by Kyle Onstott
“It will be a pleasure to serve you, Great Caesar, and to be the Consul Alexander’s slave. He is my friend.”
“And I am your friend, Rufus. The life of the Consul Alexander is very precious to me. Not only is he my son and heir but he is my cousin and the only one to carry on the holy line of the Priest-Kings of Emesa. I want you to guard him well, Rufus. I want you to report to me everywhere he goes and everyone he sees.”
“I will, Great Caesar. I’ll not leave him alone for a minute and I shall protect him with my life.”
“Good. Then remember, you must come to me every morning and tell me where he has been the day before and whom he has seen.”
“Yes, Great Caesar.”
“Then you may go. Report to my slave, Cleander. He will see that you are bathed, given new clothes and taken to the Consul’s apartments. You shall come to me every morning at the hour before noon when I am always in the palace, for it is the other Caesar’s and my custom to bathe and change our clothes before we eat at midday. Come here to my rooms. The guards will have orders to admit you. Now go! Ask the Praetorian outside for my slave Cleander. You’ll probably find him behind some pillar or in some dark corner with a soldier.”
Rufus got up from his chair slowly, reached for Antoninus’s hand and kissed it. He hobbled slowly to the door. As he placed his hand on the latch, Antoninus spoke.
“My son Alexander is still a youth. He has not yet reached his full growth. I would that he be strong and healthy to fit him for the time when he becomes Caesar. Each day before he eats his midday meal, he must drink a glass of mulsum for ’tis very nourishing. It is the rarest of all wines and so scarce that I keep it here in my apartments. When you report to me I shall give you a cup of it to take to him and you must see that he drinks it before he eats. If you sample it yourself, I will have you flogged because it is worth its weight in gold.”
Rufus left and Antoninus looked at Hierocles. He nodded his head slowly and Hierocles nodded in reply. The little Antonine was arranging matters very subtly and very successfully. But one thing troubled Hierocles. He was not always able these days to follow the labyrinthine meanderings of Antoninus’s thoughts.
“Well done, little Caesar. Alexander will never suspect Rufus of poisoning him, Rufus will never suspect you and Rome will never suspect. Not only well thought out but well carried out. Yet there is one thing I do not understand. This Glamus—who must even now be waiting outside your door.”
The tip of Antoninus’s tongue appeared between his teeth. He pulled it in and clicked his teeth together.
“I have decided to have a little torture chamber of my own, carissimus, here in the palace. Seeing Rufus stretched there fascinated me. Imagine what exquisite ecstasy the rack would provide, spicing pleasure with pain. It would be something entirely different, carissimus, something I have never tried before.”
Hierocles shook his fist at Antoninus. “If you intend to get me into that contraption . . .”
“Not you, carissimus, not you. I do not need to rack you to obtain what I want. I had considered trying it myself. With the experienced Glamus to work the wheels, the whole process might be enjoyable and certainly would be different. And then, who knows, I might need a rack handy sometime. The dungeons of the Mamertine are such a dirty place. I would never want to go there again to hear a confession. My own torture chamber will be bright with sunshine and flowers. Even the thongs will be of violet plaited leather, entwined with purple anemones. I think I shall have the wheels gilded. It will be an honor to be racked by Caesar, an honor.”
“The day is going to come, little Caesar, when you will not need me any more. You seem to be able to think for yourself these days.”
“Only in little things, carissimus. When it comes to big things, I shall always need you. Governing Rome is a big thing, bigger then violet leather thongs and gold-plated wheels. While my evil mind plans its evil little things, you shall do the big things, carissimus. That is why I shall always need you.”
26
A week passed. During it, Antoninus arranged for the harbor at Ostia to be dredged of Tiber silt and new breakwaters to be constructed at Leptis Magna. He had a part of the Via Sacra repaved, the capitals of the columns of Capitoline Zeus regilded, the tax rate in Alexandria raised and the tax rate in Cisalpine Gaul lowered. He removed the Pro-Consul of Cyrenaica for misappropriation of funds, and organized a school for the blind sons of army veterans in Rome. At least his name was signed to these decrees, but it was Hierocles who had decided on them. While Hierocles was busy with the weight of Empire, Antoninus was not idle.
The rack was removed from the Mamertine and reappeared at the palace, washed, gilded and sprayed with perfume and with new thongs made of violet leather. It was installed secretly in the ground floor room to which only Antoninus and Glamus had a key. Glamus was appropriately garbed in violet leather and made his home in the room of the rack, guarding its secret.
Each day, an hour before noon, Antoninus received Rufus and listened to the petty accounts of his cousin’s doings. They were trifling and insignificant. Evidently Mamaea and Julia Maesa were lying low. The failure of the last palace revolution had taught them a lesson. Alexander was Caesar’s son and heir, Consul of Rome, and apparently happy. He had his friend Rufus in constant attendance, and two new slaves by the name of Flacca and Arminia had appeared in his apartments where they were in nightly attendance. Each day when Rufus left, after his report to Caesar, he carried a cup of mulsum, that precious wine made of rose leaves, white grapes and spices, which the greedy Alexander always gulped without allowing Rufus to taste it.
There was only one small cause for concern. Alexander was complaining of slight nausea, and cramps in his stomach. Mamaea attributed it to his fondness for honey-glazed dormice, with which he stuffed himself. She forbade him to have any more but he persisted, even though be vomited them up ten minutes later. When his illness was reported to Antoninus, he called at Alexander’s apartments; found the boy retching into a silver bowl, held by Rufus; showed the proper amount of sympathetic concern, even to holding Alexander’s head himself while the boy puked; and summoned the imperial physicians who prescribed a vile-tasting syrup which Alexander refused to take.
Throughout the week, the boy did not seem to improve. He was still able to be up, attended the races with Antoninus and sat in the imperial box but he was beginning to lose weight and his face was drawn and pallid. The only thing he could keep on his stomach, so he said, was the cup of mulsum that Antoninus sent him daily. He begged for more but Antoninus confessed that his supply was running low and until he obtained more from Carthage, one cup a day must suffice. Antoninus was most patient with him.
He was patient about another thing too. Each day and night when the Praetorians changed guard, Antoninus inquired as to the officer of the day and seemingly showed no disappointment when it did not tum out to be the Tribune Agrippa. Here again, he could afford to wait. Sooner or later, the Tribune would command the palace detail. Antoninus did not want to appear anxious.
As Alexander’s indisposition increased, Antoninus became even more attentive to his cousin. He visited him daily, and each time showed signs of his regard by increasingly elaborate presents. The racing chariot Alexander had always wanted was at the Circus, awaiting his recovery, along with a quadriga of perfectly matched blacks. Flacca was augmented by a tempting courtesan from Alexandria—another gift from Antoninus—who did her best to warm the boy when he was shivering with the cold after one of his violent seizures. The Lady Mamaea almost forgot her intense dislike of her nephew in view of his solicitude for her son.
Rufus remained in constant attendance and each day brought the vigor-building (but death-dealing) cup of mulsum to Alexander. Even Julia Maesa complimented Antoninus on sharing the precious wine with his cousin and agreed to its restorative qualities. So afraid was she that Antoninus’s special private supply might be exhausted that she sent to Carthage herself in a vain endeavour to find a few ex
tra bottles.
Never had the family been more united on the surface than by Alexander’s illness. Soaemias, who had always disliked him now took pity on his suffering and left the smooth arms of Aegenax long enough to come and bathe his head in rose water. Some days he seemed to rally, enough to be up and about a few hours, then the cramps returned and he would be forced back to bed again where he would remain for a day or so.
The Greek physicians, after conferring with the priests of Asclepius, prescribed their most famous nostrums, one of which was a poultice of spider webs on the lad’s stomach. Antoninus had all Rome searched for spider’s webs, and offered a bounty. He obtained a great mass, far more than the physicians needed, but even this exotic remedy failed. Finally it was decided that the boy was too full blooded, so one of his veins was opened and he was drained of much blood which seemed only to weaken him instead of making him better. Only one medicine relieved him—the extract of white poppies from Persia which seemed to kill the pain, at least temporarily and give him a few hours of sleep. It was so efficacious that as time went on Alexander begged for more and more of it.
Aegenax led the priests of Elah-ga-baal in a full night of prayerful sacrifices for Alexander’s health and Antoninus and Hierocles attended—Antoninus not as a priest but a suppliant. Indeed, Antoninus’s conduct was so exemplary that all Rome marveled at his regard for the boy and even Antoninus himself began to believe that he did not desire the boy’s death. On such occasions, he would omit the fatal grain from the cup of mulsum, thus prolonging Alexander’s life beyond the time allotted to him by Hardranes.
Alexander, as an invalid, did not endanger Antoninus’s position and both Mamaea and Julia Maesa were so disturbed over the boy’s health that they had no time for plotting. Antoninus was happy. Government under the able hands of Hierocles was progressing smoothly. Rome seemed to love its Emperor and the legions still worshiped him. Even the Praetorians held an added esteem for him, for he was leading an exemplary life, shunning the public baths and the bordellos, keeping his inquisitive hands from wandering under strange tunics, and having eyes and ears for nobody but Hierocles and Alexander.
When Antoninus acted any role he did it with consummate skill. Now he was playing at being Emperor of Rome, the father and protector of his son and heir Alexander; in fact he had quite convinced himself that he was the model youth who would never dally with another gladiator, seek another stallion from the legion, or sacrifice as a priest of Elah-ga-baal.
And, with his histrionic concern for the welfare of his son and heir, there was birthed a real desire to have a son of his own. The line of the Priest-Kings of Emesa must be perpetuated and only he remained to do it. Could he? He had doubts but if he were to try, the first requisite was to have a wife.
Another wife! He dreaded the very thought of it as he remembered the pasty Julia and the dry-skinned Aquilla. But he longed for a son of his own—someone bound to him by ties of blood. How wonderful if he and Hierocles could have a son! But alas, the chirurgeons had told him it would be impossible. Therefore, he must marry.
When he approached Hierocles on the subject, he found him most willing that he should wed. Hierocles was aware that no woman could come between them, and that his relations with Antoninus were so firmly grounded that his hold would never be threatened. With Antoninus’s apparently sincere attitude towards a new life and his willingness to abandon his role of bath-boy and prostitute, it was altogether fitting that he prove to Rome by a suitable marriage that he could accomplish the most important of male prerogatives— that of a father. And, even more to the point, with the anticipated death of Alexander, there would be no heir to the throne and Antoninus did not want to abandon Elah-ga-baal to oblivion. It would require a member of the Emesan dynasty to carry on the worship of the Sun God.
A wife for Caesar! A mother for Caesar’s child! Once having decided, and having received Hierocles’s sanction, it was now time to act. All the eligible matrons of Rome were alerted and fond mothers, regardless of the known reputation of Antoninus, were only too avid to place their daughters beside him as the new Augusta. The eligible ones ranged in age from twelve to twenty, although there were a few who were suspected of being over the twenty-year limit. They came from the best families in Rome—not only the old Patrician Gens but some of the newer and wealthier Eques order.
The better to study them, Antoninus decided to give a banquet and as the Greens had recently won ten consecutive victories in the Circus, he decided to combine the two occasions, certain that if the aspirants for his band bored him, as he knew they would, he could assuage himself with the charioteers. In order to study the various virgins of Rome, Antoninus decided on a wholly different kind of banquet. It would start in the morning and last until early evening. Thus he would see the fair nymphs under different lights and different conditions. He would be able to view them with the freshness of their toilettes and the exuberance of a party’s beginning, and later with their freshness gone and the lines of fatigue on their faces.
But a banquet lasting throughout all the hours of the day in the imperial banqueting ball would be boring and tiresome. Then—and he felt this to be a brilliant inspiration—let the banquet take place in different palaces in Rome. A course in each palace and, as they were celebrating the victory of the Greens, let every morsel of food served be green in color. Not the same shade of green of course. And the guests would don silken tunics of the shade of the food be it the light yellow green of spring or the blue green of the sea.
For such an enormous crowd it would be necessary to requisition the largest palaces in Rome. The first course, naturally would be served in Caesar’s Golden House. Then they would proceed to the vast pile of the Lentulli; on to the house of Gracchi; to the villa of the Cornelii outside the walls; back to Rome for a course in Caesar’s own Pincian Gardens; then to the Palace of the widow Pompeianus. The widow Pompeianus had recently become a widow because her husband had plotted against the life of Caesar and had been forced to commit suicide. Because his wife had been a close friend of Julia Maesa and his aunt’s, Antoninus had not confiscated the property so the widow should be willing to open her house to him.
The day arrived and the guests assembled at the Golden House for the first course which was oysters, dyed green by the juice of spinach, served on mountain snow in dishes of green murrhine glass. Every couch in the immense hall was filled by the eligible daughters of Rome’s first families, along with their doting mothers, balanced by drivers and chief supporters of the Greens.
Antoninus looked them over carefully. Among the drivers there were many who appealed to him but among the carefully dressed and bejeweled damsels there was not a single one that interested him—not a one. They were either too large or too small, too fat or too thin, too blond or too brunette and . . . they were all girls. He shuddered as he looked at them, trying to picture himself in bed ‘with one of them. The very thought nauseated him so that he could not eat the verdant oysters on his plate.
Hierocles’s place on Antoninus’s right was balanced by that of Soaemias on his left, and as he glanced at his mother out of the corner of his eyes he came to realize why none of the young charmers that had been marshaled for his choice could appeal to him. Soaemias’s full-blown beauty was so magnificent in contrast to these pale young aristocrats that it completely overpowered them. Her voluptuous curves; the ivory globes of her breasts under her thin silk stola; her high coloring, vivacity, and her easy companionship with Aegenax, who was sitting beside her, put all the others, airy affectations to shame.
Alas! If he could only marry his mother! Life with her would be interesting. Now, if he could only find someone like her. He scanned the expectant faces along the couches. Bah, there was none in Rome like her.
After the oysters were downed the party arose from their couches and progressed down the long corridors to the main entrance of the palace, where a procession of litters was waiting to convey them to the palace of the Lentulli. Here, before en
tering the triclinium, each guest was furnished with a silk tunic of a delicate shade of sea green and directed to dressing rooms. Eventually they assembled on the couches set up in the big dining room, ready for the second course which was a rare delicacy in Rome—camel’s hooves, served with a pale green sauce of mint.
The entertainment that accompanied the meal was most unusual. Gaius Lentullus had sought hard to please his Emperor and he did, with a mime on the death of Attys, in which the young Green actor would have even emasculated himself were it not that Antoninus, at the fateful moment, called a halt to the sweep of the knife and the fellow remained intact. Afterwards Antoninus rather regretted that he had not allowed the performance to continue. It was something he had never witnessed before, and it would have provided an interesting souvenir but it would certainly have been bloody and his stomach still felt queasy.
He had forgotten the girls in his interest in the pantomime but now he looked them over again. They were not quite as fresh-looking now as when they had first appeared at the palace. Some of their maquillage was streaked, coiffures disarranged and the anxious look of anticipation was beginning to wear thin. But Soaemias, now once removed on his left to make way for his host, was as buoyant as ever, her conversation as animated, and her hands on Aegenax’s thigh as affectionate as before.