by Kyle Onstott
It was a week of complete understanding, during which they grew to know each other even better, to understand each other and to make allowances for the disparities in their characters and upbringing. Hierocles became more tender. The sharp edges and the quick tempers of his barracks-bred roughness were softened and refined by Antoninus’s gentleness. Antoninus became less petulant, more mature. He lost some of his mincing walk and airy affectations, and was coarsened a bit by Hierocles’s masculinity. His voice deepened and lost its high-pitched querulousness; his face, without the white lead and antimony, lost its Syrian softness and became handsomer. There was a blending between the two of them, each taking from the other the needed qualities he did not possess. It was a week of miracles in which the chariot driver became a little more polished and the Roman Caesar a little roughened.
On the last night of their stay, Hierocles awoke in the night, noticing that the pool of moonlight on the floor had disappeared and that there was utter blackness in the little room. He had been dreaming and his dream was so forceful, so much of a reality to him, that he awoke the sleeping Antoninus.
“You call me Antoninus, carissimus. Is something the matter, something wrong?”
“No, beloved, nothing wrong, but I had a dream.”
“Did you dream of me?”
“Yes, of you, but not in the manner you think. Listen, Antoninus, sometimes the gods speak to men through their dreams. I believe some god just spoke through me.”
“Some god, carissimus? There is only one god and that one Elah-ga-baal.”
“You are right! That is what I want to talk to you about. First, let me tell you my dream.”
Antoninus stared into the blackness, listening to Hierocles’s words.
“I saw you, beloved, as I first saw you that time in Rome, walking backward along a long straight road. You passed me, but this time you did not falter and as you passed me, you did not look at me.”
“Then your dream was not true, carissimus. I could never pass without looking at you.”
“Yes, it was true, for you had something more important to look at than this poor mortal. Following you, came all the gods of the world. First was Roman Jupiter with his crashing thunderbolts in his band; then Juno, the great Mother of Rome; and Venus with the golden apple, and Mars behind her fully armed with drawn sword; Mercury, running over the tips of the grass with his winged sandals; Eros, his arrows unquivered, and Diana, fresh from hunting the stag. All the others were there—Bacchus with vine leaves and purple grapes in his hair; the drunken Silenus; even Priapus with his huge swollen member. And after them came strange gods—Isis of Egypt and the dog-faced, cat-faced gods of the Nile, with the creeping crocodile and other fantastic gods of Nubia and Africa. Astarte and the Moon Goddess of Sin; Mithras leading the mystic bull and all the myriad Baals. A great cloud passed that was the Jewish Hahveh, and after that a white-faced figure, bearing a cross that was this Jesus of the Christians. Plodding along behind them with a multitude of unknown gods, some wrapped in skins which belong to the Barbarians of the north; other gods with blue-stained faces from Britain bearing golden boughs—all the gods that men have ever worshiped, in a long and endless procession behind you.
“Suddenly a blinding flash exploded, a light so bright that it burned everything before it, leaving only you and me. All the gods had disappeared and in their place there was only this bright and blinding light, which was so beautiful that neither of us could take our eyes from it, and yet for all its brightness we could look at it without burning our eyes. Then, out of that whirling brightness, there was formed a man—a man of light. Everything about him radiated light. His flesh glowed as a living coal and from his head darted rays of light. I marveled at his beauty and then I recognized his face as that of your Zoticus, until it changed and I beheld myself as in mirror. Then my features too disappeared and only the form of the god was left. He was not a human such as was Jove or Isis but he was a god.”
“He was Elah-ga-baal.”
“Yes, he was the incarnate Sun. He was so holy that both you and I kneeled before him.”
“How were we kneeling, Hierocles?”
184
“Together, with our arms around each other.”
“I am glad. I feared we might be separated.”
“Never, beloved, not even a god could do that.”
“Carissimus.”
“And then the god spake and he spake to both of us.”
“What were his words?”
“ ‘There is but one god and I am he. Upon your shoulders lies the task of bringing me to all the world. All the other gods men worship are as nothing beside me. You, Caesars both of you, govern Rome but Rome is such a little thing. Tum, Caesars, tum from Rome and bring the world to me.’ ”
“And then, carissimus?”
“And then I awoke.”
“It was indeed a wondrous dream, carissimus, and I am glad that we were together. Tomorrow when we return to Rome we shall call in the augurs and let them interpret it for us.”
Hierocles sat up in bed. “Augurs? What know they? Think you that the twists and turnings of a chicken’s guts can interpret this dream? No, beloved, I had the dream and I can interpret it for you. Listen to me.”
“I listen, carissimus.”
“You, my beloved, are the Emperor of Rome. Here in our bed we forget that momentous fact, and here in this little villa we have put it out of our minds for a week, but even though we try to forget it, we cannot ignore it. Listen! You can go down in history as one of the greatest of all Roman Emperors.”
“I?”
“Yes, you! What has made Rome great? Why is Rome the world?”
“Because Rome conquered the world.”
“And Rome united the world under one government.”
“That is right,” Antoninus agreed.
“And the great emperors of Rome were those who unified it—the Divine Julius, Augustus, Trajan, Titus and all the others who conquered and extended, the borders of Empire. Thus Rome stands today as the world, but, beloved, Rome is still divided.”
“How? Rome is one, there is but one government, one Emperor, one Senate.”
“Agreed,” Hierocles nodded in the darkness, “but, Rome worships many gods. Rome has no religion, for in one place it is Jove, in another it is Mithras, in another it is Urania, in yet another Isis or any of the multitude of strange gods which I saw following you in my dream.”
“How know you all these things, carissimus?”
“Because I was not always a chariot driver. My mother and I were slaves of Marcus Salvius who was a noted scholar. Ofttimes he would make me sit and listen to him while he talked. Thus I know. But hush, beloved, do not distract me. Tonight I speak not the words of Hierocles but of some divinity which is within me. Rome can be even greater. Now that Rome is unified in its government, another great Caesar can unify Rome in its religion, so that from the foggy coasts of Britain to the deserts of Libya, all men will worship one god. The emperor who can accomplish that will be as great, if not greater, than any other. And you beloved, can be that Emperor.”
It was Antoninus’s turn to sit up in bed. “I? Yes, carissimus, I could do that. I could lead all men to Elah-ga-baal.”
“And you would not fail, beloved, for Elah-ga-baal is a god, as I saw tonight in my dream. He is not a human, for although momentarily he had the face of Zoticus and then of myself, these faces vanished. No man can be a god. Those who have tried to make gods out of men have failed. They tried to make Julius, the first Caesar, a god. But who worships at his temples today? Hadrian tried to make his darling Antinous a god, and built temples to him throughout the breadth of Empire, yet Antinous never achieved godhood. The Jews have tried to make a god of this man Jesus but they have failed because he too was only a man. Elah-ga-baal is a god. I saw him tonight, compounded from the brightness of the sun, obliterating all the false gods. You are Caesar and Elah-ga-baal is your god. You are Pontifex Maximus of Rome, High Priest of all
the Roman Gods, but before that you were High Priest of the Sun. You are the supreme religious leader of the world. This, then, is your path to greatness, beloved.”
Antoninus sank back beside Hierocles. “You have said wondrous things to me tonight, carissimus. Great things, unselfish things. Never before have I found in the mind of man such greatness. But, carissimus, I am only a boy. How can I do all this?”
“You have me to help you, beloved.”
“Yes, perhaps together we can change the old gods of Rome and Greece and Egypt to one god, the supreme Elah-ga-baal. I think we can—I say we shall. It is a great work, carissimus, and now I burn to return to Rome and start it. When we sought this bed last night, I was sorrowful that our week of joy was over. Now, carissimus, we have work to do in Rome.”
17
Antoninus’s satyric sexuality and his mystical religion were deeply and inextricably linked together in his character. One was the offshoot of the other and it would be difficult to say which was the cause and which the effect. From his mother and his Syrian ancestors, he had inherited an overwhelming sensuality which had been nourished and encouraged in the phallic worship of his god Elah-ga-baal, whose symbol was the phallus. In the mind of the young Antonine, his physical desires and his spiritual obligations were one and the same. Elah-ga-baal, the Emesene prototype of that same Baal who was worshiped under so many different names in all parts of Asia Minor, was a god of natural potency and fertility and this particular Elah-ga-baal, exemplified by the sun, was strictly a masculine god as opposed to the femininity of the moon. Thus, the worship of Elah-ga-baal was one in which the eastern sensuality of the Syrians had always found a most satisfactory outlet.
From his earliest years, Antoninus had been encouraged in his sensuality by his family, slaves, tutors and priests, and to him the gratification of his senses was a supreme right for it demonstrated his religious fervor and served his god. The more he indulged his desires, the greater his service to deity. He had never made any distinction for his physical desires were also metaphysical. Therefore, the introduction of Elah-ga-baal to Rome by the god’s high priest, who was also emperor of Rome, had seemed obligatory to him and for this reason he had brought the sacred stone to Rome. Now, supported by Hierocles’s dream, which clearly outlined Antoninus’s pressing duty, Antonius was determined both as Caesar and Pontifex Maximus to combine all of Rome which meant the world into one god, and that god his own Elah-ga-baal. It was a worthy ambition.
The gods of Rome were dead! True, a certain amount of superstition still remained and a desultory worship was maintained at all the various temples in Rome but nobody actually believed in the state Religion—the worship of Jove, Juno, Venus, Mars and all the lesser lights of their adapted Grecian theology. In her conquests, Rome had absorbed many other gods to compete with those already on hand. Mithras was claiming many converts; Christianity was making its inroads; Isis was increasingly popular, but, in spite of Antoninus’s insistence, Elah-ga-baal had made but little impression on the Roman mind.
Elah-ga-baal was not fashionable, despite his imperial sponsorship, and to be worshiped, a god must be the fashion. What little religiosity still existed in Rome was in the province of Rome’s female population. It was they who worshiped at the Temple of Vesta; who flocked to the Temple of Isis; and were fast accepting the meek theosophy of the Jewish Jesus. Elah-ga-baal had never encouraged female worshipers. Men, and men only, were important to his shrine and although women were grudgingly admitted to the old Temple of Minerva, which had been refurbished as a temporary home for the sacred black stone, they were not encouraged.
Nor did the prostitution of Elah-ga-baal’s priests prove as popular among Roman males as it had in Emesa. Why go to the Temple of Elah-ga-baal at night for the services of a dark-haired, swarthy-skinned Syrian, when the baths of Caracalla teemed with hundreds of beautiful lads whose services were easily procurable at any hour of the day? And the baths were not the only source, for there were as many if not more, lupanars in the Suburra, whose winged phallus over the door indicated that their luscious catamites were available to all for a price.
Here then, was Antoninus’s opportunity to make the worship of Elah-ga-baal fashionable and desirous. By so doing he would exalt his own position and establish Elah-ga-baal as the one god of Rome and Empire. It was indeed a worthy project and far more challenging to him than mere political chicanery. He was bored by judging intricate legal debates, ruling on the sanctuary of far-off temples, listening to the sterile speeches of long-winded senators and frittering away his time on dusty questions of protocol. Rome was at peace. No wars threatened her borders or security. Rome was prosperous. There was no famine in the land. Rome was rich. The spoils of the world belonged to her and her Caesar. The government of Rome was proceeding as usual—Julia Maesa saw to that. Then, why not devote all his time to this higher pursuit—this joyful, happy, worthwhile objective of making his own god the god of the world, which coincided so well with his natural desires? Why not? Indeed, why not?
Consequently, on the morning that Antoninus and Hierocles arrived back from their idyllic week at the villa, they both plunged into the work. Hierocles was a worthy partner to set the work in motion, for he felt that he had been divinely inspired, and that through it both he and his beloved would acquire world fame, not only for their own day but for centuries to come. Hierocles, too, had a deep mystic soul and had always believed that his association with Antoninus was something in the manner of a divine miracle, ordained perhaps by this god that Antoninus worshiped.
Within an hour of their arrival at the palace, messengers began running through the streets of Rome. Antoninus had delivered an ultimatum to the wily Maesa and for once she was forced to accept. She foresaw that with Antoninus’s preoccupation in religion, she would have a clear field in politics. Moreover, the entire history of her family had been vitally influenced by the Sun God and she too felt some desire that what had heretofore been purely a local deity, served by generations of her own family, should now be universally adored throughout the world. As she shared in the revenues of the temple, it would also add to her riches and Maesa was, above all, avaricious. Furthermore, she hoped that her grandson’s religious fervor might heighten his popularity in Rome, as it had in Emesa, for she sensed that his prestige was beginning to wane. The common soldiers, whose love and affection he had won in Syria, were now outside his sphere and the haughty Praetorians, who were the real force in Rome, were already critical of their Caesar. A peacetime army was always a hotbed of revolutionary ideas.
The messengers sped off. Heterodorus, the Greek architect, was summoned from his early morning lovemaking and commanded to appear at the palace immediately. A fitting temple to house Elah-ga-baal was the extreme necessity— the old Temple of Minerva was neither adequate nor grand enough. Antoninus had ideas about what he wanted and together with Hierocles and Heterodorus, he sketched roughly on paper that which he desired. It was to be a temple that would put all others in Rome and throughout the Empire to shame. Even the great Temple of Diana of the Ephesians would not be able to compete with it.
Antoninus wanted an imposing edifice, something which would be so overwhelmingly pretentious that it would generate awe and admiration not only in Rome but the world. He conceived of it as being entirely open to sun and air so that the light of the sun would be its most important component, until night, when light would disappear and darkness would envelop it in an air of mystery. The building proper, which was to house the sacred stone of Elah-ga-baal, was to rise high on three sides, but be left open in the front. On each side of the main building were to be two long wings, extending to form the back of an enormous courtyard. These wings would house the sacred symbols of all other religions, making them a part of but subservient to the central Sun. The other two sides of the courtyard were to be open porticoes, solidly walled on the outside but with rows of pillars on the inner, making a covered walk where hundreds of priests could walk by night. The front was to
be a pillared portico, with a high gateway in the centre, the whole square enclosing an enormous court which would contain altars for sacrificing, space for dancing processions and priestly rites.
Heterodorus was commanded to put his entire staff to work at once on the plans. All other buildings in Rome must be stopped immediately so that the masons and carpenters could begin at once on the temple. The rarest of marbles must be found, especially those in the shades of bright yellow and pure white of which most of the building was to be faced. Everything must convey a sense of light—a vivid, incandescent light—such as Hierocles had seen in his dream, for this light was the sun and this sun was God. No representational figure of Elah-ga-baal was to be made—he was not to be visualized in human form, only symbolized by the sacred phallus, that which gives life and breath and being to all.
These days of planning were impatient and frustrating. Nothing ever seemed to go right. It was one thing for Caesar to command a temple to be built, but it was another thing to get it built. At length, after much consultation, the plans were finally approved by Antoninus and Hierocles, and Heterodorus set his staff to work, compiling specifications for the material that was to be used in the building and for the marble that was to face it. Work on the new Senate Chambers. on the new colonnades in the Forum and the Flavian Amphitheatre was stopped, and all the workmen transferred to the Temple of the Sun which was to be on the Palatine Hill, adjacent to the Golden House of Nero. Even parts of the sprawling Golden House were dismantled to provide more immediate materials for the temple. The gold plates that faced the dome of the imperial throne-room were removed to line the shrine of the sacred stone; sections of mosaic pavement were taken up, pillars of rare porphyry, alabaster and malachite were taken out and replaced by plain marble.