“We’ve been told Pachrates is known to commit murder for his magic,” Suetonius proposed daringly.
The Governor fell silent for some moments. He drew himself back into his chair.
“He’s been authorized by my office on rare occasions to utilize condemned criminals destined for a fate in the arena in his magical performances. But I’m not aware of any claim of the murder of innocents. The man is devious, but so are most in the East. It’s in the air here,” Titianus offered.
“Was Antinous out of favor with Caesar, my lord?” Suetonius asked, shifting tack. Titianus was cautious for a few moments. The four sensed the question had entered sensitive territory.
“There appears to have been some form of fallout some weeks ago at Alexandria when the Western Favorite joined the tour. As you know, Commodus was popular with Caesar some years ago. But I’ve not discerned a dispute between Hadrian and Antinous about the matter. Yet the lad had his own issues to contend with,” the governor submitted.
“What are those, my lord Governor?”
“Well, to start with, after five years attachment to Hadrian he’s now no longer a meirakion young man anymore. He’s too old now for a role as Caesar’s consort. It’s too open to scandal, even here in the East where such things are widely tolerated,” the governor speculated. “Note I separate the man Hadrian from the role of Caesar. The man is entitled; an emperor is not.
I was with them both at the time when Caesar expressed this view pointedly to the lad. It was at The Soma in Alexandria only a month or so ago.”
“What was this occasion, my lord?” Suetonius enquired as all ears pricked up.
“Hadrian and several of his retinue, including Antinous, visited The Soma on two or three occasions. The Soma, Alexander the Great’s tomb, is a pivotal institution at Alexandria. It’s the city’s raison d’etre, from a spiritual point of view. Not only do tourists from across the Empire visit and pay homage to the ancient hero, his tomb unifies the contending communities of the city into a single ethos, otherwise they’d be at each other’s throats interminably.
All great cities have a key icon giving them their meaning; like a tomb or temple or hard-fought citadel. It’s no accident the regime of the Ptolemies guaranteed the security of The Soma for over three hundred years,” Titianus expounded. “Well, a member of Hadrian’s retinue suggested the mausoleum and Alexander be moved to the new city. The notion was to provide a logical focus for creating the new Hadrianopolis, correlating the heroic virtues of Caesar and Alexander under one rubric.
It’s a good idea, though I’d never allow Alexander’s corpse to leave Alexandria. Yet it would encourage tourism to the new city and attract immigrants drawn to the Roman way of life. Hadrianopolis will need such a draw-card in this godforsaken place, otherwise it will become another dead city lost beneath Egyptian sands. There are dozens already.”
“But how did this effect Hadrian’s attitude to Antinous?” the biographer asked.
“Well, Hadrian is an avid admirer of Alexander, as too is Antinous. We agreed Egypt needs the sort of public spectacles the Ptolemy Greeks once provided to give the various communities a sense of being unified. You know, grand public gardens, magnificent temples, spectacular tombs, rites like The Ptolemaia festival, plus the hippodrome’s races and games, and so on. At Alexandria all these attractions were held together by that single cadaver whose shadow we discern through the alabaster of his sarcophagus,” the Prefect explained. “Otherwise it becomes Roman against Greek, Greek against Jew, Jew against Christian, free against slave, rich against poor, and all of them against the Egyptian natives.
Instead, Antinous inventively suggested how a Caesareum honoring the Caesars at the new city of Hadrianopolis, not Alexander’s coveted body, would better fulfill the role. But he added it be accompanied by generous Imperial bequests, games, statues, commemorative coins, and cultic events, all with their emphasis on Hadrian as Caesar as the focus.
Hadrian was encouraged by the idea, it took his fancy, and the group applauded the lad’s enthusiasms. But then Caesar shifted the conversation into a darker terrain. He took this cheerful opportunity to tell the young man loudly before us how their continuing relationship must cease. He put it very plainly to him. He said how a Caesar who befits the values of a Caesareum at Hadrianopolis must display public probity in all things, including his consorts.
He explained how worshipers at a Caesareum must know their Caesar is worthy of their adoration. Such a Caesar must relinquish any relationship with a partner who is no longer beardless. He terminated the relationship then and there before our eyes. Antinous was stunned by the announcement and quite visibly distressed.”
Titianus paused to recollect the day. The four listened patiently.
“I’m sure the lad wasn’t concerned about his future prospects because I’ve reason to know how he’d accumulated wealth far beyond a youth’s needs, and was considered a prime candidate for posts in the cavalry or administration corps,” the Governor expanded. “No, his concern seemed otherwise. Some have insinuated to me Hadrian had become uncomfortable about aspects of their relationship, though no one tells me what they are. Even my spies and paid informers don’t know.
Meanwhile, it was evident Antinous was slipping into a state of disquiet. I didn’t know the lad especially well, but I could see he was troubled by his predicament.”
“What do you think that predicament was, my lord?” Suetonius asked. Titianus thoughtfully considered his response for a moment.
“Well one explanation, the simplest explanation I’d say, is Antinous was in love with Hadrian and reluctant to let go,” he stated flatly. “It’s that simple. He didn’t wish to be parted from his lover. People can be like that, you know.”
“Love?!” Clarus interjected, beginning to hear the language of a cinaedus. “Love! A young man barely beyond an ephebe’s age loves a man now in his fifties? That is bizarre, Prefect Governor. What is such a pitiable love?”
“Yes, my good senator, Love. That sad, tragic affliction of Aphrodite or her son Eros. It happens to many of us, you know? It’s unpredictable,” the Governor confirmed. “Haven’t you felt Aphrodite’s call at some time in your life, Septicius Clarus, ‘the stream of longing’ with someone, somewhere, somehow?”
Clarus sat in resolute silence.
“Another interpretation even more controversial. It is our Caesar is in love with the lad,” the Governor continued, “and Antinous was conscious of this reality and the necessary impending conclusion. This too offers an explanation, though I wouldn’t promote it too loudly if I was you. And you might leave that comment out of your transcript, scribe.”
The Governor smiled thinly at his guests.
“My assessment of Antinous was that he too had become aware of this conundrum and was drawn to seeking a resolution on behalf of his erastes, Hadrian,” he continued. “Despite his widely-perceived role as merely a pretty face in a well-hung body, Antinous struck me as having greater depth. ‘It’s what you do in life which matters, not merely how you look’, I heard him say onetime. That’s not bad.
His search for a resolution to his erastes’ dilemma was his ambitious, youthful, hero’s quest. Perhaps he saw himself following in the footsteps of a Ulysses or Jason or Achilles, or even Alexander? But I doubt he found his resolutions before events overtook him, whatever they were.”
“Is it possible, my lord Governor, you would have informer’s reports of the young Bithynian’s exploits outside his relationship with Caesar? Surely your contacts at Court have followed the lad’s activities and made his alliances known to you?” Suetonius enquired.
“Believe it or not, gentlemen, I have multiple reports and colorful tidbits about everyone attending Caesar, including yourselves may I say, but nil regarding Antinous. The young man’s faithfulness to Caesar seems exemplary. I cannot recall a single informer’s report or piece of choice gossip pertaining to the man which suggests otherwise,” Titianus replied. “Only my ward, th
e Lady Anna Perenna, seemed to find the fellow of some concern.”
“Why so, Governor?”
“My companion possesses many unusual gifts, gentlemen,” he responded. “She sees and knows things others cannot discern. Or so she tells me. As the high priestess of her cult at Alexandria she engages in all manner of arcane activities and provides esoteric advice to members of the Court.”
“How so? In what way?”
“Well, I don’t subscribe to some of her claims myself,” the Governor explained, “my relationship with my lady is based on other needs, I assure you. Yet she provides charms and talismans to assist in the love lives of our courtiers; she prepares love-potions, philters, tinctures in oil, and occult tisanes. She creates figurines for daemonic invocation to dispel undesirable influences; she can calculate the power of words through the science of geometria; and she’s expert in addressing women’s matters of a private nature. At least so I’m told by her herself.
In her calling as the Grandmother of Time it’s said she’s skilled in interpreting the will of the gods through the divination of entrails in the Etruscan manner. She interprets dreams, and most arcane of all, she is said to engage through trance as a medium of clairvoyance. At least so I am told. My companion is a woman of unusual capacities, gentlemen. Naturally, she is also a lively bed companion.”
“Prefect Governor, perhaps your good lady friend will share her clairvoyance skills in telling us what may have happened to the dead youth?” the biographer enquired sweetly.
The governor cast a steely look over the biographer.
“Don’t be fast with me, Special Inspector. I don’t necessarily support each of my companion’s claims to mystagogy. But if you wish to explore her faculties for yourself, then you should approach her personally.
Anna Perenna is an independent woman who possesses her own wealth and is not subject to my will.”
Titianus fell moodily, angrily silent. Clarus took the opportunity to enquire about the night of the boy’s death.
“Lord Prefect Governor, you said you slept the night in question at Caesar’s marquee after the banquet. Did you share company in this?” he asked in his usual unsubtle manner.
“My good Senator Septicius Clarus, don’t you trust the Governor of Egypt? Several of those at the celebration were sufficiently persuaded after the banquet to remain at our couches, excess wine or not,” Titianus regaled. “Mine was the wine plus an Iberian serving-lass named Sotira. Others made other choices.”
“Who else remained accompanied in this manner, or departed accompanied?” Suetonius pressed the questioning further.
“Why, I wasn’t especially observant of what others were up to, Tranquillus. But that up-and-coming Tribune Macedo seemed to have his hooks into a pert young girl, a local of Egyptian descent I think, while the former Master of the Hunt Salvius Julianus, who is now an important legal advisor to Caesar, was accompanied by his usual equerry friend.”
“What of Caesar himself and the guest-of-honor Commodus?” Clarus explored.
“Caesar retired alone, as has been his usual habit since this tour began. Commodus and he do not share a bed these days, to the knowledge of my agents,” the spymaster knower-of-all confided. “Commodus retired late about the same time as Caesar’s friend Arrian. Put whatever spin you wish upon that, my friends. But I had my Sotira to amuse me, so I was comfortable where I was.”
“And where was Antinous, do you suppose?” Suetonius asked.
“Perhaps he was down in his cups drowning his misfortunes, if you forgive the bad pun,” the stocky Roman contributed. “The last I saw of him was some days earlier when he was consulting with my companion, Anna Perenna, on matters of advice for the lovelorn. At least that’s what I assume they were discussing.
Perhaps my lady was invoking some potion or magician’s effigy with special powers for him to attract Caesar’s attentions again? You’ll have to ask her yourself, my friends. She knew the lad far better than I. She can be found on this very vessel at the stern cabin.
Go knock at her door, gentlemen. I must now bid you farewell.”
CHAPTER 22
After a long pause a husky female voice responded from behind the locked portal.
“Tell them to be gone, girl! I’m engaged in sacred rites,” the voice firmly instructed her servant from within the cabin.
Clarus would have none of this.
“Lady Anna Perenna of Alexandria, your visitors attend you on command of Great Caesar!” he bellowed. “We are on Imperial business and demand your immediate presence! We possess Imperial authority and the right to enforce it!”
Again a few moments elapsed before the group of four and the serving girl heard the bolts and braces of the cabin door being shunted open. The gilded carvings of the portal widened marginally to reveal a shadowy interior whose darkness at midday was illumed with a few lamps or tapers.
A billow of air steeped in expensive Arabian frankincense wafted through the portal from within the gloom. Fine streams of daylight pierced the vessel’s timbers as suspended dust particles shimmered sinuously through the pall.
“Enter!” the woman’s voice commanded gruffly. The serving girl pushed the door wider to permit entry to the visitors.
When the four came to rest a few steps within the cabin’s gloom their eyes settled on the solitary figure standing aloof before them. Amid the velvety glow of oil-lamps and an amber radiance emitted by thin alabaster portholes diffusing the afternoon’s external blaze, the Special Inspector’s group found itself in the presence of a tall, slender, dark skinned, dark haired female of a strikingly grave countenance.
Her ebony black pupils pierced the gloom from behind a face lacquered in an opaque mask of white pastes in the fashionable Palatine style. Her lips were painted with cosmetic oil the color of drab clotted blood. Carefully applied outlines in kohl eyeliner highlighted her eyes in the manner worn by the upper-classes at Egypt, with scarlet dots and edgings to augment the impact elaborately.
Suetonius perceived on closer scrutiny how the generous coat of face paint was also a camouflage aiming to conceal significant skin lacerations or the eruptions of a defunct pox beneath the ashen patina.
Poxes are egalitarian in their impact on both the plebs and the elites of the Empire, at least among those who had survived their vicissitudes in youth, Suetonius recalled. Poxes and leprosies were a cautionary sight, possibly intimating a risk of the presence of some vile contagion.
Anna Perenna’s hair was carefully wound and woven into a high mound of elaborate whorls giving the woman an even greater sense of height, while her plain silken tunic was cross-tied and belted with silk cords announcing her to be of Latin rather than of Greek or Egyptian provenance. She wore little jewelry other than delicate shoulder-length drop earrings of a primitive design with fine iron rings on three fingers of her left hand.
Something about the woman’s appearance was familiar to the biographer, though he couldn’t put his finger on the precise recall. She spoke educated Latin in a studied manner which communicated strong resolution of purpose.
“You are here upon imperial business, you say?” she asked without any hint of apprehension.
“Indeed, madam,” Clarus responded, once again waving his scroll of authority.
“Perform your duty then,” she announced in a manner suggesting an instruction rather than her own compliance.
She turned to perform a ritual wafting of her hands across a set of miniature lares figurines arranged in a sand tray between ornate lamps and incense burners as she murmured a liturgical formula in some indecipherable language. She then took her seat on a high matron’s chair facing the visitors where she primly awaited their obedience.
The group of four scanned the contents of this aft-cabin at the stern of The Alexandros as river waters audibly slapped against the timbers of the brace of biremes lashed underneath. Open chests on the cabin floor revealed stacked arrays of small bottles, jars, and flasks containing fluids, powders,
herbs, or morsels of organic materials.
A work table was laden with writing instruments, a mortar and pestle, mixing bowls, and a frosty glass beaker on a tripod with a heating lamp beneath. A nest of aged scrolls stood to one side while around the walls hung fronds of dried flora, wild grasses, and unknown organic debris.
Finely worked instruments of bronze including knives, spoons, serrated saws, probes, and surgical paraphernalia were suspended along the hull in racks. Crumbling remnants of a mummified cat, an ibis, an infant crocodile and, Suetonius suspected, a desiccated human fetus were slung on hooks across a corner stall, while knitted drapes veiled sections of the compartment from view.
High on a crossbeam one solitary lamp sat before a shrine’s niche to cast its sacramental glow across the nebulous features of a miniature figurine in human form. The effigy was looped with a thong securing a gilded locket or coin purse around its shoulders. The figurine rested against a terracotta amphora used for storing middling measures of oil or wine. The amphora appeared to have leaked a thin drip of its contents down the timber bulwark.
Each of the intruders suspected how without the generous effusion of aromatic incense and perfume the cabin would probably reek of musty decay, or worse.
“What is your purpose, gentlemen?” the Alexandrian priestess enquired
“Madam, we are here under Caesar’s instruction to enquire into your knowledge of the details of the death of Caesar’s Companion of the Hunt, Antinous of Bithynia. We seek all information possible about the young man’s death and his whereabouts the night before last. We are obliged to record our interview for the legal register, if you please. So you will respond to our individual questions,” Clarus intoned crisply
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