The Death of Antinous || bxb ✔︎

PANEM ET CIRCENSES

They sailed down the Aegean into the Mediterranean, the same route Alexander the Great travelled after defeating the King of Persia. Antinous and Orodes ran up and down the ship from prow to stern, gangway to plank. The slave had sailed on many ships before this one but humored his charge. Swinging from a rope Antinous told Orodes about his new school at Caelian Hill, where the sons of nobles and senators studied. He told him of his plans to become a great general just like Alexander.

The slave couldn't imagine such a future for himself and seemed no more jealous of Antinous than a rock is jealous of the sky.

"Did your Alexander also study at this school?"

"Oh no! Aristotle was his teacher. Everything Romans know, they learned from the Greeks," he said matter-of-factly, looping his legs over a wooden beam and hanging upside down.

This made the slave laugh. "You will make many friends."

"Alexander's school friends pledged themselves to him and followed him into battle." He tumbled through the air and landed squarely on his feet. "Of course, he was a prince."

The slave shrugged. "You look like a prince."

Waters were calm. Poseidon granted them safe passage. Antinous peered over the prow into the water hoping to see the god's face in the mirrored surface of the sea, but it was the twisted smile of Narcissus that stared back at him.

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One night, the ship's crew invited him to break bread with them. Orodes obediently followed when the captain stepped in front of him. "Not you, slave."

Antinous left Orodes on deck with his slave's rations while he climbed down the narrow ladder to the galley. As a guest of the emperor, he expected to hear about their many voyages, perhaps tales of the Dacian wars. But the crew was made up of rough seafaring men, who told crude jokes about the women they bedded: squealing girls, screaming girls, bleeding girls, girls who were too young to bleed. A yellow-toothed rower looked to him and grinned. Antinous sopped up his stew with a piece of bread and kept to himself. He was a boy but with the grace of a girl and when men were lonely the difference didn't much matter.

Antinous did not know loneliness until nightfall. He felt it like the tip of a stone arrowhead, sharp at first before turning into dull ache in his chest. He wept on the straw pallet Orodes had made him. In Bithynia he slept in a pile with his brothers and sisters like whelps, or else he would sneak into his mother's bedchamber and doze on her breast until his father caught him and threw him out cold and alone in the corridor beating madly on the door to get back in. Would the rest of his life now be one long cold corridor? Orodes, who was sleeping upright against the hard wooden planks of the ship, heard his sobs and went to him.

"Are you ill, little prince?"

He pulled the slave onto the pallet. "I've been cruel to you, Orodes, and you've been nothing but a friend to me."

Orodes stayed, perhaps because he wanted a soft spot to rest his weary bones or because he really was a friend. Either way Antinous was grateful for his company.

Waves gently lapped against the side of the ship in tandem with the slave's heartbeat. The rhythm was enough to calm and lull Antinous to sleep. In the moonlight, he looked upon the unmarked half of Orodes' face. He had Antinous' coloring and was as lovely as any palace consort. He had served Hadrian for a hundred moons as he told it. Had the emperor ever courted him?

"No," Orodes responded when asked.

"Why not?"

"My scar." He turned the other cheek to reveal the hook-shaped scar.

"A flower blooms even when its petals are torn," Antinous said wisely.

"Hadrian has no love for nature, it is art that stirs his soul."

He felt sorry for Orodes cursed luck. To go from a freeborn boy to a slave, and then from beautiful to scarred. His face might have been his only escape from the harsh realities of his station.

"How did you get this scar?"

The slave reached out and touched Antinous' cheek, which was smooth as marble. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

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An imperial escort awaited Antinous at the dock in Ostia. He bid farewell to Orodes who would return to the emperor's villa. He placed a hand on the slave's shoulder and said he hoped that they would meet again.

The escort raised an eyebrow but said nothing. He looked to the customs officer for Antinous' trunk but all the boy had was a sack. He peered inside and said his tunics were plain but sufficient for schooling. The other students he warned wore dyed and embroidered tunics like the one he himself was wearing. Antinous reached out and caressed the escort's sleeve. His own tunic may have been plain, but his mother's hand-combed wool was softer.

His sea legs steadied and finally found their footing on land when he was told they would have to travel by river craft up the Tiber to Rome.

The Eternal City revealed herself like a concubine, slyly at first, behind trees and brush, and then all at once in a shock of glorious white marble. The temples, amphitheaters, villas and pleasure gardens were visions he had only seen painted on urns in Bithynia. The sculpture of a resting Hercules, made in Hadrian's image, greeted them with the quiet strength of the emperor. His escort pointed out the Circus Maximus, where chariot races were held, and the Flavian amphitheater, where gladiators battled before crowds of thousands. Antinous tried to remain Greek and thoroughly unimpressed but he could scarcely hide his excitement when he saw a lion on a golden chain being led through the axial entrance of the Flavian.

Among the decadence, in the city's crowded heart, people lived stacked on top of each other in wooden structures, no bigger than a crate to house a sow. Vendors in the market selling terra cotta, papyrus, perfume, ivory, tooled leather and jewels cried out in foreign tongues to passersby. The musky smell of myrrh and turmeric rose from the spice quarter. In the meat market, dried eel, poultry and game swung on rusted hooks. Mules brayed, babies cried, there was a drumbeat from a religious celebration and wails from a funeral. The roads were blocked with carriages and carts, so many none were able to move. Citizens of this city were crushed beneath the weight of its greatness.

By carriage they travelled along the winding road of Caput Africanae to Caelian Hill where the Imperial Paedagogium was perched behind thick stone pines. Antinous straightened his tunic and smoothed his hair. It was after dusk. The students, he was told, would be in their private living quarters, asleep. His shoulders slumped. 

In the courtyard, the escort delivered him into the hands of the headmaster. He was clean-shaven and decidedly dull, nothing like the Greek dreamer, Aristotle.

He could not follow the man's brisk Latin but understood the hand on his back, which guided him to his quarters.

Candles flickered in the windows above and the pale patrician faces of schoolboys appeared. Antinous didn't have the courage to wave but his heart asked: would you follow me into battle?

A/N: Do you think the boys of Caelian Hill will like him?

How did Orodes get his scar?

Leonides will make his first appearance in the next chapter. Though, I'm a ho for symbolism, so you could say he's the lion on the golden chain...

You're not going to believe this, but my streetcar took a detour on Friday because of TIFF and I passed by the opera house and saw a poster of one of my favourite musicians, Rufus Wainwright, who has a new opera premiering next month, called... HADRIAN, about the death of Antinous! Obviously this is fate and I'm buying tickets 👀    

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