admire and celebrate the Caesars, despite being of Greek origin.’
The figure at the doorway moved forward and lifted the mask from his face. Antinous realized immediately it was Lucius Ceionius Commodus, the Roman Favorite who had departed the Theater Of Dionysus earlier the same day in a fit of temperamental pique.
‘Despite being Greek? You speak with a forked tongue, foreigner. Take him, citizens!’
Without pause the two men leapt forward and grasped Antinous by the arms and head. They held him firmly against the cold stone of the altar.
‘So what have we here, then? An alien youth of no consequence, with a face painted like a Kerameikos harlot, loitering-with-intent in Rome’s sacred house of remembrance of the Divine Caesars. What are you, boy, a slave whore from the sewers of Kerameikos? Do you seek to ply your gutter trade in this holy place?’ the Roman with fine pale skin and glitter-scattered hair demanded. The other two men sniggered from behind their masks.
‘No, sir, you know who I am. You surely recognize me? I am
a guest of Caesar at the Great Dionysia. I am freeborn Antinous of Bithynia, son of Telemachus of Claudiopolis of the equestrian class,’ he called as he writhed beneath the firm grip of the masked men.
Commodus smiled disdainfully at the struggling figure before him. He reached to the side of one of his aide’s capes and drew a Roman gladius short-sword from its scabbard. Its buffed iron shone beneath the lamps’ glow. Its finely ground tip and blade edges gleamed piercingly.
‘Foreigners should know their place in the world, whoreboy. They should not step beyond the limits of their class,’ Commodus arraigned at his captive. ‘They are menials. They are inferiors. They are rural vulgarities intruding into the world of fine manners and well bred values. Their impudence and gall is deserving of correction, foreigner. They enter into realms beyond their understanding and so deserves stern retribution. Their bodies require a visible reminder of their sortie into domains beyond their understanding. Their flesh calls for a permanent memento of their folly.’
Commodus raised the sword and waved its honed blade in too-close proximity to Antinous’s frame and face. Antinous tugged his head back abruptly from the hovering razor.
‘You are a transparent opportunist who aspires to enter into the society of great Caesar, is that not so? I have heard of you whispered in Court gossip. You’re the newest contender for the role of catamite to Caesar, true? You’re a toyboy, a wastrel offering your body and anus to the passing amusement of the Princeps. The presence of such menials in this sacred place is a profanity deserving of immediate penalty,’ the patrician sneered.
‘Turn the harlot around!’ Commodus instructed his companions.
Taking Antinous by the scruff of his mane and locking his arms, they forcibly revolved him and pinioned his jaw to the altar’s bleached stone. Commodus reached with the sword’s tip and delicately lifted the hem of his tunic to expose the young man’s securely clothed rump beneath. Antinous struggled fruitlessly under his oppressors’ crushing weights.
‘It’s whispered, hustler, that you’ve been positioned at Court for Caesar’s delectation by covert forces aiming to shift the balance of politics of the Imperium in some treasonous faction’s favor. They say you’re a stratagem or gameplan for deviously cornering Caesar’s influence?
Who is your patron, whore? Who set you up? Tell me! Do you represent the long arm of Senate discontents reaching far into Asia? Do the Legates at Ephesus or Antioch use you for persuasive ways to shore-up their claim to the succession someday? Or have the tentacles of that monstrous creature at Rome, Praetorian Prefect Turbo, set you up to spy? Perhaps it’s merely Vibia Sabina herself has recruited you to punish her husband in some witty, wily feminine way? Which?!”
Commodus was warming to his subject.
‘It seems our foreign prostitute deserves his posterior’s flesh to be incised with a memento of his intransigence to help loosen his tongue, to take as a keepsake of this night to remember for evermore?’
Commodus waved the iron blade’s tip ever closer to the young man’s hindquarters.
‘Clear the slut’s tail!’ he commanded one of the masked men, who stripped the cloths from Antinous’s hips. His slender pelvis and dimpled butt was exposed to view.
‘I have done you no harm, my lord!’ Antinous called aloud. ‘I am no prostitute or spy. On Apollo’s honor I’ve committed no offence I know of! You assault an innocent freeborn subject, sir!’
‘Yet you possess a whore’s pretensions! Your true offence is in your very existence,’ he continued. ‘It’s your existence that requires concrete conclusion. You take liberties with the honor and favor of the Imperium. You deserve the ultimate penalty. You merit being cast to wild dogs or large cats in the arena. I as a representative of The Senate am empowered to act as magistrate upon such offence, and pass judgment --- ‘
Commodus idly circumscribed the gladius blade in the direction of the lad’s exposed rump, aiming erratically as though preparing to strike.
‘Not if you wish to commit violent assault and sacrilege yourself, Commodus!’ a new voice called from the temple entrance. ‘Drop that weapon and release the boy! You have no jurisdiction here, Roman senator or not!’
Commodus and the two masked men spun around to see at the door Herodes Atticus, Lysias, and three guardsmen of the City Militia with pikes poised for instant action.
‘This is a consecrated temple of the Imperial Cult within the sacred precinct of the Acropolis,’ Herodes declared. ‘Neither weapons nor sacrilege are permitted in this precinct. This freeborn youth has done you no harm. He has committed no offence. As a commander of the City Militia and a councilor of Achaea, I charge you with public disorder and breaking the peace, Lucius Ceionius Commodus. You have assaulted a special guest of the emperor who is under civic protection. You wield a weapon where weapons are forbidden. You dishonor the memory of the several Caesars about you in this holy place. And you insult the councils, laws, and hospitality of the city of Athens. At least one of these violations will be a capital offence!’ Herodes snapped. ‘So drop the sword now!’
Commodus responded haughtily in kind.
‘I am a citizen and senator of Rome. Do not speak injudiciously in my presence, Greek!’ the patrician declaimed with lofty derision.
Herodes and his team moved forward with the long pilum shafts reaching close to the caped trio.
‘You forget I too am a citizen and senator of Rome, Commodus,’ Herodes responded calmly, ‘endowed personally by Caesar, not acquired by purchase. As a commander of the Athens Militia I posses the jurisdiction to take punitive action wherever necessary.
If you harm Caesar’s guest one whit I will fulfill my duty to a matching degree. This sacred place is under the rule of the law of Athens, not travelers from Rome! Release the young man unharmed, discard your weapon, or suffer lethal force. I will spill the blood of any coward who attacks an unarmed man without reason!’
The three militia guardsmen had maneuvered their long blades within reach of the assailants. The trio of Romans wavered.
Commodus signaled to his companions to unhand Antinous. He was about to flamboyantly tumble his blade to the paving stones with smirking bravado when he suddenly spun around. With lightning speed his sword flashed out at Antinous, its blade whispering close by his face. A slim hairline incision two inches in length opened across Antinous’s cheek. It welled scarlet.
Lysias raced to his friend’s assistance as Antinous lurched away from his persecutors to greater safety, grasping his loincloths about him as he moved.
Herodes grabbed a spear from one of his militia companions to resoundingly whack its metal-studded hardwood shaft across Commodus’s back. The impact knocked the gladius from his hand and brought him tumbling against the altar block with a sharp cry. He clawed at his spine and fell to the flagstones in an ignominious flurry of toga wools and dust.
Now three glinting spear points were hovering menacingly within inches of the senator’s face. The smirking bravado had vanished.
Herodes raised the sword from the flagstones and waved it languidly in the direction of the Roman.
‘We are done here, Senator Lucius Ceionius Commodus. You have exhausted your credit in this city,’ the Athenian declared as the patrician stumbled painfully to his feet.
‘You insult Rome, Greek!’ Commodus declaimed as he gathered his toga around him. ‘You will hear more of this! Make way for your betters, foreigners!’ He prepared to flounce out of the shrine.
Herodes stretched his arm in the Senator’s path across the door portal. Commodus was halted in mid-flight, the sword’s point now waving close to his face, not Antinous’s.
Herodes spoke quietly.
‘This event tonight will be duly recorded by a magistrate of the City Watch, Senator, and its recording documents witnessed by those present. As a councilor of this city I will ensure the deposition remains secured in perpetuity. I will not take you into custody on this occasion; its embarrassments would disturb the tranquility of Cae
sar’s pleasures at our Dionysia.
But be rest assured, Commodus, the charges will remain alive on file. I doubt you or your pleasant companions will be welcome to Athens at any future time because my father, the Prefect of the Free Ports of the East, will object to such troublemakers receiving passage. We are law abiding in this city. You are not welcome here. I suggest you depart Athens promptly and return to Italy, or else these charges will be enacted upon you within twenty-four hours. They will be to your eternal dishonor in the eyes of all Athenians, especially including Great Caesar.’
Commodus smirked thinly and swept grandly away with a pained stumble as he clutched at his back. He sneered at Antinous as he passed through the door into the night beyond.
Lysias was attending to Antinous’s wound while the injured youth fumbled with adjusting his attire. Herodes closely inspected the sliver of red flesh across his cheek.
‘The wound is superficial but it needs proper attention, Antinous,’ Herodes observed. ‘It pains me this should happen to you in such an exalted place. We will withdraw immediately to my villa nearby where my own physician can attend to the lesion. I will send a message to Caesar that you have been indisposed, and where to locate you later if he should desire.’
Antinous took his two friends by the forearms and looked into their eyes.
‘Why has this happened, Herodes? What have I done to deserve such an attack? I don’t even know this man Commodus!’ Antinous implored. Herodes responded immediately.
‘Welcome to imperial politics, Antinous of Bithynia. Your journey into its shadows has just begun.’
“So, Geta, you say Senator Commodus is a candidate for being a serious enemy to Antinous? You say he might even be involved in the death of the youth by some nefarious means?”
Clarus as usual was blunt.
Geta looked blankly to the four faces facing him as the river raced in a continuous rush in the background and morning insects buzzed around. The day’s warmth expanded rapidly.
“At least, gentlemen, I can identify someone who might have reason to do Antinous harm. Have you achieved such yourselves?” Geta queried. Suetonius ignored the query.
The Hadrian Enigma - A Forbidden History Page 28