The Death of Antinous || bxb ✔︎

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The gods favoured Leonides.

Born under the sun of the spring equinox to patricians of the highest order and raised in a domus on Palatine Hill, everything came easily to the young Roman.

He was a healthy baby, showered with affection and grew up to be both fast and strong. He won the first race he ever ran, the first match he ever wrestled and from then on, the victories did not cease.

When he arrived in Judea to join his legion, the cavalrymen tried to break his spirit. Many were plebeians who relished the fact that the patrician was now the lowest rung on the ladder.

Romans did not win battles because they were strong fighters, but because they understood that the art of war required infrastructure. The building and maintaining of camps, fortresses and barricades. They put Leonides to work pitching tents, digging trenches, chopping and sanding wood for the catapults. To their dismay he was happy to help and found much pleasure in these menial tasks. When it came time to fight the rebels, his focus and discipline paid off and he won every skirmish. The plebeians never bothered him again and the gods smiled.

He returned to Rome to win yet another victory at the games. He hadn't planned to compete but when he learned that the Emperor would be in attendance, he could not refuse. The soldier hadn't raced in some time and his friends warned that he might be bested, but he loved to run and for Leonides love was as good a reason as any to participate. Like every race before it he crossed the finish line to the sound of cheers and flowers strewn at his feet.

It was only when he looked upon the cool stare of his old school friend in the Emperor's box did he feel that victory might, for the first time in his life, be out of his grasp.

He awoke in Hadrian's villa to the sun seeping in through the gossamer curtains. He hadn't slept in a bed so soft since the comforts of home when he lived with his mother and father. But he was not well rested. Most athletes took a lover after a victory to release the pent-up energy of the match. One by one victors disappeared from the banquet hall with a boy or a woman in tow. He could hear the moans all night. Normally, Leonides would be aching to do the same but he wasn't in the mood. Instead, he pulled out his sword and ran a whetstone along the blade until it was sharp enough to split a hair.

He slipped on a plain tunic and tied a leather cord around his waist. With no camp to set up or battle to train for, the day was long. He wandered through the passageways of the villa, which were as confusing to him in daylight as they were at night.

When he finally emerged outdoors, he walked past Hadrian's private theater. He sat in a row of empty stone seats and wondered what it would be like to be Emperor and host one's own plays, to watch actors wearing the masks of Aeneas and Dido relive history's great romance and greater tragedy night after night. Did Antinous enjoy these entertainments?

There was laughter coming from the other side of the palestras. He followed the sound of the other victors.

They were in the baths. These were nothing like the polluted public baths in the city. He stepped along the colonnade in awe. The painted pillars were as tall as gods and the arched ceiling higher than the sky. There were detailed mosaics of water deities among the richest veined marble. Steps led down into the pristine water, which was clear and blue.

Like the human heart, a Roman bath contained four chambers: the calidarium, with hot water; the tepidarium, with warm water; a circular shaped dry chamber called the laconicum; and finally a cold water rinse in the frigidarium.

There were a few nobles and victors he did not know and Ingulf, a wrestler, seated inside with arms outstretched on the ledge and his eyes shut. He was a galley slave from Germania who bought his freedom as a gladiator. Leonides thought him decent, though he did like to talk.